useless AI in svn version

[Thunderbrd]

The Commando promo's requirements are too stringent. That might be why it is given for free to every single mounted unit starting in prehistoric... Which in turn makes a mockery of the stringent requirements does it not?...

I say mounted units should not have to wait till Mil Sci or whatever tech to get it, but should not get it for free, and indeed have all the current promo prereqs required of them.

We could make a new promo that accomplishes the same thing for mounted/wheeled units. Then take away getting it for free. Would be a good idea imo. If you played a LOT of vanilla BtS games as I have you will find that being able to accumulate enough XP to be able to train units that start with commando is the ultimate goal, particularly for preparing for nuclear war. It takes grasping at all the wonders that add xp to do it. Here in C2C it's nowhere near that difficult to get but it still shouldn't be easy, not as easy as it currently is anyhow.

If 20% less CityAttack makes no difference then i quess that a few more city defenders might not even matter also. Cases of huge and fast stacks need alot more defense not just few more units and just having the AI build a huge number of city defenders seems wastefull.

All I'm saying is that city defenders should be defending cities, not the land around the city. If they want some units to play that role then it should be under a new AI setting. City Defender AI units should be taking as much city defense promos and gaining the full benefit of fortification behind as solid city defenses as the city has been able to build. Which makes them needlessly weakened simply by the nature of their position if they aren't hunkered down in the city. Homeland terrain defense is a different role that would inspire taking more terrain defense and attack enhancing promos. There's really no good reason for city defenders to hover around outside a city. The point I'm making is that the only thing they really accomplish by this is to make themselves vulnerable to being caught in a less defensible position with less importance to guard... and on occasion they end up helpfully finding a bottleneck position with a hill and a forest and it makes it tough to get to the city (which would be a role better fulfilled by units designed to hold such a bottleneck anyhow.)

 

[MacCoise]

I see a revision in A New Dawn talsk about remving something from C2 C that caused probelms with early settlers, might be worth checking out

 

[JosEPh_II]

I see a revision in A New Dawn talsk about remving something from C2 C that caused probelms with early settlers, might be worth checking out

Was already done here, that's why 45* made his post about the change.

JosEPh

 

[Rodnok]

The problem of not expanding AI might be tied to difficulty level. In my current Immortal/nightmare just a single AI has 4 cities, all others have 3 and some former minors (I play with Revolutions and Barb World) only 1 or 2. Thats around Sedentary Lifestyle. They all switched to Chiefdom and found themselves broke maybe, its a long time since I saw the warning about new city founded (there is some space around them). I keep Anarchism and I can found the 4th city, even 1 more if producing some gold.

In the previous Deity game AIs were expanding like they should, the best were having 9-10 cities in ancient age. William even filled up the void in the middle of his area during the war with me.

As I don't see any challenge, even the barb cities are pretty weak, I'll switch to Deity, wondering if this improves AI situation.

 

[MacCoise]

Yeah it has improved but I suspect the anomaly of the Anarchism/Chiefdom change is not helping.


Just noticed in my current game and previous ones that some AI cities are very slow about having gatherers improve their resources even when they have gatherers sitting in the city. I wonder if the AI sees animals a threat to gatherers even inside the cultural boundaries

 

[BlueGenie]

The changed crime levels have not made things better. I suspect the AI gets hit with the Shoplifting crime rather hard on the switch to Chiefdom. That, and possibly other crimes, should not be as harsh or come a lot later when there are more crime reducing options.

After all the AI looks at it's financial situation when deciding about expanding and after Chiefdom expansion should be deliberated upon but not completely halted. Having not only nortmal building maintenances kick in at that time already means deliberation is needed, adding in sudden costs from crimes to that just makes it worse.

The gatherer situation has been around a long time though, and might have something to do with Start as Minor Civ, if you are using that option.

Cheers

 

[MacCoise]

All agreed but I think the AI is switching to Chiefdom immediately whereas I can stretch to three or even four cities before switching and just take the happiness penalty.

At that point I can absorb the loss of Pretribemaint less dramatically

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

I am fairly sure that the reason that the AI is not improving plots is because it sees the benefit from improving the plot as less than the cost of loosing the gatherer when the improvement is done.

We changed the way the work boat does kelp harvest. Originally early boats could build it without loosing the boat and that improvement was built. Now the early work boat unit is consumed in the building of kelp harvest and the improvement is not being built by the AI or the auto build manager for the player.

We may need to change both the gatherer and work boats to not being consumed just to give the AI a chance.

 

[Thunderbrd]

I am fairly sure that the reason that the AI is not improving plots is because it sees the benefit from improving the plot as less than the cost of loosing the gatherer when the improvement is done.

