Podcast Episode 8: In-Game AI

[Thormodr]

Nothing has been skipped over. There is a podcast about modding coming, and you'll get it as soon as it's ready.

Speaking of things promised, any answers about regional lockouts for ciV on Steam?

 

[Thorburne]

Two possibilities: They accelerate the schedule as release day approaches, or some of them come AFTER release day to increase interest (or insights) for SUSTAINED sales.

Post-release revelations may not please those who are already certain to buy, but civ fanatics are not the only market.

Yeah, but "CivFanatics" are the ones who want the information!

 

[Caeserportugal]

Intersting this about the CIV5AI thinking about player. That probably means Rome AI will be a beast on higher levels during the classical Era. 2kgreg can't wait for the podcast on modding.

 

[mjs0]

For reference I thought it might be interesting to read what the developers said about the Civ4 AI before release, so I looked up an article I remembered from those days:

My only question for Civ4 concerns the AI: Have you made it a crafty enough opponent yet that it can compete at the higher skill levels of the game without resorting to the "cheating" that we've seen in previous incarnations of the game? If so, how?
Soren Johnson:
A great deal of effort has been put into making the Civ IV AI the best yet. For the first time ever, we have received direct input from the world's best Civ players during the game's development, via a very selective, closed beta that began very early. This feedback allowed us to iterate on the AI's design much more quickly and effectively than ever before.

Much of the information cheating has been removed from the game (such as knowing where a resource is before it is discovered, sending off galleys with settlers to undiscovered lands, targeting cities with fewer defenders, etc.) Further, the heuristics it uses to make decisions, such as for diplomatic demands and declarations of war, are the same ones available to the player (such as from the power chart on the Demographics screen). However, as with all versions of Civ, the AI has production and research penalties at the lower levels and bonuses at the higher levels. The level of the bonuses are lower than they have ever been before; in fact, the AI never receives any bonuses whatsoever for building wonders - a far cry from the "free AI wonders" in Civ 1. Noble and Prince are the difficulty levels where the AI's rules are closest to the human's.

 

[Szpilman]

For reference I thought it might be interesting to read what the developers said about the Civ4 AI before release, so I looked up an article I remembered from those days:

Well, he comes out quite honest and plain, for me at least. What we have here, on the other hand, is much more hype-y! Let's see if it holds up any water come Sep 21st.

 

[Gnollen]

So if the Civ5 AI is supposed to behave more human, will it restart the game if it gets a bad starting position??

 

[mjs0]

So if the Civ5 AI is supposed to behave more human, will it restart the game if it gets a bad starting position??

Of course not...don't be silly...it just goes into WorldBuilder and changes the map.

 

[Ahriman]

And reloads an autosave any time its units lose a battle they were odds-on to win.

 

[MisterBarca]

I actually have a question regarding how modding interacts with AI:

Specifically, will the AI usually take advantage of the dramatic modding balance changes?

For instance, to use an outlandish hypothetical for illustration: If I make Gunpower available in Ancient Era, will the AI recognize that obtaining that particular knowledge trumps every other technology (or at least military technology) and bee-line to it ASAP? Or does it have a pre-established technology progression to which it will adhere, regardless of modding changes?

 

[Ahriman]

As I understand it:
The way that the AI normally works (and how it worked in Civ4) is that it doesn't have any particular path, it evaluates the value of particular techs.

So, if there was a cheap tech that gave you units with a very high military power rating, then the AI would prefer that tech.

So as long as you weight any new units you create appropriately (military power is an AI weighting that figures into how things show up in power graphs, not the same as unit strength), then it should be fine.

You can then change particular leader weightings for techs by giving those leaders Flavor preferences, and then assigning flavors appropriately to your techs.
So a leader with a flavor Military: X will be more likely to research a tech that has a Military flavor value at Y.

And modders can create new flavors: for example, you could create a bunch of Chaos Magic techs, and create a leader with a Chaos flavor preference of 8, which would make them more likely to research techs which had higher values of the Chaos flavor parameter, relative to other techs.
Or you could create an Air power flavor, or a Biotech flavor, or a Naval flavor.

That's how it worked in Civ4, I'd be surprised if that changed for Civ5.
The Civ5 AI will likely also be designed with flexibility in mind, rather than being hard-coded.
However: it is tuned to the vanilla values, so the AI performs better the less you change.

 

[MisterBarca]

As I understand it:
The way that the AI normally works (and how it worked in Civ4) is that it doesn't have any particular path, it evaluates the value of particular techs.

So, if there was a cheap tech that gave you units with a very high military power rating, then the AI would prefer that tech.

So as long as you weight any new units you create appropriately (military power is an AI weighting that figures into how things show up in power graphs, not the same as unit strength), then it should be fine.

You can then change particular leader weightings for techs by giving those leaders Flavor preferences, and then assigning flavors appropriately to your techs.
So a leader with a flavor Military: X will be more likely to research a tech that has a Military flavor value at Y.

And modders can create new flavors: for example, you could create a bunch of Chaos Magic techs, and create a leader with a Chaos flavor preference of 8, which would make them more likely to research techs which had higher values of the Chaos flavor parameter, relative to other techs.
Or you could create an Air power flavor, or a Biotech flavor, or a Naval flavor.

That's how it worked in Civ4, I'd be surprised if that changed for Civ5.
The Civ5 AI will likely also be designed with flexibility in mind, rather than being hard-coded.
However: it is tuned to the vanilla values, so the AI performs better the less you change.

Ok, thanks for the comprehensive explanation.

I tend to make massive changes in most of my games, because 1) most game developers rarely do good job of balancing (though Firaxis isn't as egregious as others), and 2) even when well-balanced, they could deviate from my preferred play-style.

So, for instance, with what I know of Civilization 5, I will likely change the game to enable more military units (make them cheaper, increase the limit on the raw numbers you can have, and make more resources available or cheapen the upkeep, etc.), have longer games (esp. longer ancient and medieval era), and greatly favor defense (increase defensive bonus for certain tiles and forts, etc.)

P.S. I am a huge fan of Warhammer. Will there be a Civilization 5 Warhammer mod?