useless AI in svn version

I found that with Terrain Damage off, the AI produced far fewer Healers.
 
I found that with Terrain Damage off, the AI produced far fewer Healers.

Is that current SVN or our previous issue with healer units? A lot has been changed there very recently and something isn't working as designed. I just need to get the time and visibility on the problem to fix it is all.
 
That was probably the previous issue. My SVN copy is roughly 100 revisions behind.
 
I found that with Terrain Damage off, the AI produced far fewer Healers.
I can´t confirm. I am playing with terrain damage off and just outside their city the Confederacy has 153 units standing (on my ground!). Without any other unit with it, doing nothing for at least 15 turns now.

BTW, I don´t think it is a good idea to have the Confederacy in a standard game, I´d see it more in a scenario. I also have the USA in my game and I find it quite strange to have both of them (even as peaceful neighbours)...
 
Terrain damage may have had an impact on the older mechanism but this is a completely re-written healer AI now. Thanks for some help with using autoplay - that sure reveals some very interesting decision making by the AI that inspires to work on all sorts of things to improve the choices there. Eventually anyhow.

For now it helped tremendously to determine what was wrong with the healer overbuilding issue and will eventually help further with refining their decision-making as well. But at the moment they should at least be built more appropriately. Still, keep an eye out on that and feel free to offer feedback!
 
I am still testing that out, have not had much time to play though and as I test on Eternity (as Joe states that these problems are not around in lower speeds and because we do have a bunch of players that like the slower speeds).

For testing purposes
I have reduced the PreMaintTribe to -60% City maintenance (total -85% during Anarchism now only)
I have increased starting free units in A_New_Dawn to 25 (partly for testing purposes but also for opening up for the AI to be able to handle more units without excess costs, for the player to be able to save more animals for later use in PreHistory/Ancient, ),
I have set PreMaintTribe to obsolete at Chiefdom tech. I would like to have the PreTribeMaint reduced in -Maint strength over time, by tech unlocking, so by the time it obsoletes it is down to -20%, but do not know how to do that.
I have gone through and reduced all (except Crime) cost buildings by a third (the negative gold commerce changes that in an option are set to City Maintenances). This because I do not build them anyway so does not make a difference for my game but want to see if it affects teh AI, if with lower City Maintenances it is more happy to expand.

I fear/think partly why the AI does not expand is because it is cheaper to stay in Anarchism with 3 cities than going to Chiefdom so it gets stuck on 3 cities as the 4th is way, way too much for it to handle. Trying to force it's hand (and unfortunately everyone else's too) to jump on Chiefdom Civic as soon as possible, see if that makes a difference at all.

Cheers

Although that is logical, in my expereience on Auto Play the AI does switch to Chiefdom but does not expand beyong three as a rule anyway
 
As a deity/nightmare player, I notice how the AI expands slower than me in the early game but much faster than me in the later game. I wonder if that has anything to do with how the AI perceives its financial situation.

Each city beyond the first two (that are covered by pretribemaint) is a net loss when it is founded. You could play conservatively and only found a new one when you have enough income from your other cities, but that is not efficient. A new city will generate more income as time progresses, as it builds more buildings. You just need some cash reserves to cross over that period.

By the time I can make new cities I usually have over 1000 gold stored from "visiting" villages, bragging rights from being the first to photograph natural wonders, and getting a bit of income while having no expenses. I use this money to compensate for the temporary net loss a new city gives while it is building up itself.

Furthermore, I noticed that buildings are not equally valuable. While there are a number of cheap buildings that pay themselves back very quickly, you will soon run out of those. After a while you can only build buildings that cost e.g. 275 hammers and give 1 hammer and 1 money per turn. It is obvious that that is a bad investment because it will take a very long time to pay back its own cost. I usually build such buildings only when I have captives I need to spend, or build such a building in only 1 city if I need the resource that building gives (if any).
If such a city can generate enough money when I set it to build wealth, to pay for an additional city, I do so and found that additional city. Not only gives this additional city new opportunities to build the cheap buildings, you also cover additional terrain (which may give additional resources), and benefit from the additional beakers (e.g. from stone tools workshop), commerce, culture and food (population growth) that this additional city brings.
 
As a deity/nightmare player, I notice how the AI expands slower than me in the early game but much faster than me in the later game. I wonder if that has anything to do with how the AI perceives its financial situation.

.

Interesting. At what point do you think they start outpacing your cities?

My experience, Eternity/Huge/prince mainly is that they get to three slowly, by mid ancient or earlier and then stall...
 
On Snail/noble/no positive traits they usually have 12 plus by the end of ancient. Snail/noble only and they only have 3 to 6.

So my issue might be the traits?

I play with no starting traits/developing leaders. Should I try without developing leaders?
 
Developing leaders was not finished unfortunately. I have only done some short testing as a byproduct of the animal review. I can't give a definite answer.
 
Interesting. At what point do you think they start outpacing your cities?

My experience, Eternity/Huge/prince mainly is that they get to three slowly, by mid ancient or earlier and then stall...

I don't know.

Currently I'm on turn 1069 and have 17 cities. I just reached education tech. I made an army strong enough to take over my equally strong 12 city Brazilian neighbour, who is a vassal to the 14 city Hittite nation I have a power factor 0.4 with (i.e. the Hittites are 2.5 times as strong as me). So I'm going to blitz the Brazilians then play defensively until I can make peace with the Hittites, perhaps by selling him one or two former Brazilian cities in the peace treaty.

