Solver's Unofficial BtS Patch

In other words, you agree with me ;)

We probably haven't exhausted the possibilities how the Civ4 AI can be improved with an expert-oriented approach yet anyway. and it's proving to be really effective so far. Now, if the AI could just open the World Builder and give itself some units when losing.... ;)
 
Hi

Kalimakhus said:
Anyone here thought of trying to implement a learning AI? An AI that accumulates experience and use it later games. I think civ4 is a good environment to experiment with this idea. AFAIK it is the most moddable game so far. Allowing access to the code controlling the AI decision making.

One may think of an IA that adapt to counter the player style.

How much do you think it is possible or how far such approach can go?
Click to expand...


:eek: :eek: :eek: Did those Terminator movies teach you nothing????? hehe :P

Kaytie
 
...as long as the AI doesn't learn to quit the game when it thinks the game is won/lost.
Spoiler silly humour :
Improving the AI is great but making it behave more like a human could go too far.

Teaching it to post on CF would be a mistake...
- AI posts complaining about losing several 99%+ combats in a row.
- AI posts complaining about human cheating when the player reloads after losing a key battle
- etc, etc.
would not be helpful. :)

...and I don't even want to think about a possible BetterHuman mod project. :crazyeye:

Seriously, hats off to both of you, Blake for the way the AI has improved (and is still improving) and Solver for the exemplary service of providing the early access to key fixes...it is much appreciated. :goodjob:

'Beta' testing fixes and balance changes in this way is great, having worked in S/W devt for 20+ years I would have loved a way to test out fixes on more of my users before shipping them!
 
KaytieKat said:
Hi




:eek: :eek: :eek: Did those Terminator movies teach you nothing????? hehe :P

Kaytie
Click to expand...

Terminator .. Those are archaic.

Now, Learning AI is not some sort of an alien concept. It was actually put to a limited usage in some games already. So as a question of possibility there is no doubt that it is possible.

Whether it is practically implementable is another question. I agree that given the performance issues it would entail, it is not practical for a game like Civ4 at the time being.

However if games fan were less interested in fancy graphics than in better gaming experience much of the gained processing power in the last few years could have made learning AI a common part of any game by now.

Edit: By the way I don't belittle the wonderful adjustments done by Blake and Solver. It is a natural human trait that we always look forward to something better that we got. I appreciate the effort done and I am quite grateful for those who donate their time to make our game experience far better.
 
jonpfl said:
Solver, I remember reading that stealth destroyers cannot defend while in a stack. Is this something you could change in your patch?

From what I read, destroyers upgrade to stealth destroyers and then they are useless in a stack since they will not defend.

Do you know if this is intended?

Thx
jonpfl
Click to expand...

I have not gotten to this point in the game but remember reading people complaining about it. Anyway, you are saying that it is intentional that if there is a stack of ships which include an aircraft carrier, 5 stealth destroyers and a couple of transports that if it is attacked by a non-stealth ship, the stealth destroyers will not defend?

From what I have read, once stealth technology is researched, one cannot build non-stealth destroyers anymore.

Doesn't this make it hard to defend your air carriers and transports?

Thx
jonpfl
 
Solver said:
And the problem with that would be that the AI would fail spectacularly if you change your strategy. You attack after Iron Working 6 games in a row. 7th game, the AI prepares for it, while you build every Wonder in the era instead. If the AI tried to profile your personality, players would exploit that, and the results would be far worse. Even exploits aside, it would fail miserably against players that learn and change as they do.
Click to expand...

Funny thing is, that might also be true in a multiplayer environment where the same people play repeated iterations of the game.

Still, preparing for an axe rush, say, and not having it happen could still leave you in a pretty good position anyway if you have a mess of axes, while the opponent has a mess of wonders.....
 
However if games fan were less interested in fancy graphics than in better gaming experience much of the gained processing power in the last few years could have made learning AI a common part of any game by now.
Click to expand...

That is false. The problem isn't just performance, it's also the algorithms and their returns. For a game of Civ4's complexity, learning algorithms would be non-trivial to write, and would provide little improvement in overall AI quality. As Blake says, the AI might play for a long time and not stumble upon the optimal strategies, to put it simply.

Performance-wise, the best thing to do in my opinion is to write multithreaded games, where one CPU core can be devoted to AI calculations constantly, even during the player's turn. That's what GalCiv2 does now, and it's brilliant.
 
jonpfl said:
Anyway, you are saying that it is intentional that if there is a stack of ships which include an aircraft carrier, 5 stealth destroyers and a couple of transports that if it is attacked by a non-stealth ship, the stealth destroyers will not defend?
Click to expand...

Hey, I'm not defending that. I am not saying that it's a good idea, but it's not a bug - I don't want to make such subjective changes here, that's up to Alex.
 
Who cares? I could use an alternative compiler and present you with a 6MB dll that would have the exact same functionality as the current 4MB dll.
 
I wonder... if 3.03 overwrites the CvGameCoreDLL, doesn't it mean that something was changed in that file? Are those changes also included in your patch? Otherwise they must be lost once I overwrite the file with your patch again, no?
 
what are all the other files in the ZIP for?

do i need to do anything with them or just the DLL?
 
Real programmers don't write documentation! The Apolyton first post does have this info, though, should add it here.
 
I note in the changelog that you can no longer build forts in foreign territory. Does this also apply to civs you are at war with?
 
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