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[Iustus]

About the warsuccess thingy. I expect that war success for the opponent means negative war success for you. If you kill a unit then that is a positive thing, but if your opponent kills a unit of yours, then that is a negative thing. If you capture and then lose a city again, then that's a neutral effect on warsuccess. Is that correct?

No. Only war success counts, not war failure. But since there are two different peace values, yours and his, your success affects your peace value and his success affects his peace value, so it works out. I actually made a mistake above, the war succes value for peace is his success vs you not the other way around.

I didn't see a factor for war weariness. I know that it is connected to killing and losing units in foreign territory and capturing cities and nuking and getting nuked. So it resembles the warsuccess modifier a bit. But the main difference is that war weariness can only become worse during a war. Another difference is that a very succesfull war can lead to disastrous levels of war weariness. Even if you sign a peace treaty after a war has lasted so long that war weariness became crippling, then redeclaring war after a short peace period won't reset the war weariness. It will still be crippling and thus such a redeclared war is bad for both parties involved (assuming both have high levels of war weariness).
Crippling war weariness is a thing that should cause both parties in the war to want to end the war and stay in peace for a while. War weariness decreases only very slowly.

Right now, there is no factor for war weariness, you are correct. Adding one, might make these stagnating wars end.

-Iustus

 

[Roland Johansen]

No. Only war success counts, not war failure. But since there are two different peace values, yours and his, your success affects your peace value and his success affects his peace value, so it works out. I actually made a mistake above, the war succes value for peace is his success vs you not the other way around.

It was not the brightest question as you already mentioned at the top of your post that the difference of the war success values governs the price for peace value. I'm getting a bit tired and should be going to bed.

Right now, there is no factor for war weariness, you are correct. Adding one, might make these stagnating wars end.

-Iustus

I would like such a change. And I would also like to see the AI take into account war weariness when redeclaring a war against someone they have been at war with recently. It's not nice to start a war with 5 unhappy people in most of your bigger cities.

Good luck with the war declaration code. It seems difficult to get it exactly right.

 

[jkp1187]

Right now, there is no factor for war weariness, you are correct. Adding one, might make these stagnating wars end.

-Iustus

I agree -- this might be an interesting route to try.

Roland: I do not have any savegames describing the effects we spoke of (and I am too lazy to want to go back thru my recent game turn by turn,) but will try to keep track of AI DoWs in the next game -- whenever Iustus/Blake release the next build -- and see if these effects transpire.

 

[Roland Johansen]

Roland: I do not have any savegames describing the effects we spoke of (and I am too lazy to want to go back thru my recent game turn by turn,) but will try to keep track of AI DoWs in the next game -- whenever Iustus/Blake release the next build -- and see if these effects transpire.

It's probably better to wait for the next build anyway as Iustus wants to fix a bug related to war declarations. It might solve a lot of problems that you've noticed in your most recent games.

 

[jkp1187]

It's probably better to wait for the next build anyway as Iustus wants to fix a bug related to war declarations. It might solve a lot of problems that you've noticed in your most recent games.

Maybe -- it sounds like Iustus is only talking about frequency of DoW, whereas the thing Joe and I were talking about related to tendency of AI to make peace. (Correct me if I misunderstood.) The 'stagnating war' effect might still be there whenever war actually IS declared....

 

[Roland Johansen]

Maybe -- it sounds like Iustus is only talking about frequency of DoW, whereas the thing Joe and I were talking about related to tendency of AI to make peace. (Correct me if I misunderstood.) The 'stagnating war' effect might still be there whenever war actually IS declared....

Ok, that might be true. Maybe adding war weariness in the 'making peace code' would help solve that. I don't know how difficult that would be. It seems that Iustus finds it reasonable, so we can hope.

 

[jkp1187]

2/12 build, standard map, noble level, 12 civs

This is an example of the 'daft' declaration of war I mentioned earlier -- here, I have astronomy, Stalin does not. Stalin cannot reach my territory with any of his units other than caravels. Granted, he recently discovered military tradition and now will have Cossacks, still it's a waste of his time to declare war on me. I consider it a 'questionable' decision -- I can hurt him, but he can't hurt me.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/50676/AutoSave_AD-1610.CivWarlordsSave

Otherwise, game is fantastic so far. I was stopped dead at the gates of Sparta and had to retreat... The AI is using promotions very intelligently for defense (especially hills/city defense.) I am in the middle of the pack so far, as opposed to most of the previous games, when I often found myself at the top. The peace values per Chipotle showed up as: Stalin: 180,0. Me: 140,0.

