Strange AI behaviour

[AngelGabriel]

In my current game (large map, 15 AI civs, me playing Ljosalfar) Perpentach is to the north and the dwarves are to the east. There are military struggles, but neither of us can really hurt the other nation. The dwarf just spam Champions and fail at my 85% defense and I can't bring enough troups to attack a city with approximately 100 defenders. Whatever: What really bugs me is that the AI seems to have a very strange research behaviour. I was able to see all the techs they're currently researching (don't even know how I did it ) and how long it would take. It started at 35 turns for Taxation by one civ, went over Bannor with 123 turns for righteousness and stopped at Sheelba with over 400 turns for Iron.
It seems all those Civs got stuck at a certain point of research and tried to catch on to get better units. But 400 turns or even 100? No wonder they behave like civ-spam-alot when they don't have anything more to build. Is this normal or just a fatal coincidence in my game?

 

[Emptiness]

I was able to see all the techs they're currently researching (don't even know how I did it )

You built The Eyes and Ears Network.

Is this normal or just a fatal coincidence in my game?

What version of the mod are you playing? 0.41j, or some other version?

 

[Lone Wolf]

He plays J, definitely.

 

[AngelGabriel]

Yes I do ... does that matter?

Oh and thanks Emptiness

 

[readercolin]

Yes, it does matter. The reason is that after a certain point (in the case of the clan of embers, its after masonry when they get their warrens, and the bannor fanaticism, where they can get crusade), the AI's are programmed to check around and see if there is anyone they are more powerful than, and to build up to increase their power. The reason is because at these points the civs receive an advantage that few if anyone else can match at that time, so they might as well use it. This was put in place to make the AI's more of a threat, but when several civs reach their check at around the same time, it can lead to a build up, which leads to more build up, and then even more build up, as they all try to get enough units to have an advantage over their opponents. After a certain point though, the civ's economy can't take it anymore, and so they kinda crash, as you saw in your game. This was put in when they made the AI patch (patch H I believe, further patches were bugfixes caused by this). At the moment the team is looking at other ways to tweak the AI so that it maintains the strong military (which they like), but doesn't crash themselves (which they don't like).

Basically, what we're saying is that for .41 patch J, yes, at the moment this is normal behavior.

-Colin

 

[aimlessgun]

Couldn't you just set it so that the computer stops building units when it runs into a deficit at a certain science slider %? Or is that too simplistic because, and in most cases they'll actually want to leverage the temporary advantage all the way?

I guess the chance of this arms race the OP is describing also increased substantially with a 15 civ map! Is the exact information on when which Civs go into spam mode available somewhere, so I can maybe balance my games to avoid including civs that go into spam mode very near each other?

 

[Emptiness]

What you are describing is a completely different AI philosophy than that of the current AI. It is possible to make an AI that will never drop its research below a specific percentage, but that change alone won't necessarily mean it is a better AI. The current AI is willing to risk falling behind in tech (threat to long-term survival) in order to avoid a weak army (threat to short-term survival). If you made the AI unwilling to sacrifice research then smaller civs would be conquered sooner, and by quantity rather quality (technologially superior units).

As for problems like the AI being unable to crack tough city defenses, that should be eliminated in the next patch. Using Sephi's AI fix (found here) improves the patch J AI, if you care to try it out while waiting on patch K.

 

[readercolin]

I'm not sure the exact info is out there somewhere, but if you are familiar with all the civs, you will understand when they reach a point that they consider being able to go into spam mode. I'll try to list a few possible ones (note, this may not be exact, I'm using my own knowledge of the civs to say when I would consider the civ having an advantage and using it, and I'm not 100% sure that what I'm describing is completely correct).

Note here, i have the civ listed, and the most likely time that I would send them into conquest mode. If I have a ? mark, it means I'm not entirely sure, and I will try to put my reasons to the right.

Bannor - Fanaticism (crusade enabled)
Malakim - priesthood? (world spell enabled, all disciple units have more xp with the malakim)
Elohim - ? (do the elohim ever attack?)
Kurotaes - horseback riding or horse archers (centaurs/centaur archers unlocked)
Lurchip - Sorcery (unlocks blasting forge - should already have golems)
Ljosfalter - bowyers? (longbowmen unlocked)

Khazid - bronze working? (khazid have a few places this could possibly happen for them)
Sidar - poisons? (not sure here)
Lanuan - ? (usually with the lanuan I use OO units, not their regular ones - not sure when they might be programmed to attack)
Amurites - bowyers (firebows)
Grigori - ? (grigori are decent pretty much anywhere, I'm not sure where they might be programmed to attack)
Hippus - either horseback riding, horse archery, or currency+guild of nine (each of these points, the hippus generally have an advantage)

Clan of Embers - Masonry (warrens unlocked)
Calibam - Feudalism (Vampires unlocked - the computer isn't as good with them as a human player would be, but spamming them still works)
Illians - ? (not sure when the best point for the illians to attack would be)
Balsferas - either iron working or sorcery (iron working unlocks mimics, sorcery useful spells for puppets)
Dovollio - start of game (their biggest advantage is before any other civ gets metal)
Sheim - bronze working (pyre zombie ahoy)
Svartalfar - poisons or animal mastery (animal mastery, strength 8/7 rangers, poisons, strength 7/4 assasins)

Hope this is somewhat useful.

-Colin

 

[Sephi]

the "strange" behavior is a bug that causes AI to spam units too much when at war.

Saying a civ needs 100 turns for a tech doesn't give much information. If a civ has only 1 or 2 cities such a number might be quite normal for a late game tech. You didn't even say which gamespeed you use.

 

[AngelGabriel]

Saying a civ needs 100 turns for a tech doesn't give much information. If a civ has only 1 or 2 cities such a number might be quite normal for a late game tech. You didn't even say which gamespeed you use.

100 is definitely too much in my eyes. If it were just that one AI Civ which had a very high research time. Well yes, than it could've been a matter of too few cities. But civs with a whole bunch of cities (6+) shouldn't have those problems or somethings gone very wrong.
Even though I tend to play on Epic/ Normal gamespeed research items with more than 50 turns aren't considered worth enough for the moment, thus I can't see the greater plan in researching something with 100+ turns.
But well, that might just be a problem of me and myself. Do any of you research items with more than 100 turns? Might it be the normal case for most players?