What do you expect from the AI in Civ 4

[warpstorm]

Eaglefox, what you describe as war is what I call diplomacy and politics. But if you only use logic in your diplomatic dealings, they won't feel right. They will feel like you are dealing with a computer. What I was alluding to (and I'm sure that Sirian was alluding to) was getting the human feel. This means doing things for emotional reasons not logical. Once you've decided to go to war (this is diplomacy and politics) for your petty emotional reasons (revenge, hatred, etc.) you should prosecute it in a logical fashion.

 

[eaglefox]

Eaglefox, what you describe as war is what I call diplomacy and politics. But if you only use logic in your diplomatic dealings, they won't feel right. They will feel like you are dealing with a computer. What I was alluding to (and I'm sure that Sirian was alluding to) was getting the human feel. This means doing things for emotional reasons not logical. Once you've decided to go to war (this is diplomacy and politics) for your petty emotional reasons (revenge, hatred, etc.) you should prosecute it in a logical fashion.

but it rarely happens that way. if you use emotions to go to war, what makes you think you can keep emotions out when warring. Hitler couldn't keep his emotions out of his war. He illogically stretched the german forces in Russia, then in Africa. The germans couldn't hold what they conquered and eventually lost.
I fear your expectations of getting a human feel in this game will not be met. Not even a slight human feel. Cause after a few games when you get used to the way the AI behaves, you'll start thinking of it as it really is, a computer. All I want is an AI better than it was in Civ 3. Even 10% better in all the aspects of the game. That will be a huge improvement. We'll can't make the Civ AI emotional. It can only be programmed so much before a new version is released. Yes some emotional aspects could be added, like the urge for revenge, but they'll only go so far in this game.

 

[warpstorm]

I fear your expectations of getting a human feel in this game will not be met. Not even a slight human feel.

Oh, I have no expectations of this happening.

 

[eaglefox]

if anyone here has played Rome - Total War, you know what I am talking about. In this game, you have leaders that rule the empire (under your control of course) with their own specific personalities. Some might be better at diplomacy - thus resulting in better deals with the AI, some might be better at warfare - better performance on the battlefield, some might be better at managing the empire - resulting in a happier and a more productive populace. what if civ brings this aspect into the game. i think this way, most people will be left satisfied with the leaders they have ruling their countries. after all, you can mould them the way you want them to be. if you want them to be like napoleon, send them on battles where they can gain experience and become better commanders, or keep them home and keep them busy with the internal working of the empire, thus making them great statesmen. In RTW, these leaders also have families, and you can use their sons for all the purposes mentioned above. live you can send one of his/your sons to battle and make him a great general, you can mould the other to be a great diplomat, or a great statesman like bismarck. this will remove the problem most people have with the leaders the developes chose for a nation, as their are always differences in opinions. and of course, when the leader dies, the next in line comes on the throne and brings with him is own different and uniques ideas and ways of dealing with the people and the ai. what do you guys think of this?

 

[apatheist]

I would call that different skill sets, not different personalities. We have that with leader traits.

 

[eaglefox]

I would call that different skill sets, not different personalities. We have that with leader traits.

yes but different personalities induce different skill sets. you wouldn't find a peace loving hitler or a warmongering gandhi. and in civ you have one leader from 4000 BC to 2050 AD. I am talking about different leaders throughout the game. so you can have alexander at one time, bismarck in another time, or a gandhi sometime down the line - all ruling with their own specific personalities, skills, and agendas.

 

[BobTheTerrible]

yes but different personalities induce different skill sets. you wouldn't find a peace loving hitler or a warmongering gandhi. and in civ you have one leader from 4000 BC to 2050 AD. I am talking about different leaders throughout the game. so you can have alexander at one time, bismarck in another time, or a gandhi sometime down the line - all ruling with their own specific personalities, skills, and agendas.

Yeah but the problem is, Rome: Total War is split up into half year turns. Civ turns can be 50 years in the ancient age. In Rome: Total War, you have many turns to build up and shape your generals. In civ, everyone would be changing leaders, and thus personalities, almost every turn. Don't get me wrong, I love RTW (current task: conquering the world as Thrace) and it has a great family tree system, but in a game as epic as civ, I doubt we'd be seeing that happen.

 

[eaglefox]

true, but those dates are just guides, not really something that matters to players. we could still somehow find a way to put this part into the game. we could have some dynasties early on, and then when the time slows down, we could start seeing individuals. as i understand it, the epic version is going to be even longer than the previous civ 3 epic games.

 

[thescaryworker]

Of all the things I want it to do, I expect these three things from the AI:
1. The ability to plan ahead & strategize.
2. To not overprice / underprice objects by a huge margin.
3. To beat me without cheating. (well, at least not ALOT of cheating)

 

[henry k c]

I expect the AI to get better, but not by much. I hope the AI becomes more trustworthy, it always betrays alliances.

