Ruthless AI

[Afforess]

I just wanted to fill you all in on the new Game Option in AND 1.60beta11. It's Ruthless AI. Some of the features are designed from myself, others from MartinHarper's own experiences, tweaking the AI.

Ruthless AI is a step up from Aggressive AI. If you select Ruthless AI, it will auto-enabled Aggressive AI, even if you didn't select it. But beyond simply aggressive AI, here are the changes:

• The AI will trade much more techs. The AI has been changed to attempt diplomacy with other AI's 3x as often as previously, but the same amount with Humans. (Making the AI contact the human 3x as often would just get annoying; but it's not really fair that the human can trade as much as he/she wants, but the AI is limited, is it?)
  
  
• The AI will not refuse trades for not being friendly enough, unless they are furious with you. This means they will trade more techs.
  
  
• The AI will prefer closer war victims much more than far away ones.
  
  
• The AI won't be stopped from declaring war on you just because you have friendly relations. All AI's will consider war, even with best friends.
  
  
• The AI is twice as likely to build units. The AI is half as likely to build wonders.
  
  
• The AI will be friendly toward other players who are also enemies with their worst enemy. (The Enemy of my Enemy is my Friend).
  
  
• The AI Will not forgive past negative actions, but will still forget positive ones. It means maintaining a decent relationship with the AI will be very hard.
  
  
• The WHEOOHRN (We Have Enough On Our Hands Right Now) denial has been completely replaced, with a random selection of 3 other types of denial. The new denials are completely random, so you will not be able to predict the AI's plans. You will not be able to predict when the AI is gearing up for war anymore, and the WHEOOHRN indicator on the scoreboard will never show up. All wars will be a surprise.
  
  
• None of the Ruthless AI changes give it a handicap boost of any kind. The AI isn't getting free gold or free production, just its behavior has been changed.

I'm playing a game on Monarch with Ruthless AI, with Custom Continents. I realize this is anecdotal evidence, but these changes seem to really boost the AI. I was surprise attacked around 1500BC by a stack of 4 spearman that ignored my newly settled and well defend city and grabbed my capital. I had no idea what was happening, the AI was ~25 tiles away from, he had only 1 city, but still managed to kick my arse. I eventually got my capital back, but only because I was also playing with Revolutions and they revolted to me. Pretty Scary.


I figured some of you might be interested in this, since the chief complaint I hear is that the AI sucks.

Any other potential areas I missed and you think should be included?

 

[NBAfan]

That sounds fun!

 

[Arakhor]

I hate to sound stupid, but which is the WHEOOHRN indicator anyway?

 

[Supercheese]

I hate to sound stupid, but which is the WHEOOHRN indicator anyway?

Red clenched fist in the scoreboard.

 

[civ_king]

Time to enable this on my dad when he gets owned on Settler I will crack up

 

[Arakhor]

And when you get grounded for laughing mercilessly at your dad, you'll know that karma is a git

 

[civ_king]

And when you get grounded for laughing mercilessly at your dad, you'll know that karma is a git

I'll be upstairs playing Civ on my Mac (I got it to work )

 

[os79]

I like this option . I start from Settler with Flexible Difficulty just ot be safe . The AI aggressively trade techs, that is for sure. That make me very close to medieval era at 250-300 turns of Marathon game.

 

[fireclaw722]

I like the AI in this, as they are still making there mistakes, but are taking out players and other AI much quicker. It also makes fighting the AI more interesting than just taking one city after another. Another thing is that the Ruthless AI know more about the Fixed Borders forts than the normal AI(or they seem to at least, as the forts seem to be quickly tooken over by the Ruthless AI, but not when playing a normal game). Also the AI are quick to expand with ruthless AI and use the Fixed Boarder's Fort system as colonies.

 

[civ_king]

I like the AI in this, as they are still making there mistakes, but are taking out players and other AI much quicker. It also makes fighting the AI more interesting than just taking one city after another. Another thing is that the Ruthless AI know more about the Fixed Borders forts than the normal AI(or they seem to at least, as the forts seem to be quickly tooken over by the Ruthless AI, but not when playing a normal game). Also the AI are quick to expand with ruthless AI and use the Fixed Boarder's Fort system as colonies.

