[R&F] Unbelievable - Settlers still unescorted!

[sjudubbel]

First I must say I really like the R & F Expansionpack. There are however some bugs that still need to be corrected.

Out of all AI-bugs, the easiest to correct has to be this one:
The AI still sends out many of it's settlers completely without an escort. I just played a game on emperor level and captured like 3-4 settlers who were roaming around unguarded.

I am not a programmer, but isn't it possible to just give the AI a hard wired rule to NEVER let it settlers move around across the map without an escort? That should take care of the problem once and for all?
(Unless in the extreme situation that the AI doesn't have any military units at all - then it's settlers could be allowed to wonder away by themselves)

 

[bbbt]

If they have a spare unit nearby they should escort. But if they don't, it probably makes sense to for the AI to get the city down faster if it's a nearby location where they know there are no barbarians (or civs it's at war with). Other AIs don't snag unescorted settlers unprovoked - that's entirely human player behavior. So it might overall be speeding up AI expansion.

Or they could program the AIs to snag unprotected settlers/builders unprovoked if it saw the opportunity, and then everyone needs to be escorting settlers.

 

[Baleur]

Same with the Total War games, for some reason these two companies AI programmers dont understand that sometimes you need hardcoded rules for the AI to follow.
Every single Total War game, for example, has problems with the AI suiciding their generals straight into your army without support.
Easy fix, hardcode the ai to never move the general further than X distance from the strongest friendly melee unit nearby.
But nope, devs dont want to. Rather we have 10 years of Total War games with the exact same AI bug never once resolved.

 

[hdbhdbvGFG541]

Same with the Total War games, for some reason these two companies AI programmers dont understand that sometimes you need hardcoded rules for the AI to follow.
Every single Total War game, for example, has problems with the AI suiciding their generals straight into your army without support.
Easy fix, hardcode the ai to never move the general further than X distance from the strongest friendly melee unit nearby.
But nope, devs dont want to. Rather we have 10 years of Total War games with the exact same AI bug never once resolved.

Wow somebody finally mentioned the hardcoded rules to fix the ai solution instead of the generic "ai is too complex it would take a neural network the size of Tokyo to fix this ai".
But yes hardcoded rules would fix 80 percent of the problems but that requires will and effort.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

I don't escort if I can help it either, to be fair.

I also choose not to take unescorted settlers so it doesn't bother me particularly.

 

[kaspergm]

Yes, this is quite annoying. It will also send its great people roaming the planet with no meaningful purpose. I can see this because I use a mod that lets you capture great people, which also means that AI will lose these great people to barbarians. So often I find clusters of great artists and engineers that have been wondering to the polar regions instead of being put to use, which makes zero sense (I could excuse it if it was a great scientist, because some of them like Darwin and Galileo actually encourages you to set them wandering).

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

I am not a programmer, but isn't it possible to just give the AI a hard wired rule to NEVER let it settlers move around across the map without an escort? That should take care of the problem once and for all?

I guess you can see what problem doing that would bring. Like what happens if the ai don't have access to an escort at the time or the escort is killed. So while it solve a problem it brings new problems to the table.

Programming is an iterative process in which you constantly try to find a better way to do stuff and it is generally about tradeoffs instead of finding a pure better choice.

It is even possible they want the ai to do mistakes because that make them look more alive because humans do mistakes all the time.

I don't know what game the designer of civilization VI want civilization VI to be and game design is probably comparable to writing a book. If they want the ai leaders to feel alive they need them to make mistakes humans would make and play a bit irrational instead of powerplaying. From the streams the designers talked much about how the game was like a story which would point at they want a ai that roleplay rather than powerplay.

If I remember the manual of civilization IV it also sounded like the designers was focused on making the game be as a story or something like that.

 

[earlc]

I don't escort if I can help it either, to be fair.

I also choose not to take unescorted settlers so it doesn't bother me particularly.

Yes, exactly. Not sure if this so much of a real issue as a pet peeve. If I know there are no barbs within throwing range I definitely won't waste the clicks to escort a unit. And is a settler escorted by one spearman, warrior etc really that much more difficult to capture?

Yes, this is quite annoying. It will also send its great people roaming the planet with no meaningful purpose. I can see this because I use a mod that lets you capture great people, which also means that AI will lose these great people to barbarians. So often I find clusters of great artists and engineers that have been wondering to the polar regions instead of being put to use, which makes zero sense (I could excuse it if it was a great scientist, because some of them like Darwin and Galileo actually encourages you to set them wandering).

That's the fault of the mod, of course. I assume the AI is using their GP for exploring, which normally is a safe thing to do. I don't see the engineers making any sense, but if you get an early great artist or musician with no place to invest their great works, you might as well send them packing. I've actually done this, though not automated.

 

[Grotius]

The latest patch notes say they’ve curtailed how often settlers march through the human player’s territory unescorted. Indeed I haven’t seen the AI do this once. So the devs are taking cautious steps to address this.

But I understand their caution. As others have said here, there may be good gameplay reasons to let AIs march settlers unescorted thru territory owned by other AIs. If on balance that makes the AIs more competitive, it’s fine with me.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

The ai is probably as competitive as the designers want it to be. That is why mods are so important because that let people play the game they want it because not everyone may want to play the game as the designers want it to be.

Game design is not binary with good or bad choices but more about taste

I also choose not to take unescorted settlers so it doesn't bother me particularly.

A very resonable choice to be honest..

With the current ai difficulty you can roleplay and still win on deity as long as your roleplay is not about losing. Sure they could make an impossible ai but I don't really see how that would be fun and thus the ai would actually make the game worse.

