[BTS] Why... AI Colonies?

[Zeusinator]

So does the AI not cripple themselves completely making colonies in the most unimaginably god-awful way on Deity/Immortal? I haven't played much on those cuz i don't like financial and how friggin fast the ai BLOWS through techs (or those f'ing stacks... kill one and another comes back in 5 damn turns), but ill just have to start after the bullfeathers im seeing. straight-up unplayable anymore, im on emperor and i feel like i would have more challenge if they just stopped playing the game and left their nation the way it was for the rest of the damn game. this isnt civ 5, what the fudge is this. do they not do it on pangaea (of course another setting I HATE)? its happened with many different civs across several different plays, and it almost always seems to be one of the few civs that would actually make for a competitor ill just use only terrible civs from now on i guess

 

[salty mud]

I'm not sure I can work out what your problem is.

 

[Pangaea]

I'm not entirely sure either, but if it is that AIs create too many colonies or that it cripples them, then this is probably just an issue on certain types of maps. Generally the AI doesn't create colonies.

As for big stacks when moving up in difficulties, that's certainly a challenge, especially on Deity. But for better or worse, the AI is typically terrible at warfare, especially offensive warfare, so the human has a big advantage here. Bring plenty of siege --> Profit.

 

[Lennier]

On maps with moderately large islands, they do make colonies. I’m not sure how that “cripples” them. Human - made colonies run just as badly as AI empires, so if you need those cities to be productive, eat the colonial maintenance or switch to state property.

 

[Colon]

You can also just turn off vassals.

 

[Zeusinator]

sorry if my original post was unclear, a lot of it was just generally complaining about how they increase difficulty on deity (just mass-scale cheat codes rather than something that feels more mentally stimulating and interesting). considering my actual point was in regards to the ai founding colonies on large islands, that wasnt a great way to get my question answered. basically ive been finding when an ai settles a seperate large island/small continent colony, they friggin liberate it. ive had at least 3 different civs make a "colony" that was just as, nearly, or even more large/powerful than the remainder of their country. its very frustrating, i like the vassal system a lot (as well as the ability to found my own colonies) but i suppose id rather play without them than without any friggin enemies. i guess ill just steer clear of any archipelago-style maps if i want to run vassals

edit: while on the topic, anybody know any ai upgrade mods which address this issue or make colonies run smarter in general?

 

[6K Man]

Turn off vassals and turn on PAs. Much more fun IMO.

 

[f1rpo]

ive had at least 3 different civs make a "colony" that was just as, nearly, or even more large/powerful than the remainder of their country.

Colony maintenance gets pretty bad on Emperor when cities are split evenly between two continents. I still don't think it's wise to create a colony then, but it's an awkward situation either way. Lowering the iColonyMaintenancePercent values in Assets\ XML\ GameInfo\ Civ4WorldInfo.xml (or HandicapInfo) could help with that and should, in theory (see below), also make the AI less willing to liberate colonies.

while on the topic, anybody know any ai upgrade mods which address this issue or make colonies run smarter in general?

I don't recall encountering this problem with K-Mod, but, then again, I'm not sure I recall it without K-Mod either. From looking at the source code: The decision algorithm (both in BtS and K-Mod) is to compute for each landmass a total (utility) value of cities. If that total is negative, the AI concludes that keeping the colony is more trouble than its worth and liberates it. In BtS, the per-city value is computed as the city's gold plus research plus production minus three times its colony maintenance. The K-Mod code seems to do the same calculation basically, but takes more special cases into account; a crucial improvement might be that the potential for population growth is factored in. Here's the code. [Edit: Link updated]

By making "colonies run smarter in general", do you mean mainly the movement of units between the colony and the mainland? K-Mod and the included Better BtS AI mod (BBAI) make lots of small improvements to the naval AI. You could search the changelogs (K-Mod, BBAI) for "naval" for specifics. Or maybe someone who has played Archipelago with an AI mod could share their experience; I haven't, so I don't know if these changes are enough to make the map challenging. It was the first map that people managed to beat on Deity under otherwise normal settings when Civ 4 first came out.

 

[Zeusinator]

thanks f1, thats useful information. gonna try fiddling with the xml you gave, hopefully that fixes the problem. it will give me a slight buff, but whatever.
yes i did mean in a unit sense as well, though if the code change fixes their suicide liberation then ill be happy. im not surprised to hear that archipelago was the first, i find that if you have the right civ or opponents archipelago is like playing a difficulty below. shame the ai doesnt play the water better, i have always thought any map heavy on islands is cool as hell. i find fractal has great balance, lots of cool little landmasses without hurtin the ai too bad. thanks again for the thorough and helpful answer guy

 

[ArchGhost]

Yeah I was kinda confused too, as colonies actually make any AI stronger (artificial boost to power and a free Friendly trading partner with the same BS bonuses). Even crappy vassals make an AI think they have bigger britches than they do and can freely trade around and just GIVE them stuff. Especially noticeable in large civ number games (been playing a lot of Earth18 lately and it's rampant there).

I feel you though brother, to a player of my ability Deity is pretty much "let the AI cheat most" mode and you have to play the game in an unintended (well, perhaps "unconventional" is more accurate) manner to solve the different problems it presents. I personally don't really like the idea they get a headstart on top of handicaps, but whatever, that's why I don't waste a lot of time trying to play it.

Turn off vassals and turn on PAs. Much more fun IMO.

make sure your diplo handling skills are up to snuff if you try this. Only thing worse than a turd vassal-master combo is a turd shared civ. It is fun and cool that you can enter into the arrangements too, without having to WB yourself as a vassal, but honestly by that point you could've won or don't need their help anyway barring some hopeless scenario where they grace you with a PA at the opportune time. I've been carried to space a few times by an AI this way but having it happen to you instead is more infuriating than anything IMO, so I stopped playing around with them moving above Emperor just like huts. Although, it's also fun to vassal both by just beating up the weaker one To each their own.

EDIT holy necro