Is it just me? The comp-controlled aggressive opp can't play

[Freddz]

I feel the game is great and well designed in most ways but one thing bugs me a lot:
The computer controlled aggressive opponent can't play the game at all.

Always the SMALLEST nations. How the fock can the conquerer civs always end up smallest, well, at least towards the end. And they are always far behind in the scoring, at best 3rd or 4th. That makes a bit of sense of course, since they don't build as much, but I would like to see them able to expand more in that case. Or see the aggressive trait better balanced.
First, am I the only one experiencing this game after game?
I miss the conquerer civs that you had to really fear! Since they are so bad in the normal game, they don't put a lot of pressure on you. I miss those civs from the previous games that constantly made demands.

Anyone else miss that pressure put on by the aggressive civs from previous games?
Anyway, if I am right and aggressive civs does worse in most ways, I feel there are a few problems that may be the cause of this:

1. The A.I. conquering plan is not well designed in regards to when and how to build and expand. This tolls a lot on economy if done wrong and perhaps the aggressive civ doesn't have a good overview of this.

(Fix: Cheat a little more financially for the aggressive ones or, preferably, make the plan for conquering better!)


2. The A.I. conquering opponent is too much dependant on religion when making whom-to-attack decisions.

(Fix: Make religion count less as a bonus toward diplomacy when dealing with conquering civs, unless it is a religious conquering civ.)


3. They don't make enough demands.

(Fix: Make more demands. Fix the two above and number 3 here will improve. A demand refused to a conquerer civ could result in a -2 penalty on diplomacy instead of -1. That could be fun and exciting.)


4. The aggressive trait isn't good enough. Also, many of the favored civic choices of the aggressive civs aren't as good as the other choices in the end game. Perhaps a tech in the end game could give a small boost to hereditary rule for example. (Or give a better base protection against spying in an expansion where spying is more interesting). The fix for this one can be done in numerous ways.


I would be interested in knowing if players feel that the aggressive trait is well balanced (on higher difficulty levels) from a players perspective as well?

[Diadem]

Not enough demands? Are you serious? Sometimes they seem to make demands every 5 turns. If that's not enough then I don't know what is.

Perhaps they should respond more hostile towards an demand that is turned down.

But the entire system is unsatisfactory imho. The AI treats you entirely differently as it treats other AIs. That's bad design imho. It's a quick way of making the game more difficult, but it's also dirty.

If the AI blackmails me, ok, fine, but then I want it to blackmail other AIs as well. And if other AIs cave in to blackmail from others, then I want them to cave in from demands from me as well. Same with tech trading, they always demand ridiculous lobsided deals, but when I demand such a deal they always refuse. The logical result is that AIs will never trade amongst eachother, each party wanting a deal that is unacceptable for the other. However, the AI does trade among eachother, all the time.

Ideally, I want the AI to see no difference at all between me and other AIs.

This would make the game easier of course. So then either the AI has to become smarter, or has to get more bonusses.

Aggresive AIs should, imho, be a lot more opportunistic, striking whoever is weak. Right now they are often completely suicidal in wars. Loosing 4 wars in a row against me and then declaring a 5th. It's okay if they hold grudges against someone who attacked them. But it's not me starting those wars.

[Diadem]

The aggressive trait in itself is not unbalanced. A free combat I promotion is pretty nice to have. But you have to use it well for it to work well.

[Handel]

The problem with the aggressive AI is the defence is too strong in Civ4. But the AI is the usual - they don't send powerfull stacks with many siege weapons; usualy they send small groups from 3-4 units wich are easily defeated group by group. And even if the AI sends powerfull stacks, they include at best 1 catapult or cannon wit hit, so if you just so-so prepared, you have no problem to beat it with this prevailing defence.
And then here homes the stupid idea of the developpers foir the pillaging. They even put it in the hints area and the AI strictly follows this path... Pillaging gives tons of money... Bullshit. Pillaging gives at least 50 times least money then the costs of the lost units. The other stupid devellopers idea is with pillaging you can hinder the enemy civ. Bullshit. With pilaging you can cause just a minor nuisance. Because your pitifull pillaging units can't survive more then 1-2 turns. But if you send a real army, which can survive longer, sending it to pillage instead of city capturing is the most stupid thing you can do. And AI often do exactly this. It is quite obvious the bright head which invented the hint "pillage to earn a lot of money" did't really played the game.

[Freddz]

Originally posted by Diadem
Not enough demands? Are you serious? Sometimes they seem to make demands every 5 turns. If that's not enough then I don't know what is.