Im not particular found in winning quickly anyway because that ruins the game for me.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I've been in a few early game deity wars where either the AI or I attacked, and in more games than not it'll put a settler in range of one of my units while already at war.

 

[kaspergm]

That's the fault of the mod, of course. I assume the AI is using their GP for exploring, which normally is a safe thing to do. I don't see the engineers making any sense, but if you get an early great artist or musician with no place to invest their great works, you might as well send them packing. I've actually done this, though not automated.

Yes, I realize the AI is not programmed for capturable GPs, but using GPs as scouts is extremely dodgy game design, and if AI is actually programmed to do this, it's a very bad move imo. Not only is it very immersion-breaking (no less so when human players does it), it is also sub-optimal use of resources since overall, GPs should be much more valuable in their intended use than as scouts.

 

[Disgustipated]

Sometimes I think the AI says the same thing (Unbelievable Settlers are still unescorted) when I move unescorted units out of my territory, which I do all the time.

but using GPs as scouts is extremely dodgy game design,

I know you mean great people, but I thought at first you were referring to great prophets. And then I thought, hey, maybe Jesus Christ was actually scouting the desert during the Temptation of Christ (40 days in the desert).

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I find this a tough one. Force the AI to always escort Settlers and you place another competitive disadvantage on them they just don't need.

I'm not sure why they went back to the old system of Settlers being captured rather than converted to Workers/Builders a la Civ 5, but they sure created a lot of work for themselves by doing so. How many patches now have they tweaked the coding for when / how the AI escorts?

One thing they haven't implemented, for reasons I don't understand, is a warmonger penalty for seizing Settlers. It's a natural extension of the penalty for capturing cities, and seems to readily apply to the situation where you opportunistically declare war just to grab a Settler ("Hey, did you hear Greece just captured a whole city-full of Scythians?" "Had the Scythians built houses, yet?" "Nope, they still had all their stuff in wagons." "Well, that's all right then.")

A better solution would be to allow Settlers to defend themselves. The wagon trains crossing North America to settle the West were a well armed formation. Any large organized formation of people, moving together under leadership with the intent and capability of founding a city at the end of their journey, should presumably be very capable of defending themselves. I'd give Settlers the same defence strength as a size 1 city, but with 100 HP instead of 200, and if you kill them they're gone, not captured. Then they could spend their AI coding time on other matters.

 

[Gedemon]

I find this a tough one. Force the AI to always escort Settlers and you place another competitive disadvantage on them they just don't need.

I'm not sure why they went back to the old system of Settlers being captured rather than converted to Workers/Builders a la Civ 5, but they sure created a lot of work for themselves by doing so. How many patches now have they tweaked the coding for when / how the AI escorts?

One thing they haven't implemented, for reasons I don't understand, is a warmonger penalty for seizing Settlers. It's a natural extension of the penalty for capturing cities, and seems to readily apply to the situation where you opportunistically declare war just to grab a Settler ("Hey, did you hear Greece just captured a whole city-full of Scythians?" "Had the Scythians built houses, yet?" "Nope, they still had all their stuff in wagons." "Well, that's all right then.")

A better solution would be to allow Settlers to defend themselves. The wagon trains crossing North America to settle the West were a well armed formation. Any large organized formation of people, moving together under leadership with the intent and capability of founding a city at the end of their journey, should presumably be very capable of defending themselves. I'd give Settlers the same defence strength as a size 1 city, but with 100 HP instead of 200, and if you kill them they're gone, not captured. Then they could spend their AI coding time on other matters.

Yes, IMO, this is not a matter of "good" or "bad" coding (and forcing the AI to always escort its settlers when the human has no obligation to do so is bad coding) but a matter of good or bad design.

As I've said in a previous thread on the subject, a possible design for settler capture with R&F: give a loyalty penalty to cities founded by captured settlers.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Haven't really seen many unescorted settlers myself. Builders though....

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Yes, IMO, this is not a matter of "good" or "bad" coding (and forcing the AI to always escort its settlers when the human has no obligation to do so is bad coding) but a matter of good or bad design.

As I've said in a previous thread on the subject, a possible design for settler capture with R&F: give a loyalty penalty to cities founded by captured settlers.

Agreed. That would be another elegant solution that ties into an existing game mechanism and would go a long way towards addressing this situation, and would also help the Loyalty system work better overall.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

First I must say I really like the R & F Expansionpack. There are however some bugs that still need to be corrected.

Out of all AI-bugs, the easiest to correct has to be this one:
The AI still sends out many of it's settlers completely without an escort. I just played a game on emperor level and captured like 3-4 settlers who were roaming around unguarded.

I am not a programmer, but isn't it possible to just give the AI a hard wired rule to NEVER let it settlers move around across the map without an escort? That should take care of the problem once and for all?
(Unless in the extreme situation that the AI doesn't have any military units at all - then it's settlers could be allowed to wonder away by themselves)

Funnily, I have noticed the AI in my games to be pretty good-but not perfect-when it comes to escorting settlers. However, I'm pretty lazy on that front too.

 

[pgm123]

Wow somebody finally mentioned the hardcoded rules to fix the ai solution instead of the generic "ai is too complex it would take a neural network the size of Tokyo to fix this ai".
But yes hardcoded rules would fix 80 percent of the problems but that requires will and effort.

I don't think anyone ever objected to the idea of hard programming. People objected to the idea of using machine learning to make a better AI.

 

[MaximusPlatypus]

in the 4-5 gams I've play, the AI will escort settlers through enemy territory, but will still lose unescorted settlers to barbs