Woah, an AI THINKING?

 

[fireclaw722]

I know, I got scared when the AI was building forts outside of their border(espesially near great recources like Sulphur and Iron, and near someones borders they were about to invade). They would do this even on other continents(after they founded a city[sadly it was a uesless one, so there's still hope that the AI isn't a genuis] there). I also thought that it was funny when I rarely heard of the AI falling apart, as they seem infamous for horrible desicions with Rev(but one did, and is was pretty stupid, as the AI left a huge stack of Whippets[they were obviously England] near my border as they were about to invade me and my allies, but they didn't move keeping a huge maintnence[leading to huge setback in research] and I was easily able to outtech them to get light tanks[and better fighters], beating them easy).

So I guess the great Ruthlesss AI don't seem like genuises(well I guess they are, but with huge brain "farts").

 

[Grunthex]

Any more people given this a try yet? I'm tempted, but at 2 weeks a game on average, it's a lot of time to invest for a concept that scares me a bit.

I think the main reason I'm wary of it is that it seems like it's not fundamentally gonna change the AI, you're still going to get steamrolled early, or survive that early rush and out-produce the AI. Just makes it a little harder to survive that steamroller.

Am I wrong?

 

[os79]

Any more people given this a try yet? I'm tempted, but at 2 weeks a game on average, it's a lot of time to invest for a concept that scares me a bit.

I think the main reason I'm wary of it is that it seems like it's not fundamentally gonna change the AI, you're still going to get steamrolled early, or survive that early rush and out-produce the AI. Just makes it a little harder to survive that steamroller.

Am I wrong?

I play with Noble difficulty. Let me say this: with Ruthless AI, the game got a whole new fascination . But you have to play with it before making judgments because for me, it is playing just great .

 

[i_diavolorosso]

Yap
For me, ruthless ai + flexible difficulty + raging barbarian is perfect game

 

[NBAfan]

I must say the the Ruthless AI is great!
I have noticed that while the AI is more agressive it is not Monty or Shaka agressive.

 

[soup567]

[*]The AI Will not forgive past negative actions, but will still forget positive ones. It means maintaining a decent relationship with the AI will be very hard.

is there any way to change that? it seems very unrealistic. what if u declare war on a civ in 1000 b.c. and then in 2000 ad there still angry at you for that? i think this sounds really good except for that.

 

[Afforess]

Actually, I changed it just so that it takes 3x as long to forget. I just didn't update the OP.

 

[soup567]

Actually, I changed it just so that it takes 3x as long to forget. I just didn't update the OP.

well at least they forget thanks

 

[gramcrkr103]

The big thing I have been noticing is the AI's will convince others to go to war with me, even if they are looking for peace. Case and point, I was warring with Isabella, she convinces Hiroto to DOW (no attack yet, just DOW), he convinces Bismarck to DOW. After a few decades Isabella, and I make peace, establish embassies, until 20ish turns until Bismarck convinces her to DOW, who then sues for peace and establishes an embassy with me AGAIN
Im not noticing any more fighting, just more DOWs, and having good relations with them doesnt stop that at all.
Im playing on Monarch, with pretty much all the options turned on

 

[Afforess]

The big thing I have been noticing is the AI's will convince others to go to war with me, even if they are looking for peace. Case and point, I was warring with Isabella, she convinces Hiroto to DOW (no attack yet, just DOW), he convinces Bismarck to DOW. After a few decades Isabella, and I make peace, establish embassies, until 20ish turns until Bismarck convinces her to DOW, who then sues for peace and establishes an embassy with me AGAIN
Im not noticing any more fighting, just more DOWs, and having good relations with them doesnt stop that at all.
Im playing on Monarch, with pretty much all the options turned on

Yeah, this is symptomatic of the AI in general, not just Ruthless. Everyone has experienced the DoW when the AI never sends anyone to attack... I guess Ruthless AI just makes it more visible. I'll see what I can do to make them drive their war machine faster.