 

[eaglefox]

yes, i too doubt that the civ developers will improve the AI capability very much. they certainly have been hush-hush about it so far. we can still raise the level of difficulty to get a better challenge. but that just increases the production and happiness advantages the AIs receive at the start of the game. that is not my idea of a better AI. I wanted to see AI that actually learned something from their mistakes. AI's should be able to plan at least 10 moves ahead. That will bring some sense of direction even for the human player. civ 3 was pretty basic in terms of the goal of the game. if you have the biggest nation you are bound to win. there are no internal problems in civ 3 that empires like Rome, persia, India, etc faced in the real world. problems like unyielding enemies, mass corruption, boundaries too extensive to maintain while not being as profitable as they should be, civil unrest/revolts on a significant scale, sabotage, defections, backstabbing, and other things like these. even in a democratic govt in civ 3, we basically rule just like a dictator would. there is no opposition that's threatening your rule every 4-5 years, you don't have any other important party members whose opinions actually matter, who can go against you if you don't listen to them very often, and your population is more or less happy with all the luxuries that you provide them, so there basically are on differences of opinion in you country. these factors don't seem very hard to implement actually. most of them are interconnected. if you don't keep the people happy they start revolting, if you don't listen to your advisors, they get insulted and defect or turn against you, your opposiont continuously plots your political downfall, in the early ages most people wanna go on a conquering spree so your borders are never safe, if your empire has been warmongering for a long time and has managed to capture huge parts of land, chances are that the foreign people are not happy with you and there is always a risk of those lands revolting on a mass and organised scale. your people have become corrupt overtime because all they have known is luxury at home and victory in battle and have never faced hardships, and all the nations you have fought so far are joinng against you with the hopes to bring you down and re-take all the land they have lost to you - after all, an enemy's enemy is a friend. these are the changes i wanna see in the gameplay, not every unit having forty promotions, and you seeing your cows and elephants moving around your empire and stuff like that. this is what the developers should be working on.

 

[Deep_Blue]

Stupidity of the AI in Civ3 :
1) Cannot manage its cities and resourses very well , for example you often see a big and advanced AI civilzation with plenty of resourses but they still broke. This made me disapointed as you cant make many worthy deals with the AI.

2) The AI have no strategic view at all , you often find a small civilization with 3 cities declare a war on a giant nation with 20 cities which result in being erased from the map .

3) You can fool the AI over and over and over and it never learns.

 

[warpstorm]

You can fool the AI over and over and over and it never learns.

I wouldn't expect this to solved in any complex strategy game for quite a while.

 

[HourlyDaily]

I think Mr. Scaryworker has pretty much summarised all that I would hope for from the AI plus the ability to respect alliances (unless breaking them for a good reason/ personality style)

It definitely seems that the current level of game AI can't solve everything - so even the strategizing element may only be so many turns ahead. I'd like to see the AI be able to both change a strategy when it is not working and also follow up on its actions like sending support to those one or two ships it sends to your island.

Most importantly, leader traits system better be pretty in-depth (from what we've seen its looking reasonably good) or it just won't be enough to separate behaviour of civ from another.

Maybe in Civ V, we will see the 'upgrading' of great people to actually playing a different role in the game, influencing your capabilities and lending special strengths to your civ for a period.

 

[henry k c]

I expect the AI to nuke it's own cities, change it's government to democracy, attack your modern armor with cavalry, then change it government to fascism.

 

[eaglefox]

Stupidity of the AI in Civ3 :
1) Cannot manage its cities and resourses very well , for example you often see a big and advanced AI civilzation with plenty of resourses but they still broke. This made me disapointed as you cant make many worthy deals with the AI.

agreed. the ai never seems to have any gold in its treasury. although i have seen a few instances where some of the civs did have a decent treasury, more often than not, this is not the case, even in the later stages of the game. they definitely need to identify the important resources and protect them with the best of their ability, or go out looking for them in an intelligent and efficient manner that will ensure that they get that resource and are able to hold on to it.

2) The AI have no strategic view at all , you often find a small civilization with 3 cities declare a war on a giant nation with 20 cities which result in being erased from the map .

as I said before, the AI should at least be able to make an intelligent plan of where it wants its civ to move for the next 10-15 turns. this, IMO, will be a decent improvement compared to the current AI, and will give a sense of direction to the whole game. I do not like the pre-defined direction that civ 3 forced the players to move into - get the techs, get all the resources, build a lot of cities and improvements and you're set. i want it to be more complex than that. and i want the combat to be on a strategic level rather than tactical based only on the happenings of the previous turn.

3) You can fool the AI over and over and over and it never learns.

Yes. The AI needs to look out for itself. It should be prepared to face eventualities.