They never ever make that many demands from me, but perhaps they are usually too much influenced by

A) my religion if I have spread one
B) the fact that I am a lot more powerful than them. (Not neccessarily more powerful than some builder civs though)
C) a civic I have chosen because they favor it. Then one can build up comfortably without worrying about them at all, Then switch back to a better civic choice (than the under-balanced hereditary rule) when you are on track and have built up the powerful buildings you needed peace to build and then start on military defence again.

As it is, demands aren't at all scary and doesn't make for tight decisions. At least we can agree on that. Perhaps demands should result in a -2 penalty on diplomacy on all relations when turned down.

[Freddz]

Originally posted by Handel
The problem with the aggressive AI is the defence is too strong in Civ4. But the AI is the usual - they don't send powerfull stacks with many siege weapons; usualy they send small groups from 3-4 units wich are easily defeated group by group. And even if the AI sends powerfull stacks, they include at best 1 catapult or cannon wit hit, so if you just so-so prepared, you have no problem to beat it with this prevailing defence.

Yes, I intended to write about this in my initial post but in the heat of writing, it slipped my mind. Defence is way too easy.
I'm usually very dissappointed in how the A.I. launches its attacks. From what beta-testers(solver in particular) told, the A.I. was supposed to be very good at launching attacks and competent in showing you why a killer stack doesn't work. It simply wasn't true. Whether it was a promotional lie made on purpose or something obvious that solver had missed, or some half lie since it is possible that the event may happen now and then if one play enough games and never learn to war competently, or a mix or something else I don't know. But it wasn't true.

I have seen 2-3 catapults in a smallish stack a few times, though it is pretty rare that it is a well organized and well used stack. Defence is very easy when one see what is in the stacks and the human is much, much better at taking advantage of this information with the current programming.

[Handel]

Originally posted by Freddz


From what beta-testers(solver in particular) told, the A.I. was supposed to be very good at launching attacks and competent in showing you why a killer stack doesn't work. It simply wasn't true. Whether it was a promotional lie made on purpose or something obvious that solver had missed, or some half lie since it is possible that the event may happen now and then if one play enough games and never learn to war competently, or a mix or something else I don't know. But it wasn't true.

Beta-testers are very carefull not to piss off the devs. They want to proceed to be beta-testers, you know

[Azuarc]

Aggressive civs aren't aggressive. They're unit-builders. As a result, some of them aren't very expansionistic or imperialistic, and that's really shooting them in the foot. (My last game I conquered Monty when he declared war on me - sucker - and he had 3 cities. Everyone else had 5 or 6, but he moved too slowly in the land grab.)

[Freddz]

Originally posted by Handel
Beta-testers are very carefull not to piss of the devs. They want to proceed to be beta-testers, you know

One can avoid pissing on them without making missteps like this.

Anyway, I'm not sure yet that the aggressive trait is well balanced. It will be interesting to follow MP game statistic to see which civs are the favorite ones on the different map sizes. I think aggressive trait does better on really small maps.

[Freddz]

Originally posted by Azuarc
Aggressive civs aren't aggressive. They're unit-builders. As a result, some of them aren't very expansionistic or imperialistic, and that's really shooting them in the foot. (My last game I conquered Monty when he declared war on me - sucker - and he had 3 cities. Everyone else had 5 or 6, but he moved too slowly in the land grab.)

Yes. I feel my number 1, 2 and 3 points up there in my starting post sums up what could be done to make the aggressive ones more aggressive.
Civilization fun for me has always been a lot about pressure, and it is sad to see such major historical influences as Genghis Khan and Alec the Great always make themselves look like A.I. fools and non-threats in game after game compared to Catherine the Great and other builder opps.

[Shaka II]

Along these same lines, has anyone played the aggressive AI option yet? I'm thinking of doing it next game for several reasons. One reason is that the AI is a bit too complacent and friendly toward one another. That's fine for the builder, but it seems too much of a love fest for me.

In my present game, which seems typical (7 Civs, normal size, pangea, epic, emperor), two Civs have been eliminated (Napoleon, who Bismarch and Washington eliminated, and Peter who I eliminated), while the remaining Civs are pleased or friendly to one another. I'm faced with the prospect of pissing off the whole bunch as I gear up for war. I've disabled space and diplomatic victory, so it's going to be a win by domination, time, or culture, and Washington has a fairly impressive culture score that I'll have to keep an eye on.

I have a ways to go before my army is large enough to make war now, but at least Mansa Musa will attack Bismarck, and I have a vast amount of gold. So, that will kick the end game off.