FWIW, though, I have NOT yet noticed the constant AI wars, nor the stagnating sitzkrieg effect discussed earlier.

 

[Uncle_Joe]

Just completed my first 2/12 game.

Fractal, Epic, Custom Handicaps, 7 Civs, No Aggressive AI, everything else default.

It was definately a much more 'peaceful' game than any of my recent games. Then again, almost anything would seem peaceful compared to the constant berserk attacks in the previous few builds.

The game was certainly not devoid of warfare, but it was not the focus this time (a good change, I think). I was attacked twice in the relatively early game (once by each of my neighbors...Toku and Saladin). There were apparently a few other wars on the other side of the world before I made contact. Late in the game (Modern Age), Roosevelt attacked and quickly made of a vassal state out of Carthage which was interesting (they were equal tech, but Roosevelt had a larger army).

A few other things contributed to the relative peace. For one, most AIs were the same religion for most of the game. And one of the traditional warmongers (Monty) was isolated on a distant island. He was quite backwards for most of the game. The only other warmonger was Toku and he was sandwiched in the middle and never really amounted to much. His attack on me was rebuffed and he never had enough troops to seriously threaten anyone else the rest of the game. He ended the game up as a willing vassal of Saladin.

On the very good side, the lack of constant warfare eroding the AIs meant that there were 3 other AIs in very close running all the way until the very end. I was behind in tech for much of the mid-game but eventually caught up and took a slight lead later on. I was pretty much in the lead for productivity for most of the game and eventually just outbuilt the Space Race win over two others who were even with me in tech.

I also didnt witness any prolonged wars in this game. The AIs made peace pretty much when it made sense to rather than being obstinate and running the wars into the ground.

I would still renew my observation that the AIs are building too many farms. This might help with Slavery, but its not a good long-term plan and that shows in the end game. I also still havent seen the AI doing much amphibiously in quite a while. At one point in the builds, they were pretty adept at dropping piles of units in the backfield.

Overall, I think catching that bug has made the game feel a whole lot more like 'Civilization' again instead of 'Global Conquest' or somesuch. There were wars, but they weren't the emphasis of the game. Hopefully I'll be able to get a few more games in over the week (lousy weather here so everyone is iced under).

Thanks for reading!

 

[OmEgA-X1]

I also agree that the workers are a bit ********. I'm assuming the AI workers are the same as if I were to have mine automated, and automated workers simply just do some stupid things!

My MAIN pet-peeve of automated workers, is their refusal to acknowledge the existence of coastal trade routes and rivers! When trying to connect a resource, they will build a 20 tile road that goes straight to the capital, rather than building a ONE tile road to a nearby connected city, or a nearby connected river! The AI Worker NEEDS to recognize rivers in their resource connection calculations, if they did, not only the AI would do much better, but human would too with auto-workers not wasting 120 turns on a 6 turn job!

Just MY 2 cents ;P

 

[MaxKnight]

Hello. This is but my second post ever, yet long time have I been here. Onward!

My current game settings (Warlolrds 2.08):

Map Type - Fractal
Map Size - Standard
Climate - Temperate
Sea Level - Medium
Speed - Epic
Resources - Standard
Raging Barbs
New Random Seed
Warlord Difficulty
4 Rival Civilizations

I am playing as Montezuma. I started on a mediumish continent with Tokugawa and Alexander. A nearby continent contains Ragnar and Genghis Kahn. You'll notice a trend, no? All aggressive leaders. Now, for the questionable behavior...

I'm noticing that with Better AI, I'm definitely getting stomped flat more often. In an almost completely random game (4 random rival civs), I still get trashed by losing the tech lead early, and winding up in really stupid holy wars. This game is different, though... I've only seen war twice, once between Ragnar and Genghis, most likely due to their close proximity, and once when Toku declared on me, since he changed his State Religion to the same as Alexander's (Judaism; his old one, as well as mine was Hinduism). Luckily, I built my shrine, and wound up spreading Hinduism to his cities shortly before he declared. After about 5 turns at war, he switched back to Hinduism and canceled his war (no offer for peace, just was no longer at war).

So my question is, shouldn't a map with 5 Aggressive Civilizations have more war? I mean, it's 1112 AD, and nobody is at war with each other anymore...