We changed the way the work boat does kelp harvest. Originally early boats could build it without loosing the boat and that improvement was built. Now the early work boat unit is consumed in the building of kelp harvest and the improvement is not being built by the AI or the auto build manager for the player.

We may need to change both the gatherer and work boats to not being consumed just to give the AI a chance.

Sounds like that's definitely worth reviewing. I'll try to look into it soon.

 

[Reisk@]

The AI doesnt seem capable of using gatherers to develop resources in a lot of cases or doesnt consider it a priority

Can verify this in worker-times in V35. Some ai does not care much about resources either. I saw a size 18 city with just one road leading into it and it's surroundings totally undeveloped. It also had resources around it, ai didn't care for a long long time.

 

[Reisk@]

One of you who develope said you cannot only fix you need to develope new features to keep the developers happy. I am developer for 12 years. I agree that to develope new feature is much more fun than fix crashes or optimize something. But if you keep the mod in this way and just develope new anew non working things which ai doesnt support you will loose players and effectively lead this mod to dead.

Couldn't agree more. Giving priority to adding more and thus breaking more will surely kill this mod sooner or later.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Actually you have it around the wrong way. Loose the modders and the mod is dead. Loose players and nothing happens! The modders keep modding, the mod keeps growing and the modders keep enjoying the mod.

 

[Sparth]

Couldn't agree more. Giving priority to adding more and thus breaking more will surely kill this mod sooner or later.

Its not true
Year ago C2C has ~4GB, now we have ~1.8 GB and tons of new features.
Year ago we have seriuous problems with MAFs. Now they are much less serious
Now we have problem with AI and mechanic. From my experience I can say its temporary problem

 

[MacCoise]

Just did a run through the Pre Historic period on auto play. (Eternity)

Observations

Some Civs just did not expand.

Only one used gatherers in any proper way.

However the Barbarian cities that spawned used gatherers/workers verey efficiently.

Those Civs that did expand only expanded to three cities. My Civ reached Sedentary Lifestyle but has not researched Chiefdom

 

[JosEPh_II]

Just did a run through the Pre Historic period on auto play. (Eternity)

Observations

Some Civs just did not expand.

Only one used gatherers in any proper way.

However the Barbarian cities that spawned used gatherers/workers verey efficiently.

Those Civs that did expand only expanded to three cities. My Civ reached Sedentary Lifestyle but has not researched Chiefdom

Isn't your version been modified by you?

How about doing an autoplay on Epic and see what you get for comparison?

JosEPh

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Playing with "no positive traits" and no other trait options selected means that the AI does better. This means we need to look at those traits again:sigh:

 

[alberts8]

Those Civs that did expand only expanded to three cities. My Civ reached Sedentary Lifestyle but has not researched Chiefdom

They take a 'long' break from expanding more after they have three cities. This is caused by BlueGenies civic changes because i did not notice it that much in test games after reverting those changes.

 

[MacCoise]

@Joseph No I haven't modified my version. I will do a run through on Epic for comparison.

@DH that's inteteresting. There must be a reason some CIVs do expand while others just don't at all


@Alberts Yes, the Pretribemaint bonus effcetively gives two cities which is an incredible bonus

Another issue I noticed was that the AI did not take out any barbarian cities

 

[MacCoise]

Not much difference on Epic as far as I can see. The use of gatherers seems to begin seriously only after Tribalism. The game speed means that soon after the map is quite improved unlike it wouild be at Eternity

Maybe the AI is right that the time taken to build a gatherer to add 1 or 1 just isnt worth it earlier on.

But it is as if they don't recognise the value of resources as bonuses and not just as terrain bonuses

 

[JosEPh_II]

@MacCoise,

I also do Not use Any Trait Options, zilch checked.

My current game I discovered a neighboring AI rather quickly as it's capital was across strait of water from my capital. When I started working my capital tiles it was working it's tiles too as I could see it's gatherers. This was right around the time of discovering Tribalism.

My game was started with SVN 8141 and has been updated to 8195 as of last night. Marathon gamespeed, Monarch difficulty, Huge PM map with default # of AI. No Rev, No Barb World, No Barb Civ, No start as Minors, No Inquisition, No Trait Options of any kind.

It's possible that I didn't see this problem because of the SVN version I started with. I'm not sure what version you 1st started seeing this problem.

But as DH has pondered, maybe gatherers should not be "used up" now like they always have been due to recent AI changes. Or those recent AI changes need further scrutiny?

I'm updating to SVN 8196 and may start a test game on Normal to see if the gatherer is neglected until Tribalism at that speed.

JosEPh