Post 0.41h AI feedback needed

[Kael]

Please let me know how the AI seems to be performing in 0.41h or later. Im not as interested in specific situations (ie: "a barb axeman walked right by my city") as I am with the bigger scale things. Is the AI more challening than in older FfH versions? If the AI generally doing everything well (does it cast spells, not nessesarily does it cast a specific spell in the most efficient way possible.

Let me know what you think.

 

[Jet]

(What I originally posted wasn't very useful.)

Anyway, glad to see this released!

 

[Lone Wolf]

Maybe that should be in the bug thread, but it affects the AI, so

Looking in the CvGameUtils.py, I find that civs in conquest mode value building catapults based on number of recon units they have. For example:

#Balseraph
if civtype == gc.getInfoTypeForString('CIVILIZATION_BALSERAPHS'):
iValue[sProd.index('BUILDINGCLASS_TRAINING_YARD')]+=250
iValue[sProd.index('BUILDING_HALL_OF_MIRRORS')]==300
<snip>
totalunits=totalmages+totalmelee+totalarchers+totalrecon+totalsiege+totalmounted+totalpriests
iValue[sProd.index('UNITCLASS_ADEPT')]+=1200+9*(totalunits-totalmages)
iValue[sProd.index('UNITCLASS_ARCHER')]+=1200+7*(totalunits-totalarchers)
iValue[sProd.index('UNITCLASS_AXEMAN')]+=1200+15*(totalunits-totalmelee)
iValue[sProd.index('UNITCLASS_HUNTER')]+=1200+10*(totalunits-totalrecon)
iValue[sProd.index('UNITCLASS_CATAPULT')]+=1200+9*(totalunits-totalrecon)
iValue[sProd.index('UNITCLASS_HORSEMAN')]+=1200+10*(totalunits-totalmounted)

Shouldn't the bolded totalrecon be totalsiege?

And that code problem exists with ALL civilizations in conquestmode, not only the Balseraphs! If Wild Mana AI has that bug, I see why they had problems with building catapults.

 

[warhawk26]

I haven't had enough time to fully explore the patch, however, something a bit weird is happening with the AI selection for its initial city. It seems they have been scripted to pick better starting locations, this has the effect of causing 2 civ's to frequently locate their first city literally right next to each other. I'm not sure the long term effects of that are really positive.

 

[Medicine_Man_55]

Nasty AI bug Lone Wolf found (who knows how he found it).


Anyhow Kael, I have to say tough beans. The AI warriors *did* walk right by my city and *did* ignore my defenders. They did not pillage anything. They *did* wait until I removed a defender and then *did* wait until they had enough friends. They then *did* sack my capital and lose me a game.

Perhaps not the type of report you were looking for but I can indeed report that the barbarian AI is more annoying and deadly now.

 

[Morlark]

Well, in line with Medicine Man's comment, I'm not really sure if this is the kind of feedback that you're looking for, but I think it really is quite an important issue.

Barbarians being more annoying I can agree with, but deadly? The only game that I've so far started after applying the patch, I ended up abandoning out of frustration. The barbarians kept spamming lizardmen at me, only for them to just shuffle around doing absolutely nothing in my capital's BFC.

I assume they're waiting until they have enough units that they think they can capture my city. That means the only time they're ever going to attack is if they actually have a chance of winning. That means that I have to keep building more defenders to make sure they don't. Is the early game really supposed to get locked into an absurd arms race to stave off a barbarian attack which will only ever come if you've already lost? That's no fun at all. And since they're lizardmen, I can't even go on the offensive without building more warriors than I can afford to. Having a whole bunch of lizardmen dancing around my BFC means that I can literally never improve my tiles.

Sure, I could send a sacrificial warrior out of my city to die, so that the others could then finish off the attacker. But how is it fun to just arbitrarily lose a warrior every 20 turns (curtailing my city's actual development in the process), even though my city is already more than adequately defended? As far as I'm concerned, the very early game barbarians (i.e. before the barbarians get cities) should just be there to test that you actually have sensible defenses, not to lock you down in an eternal stalemate from which you can never progress. As it stands at the moment, the game is sufficiently frustrating that I'll never actually get to the point where having this smarter AI would be a benefit rather than a flaw.

 

[WCH]

Started a game on Noble as Clan of Embers. Wildlands was on, but neither Barbarian World nor Raging Barbarians, yet three of the AIs were killed by barbarians relatively early. When I cast For the Horde, I discovered that Orthus was fortified in a city near one of the remaining AIs, and that he'd taken the First Strike series of promotions, meaning that it would not be possible to weaken him by sacrificing units. I'm not sure whether that's good or bad.