EDIT: I guess I forgot to mention that it is the 2/12 build of Better AI that I'm using...

 

[OmEgA-X1]

Yea I def didnt have that same prob, playing marathon SmartMap earth with new world, Im constantly being declared war on, Im at war with 4 civs right now! and its not even 1000AD

 

[Uncle_Joe]

At Warlords difficulty, there is a 'penalty' to the chance that the AIs declare war. Also, for a standard map, you are a bit light on AI opponents, probably leading to less border friction.

I think you might also be 'peace shocked' due to just how incredibly warlike the AIs were in the previous few builds. But after you learned to keep out of the wars (most of them), the game was actually EASIER because many of the AIs (and most of the builders) were being wrecked by the constant warfare.

The last games I played with 2/12 was certainly less warlike than the previous few builds, but more of the AIs were competitive until the end. In the earlier builds, some AIs had high scores, but their econs were often a mess with their score being propped up by massive (inefficient) land area (and the occasional vassal state).

Without the constant warfare depleting units, wrecking cities, and pillaging the land, the AIs are now keeping up (or surpassing) in tech until the late stages of the game. With the earlier builds, I knew that if I survived intact until the late Renaissance/early Industrial, the game was usually as good as won.

I just think it is going to take people a little getting used to the way it was back before the AI DoW bug was introduced.

 

[MaxKnight]

Actually, as I said, I've been playing on the same difficulty before, with 4 random AI, and usually got the smack down by mid-game. I may just be really bad at the game myself, but it still doesn't explain why there isn't more war.

I've also never played in any earlier version of Better AI. So these have been my first experiences using this mod.

 

[Uncle_Joe]

I may just be really bad at the game myself, but it still doesn't explain why there isn't more war.

Prior to 2/12, there was a pretty big bug in the AI's war declaration routine. Basically it was reversing a very small value (say 5%) into a very large value (95%). And this was on the 'total war' check IIRC. So, it meant that on any given turn when the conditions were right, the AI would declare war. That lead to a LOT of wars (some smart, many not so smart).

The 2/12 build caught that bug and its back to 'normal' for AI declarations of war. Note that if you find you want more warfare, simply check 'Aggressive AI' in the game settings. That should give you plenty. And if all has gone according to plan, the AIs dont specifically target the human players anymore on that setting.

 

[Iustus]

I think some people actually enjoyed the effect of the DoW bug that caused AIs to declare war whenever they saw an opportunity. Post 1.0, perhaps we will pursue being able to set an option that will give you this 'always war' type effect.

-Iustus

 

[Bursk]

I've just played a fantastic game using the latest build! I had aggressive AI checked (the first game in which I've used this) and there was lots of war going on, but a great deal of it was between the AIs.

I did get attacked myself at various points by three different civs, but I think that was mostly down to religious differences (plus I was doing a little warmongering of my own!). I'm really happy that not all war declarations were directed only at me; something I've experienced quite a lot in vanilla Warlords/Civ IV.

 

[OmEgA-X1]

Again, I've found automated workers doing ******** things! Now they try to connect cities that are already connected via river, by building roads that are like 30 tiles! The AI just needs to treat river tiles as roads, or something, with the current AI the workers COMPLETELY ignore rivers and coastal routes, it's quite annoying, Hell I've seen the AI players build route 66's to minor cities ALREADY connected via coast, it's annoying and I don't think it would be too difficult to program in this major advancement into the AI ;P

 

[Doomed_UK]

Maybe the AI is a little too keen to use siege weapons when defending a city. I accidentally found that if I put one unit next to one of the AI citys he would use several siege weapons to kill it rather then use the best unit to kill it with.
(I accidentally moved a pikeman next to a city rather then join my stack on a wooded hill, rather then use a maceman to attack the AI used several catapults)

 

[Wodan]

That's interesting, because I was just thinking that the AI is underutilizing roads right now.

Benefits of roads are more than simply connecting cities and resources. If you have a roaded mine, there's a chance of resource appearing. Also, the military tactical benefits of roads are obvious, allowing defenders to rush to an attack faster than the invaders.

Currently, the AI seems to be ignoring these two things to a large extent.

Wodan

 

[cf_nz]

If you have a roaded mine, there's a chance of resource appearing.

AFAIK a hill with a mine does not need to have a road to have a chance of randomly discovering a resource; the tile just needs to be worked (unless thats been changed in BetterAI).