They need to hotfix AI agression now

[Aristos]

That doesn't change the fact that some Civ's like the Aztec's are not taking advantage of their strength (early conquest). In my last game Monty sat there with two cities in the middle of the jungle with no chance to keep up in the economic, science or culture battle. Meanwhile with my tiny army I sat there worry free building up five great cities and buying up every CS I met. Everyone loved me because my trade routes offered a ton of gold and science. Three of my four games have been like that. I always play on Small/Emperor/Normal Speed. In my last game I was the Byzantines and I didn't even go for a religion! I did not need it to win. i just getting boring.

well, try what I propose above and let us all know how it goes. As for the above conditions of your environment, you are assuming that "your tiny army" was the only measure of your strength. It may have been so pre-BNW, I have that strong impression but it needs more digging into the code (and I remember many here complaining about the stupid AI taking only army size into consideration when declaring insane wars that they could not win because strength is much more than army size; I even remember some "strategists" posting how they lured the AI's into committing military suicide by keeping a tempting, small, obsolete army and huge cash reserves and solid economy to trigger their insane war declaration, and then quickly buy a modern army and destroy such AI civ). Now we are complaining about the opposite???

It needs more digging into the code and I don't have much time now, but I certainly will sometime. Let's say there is code for more considerations now. Look at your own posting: you had obviously cash reserves, you used them to buy all CS around you, and your economy was good. Montezuma is in the middle of a jungle, not that good economy, the AI looks into your army, sees a small pathetic army, but then adds some more considerations: your CS power, your economy, your cash reserves. Now the bait is not so sweet anymore... is it? It does not fall for it. My impression is that all those checks are now there (I think I remember seeing some of them already, but will try to confirm that and post code). If that is the case, HOW IS THAT A BAD AI? Because it does not fall for the old "strategy" anymore???

 

[Teholb]

I think the next step for Firaxis would then be to take warmongering civs, and adapt their UA/UU to better suit the new environment. They were/are mostly designed to benefit from direct warfare, but it would be much more elegant and functional if they had benefits which would lead to war. Not the other way around.

I'm not saying I have any such solutions, but to suggest that the rest of the game is broken when it is now functional doesn't make sense to me. "Fix" the broken few not the functional whole.

 

[JustinianIV]

Wrong. I hoped that by showing some snippets of the code some claims would become more rational. There is nothing to fix, there may be things to balance. The code is there; if the AIs would be committing economical suicide by declaring war like they did in G&K (that also meant military suicide), now THAT would need fixing (because that would mean the code for the modifier would be missing).

Try to do some experiments yourself; not that hard. Change just one number in your HandicapInfos file, and test it; put the probability of the AI declaring war to 110, or 120, for your preferred dif level, and see what happens. That may help a lot.

I never said the problem was that they changed the code. All I said was that the result is not doing what it should be doing. I appreciate people looking into the code to figure things out, but it doesn't change the fact that it was too aggressive before, and it is not aggressive enough now. Not just in warfare.

I'm not, and shouldn't have to, go rooting around in some files in order to get the game to a place where it should be to begin with. We shouldn't even be having to scan through the code and dissect it.

I like BNW, but think it can,should and will be better.

 

[Aristos]

I like BNW, but think it can,should and will be better.

Now we are talking.

 

[Buccaneer]

Ok, you make it sound like military should only be the last or least desirable option; whereas is should always be an equally weighted option and for more civs than just Zulus and Huns. Playing games on deity in G&K, you would usually get wiped out - not suicide as you keep insisting that was the only way they warred - if you were next to Aztecs, Babylonians or Greece (and others presumably). A similar set up should happen in BNW, adding in Zulus, and if not, why not? They were and should be really good at doing that, just like Ethiopia would be really good at religion and culture.

 

[Teholb]

Ok, you make it sound like military should only be the last or least desirable option; whereas is should always be an equally weighted option and for more civs than just Zulus and Huns. Playing games on deity in G&K, you would usually get wiped out - not suicide as you keep insisting that was the only way they warred - if you were next to Aztecs, Babylonians or Greece (and others presumably). A similar set up should happen in BNW, adding in Zulus, and if not, why not? They were and should be really good at doing that, just like Ethiopia would be really good at religion and culture.

But you never found out what happened after you died in those games. Perhaps, if you could view the post-defeat game, that AI would collapse. The AI playing as if the human is the only one there is just boring. Now they make realistic choices, which is what Aristos is getting at. A warmongering civ should still practice self preservation above all else.