Anyway, the one AI that didn't get killed early (I warrior rushed the Bannor) was the Kuriotates, and they were pretty severely behing on score, with Orthus sitting right outside their land.

Anyone else been having trouble with barbarians destroying the AI? Maybe I should raise difficulty... I usually played on Monarch before H, thought I'd lower to Noble to see the new AI on an even playing field.

 

[MiKa523]

I've noticed that too, but then again in my current patch h game Orthus died a few turns after spawning.
I think the main problem is smart Lizardmen and the AI building workers first.
In my current game the good elves started next to me and had no city defenders, when i scouted them a few turns later. Go figure..

Also I think there are too many Civs going for RoK or some other religion they aren't really meant to go for (Flauros went OO on a highlands map, e.g.)

 

[Lone Wolf]

Sephi's AI is coded to go for religions appropriate to the alignment for early happiness and culture. That partly prevents KilmorphFellowshipWorlds.

Why is Sephi's XML not included? Some of his routines are supported by his XML settings, as indicated here. Were the changes supported by Sephi's XML not included in the h patch?

 

[Emptiness]

The barbarians kept spamming lizardmen at me, only for them to just shuffle around doing absolutely nothing in my capital's BFC.

I assume they're waiting until they have enough units that they think they can capture my city. That means the only time they're ever going to attack is if they actually have a chance of winning. That means that I have to keep building more defenders to make sure they don't. Is the early game really supposed to get locked into an absurd arms race to stave off a barbarian attack which will only ever come if you've already lost? That's no fun at all. And since they're lizardmen, I can't even go on the offensive without building more warriors than I can afford to. Having a whole bunch of lizardmen dancing around my BFC means that I can literally never improve my tiles.

Sure, I could send a sacrificial warrior out of my city to die, so that the others could then finish off the attacker. But how is it fun to just arbitrarily lose a warrior every 20 turns (curtailing my city's actual development in the process), even though my city is already more than adequately defended?

I was able to move Warriors out to forested hills, and the Lizardmen were willing to attack them but generally lost. When the Warrior did die to the Lizardman then my counterattacking Warror earned experience, which made him even more likely to win the next battle. I kept fresh Warriors outside my city as bait, and moved experienced Warriors into the city where they were generally safe. In this way I was able to accumulate a number of experienced Warriors, who were then able to successfully attack encroaching barbarians directly. At this point I was able to improve tiles safely. (Even before this point I was improving tiles but retreating to the city when new barbarians arrived.)

I agree that the new AI, at least as concerns the barbarians, is much more effective. I don't think that it is impossible to deal with, however. As old tactics become ineffective, new tactics will need to be devised and adopted.

 

[Morlark]

Oh, sure, I'm not saying it's impossible to deal with. I just think it's less fun. Each warrior that I lose means I have to take time away from expansion/development to replace him. And I don't like having to manage all my barbarian bait squads when I should be thinking about grander strategies. I dunno, maybe I just got unlucky. I seemed to lose my warriors more often than not, hence why I said I was losing a warrior every twenty turns. And even so, being able to kill off the lizardmen still doesn't deal with the annoyance of having my workers interrupted. It just makes managing workers annoying in the early game now, as well as in the late game.

 

[squadbroken]

If the AI is that much better it might be time to rethink the overall power of barbarians.

As WCH mentioned, the rival civ AI, improved as it is, simply can't deal with barbarians like a human player can. Stronger/smarter barbs = weaker rivals.

When I see multiple AI civs die in the early game because of barbarians, it makes me want to just start over. I don't want to disable barbarians entirely, but if that's what it takes for the game to be interesting and enjoyable, so be it.

 

[Neomega]

As it stands at the moment, the game is sufficiently frustrating that I'll never actually get to the point where having this smarter AI would be a benefit rather than a flaw.

Yes. This is called better AI. Old AI did suicide attacks. You simply must find ways to attack them, and you absolutely must kill the first lizardman! You have to be patient, and wait for them to step on plains, grassland, or desert, or if possible find areas to block them out.

Drop the portculis! Push the man into the path of the werewolf! Sacrifice a unit on a good defensive tile. Bait. A lizardman will usually take 55% odds. So a warrior on a hill is good bait. If warrior wins you get experience bonus, if he loses, you have your other warrior do cleanup. After 3 lizardmen, you should have 2 dead warriors, one live one with good experience, and one warrior that has killed 2 lizardmen offensively. Two, 2 star warriors and you are good. Better, give one the shock promotion instead, and have him hunt skeletons.




And Barbs can be deadly now. They will keep wandering until they get a stack, or they keep testing chokepoints, swinging their army back and forth between chokepoints until they become a huge stack.

