What exactly do you think the A.I. needs?

[Slowpoke]

No, no and no the AI should try to chop the tall poppy, but only if it has some real chance of actually making a dent. Otherwise you are just feeding the runaway civ with weak civs.

Well the idea I think is to have a certain warmonger/score value result in EVERYONE declaring war on that civ.

 

[Gorey]

What exactly do you think the A.I. needs?

It needs to think quicker.

 

[Bandit17]

No, no and no the AI should try to chop the tall poppy, but only if it has some real chance of actually making a dent. Otherwise you are just feeding the runaway civ with weak civs.

I have to disagree with you. After your warmonger score reaches a certain number every neighboring civ should DOW you. This should possibly also happen when your total score begins to drasticly over shadow everyone elses.

I had a game where I had just a low warmonger score but since my overall score blew everyone else away everyone on my continent DOW'd my butt to the point it was 1 vs 6. A few of those civs were very weak especially India. I laughed when India came at me with his Pikeman vs my Infantry but it distracted me and pulled resources away from my other offensives. If India did not DOW I wouldve just conquered them later or gotten a victory by other means. India did the only thing it could to try to slow me down.

 

[Slowpoke]

I'm not sure if I can do this, but personally I think it'd be best if they're "afraid" (they do have this value available) they form defensive pacts more easily.

 

[Jediron]

The A.I. needs SOD...hehe

Only massive numbers can disquise or make up for it's stupidity!

The other option would be a smart AI, but hey; i guarentee you a HOUR or more waiting times for that to happen.

Quote:
What exactly do you think the A.I. needs?

It needs to think quicker.

What you say is you need a dumber AI, because thats the only way to "think" quicker for a computer AI

Once again, that is only possible with more numbers, Stacks of unit to keep things challenging.

 

[smellymummy]

unless the source is ever released, it's going to take very large lua scripts to improve the AI on tactical level, meaning a lot of overhead memory. even then, there's still a lot of things that don't seem possible to affect, diplomatic deals for example

 

[Slowpoke]

Yeah, actually the annoying thing is, anyone wanting to tfix he A.I. and diplomacy is probably going to have to wait until Firaxis does it's next patch since that's the patch's focus.

 

[smellymummy]

right massive fixes just isnt going to happen from modders

thats like how to manage 100 units on a playing field with 4000+ squares, and 100s of different rules

but there's still room for little things. for example i was playing around with some lua to make coward ai units, ie they run away if at war, in range of a human player, and likely to die. little things like that

 

[Creepy Old Man]

The AI needs formations.

It seems to be able to think to itself "Ok, I have two longswords and two crossbows, and I want that city, so I'll send the four of them over there."

What it needs to do is, having identified the four (plus or minus) units that will work towards an objective, assign the units into a formation. The units would then attempt to remain in this formation while moving. (They won't be able to maintain the formation perfectly because of terrain obstacles). For example, if the crossbows get left behind, then the longswords will stop advancing. And the crossbows won't ever advance past the "front" of the formation. And if too many of the units in the formation die, then the remainder retreat.

That is, essentially, what I do.

 

[smellymummy]

have the AI do what the player does is the way to go. reminds me of a game I played that would collect your save data which then the devs would look over to improve their game AI by catching player strategies and implementing it to their AI code

 

[cf_nz]

The AI needs formations.

There exists an XML file that details multi-unit formations.

 

[Slowpoke]

yeah but I mean, what the heck is hedghog posture, etc, supposed to be

 

[Mystere]

What the AI needs?

To be left alone for now. Let the patches and such do their work and let the players find other stuff to enjoy. It is not the only thing in the game, can you guys not enjoy anything else then an AI that kicks your behind? Poor AI

 

[lietkynes]

Things the AI needs to learn:

- move the great general where the fight is. No point in having great generals hiding behind the city walls while the fight is 20 tiles away.

- properly use and protect ranged units

- naval invasion from another continent

- don't keep naval units around the capital doing nothing, use them !

