Seek and Destroy Trick - Exploring a Flaw

[Bad Brett]

Civ4 solved this issue nicely, on higher difficulties, by adding extra units to the AI.

It's kinda strange something similar isn't done here.

Nicely? More like:

"We're not bright enough to make a decent AI, so we give them some insane bonuses instead".

 

[Refar]

"Insane Bonuses" are the main principle in Games AI programming, so can't really blaim them for that...
Not that i like it - i would prefer a "Smarter AI" on higher difficulties as well... Just don't know any...

Still as it is now, the only question is, how do they make the player "feel" the increased difficultie. And with Civ4 they did quite a good job here. The transition between difficultie levels is quite smooth and game feels good, without the "insane bonues" beeing immediately obvious/annoying.

And this is about the best you can expect from any game right now.

 

[MightyGooga]

Now that I have looked around for mods, I found out that the Age of Discovery II Mod is doing a pretty good job with this "flaw". What they did was simple, they put a restriction of 20 turns before a player can declare war.

Makes a lot of sense, taticaly and historicaly. In the begining the colonizers had to behave more accordingly to the master nation, meaning that they wouldn be so independant as to declare war in the first years of colonization. Afer twenty turns the AI gets a hold of it and start protecting some of the colonies, making it dificult to start a war later on.

Great Job, I only play AoD II. They even added a pirate nation to spice things up. Its incredible.

 

[player1 fanatic]

Nicely? More like:

"We're not bright enough to make a decent AI, so we give them some insane bonuses instead".

Actually, I think it's 10x more elegant then learning AI to use "zerg rushing".

 

[Bad Brett]

Six AI's should be able to beat the human player without any bonuses:

- They can automatically check their cities every turn and make everything optimized for the current situation.

- If the human gets to strong, they could all go together and form a powerful alliance.

- They can automatically check all trade possibilities every turn.

Don't forget that the best AI in chess is able to beat the best humans. I know that chess is a much less complex game than Civ or Col, but I believe that six AI's should be able to beat a good human player.

 

[Refar]

- If the human gets to strong, they could all go together and form a powerful alliance.

This you can encounter in many games - i.e. previous installments of the civ series - and personally i concider it a lot more annoying than a few bonus units.

"Just bash the Human" is certainly the brutest approach to AI possible, and i think it's a huge step forward, not having it in Civ4 (well not too much at least...)

 

[r_rolo1]

Based in my experience, I would say that this could be adressed with 2 somewhat simple measures and one more harder:

-Make bigger maps ( that way it would be impossible for a human to seek and destroy everyone before they can get to pop 2, putting a bigger price tag in the strat )

-randomize spawn and landing spots ( self-explanatory )

- make the european AI a little bit more competent on self defending

 

[Bad Brett]

"Just bash the Human" is certainly the brutest approach to AI possible, and i think it's a huge step forward, not having it in Civ4 (well not too much at least...)

That's not what I meant. I meant that the weaker civs should always sign defensive pacts to survive against more powerful ones (not necessarily the human). I think this worked well in Civ II, in which the AI would sign pacts against you if you played aggressive and got a bad reputation.

This is how it works in the real world. Take WWII for example: The Germans tried to conquer the world, but eventually the empire got too big and the other nations teamed up against them.

 

[MightyGooga]

Wow, thats the biggest thread i ever had here in CIVFANATICS.. way to go me!

 

[Awesomeguy]

WARNING:NERDICLE INPUT!

The correct term is search and destoy not seek and destroy

 

[dalgo]

There is a easy way of finishing off the competition without actually cheating. In my opinion this is a flaw, and for a good game play it shouldnt be used. But here it is, I hope people will correct this in later versions because it takes the fun out of the game.

The patch did fix this to some extent. There is now an enforced period of peace between European powers from the start of the game. It lasts 20 turns and that is enough time for them to organise some defense.