What I'm really worried about is the 37 city Jivaro empire on another continent. My power factor to him is 0.2 (i.e. he is 5x as strong) and he has three vassals, my power to one of them is 0.5. According to the Foreign advisor screen he can research enlightenment which is still 16 techs away for me.

Jivaro is almost done conquering his home continent so I fear that as soon as he gets to Astronomy he will start warring overseas and invade me with superior numbers of superior troops.

So yes, the AI is capable of expanding rapidly mid-game.
 
I don't know.

Currently I'm on turn 1069 and have 17 cities. I just reached education tech. I made an army strong enough to take over my equally strong 12 city Brazilian neighbour, who is a vassal to the 14 city Hittite nation I have a power factor 0.4 with (i.e. the Hittites are 2.5 times as strong as me). So I'm going to blitz the Brazilians then play defensively until I can make peace with the Hittites, perhaps by selling him one or two former Brazilian cities in the peace treaty.

What I'm really worried about is the 37 city Jivaro empire on another continent. My power factor to him is 0.2 (i.e. he is 5x as strong) and he has three vassals, my power to one of them is 0.5. According to the Foreign advisor screen he can research enlightenment which is still 16 techs away for me.

Jivaro is almost done conquering his home continent so I fear that as soon as he gets to Astronomy he will start warring overseas and invade me with superior numbers of superior troops.

So yes, the AI is capable of expanding rapidly mid-game.

Wow, sounds challenging

What "traits" options have you on?
 
Wow, sounds challenging

What "traits" options have you on?

I play the default traits. My choice was Christian IV of the Danish because I liked his traits combination (agressive/industrious/temperamental)
 
I play the default traits. My choice was Christian IV of the Danish because I liked his traits combination (agressive/industrious/temperamental)

When you say "default" do you mean you Do Not check Any Trait Options at game set up? All Options for Traits are left Unchecked?

That is how I play and my AI neighbors expand quite well. The Base Mod, without the use of Any Trait Options, functions fine in regards to AI expansion.

It's unfortunate that many newer players look at the Options List and because they have read something about an Option will check it and then another and another until they have a mismatch of Options selected and then wonder "Why?" does my game play so weirdly?

If only they would select 1 or 2 options After playing several game with No Options checked or unchecked in some cases, the base Mod, then they would have a better feel for the Mod and it's capabilities and short comings. Then and Only Then start by adding only a small Option set to tweak the base Mod in the direction you think you might enjoy and maybe prefer down the road.

There are Many Options that should never be played together but yet year after year the same questions keep arising like this one for example: "I have Divine religion Option On but I can Choose any religion I want when I get a Prophet." Then a modder replies, "Do you have Choose Religion Option On too?" And of course the player will say, "Why yes I do". Then Modder tells player, "they don't work together."

We just had this come up again in the last 2 weeks.

Suggestion: Play the Base Mod more than once and Then start by adding only a few Options before you start checking Option boxes willy nilly. All that does is generate False and Misleading Bug/Design misconceptions.

So T-brd, DH, the rest of the Team go in and try to "fix" this misconception. Many times wasting valuable modding and bug fixing time.

I've seen this for almost 7 years now in this Mod. It's cyclic.

JosEPh
 
When you say "default" do you mean you Do Not check Any Trait Options at game set up? All Options for Traits are left Unchecked?

That is how I play and my AI neighbors expand quite well. The Base Mod, without the use of Any Trait Options, functions fine in regards to AI expansion.

It's unfortunate that many newer players look at the Options List and because they have read something about an Option will check it and then another and another until they have a mismatch of Options selected and then wonder "Why?" does my game play so weirdly?

If only they would select 1 or 2 options After playing several game with No Options checked or unchecked in some cases, the base Mod, then they would have a better feel for the Mod and it's capabilities and short comings. Then and Only Then start by adding only a small Option set to tweak the base Mod in the direction you think you might enjoy and maybe prefer down the road.

There are Many Options that should never be played together but yet year after year the same questions keep arising like this one for example: "I have Divine religion Option On but I can Choose any religion I want when I get a Prophet." Then a modder replies, "Do you have Choose Religion Option On too?" And of course the player will say, "Why yes I do". Then Modder tells player, "they don't work together."

We just had this come up again in the last 2 weeks.

Suggestion: Play the Base Mod more than once and Then start by adding only a few Options before you start checking Option boxes willy nilly. All that does is generate False and Misleading Bug/Design misconceptions.

So T-brd, DH, the rest of the Team go in and try to "fix" this misconception. Many times wasting valuable modding and bug fixing time.

I've seen this for almost 7 years now in this Mod. It's cyclic.

JosEPh

I don't think you can blame people for ticking boxes put in front of them.

The fun of C2C is diving into a HUGE new experience
 
I don't think you can blame people for ticking boxes put in front of them.

The fun of C2C is diving into a HUGE new experience

I'm not blaming ppl for ticking boxes. But knowing or exploring what that Ticked box does needs to be understood before saying "bug". If exploring as a new player, don't tick every box, else you have No real idea what the base Mod is about is what I'm saying. Is that hard to understand?

And I agree about the Fun of C2C. But obviously my point isn't understood.

JosEPh
 
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