But the aggressive AI option seems like it might solve this problem, in addition to keeping the tech race from being so much of a trading game. The way I look at it, the AI is great at building and advancing (trading), but not as good at fighting, as humans (yet), so it should be at a disadvantage from a tech perspective and a battle perspective. But also it's more fun if a lot of the war happens before the end game, where it usually consists of building an army of well over 100 units, which is fun too, but it's best if a few more Civs have been eliminated by then.

A typical situation is where you're fighting it out with a Civ in ancient, medieval, renaissance era, and falling behind in tech, while the other Civs just sit around and build/advance. Aggressive AI would seem to be the answer. Does that make sense?

[Handel]

Originally posted by Shaka II
Along these same lines, has anyone played the aggressive AI option yet? I'm thinking of doing it next game for several reasons.

I play with aggressive option. The results... In my last game Bismark explored the wilderness with a single archer. Suddenly decided to start a war. Lost the archer and after few turns agreed to peace. After 20-30 turns my other neighbour Lous XIV suddenly declared a war. Attacked with 1 archer and 10 chariots against axemen, horse archers and spearmen. Pillaged two farms before losing everything and giving away all his money (290 golds) for 10 turns peace.
So with "aggressive" option the AI just becomes erratic and more stupid. I guess there is a randomness check every turn "Should I declare a war to somebody?"

[xxFlukexx]

Aggressive AIs fall behind because they usually hate everyone and attack a lot so they either fall behind techwise or attack someone with lots of friends and get worked. Although if an aggresive AI has a successful war or two, watch out they are pretty unstoppable.

I think the Aggressive trait is one of the best, faster barracks and free combat I is huge. You get access to the 25% promotions right away and if you use your units correctly, that's a huge advantage.

I see lots of AIs attacking and conquering other nations, maybe it depends on the settings you are using. The AI really doesn't bring enough siege weaponry when attacking, but other than that the conquering AI is alright, lightyears ahead of Civ3 and other TBS games.

[Footie Mad]

I think you are right to a point, but it's still the best Civ AI there's ever been. Though I think sometimes it might depend on the map people are using, I've gotten the impression that the most popular option is to play on larger maps with several continents. Giving each civ more time to build up, well you see where i'm going with this...

On pangea maps the aggressive civs aren't quite so disadvantaged and if it's a small or very tightly inhabited you must fight viciously for every piece of land. There's where I've seen the agressive warmongerers excel. With one exception, the guy who never gets along with anyone, Tokugawa.

[pauli]

the pillaging thing is really frustrating.

"oh no. the ai has set his units to pillage my territory rather than attack cities. whatever will i do. i couldn't possibly withstand this vicious nibbling long enough to take all his cities. no, sir. i'm doomed to rapid financial ruin. woe is me."

it's just... pathetic.

[Freddz]

Well, it seems the opinions on why the aggressive A.I. fall behind differ quite a lot. Some think the aggressive ones attack randomly and too often, others, like me, feel that the aggr. A.I. actually doesn't put enough pressure on you and very very rarely has any ally when they become involved in war, which makes one fear them less.

[Shaka II]

Originally posted by Freddz
Well, it seems the opinions on why the aggressive A.I. fall behind differ quite a lot. Some think the aggressive ones attack randomly and too often, others, like me, feel that the aggr. A.I. actually doesn't put enough pressure on you and very very rarely has any ally when they become involved in war, which makes one fear them less.

Handel has been playing with aggressive AI on, so the accentuated, eratic behavior may indicate part of the problem of why the aggressive attribute is not implemented effectively enough.

FootieMad is also correct in that pangea offers the aggressive AI a better map to excercise that attribute. Pangea is the map I play for that reason and offers that "Land war on Asia". But even on pangea, the aggressive AIs fall behind, or are usually not aggressive in the right way to achieve dominance.

Aggression has to be smart aggression, not eratic aggression. Making sure that a war makes sense, not just attacking because it's their nature. In Civ4, it seems that the peace mongers are the bigger threat.

I have seen Napoleon do quite well in a game, but usually Louis XIV offers a stronger challenge. Also a leader like Caesar with expansive/organized will creep up and achieve great strength in the end game, one reason why I like to play as Romans, along with getting Praetorians.

But of the games so far, Washington, seems like the strongest player, mainly from a research perspective. I still haven't played against them all. Elizabeth has strong science, but is usually not that strong a military power.

[johnmcd]

I feel the aggressive AIs should go through phases of unit building and attacking and other phases of digging in and building up. I guess they used to get a kick out of stealing techs on taking a city which compensated for low research budgets.

I do agree the aggressive AIs do seem to perform very poorly on average though, but once in a while very well. I suspect it depends on how well their first war went really. They always do better than the isolationist Japanese though, that has to be the single most useless AI behaviour.