We can either have hyper aggressive human-targetting AI, or AI that acknowledges a future beyond the player.

 

[pilot00]

But you never found out what happened after you died in those games. Perhaps, if you could view the post-defeat game, that AI would collapse. The AI playing as if the human is the only one there is just boring. Now they make realistic choices, which is what Aristos is getting at. A warmongering civ should still practice self preservation above all else.

We can either have hyper aggressive human-targetting AI, or AI that acknowledges a future beyond the player.

Only China in G&Ks collapsed even after successful wars and that was a problem due to Wu's inability to improve her tiles (don't know if it was intentional). Another candidate I can add to that could be the Ottomans, since they blew off steam after the Renaissance and just neglected everything.

I have never seen Greece, Mongolia, Rome, Germany, Iroquois, Arabia, Carthage or even Siam and Sweden when going to an Autocratic spree to ever collapse, in fact they become runaways if they won the conflicts.

The odd exception (totally insane) was Montezuma, all he could do is spam units and attack anything that breathed, leading in situations that could include loosing his capital to city states.

And to your last line I say this: We can have an AI that weights all possibilities and acts accordingly to its singular target: To win the game, without exception.

 

[Buccaneer]

I'd go along with that but self-preservation has to have a value in improving their chances of winning - not just staying alive for the sake of providing more trading partners. What about those civs that have really good military UU/UB/UA? They should only use them for defensive purposes since they're no allowed to go the offensives? We all have seen AI take over continents and big chunks of Pangaea, so we knew that could do that (until they're up against the human player). It is broken if they overcompensated and neutered most of the units in the game.

 

[Buccaneer]

Pilot00 mentioned the Iroquois. I did not experience them much before but I've heard horror stories. I know about the Greeks and Aztecs first hand and while I don't have them in my current game, I would expect them to be expansionist runaways not passively friendly.

 

[Teholb]

Only China in G&Ks collapsed even after successful wars and that was a problem due to Wu's inability to improve her tiles (don't know if it was intentional). Another candidate I can add to that could be the Ottomans, since they blew off steam after the Renaissance and just neglected everything.

I have never seen Greece, Mongolia, Rome, Germany, Iroquois, Arabia, Carthage or even Siam and Sweden when going to an Autocratic spree to ever collapse, in fact they become runaways if they won the conflicts.

The odd exception (totally insane) was Montezuma, all he could do is spam units and attack anything that breathed, leading in situations that could include loosing his capital to city states.

And to your last line I say this: We can have an AI that weights all possibilities and acts accordingly to its singular target: To win the game, without exception.

Those civs were conquering other AI, not a human player who would make them pay a vastly higher "price."

I agree, the AI should want to win, but what we had in G&K was complained against just as thoroughly as BNW is now for the opposite. And what G&K was, you're asking for.

 

[Bei1052]

My last few games, the AI has attacked me around turn 60. Which, let me tell you, is a lot worse than being attacked turn 60 before BNW.

 

[Teholb]

I'd go along with that but self-preservation has to have a value in improving their chances of winning - not just staying alive for the sake of providing more trading partners. What about those civs that have really good military UU/UB/UA? They should only use them for defensive purposes since they're no allowed to go the offensives? We all have seen AI take over continents and big chunks of Pangaea, so we knew that could do that (until they're up against the human player). It is broken if they overcompensated and neutered most of the units in the game.

And I agree with you on that. Earlier in this thread, I mentioned that an appropriate response from Firaxis would be to adjust those heavily warbiased civs to allow them to at least not stagnate during periods of peace. The rest of the game is now at a level I would say is approaching "complete" for what I expect from an empire building game.

 

[Pythakoreas]

Someone tell Firaxis that we need a more "reasonable" AI, not more/less aggressive.

"World Congress" also has to discuss war and peace matters, so ruthless early warmongering can return from G&K; but when World Congress steps in, civs will have to discuss and pressure the ones with a bad reputation. "Standing Army Tax" and "Embargo" are not enough IMO. We need an interface where, the WC leader speaks to a troublemaker civilization and asking to return the cities they mustered through preying on the weak.

Of course, warmongers should be coded to unite and start a world war against World Congress...

