See title. I'm trying to tweak the AI's performance on a strategic level to make it more challenging (I suspect that tactically it's going to remain a hash until the code base gets patched up a bit.) I've been able to greatly improve the AI's ability to develop a runaway economy, which is a plus.
Unfortunately, I am running into a problem where in most games only one or two AIs really try: most AIs end up with a relatively small number of cities and then pretty much stop expanding altogether even if room is available. I'm pretty sure this is a leader trait since each leader behaves consistently from one game to the next: Ramesses rarely make more than 2-4 cities, Catherine and Montezuma flood the map with settlers, etc.
I've tried setting FLAVOR_EXPANSION high across the board, but this does not seem to produce any changes to settling patterns. Moreover, some leaders that had a high FLAVOR_EXPANSION to begin with are still reluctant to settle, and some that had only medium FLAVOR_EXPANSION are big expanders anyhow. What I'm noticing now though is that all the AIs are building settlers, but some civs just aren't using them. I've even noticed some civs sending their settlers to a juicy city spot and just leaving them there without building a city!
My other thought is that maybe it's a diplomatic issue? Maybe some leaders are overly sensitive to requests not to settle nearby. I'm not sure this is it, though, because non-expanders are perfectly capable of ignoring good territory that's not remotely near anywhere else.
At any rate, I've been looking through all the leaders' XML files and have not been able to find any pattern that separates the AIs that are willing to expand from the ones that aren't. The AIs that refuse to settle are consistently shooting themselves in the foot and I'd like to remove this behavior. Can anyone shed any light on what settings might help encourage them to make more cities?
Unfortunately, I am running into a problem where in most games only one or two AIs really try: most AIs end up with a relatively small number of cities and then pretty much stop expanding altogether even if room is available. I'm pretty sure this is a leader trait since each leader behaves consistently from one game to the next: Ramesses rarely make more than 2-4 cities, Catherine and Montezuma flood the map with settlers, etc.
I've tried setting FLAVOR_EXPANSION high across the board, but this does not seem to produce any changes to settling patterns. Moreover, some leaders that had a high FLAVOR_EXPANSION to begin with are still reluctant to settle, and some that had only medium FLAVOR_EXPANSION are big expanders anyhow. What I'm noticing now though is that all the AIs are building settlers, but some civs just aren't using them. I've even noticed some civs sending their settlers to a juicy city spot and just leaving them there without building a city!
My other thought is that maybe it's a diplomatic issue? Maybe some leaders are overly sensitive to requests not to settle nearby. I'm not sure this is it, though, because non-expanders are perfectly capable of ignoring good territory that's not remotely near anywhere else.
At any rate, I've been looking through all the leaders' XML files and have not been able to find any pattern that separates the AIs that are willing to expand from the ones that aren't. The AIs that refuse to settle are consistently shooting themselves in the foot and I'd like to remove this behavior. Can anyone shed any light on what settings might help encourage them to make more cities?
read what I wrote in A.I. modding A.I. flavors and bias. Mainly you want to set the weight thresholds for "enough expansion" strategy to 1000, and set early expansion to -1000.