Seriously, this new AI is great. I can't believe how much better it is now.

Not only that, but in my last game, with just the AI turned on, I saw three massive SoD's converge on my empire, and DoW within 3 turns of each other. I was doomed.

 

[Twan]

I confirm that barbarians AI is better, but civilizations AI not so at least in early game.
In my game started yesterday, 4 AIs / 10 were destroyed by the barbarians in the 150 first turns (I play at slowest speed, immortal difficulty, raging barbs, barbarian and animal world).

I also think it's not a good idea to make barbarians so clever. Barbarians should be just here to test your defenses and give your units some xp before real wars, not to be a super nation with hordes of free units.

I'd be happy to see civilizations units use the new AI and think wars will be really more interesting with it (unfortunately so far in my game, no civilized AI nation seem to be able to reach a war ready state because barbarians are too strong, after 150 turns I'm first in everything, which is not a normal situation so early considering all the bonus AI nations get at this difficulty - to compare, in my last game with patch g, using the same settings I only became the first power around turn 500), but please switch barbarians AI back to the old one.

 

[Demus]

I'm backing up the complain about the poor first-city AI: in my last game, i moved my own settler a bit, causing my city to be founded relatively close to the starting point of a clan AI. 2 turns later, i see it's entire begin stack (2x warrior, 1x golbin, 1x settler) standing at my cultural borders. Really, just standing there. Only after my borders (again) did they move on to find a different site.

Imo there should be a check implemented to see if the city site is reachable and foundable (as in, with sufficient distance between another city) before the AI even atempts to settle there.

 

[Morlark]

Ok, having started another game (since FFH has been awesome to me in the past, I figured this patch deserves another chance) I think I may have just got really incredibly unlucky in my first game. This time round, the amount of barbarian spawns was literally not even on the same order of magnitude as last time. Much more sane to deal with. I still contend that the behaviour of early-game barbarian AI is undesirable, because in rare cases it can lead to situations that are not only annoying, but actively un-fun. (I actually quit the game in frustration. I've never had that happen with FFH before.) But the problem is nowhere near as game-breaking as my first experiences led me to conclude.

 

[apenpaap]

The AI seems to show up with stacks now, and they also seem to use the Rust spell. I haven't gotten far enough to see what other things they do, but I really like the fact that they seem to like the Order and AV better. In this game, the Bannor founded the Order and summoned Basium, and the Sheim founded AV and summoned Hyborem. Something interesting is that it seems that early on, FoL and RoK still become very big, but as soon as the later religions are founded people convert away from them.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Amurites are kind of scary now--they're bulding well promoted wizards and firebows and unleashing fireballs. Though not really efficient about it, as I'm not being hit with as many fireballs as there are wizards/firebows, it is a sight better.

If possible it'd be good to give them some kind of logic about not waiting to heal in enemy territory. I had some stacks sitting near by capital while I tsunami'ed them. (A very potent spell!)

 

[Medicine_Man_55]

Heh... about barbarians...

I had the misfortune of starting a custom game this patch. Earth2 mapscript, huge, raging barbarians, lairs on. Me (Hippus, Rhonna), Sheelba, Jonas, Tebryn, Charadon. I put Charadon alone in the new world. Tebryn alone in Australia. Me ~ in the Russian steppes and the two Clan players at the remote edges of Africa and Asia.

Basically it is every barb on a huge continent with no one to attack but my Hippus. I'm just lucky I chose Hippus. Horses in the capital. Super fast, slippery horsemen. Still, I was just holding on for 80+ turns.

I have no idea how I'm going to do in the long run. I'm pretty far behind in expansion. 3 cities to Sheelba's 5 and Jonas' 6. I'm still doing better in tech though and my army is obscenely experienced.

Incidentally, though it doesn't help test accuracy, I find that modding the GameSpeed to cut training and construction time to 75% on normal/epic speeds helps the AI a lot. They spam warriors like they have a purpose. They replace losses faster. They respond to new threats faster. Long build times just punish the AI due to its lack of foresight.

 

[Gigaz]

In some ways, the AI has become smarter. The Fellowship-AIs beelined for Hidden path. Hannah founded the Overlords as she should.
The game seemed more peaceful than usual but that needn't be caued by the patch.

But the AI has bad problems with aggressive wars. Both Alexis and Cassiel sent a huge stack that contained hardly anything but archers, which they had both promoted with city defender. None of them had a single catapult.
By sheer mass, Cassiel managed to take one of my cities while I was healing from Alexis' attack. He didn't raze the city but instead moved every single unit on to my next city, leaving the first city undefended.