 

[TyranusBonehead]

I definitely believe it is possible to improve the AI without making it harder to play against. More balanced warfare (ie, no spearmen defeating tanks) is a first in my opinion. Then, having the AI be more sensible in trading. Right now, if an AI civ holds a strategic resource, it won't trade it to you for *anything*. That seems kind of silly, and forces you to go to war with them, which ruins a diplomatic victory for sure, and gets in the way of spaceship victories also.

 

[eaglefox]

I definitely believe it is possible to improve the AI without making it harder to play against. More balanced warfare (ie, no spearmen defeating tanks) is a first in my opinion. Then, having the AI be more sensible in trading. Right now, if an AI civ holds a strategic resource, it won't trade it to you for *anything*. That seems kind of silly, and forces you to go to war with them, which ruins a diplomatic victory for sure, and gets in the way of spaceship victories also.

actually, i want it to be harder to play against. i know this can be achieved by increasing the difficulty level, but when you do that, the AI simply starts cheating more. i want it to be better at thinking out its moves, and making unpredictable moves which will make the game more interesting. after a few games in civ 3, you could basically predict what was going to happen everytime you did something. and the AI was pretty idiotic in many things it did. like declaring war for instance. the ai had suicidal tendencies most of the times. i want it to go to war only after a careful consideration of all the possibilities. i want it to understand the difference between a weak enemy and a potentially overpowering enemy. then i want it to keep good relations with the strong civs, and try to overtake the weaker civs. and i wanna see similar changes in everthing else the ai does like trade and diplomacy.

 

[eaglefox]

As the industrial ages came upon Europe, all the nations of Europe became interested in preserving the status quo. that is, they would keep each other from getting too strong or too weak. this is what happened in the crimean war against russia, and most other wars that defined this age. after the discovery of nationalism, nations were no longer interested in completely taking over each other (other than a few exceptions) because they would not be able to handle the revolt, and they would usually grant them independence for a hefty price. this is what happened in 1871 after germany defeated and france, and also in both world wars. the losers were granted 'freedom' for a huge sum of money, all their colonies, and a passive govt that could be easily controlled. i want to see this in civ. after we get nationalism, the computer should not allow for an easy takeover as it does in civ 3. if we try to annex the land of an equal country and people (like the europeans considered each other more or less equal in status because they were all white, but discriminated against the others), then there should be a massive revolt and all the other countries (enemies and neutrals) should get pissed at you and they should actively try to persuade you to reconsider (through diplomacy or even war if its that important). note that this would not apply with the colonies (backward civs) unless ofcourse your enemies don't want you to get too powerful, in which case they should be able to choose whether they should help the weaker civs or not.
i know this is kinda far fetched even for civ 4, but it is very possible in one of its expansions, like we had new things in conquests. what do you guys think?

 

[BobTheTerrible]

As the industrial ages came upon Europe, all the nations of Europe became interested in preserving the status quo. that is, they would keep each other from getting too strong or too weak. this is what happened in the crimean war against russia, and most other wars that defined this age. after the discovery of nationalism, nations were no longer interested in completely taking over each other (other than a few exceptions) because they would not be able to handle the revolt, and they would usually grant them independence for a hefty price. this is what happened in 1871 after germany defeated and france, and also in both world wars. the losers were granted 'freedom' for a huge sum of money, all their colonies, and a passive govt that could be easily controlled. i want to see this in civ. after we get nationalism, the computer should not allow for an easy takeover as it does in civ 3. if we try to annex the land of an equal country and people (like the europeans considered each other more or less equal in status because they were all white, but discriminated against the others), then there should be a massive revolt and all the other countries (enemies and neutrals) should get pissed at you and they should actively try to persuade you to reconsider (through diplomacy or even war if its that important). note that this would not apply with the colonies (backward civs) unless ofcourse your enemies don't want you to get too powerful, in which case they should be able to choose whether they should help the weaker civs or not.
i know this is kinda far fetched even for civ 4, but it is very possible in one of its expansions, like we had new things in conquests. what do you guys think?

Yes, this would be very interesting. I like the idea a lot. Although I think one would have to go further and have a mechanism for "conquered" civs to still be in existance, as long as it still has citizens of its type. For example, Zulu takes over Rome. Well, as long as there are still some Roman citizens in there, Rome is not dead as a civ (but not active either). If Zulu go about killing all of the remaining Roman citizens, Rome is completely eliminated, but other nations get ticked at Zulu for commiting such an act.

Also, I think the counterbalance for having large emipires in the period before (and still after) Nationalism should be civil wars. A simple mechanism where if many citizens are "unhappy" for extended periods of time, the cities who contain the said citizens would revolt, firing up a civil war.

Back on topic, as to the AI, I want it to be able to make general plans for what it wants its empire to do. I want it to (for the most part) remain faithful to allies who it has traded with for years, and hate those who've had disputes and wars over time. I want geniune allies to help you, gifting you with techs or gold and sending units to protect your territory. I want an AI who ponders whether war is worth it, and struggles to get out of it when losing, and presses the advantage when winning.