 

[95soram]

Aristos....I am not upset that my strategy of luring an unsuspecting civ into an ill advised war isn't working. Here is my issue: I spend a lot of resources building up my economy and trade routes early and as a result I seem to become a favored trading partner with a majority of the ai civs. This ends up helping me become an economic powerhouse and I usually go the lazy route and pick up the diplomatic victory. I just wish that instead of becoming my trading partner the warmonger civs would look at my trade routes and think "those are nice trade routes, I think I will build up an army and take them." As it stands now I was only DOW'd once in my last three games. If they don't change this I am going to die of boredom.

 

[Buccaneer]

If warfare is not a substantial part of the game, I would suspect that the games would eventually get too boring for many, not to mention reducing the replay values once the newness of the new features wear off. Warfare (from the AI) can be an equalizer or at least, keeping you honest. While we can generally fend off most attacks, at higher difficulties that can leave us depleted and quite far behind others - thus making us work to figure out how to catch up/rebuild, which is interesting to play too.

 

[pilot00]

Those civs were conquering other AI, not a human player who would make them pay a vastly higher "price."

I agree, the AI should want to win, but what we had in G&K was complained against just as thoroughly as BNW is now for the opposite. And what G&K was, you're asking for.

You are wrong on both accounts and let me explain why:

On the first scale of your post neither you nor I can be sure of the exact casualties the AI suffered (on either side) due to the war. It could have been a 'clean sweep' or it could have been a grueling affair. Most likely though it was the second because lets face it: The AI is stupid. In my games its not unheard of for the AI to start wars in 100Ad and finish them at 1900+ while constantly using units (I can see some but not all). Those are the only thing that I would consider wars of collapse. Weather the AI (attacker) wins or looses its a fail-fail for it.
On the other side of the argument, once one of the two AIs gobles up the other, its mostly over. It may not have an army but if it is alone on the continent, or it doesn't get attacked it will rebuild its army, have more resources, more income, more of everything by virtue of conquest. The only downside will be happiness but we know how the AI handles that. If the AI rinses and repeats and gobles up an entire continent then you will face an Alexander or Siam the likes of which will make my best bud (which is the hardest one to win in the MP games I play) look like a little kitten. They will swell and bloat in the science and gold department making them extremely dangerous.

On the second part of your post I will say to you that I don't want the G&Ks AI, neither BNWs. I want a third AI one that knows when it can DoW, when it must DoW, when it must trade and remain friendly, one that knows that going for a culture victory is Impossible and generally that is calibrated to take advantage of every situation and tool at its arsenal to gun for victory. Neither Napoleons fits of war or Alexanders out of the blue denouncements in G&Ks nor Assyrias and Shakas peaceful hippie capitalism are viable and correct ways for the AI to play. And for my sanity's shake: When you advertise a newish feature (WC) make the AI remotely capable of using it, especially when you make me biased against it and but at the same time promiss me it will be the next thing since mud was invented.

Pilot00 mentioned the Iroquois. I did not experience them much before but I've heard horror stories. I know about the Greeks and Aztecs first hand and while I don't have them in my current game, I would expect them to be expansionist runaways not passively friendly.

I can tell you one thing about Hiawatha in G&Ks: He was either a warmongering b-d hell bend on destroying you (if you were sharing borders in the early game) while REXing the entire world, or if you were on other continents or a rival civ was in-between you and you managed to get on the Iroquoians good side, you would have never made a better ally. To me in G&Ks Hiawatha was the 'optimal' (I place the brackets because there were many flaws to it but unto my experience he made the best plays) leader.
I have yet to face him in BNW.

 

[Teholb]

The problem with that kind of AI, is that a human has to manually account for every possible scenario. Now, granted, I'm not saying one guy is responsible for the AI. I'm saying, that they simply couldn't pack every possible scenario into a binary format. Even if they could theoretically come up with algorithms for every situation, the turn times would become minutes long for players with the best computers. Because the AI would each be going down checklists of "is this happening? y/n" "if yes, goto plan B" "if no, goto plan A". Obviously a grossly simplified version of what's happening, as even basic things have various conditionals that alter the course of action. It just takes too long to process the enormous table of variables. And, again, that precludes the human element of even conceiving of such a system.

So the best they can do is an AI like what we have come to now (and will hopefully improve on in the future). It's undeniable that the AI has improve in a fairly linear fashion since launch. We're getting closer to "perfection." Now they have the rationally diplomatic side of things sorted out, I'm sure they'll work in systems for the warlike AI to use.