- don't suicide workers, keep them safe

- don't settle a city in the only 4 unclaimed tiles in the middle of my empire as soon as open border is signed

- try to win the game (this is bugged now I believe, if you survive you always win because the AI doesn't do anything to try to achieve victory. So you either get obliterated from the map or you win the game)

- peace conditions: too many bugs here to list, but it's completely broken (the AI propose you peace terms but it refuses the same terms when you offer, the AI makes demands when in fact he is losing the war, ecc ecc)

- embarkment: if the path to the city you want to attack is blocked by strong land units fortified on hills, don't try to embark your army and get slaughtered.. bring your own ranged units and bombard.

 

[Mystere]

- embarkment: if the path to the city you want to attack is blocked by strong land units fortified on hills, don't try to embark your army and get slaughtered.. bring your own ranged units and bombard.

If I may add to the topic of embarking. Has anyone ever seen the AI attack an embarked unit with any ranged attack. I even use that to my advantage when attacking a coastal city with no ships nearby to sink my units (the AI does do that). If they get hurt bad hop in a boat, you are not going to be attacked by a unit or city. Even if he has no other targets on land.

 

[lietkynes]

If I may add to the topic of embarking. Has anyone ever seen the AI attack an embarked unit with any ranged attack. I even use that to my advantage when attacking a coastal city with no ships nearby to sink my units (the AI does do that). If they get hurt bad hop in a boat, you are not going to be attacked by a unit or city. Even if he has no other targets on land.

Yes the AI thinks embarked units are untouchable. In my last game I declared war on Washington, who was on another continent, and as soon as I arrive near his coast with 5 destroyers and 20 embarked units he... embarks his great general and great scientist close to my fleet

 

[Rohili]

Given the way conquest victories are, I would say the most important thing that the AI needs (and I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned) is to:

1) PROTECT THEIR CAPITALS

All too often I have won a game by sending two mech infantry deep into the territory of a dominating civ (who had gobbled up all the other civs on the continent), making a beeline for its capital, only to find it guarded by... an awe-inspiring, fear-inducing, puissant and powerful... Great General!

Bam - In one turn, I defeated a civ with 2x my score and 3x the number of cities. Good job AI.

 

[Mystere]

...embarks his great general and great scientist close to my fleet

Maybe he was trying to talk terms? Did they have a white flag? I would send my best men too to handle negotiations

 

[Creepy Old Man]

Things the AI needs to learn:

...

- don't keep naval units around the capital doing nothing, use them !

...

I like that the AI has taken to defending its capital better. Pre-patch it was too easy to 1-shot capitals. I tried sniping a capital from a developed AI post-patch, and it was very hard. They had enough navy around their capital that I had to spend several turns sinking their battleships and submarines before I could start bombarding the city itself. Then, they had actually built walls and a castle, so when the city was at 1 hp, I needed three tries with amphibious attacks with mechanized infantry before actually taking the city. If the AI had actually stationed air forces in or near the capital, my attack would have failed.

As for more effective use of naval forces, the computer needs to bombard enemies. Too many turns, I shell their ship, which in return aimlessly wanders for its turn. That, and the AI needs to withdraw injured ships, but that's no different from on land.

 

[Cordycep]

Things the AI needs to learn:

- don't suicide workers, keep them safe

- don't settle a city in the only 4 unclaimed tiles in the middle of my empire as soon as open border is signed

These are my two things that annoy me the most. Half the barb camps near the other civs have either workers or settlers being held hostage. While I'm more than happy to give workers back, I take the settlers and delete them if I have too many workers. In one case, Monaco sent some workers across the map in some sort of Chinese Long March to my borders through a maze of treacherous terrain and marauding barbarians. Prehaps they were fleeing their oppressive government and trying to claim assylum in my most splendid nation.

I hate the settler thing too. Siam settled some what looked to be barren land on the other side of my empire. I had no idea why until I discovered biology and low and behold, there was an oil resource right next to the city Siam snuck in... The worst part was Siam claimed I should not encroach on their territory...