Vanilla RFC vs. BTS RFC AI colonization

[Lone Wolf]

I've played a game of Vanilla RFC latest patch and I was surprised at how active colonizers the English were. The screenshots are in the "look what happened!" thread.

It had been a regular Vanilla experience for me. But in BTS, the English are rather inept at colonization and there's a bit less colonization in general.

Question mostly to Rhye: can you do anything in the code to make the AI less afraid of colonizing?

 

[corovanrobber]

Considering I just played a BTS game with Willem founding thirteen cities in Australia and six in south Africa.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Considering I just played a BTS game with Willem founding thirteen cities in Australia and six in south Africa.

Such occurrences are pretty rare.

I mean, England in my vanilla game had

Kimberley
Windham
Vizagapatam
Madras
Road Town
Cambridge (in India)
Cannanore
Wellington
Sydney
Bourke
Melbourne
Toronto
Popham
Christchurch

In 1852 AD. Later they founded Calcutta, Prince Albert, Port Elizabeth, Gaborone, Perth, Hastings in New Guinea, Walfish Bay, Adelaide, Darwin, 2 more cities in Australia, and Port-Stanely. 14 colonial cites midway, 26 colonial cities founded by the end. I've never seen such a spree in BTS.

 

[Ready_set_go]

Could it be because in BTS they spend some money on the espionage, so expansion costs more, or they research less?

 

[Lone Wolf]

Could it be because in BTS they spend some money on the espionage, so expansion costs more, or they research less?

Maybe, although the coders say that the code doesn't really contain lines that tell the AI not to settle, and in classic BTS AI sometimes settles the dumbest waste-of-money spots.

Warlords AI is worse at colonization then Vanilla AI, actually. It has an unhealthy preference for 1-tile islands.

 

[Ready_set_go]

Then maybe Rhye could code the AI to settle or act like the Vanilla AI.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Then maybe Rhye could code the AI to settle or act like the Vanilla AI.

Settling like it would be what I'm asking. Acting like it in general - no. Vanilla AI is mostly dumb.

 

[Ready_set_go]

That's true. Rhye should merge this with a mod that upgrades the AI's intelligence. (I know how AI means Artificial intelligence)

 

[BakingTheArt]

But you modded out the giga-empire stability hit, right? So with these modifications, we could see England collapse midway through the age of colonization.

 

[Lone Wolf]

But you modded out the giga-empire stability hit, right?

Most of these cities England settled were in green and yellow territory. I softened the penalty for orange and red, which England had very little of.

 

[corovanrobber]

Could play some role.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Could play some role.

No, it couldn't. Especially since I softened the penalty start for the "bad" tiles in BTS also, yet I never seen such colonization from England in BTS.

Especially since the RFC AI isn't aware of tile stability - else it'd never collapse because of overexpansion. It is just told to avoid settling in bad tiles, but there's no "if I settle that tile, in increases the 32 limit, therefore I shouldn't settle it". But the British empire in my game didn't actually exceed the limit of 32 bad tiles anyway.

 

[Ready_set_go]

Did you play another game after that? Maybe it was just one of those rare colonizing things, like corovanrobber said with his Dutch.

 

[Lone Wolf]

I remember I always had more colonization in Vanilla. But I'll plan to play a Japanese UHV game (new Japanese UHV lasts almost 'till the end, and is one of my favourite UHV's).

 

[star15389]

BtS has higher colonial maintenance than Vanilla. That alone could explain it.

 

[Lone Wolf]

BtS has higher colonial maintenance than Vanilla.

Does RFC BTS have colonial maitenance? I don't remember. If it has, then it shouldn't.

 

[Ready_set_go]

Yea it does. If you build the Summer Palace, it gets rid of it, atleast in the cities near it.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Yea it does. If you build the Summer Palace, it gets rid of it, atleast in the cities near it.

Colonial maitenance or just city-faraway-from-capital maitenance?

Since colonial maitenance was introduced by Firaxis to encourage releasing of colonies, it should have no place in RFC. It's already antiexpansionist enough between stability and tech penalty.

 

[Ready_set_go]

Actual colonies expenses.
"-3.14 from Colonial Expenses"

 

[deanej]

Isn't the tech penalty just so that large empires won't out-tech smaller civs?