I don't see what issue you have with the WC and the AI. It uses it pretty well in my experience on Emperor. Perhaps it's just not good enough to compete with Immortal/Deity players? Idk. But the AI is not as bad as it's being made out to be. Far from it.

 

[pilot00]

The problem with that kind of AI, is that a human has to manually account for every possible scenario. Now, granted, I'm not saying one guy is responsible for the AI. I'm saying, that they simply couldn't pack every possible scenario into a binary format. Even if they could theoretically come up with algorithms for every situation, the turn times would become minutes long for players with the best computers. Because the AI would each be going down checklists of "is this happening? y/n" "if yes, goto plan B" "if no, goto plan A". Obviously a grossly simplified version of what's happening, as even basic things have various conditionals that alter the course of action. It just takes too long to process the enormous table of variables. And, again, that precludes the human element of even conceiving of such a system.

So the best they can do is an AI like what we have come to now (and will hopefully improve on in the future). It's undeniable that the AI has improve in a fairly linear fashion since launch. We're getting closer to "perfection." Now they have the rationally diplomatic side of things sorted out, I'm sure they'll work in systems for the warlike AI to use.


I don't see what issue you have with the WC and the AI. It uses it pretty well in my experience on Emperor. Perhaps it's just not good enough to compete with Immortal/Deity players? Idk. But the AI is not as bad as it's being made out to be. Far from it.

The very fact that improvements have been and are made constantly means one thing: That the AI is an incomplete work. It is complex but there have been AIs in computer games that were needed to be far more complex than civs and account far more multitude of data and in real time. Also there is no such thing, as accounting for every possible scenario: It needs to be given a data set that it will allow it to make decisions based on the games rules and according to its own personality. As far as I am seeing from the code fragments posted and the various release notes of the various updates all I am seeing is the easy answer. Complains about war? Tone the war by adding a deficit system. Complains about irrational AI? Make it DoF you even if you have 4 negatives (don't tell me it was deception, it stood like that for the entire game till I won). And no sadly its not the best, its a patchwork that somehow works at a decent level. People complain about coups and techstealing all the time? Make all the spies diplomats and use the spies as spies for only twice or thrice a game. Those my friend are not solutions to a problem, those are stop gap measures. A game should not be released with stop gap measures.

In regards to the WC: Does it split its delegates when it is beneficial for it to support multiple decisions? Does it vote anyone else except for itself as a host? Does it try to pass its own religion as the world one? Its own ideology when there are 5 others following it? Bottom line Does it vote everything else except itself in the resolutions when you don't buy its votes? Apparently it doesn't. If it cant even compete (notice that you used said word) on the higher difficulties where it blatantly cheats in order to be competitive how can you say that the AI is good?

Anyway I am not trashing the game, I am stating the facts that I see through my experience. I really like the game, but mostly I like what it was meant to be not what it is. As I said in another thread, perhaps after 5 patches.

And another thing: Turning a blind eye towards the games shortcomings is not helping the game itself become better, in fact it helps it stay mediocre. As OFC trashing it without any true reason doesn't help anyone. Both sides need to remove the rose glasses and see the facts.

Lets hope that one of our favorite games will become better in the future.

EDIT: Sorry if it gets as a bit rough, its a bit late here and I am a bit edgy

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[dexters]

AI work is 'never' complete; you can always make new rules and refine old rules and variables especially with a system that weighs various variables. Changing weights of various variables can impact performance which can impact the impression of the AI being improved. So part of the work is simply a lot of play testing and feedback from players from places like this forum.

 

[BSPollux]

And another thing: Turning a blind eye towards the games shortcomings is not helping the game itself become better, in fact it helps it stay mediocre. As OFC trashing it without any true reason doesn't help anyone. Both sides need to remove the rose glasses and see the facts.

There are no facts, only opinions and speculation. My games in BNW have enough wars for my liking. Thats no fact, just an opinion. And if you disagree its nothing else either, because theres no way to meassure what 'the right ammount of agression' is. No matter now much you think your own opinion is suprior to others, or more important, or what the devs wanted, or what the game needs. You = your opinion, me = my opinion. No facts.

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I just wish that instead of becoming my trading partner the warmonger civs would look at my trade routes and think "those are nice trade routes, I think I will build up an army and take them."

Trade routes cant be stolen. Most wars are just not worth fighting. Its nice that the AI is smart enough to understand it. And its strange that some people are not ;-)

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