XML tags for the Planetfall Leaders

[Pfeffersack]

Unit construction is stopped when an AI spends a certain percentage of its income on unit maintenance, so I can see why at a certain point extreme values don't make a difference. You could set unit construction probability at 200 and it wouldn't make a difference. Perhaps a higher value can be experimented with for Yang?

Coming back to this after 1 and 1/2 game with Yang set at unit construction probabilty at 80. Attached is the power graph from my current game, turn 235 (looked similar in the last game - soon after changing the value, he started to build up his forces).
He engaged also in some bigger wars vs. Santiago (who performed better then average), so I think this option might have healthy impact on the frequence of early wars (BTW, first war in that game was turn 116; Yang not in involved though).

I would suggest to rework all leaders - not all with 80 of course. My idea would be creating 4 groups and having the probabilities at 20-40-60-80.

Yang would be the only one at 80 (he needs to go for masses of units with the strength handicap and his natural choice PS compensates for the costs)

Santiago/Miriam should be at 60. Both factions have boni in the military department and they need to get a big army to be able to declare (though not as big as Yang)

Then we would have a big block of leaders at 40. Lal, Deidre, Zhakarov (though he could go through with 20 as well; depends on how war-happy we wan't him to be), Domai and Svensgaard (he could be imagined as 60er as well, but I fear that this would weaken him to much on the economic side; he needs to build up his sea bases)

Morgan, Roze and Luttinen seem to be candiates for the 20% setting.


Of course, if an overall increase of probabilities isn't acceptable (even performance issues could stand against the AI building more units), then we might just go with 60-40-20-0 (I'm convinced that 0 doesn't mean no unit building!). My main point is rather that the differences are currently just too slight (or can anyone point out a clear pattern that always the same factions dominate the power graph?), increments of 5 or 10% just don't play out in the game.

 

[Maniac]

Wow. So there's certainly more room for building more units. Looking at that pic I wonder though, do all those extra units actually lead to better AI performance? I see that Yang is in terms of score more or less the weakest of the original seven factions. Was he too before he started pumping units? If extra units don't eventually translate into more bases, population, research... then building extra units in fact isn't a good strategy.

 

[Pfeffersack]

Wow. So there's certainly more room for building more units. Looking at that pic I wonder though, do all those extra units actually lead to better AI performance? I see that Yang is in terms of score more or less the weakest of the original seven factions. Was he too before he started pumping units? If extra units don't eventually translate into more bases, population, research... then building extra units in fact isn't a good strategy.

You a raise a good point here. The extra power might have influenced his vassals in the decision to join him, but the units did not translate yet into more success on the battlefield. He declared several tiles, but the war where more or less a stalemate, I did not get a notification about a base switching owners. However, that might have different reasons.
In general I have the feeling that more wars in PF then in BTS end in stalemates. I still suspect bunkers to be on reason. But you convinced me, they aren't too strong. They are annoying, but there are strategies to deal with them (in my current game I found another - Swarming promoted Sporelaunchers). I'm however not sure if the AI does know how to deal with them. Another strategy e.g. is sacrifing a unit before. I'm not sure if they AI would ever do that (they do when attacking a base, but not very often outside).
What I could imagine to try out is increasing the overestimate-factor in battles for Yang (overall I have the feeling that the AIs behave fairly onservatice here and miss out opportunities often to gain an advantage by taking up a risky fight) and the period in which he will not talk after declaring war. Increasing the chance for total wars a bit might help as well (he is still hindered by his preference for close victims).

 

[Maniac]

I have the opposite impression from playing Civ4 in general, not just Planetfall: I always feel that AIs are attacking other stacks with a too low chance of success. So personally I don't think increasing overestimation odds further would be a good idea.

Not talking for a while after a declaration of war does sound Yang-like.

 

[Pfeffersack]

I played two more games with modified settings under patch f). These included beside higher unit construction probabilites and longer no-talk-periodes also a higher maximum strength for the enemy, higher war preperation chances and lower chances for good relations blocking wars. In both games there were early declarations around turn 70, so it seems to be possible to get the AI into doing this. The price is however that they will attack less prepared and go for stronger opponents, leading to often less sucessful wars. They cought me unprepared, which lead to losing one of those game completely and two bases in the other, but someone anticipating the new thread of early declarations will probably easy repel them.

I have some hope that the new version of jdogs Better AI mod will probably help the AI (it is mainly focussed on teaching them to use victory startegies) in wars as well - assuming that it will beome like earlier versions of BAI part of Planetfall, I think it is best to see first how it impacts AI performance in Planetfall before thinking again about adjusting the values mentioned above.

 

[Pfeffersack]

I said that I would leave this topic until BAI 1.00 is incorporated, but my current game with patch 13i is just too fun to be not posted here. I have attached two saves and the slightly edited leaderhead.XML I used. Both saves will lead to a war caused by the ongoing DP with Svensgaard in the interturn 2255-2256. Additionally - it seems to depend on how you play that last 1 1/2 turns - you might trigger several other inter AI declarations or (2255 save) a YANG attack on yourself.
Also it is a game where the dominating AI is not Zhakarov.

Difficulty is Emperor BTW, Advanced Start, me playing Luttinen.

XML changes are the following (Leader/RefuseToTalkWarTurns/UnitBuildProbability%)

Lal: 20/40
Miriam: 20/60
Santiago 20/60
Morgan: 10/20
Yang: 30/80
Deidre: 20/40
Zhakarov: 10/20
Roze: 10/20
Domai: 20/40
Svensgaard: 20/60
Luttinen: 10/20

 

[Pfeffersack]

Now that we come closer to including Cha Dawn as 2nd Gaian leader it is also necessary to discuss how he should behave. Partly this will probably depend on the traits he will get and one question regarding this is to which extend he should share her traits. I would prefer him to have completely different traits (e.g. the +2 PV per base could be replaced by a yield bonus for fungus - he doesn't need the extra PV that much, he will go Hybrid anyway). Other ideas, partly inspired by original SMAX:

- free Brood Pit or Biolab
- starts with ability to build NL and/or some X00 free PV/starting unit mindworm
- no foreign trade routes
- can't built certain improvements
- NL only acts as MP
- his units/bases don't get attacked by NL at all (very close to his background description, but might be too strong)
- can use population to rush NL only
- automatic war with everyone below -1 PA

Overall I think it is clear that he will be Deidres more aggressive and radical "brother"
His favourite and disliked civics already hint on that - while Deidre still can go Terraformed, Cha Dawn will never do that. The free Infest promotion for NL is another fact suiting him more for aggressive foreign policies. Suggested characteristics:
- prepares full scale wars over limited/dogpile ones
- weights his odds carefully if it is time to strike
- razing bases (?- unless we want to reserve that completely for the Aliens, it would perhaps make sense that he razes big, polluting bases and gets something out of that...)
- high unit building probability
- isolationist in terms of signing OB, DPs and ressource trading