[Freddz]

One must hope that Firaxis really balances up the different A.I. opponents in future patches, or at least in an expansion.
Will this mean something that many of us feel this way, or will it be of no concern to Firaxis? If they fix it, when do you think we can hope for a fix and what kind of fix?

[Bluefusion]

I disagree with people who say pillaging is worthless. Pillaging can really screw over your production and food when you're trying to pump out units to defend. Plus, in the early game when you do not have many workers, a nasty pillage could send you a dozen turns behind in land improvements.

And how many times have the AI pillaged a vital resource you've needed to produce soldiers? For instance, they always tend to go for the iron or copper when you need them for axemen.

Edit: I won a game by constantly airstriking a guy's aluminum supply late in the game. (of course, using nukes might help explain the victory as well :-) )

However, I think the problem with AIs is they tend to ONLY pillage and fail to muster powerful forces to attack cities.

[AuraSeer]

Originally posted by Bluefusion
And how many times have the AI pillaged a vital resource you've needed to produce soldiers? For instance, they always tend to go for the iron or copper when you need them for axemen.

I've seen it happen once or twice, but only because a mine was on the first square inside my border. The AI seems to pillage the closest improvements it encounters, even if that means destroying the nearby cottage instead of moving one more square to destroy an important strategic resource. (This happened early in my most recent game. When the AI horse archer stopped to destroy a cottage, that gave me just enough time to move spearmen in and defend my only metal mine, on the next square over.)

A related issue is that the AI will sometimes stop to pillage every improvement it steps on, even if it's on its way somewhere. I've seen a tough AI stack advance toward an under-defended border city, only to be delayed for three turns by stopping to pillage the farms it happened to cross. That stupidity allowed me time to move in defenders from elsewhere, and fight off the stack when it finally attacked the city.

[Shaka II]

Originally posted by Bluefusion
I disagree with people who say pillaging is worthless. Pillaging can really screw over your production and food when you're trying to pump out units to defend. Plus, in the early game when you do not have many workers, a nasty pillage could send you a dozen turns behind in land improvements.

And how many times have the AI pillaged a vital resource you've needed to produce soldiers? For instance, they always tend to go for the iron or copper when you need them for axemen.

Edit: I won a game by constantly airstriking a guy's aluminum supply late in the game. (of course, using nukes might help explain the victory as well :-) )

However, I think the problem with AIs is they tend to ONLY pillage and fail to muster powerful forces to attack cities.

The AI seems to be pretty good at pillaging in my opinion. It certainly is treated with high priority. Like you say, they tend to go for the strategic resources like oil, and aluminum, uranium. Usually I find out that they strafed my oil fields, when I get a message saying "you can no longer continue to build modern armor, what would you like to build now?"

Mech Infantry and artillery.

[Pyrodrew]

Aggresive AIs should, imho, be a lot more opportunistic, striking whoever is weak.

That's fine in the beginning, but as the game progresses the AIs should also make sure a player doesn't get a huge lead. In Civ3, once you became top dog the AIs usually feared you too much and fought their insignificant wars while you coasted to victory. The AI should play to win, not play for 3rd place or 4th place or "good enough" place. This sometimes means making allies to fight the top dog or for non-aggressive AIs economic tactics.

[pauli]

...i'd rather not go back to civ2 style "everybody vs the guy in the lead (if he's human)," thanks.

[marvinkosh]

There are any number of human strategies which would make the AI much more competent in war. The problem is encoding them in such a way that the AI is able to:

1) Produce the right units to take the objective. This means you need recent intelligence on that location and cities nearby, so you know what you will be facing.

2) Plan a route to the objective. This may include sending several batches of troops overseas, and in this case it is important to secure the coastline before commencing the attack.

3) Remember that units which are assigned to an objective are not to be used for anything else on the way, unless the survival of the unit team is a stake.

4) Recognise when the operation has succeeded or failed, and have a contingency plan for each outcome. For example, if you fail to take that first coastal city, you want to get any survivors to safety using your transports, and prepare a new assault if you are able to. If on the other hand you succeed, you have perhaps dealt your opponent enough damage that they will cave in to your demands. On the off-chance that you have not, you should mobilise enough units to defend the newly-taken city against a counter-attack, and also make sure you are ready for a counter-offensive elsewhere.

[Pyrodrew]

Originally posted by pauli
...i'd rather not go back to civ2 style "everybody vs the guy in the lead (if he's human)," thanks.

It's not about everyone vs. the guy in the lead if he's human. It's about playing to win regardless if the lead is human or not. There are victory conditions and the AI should: 1>Aim to achieve these victory conditions so it's wins; 2>Aim to stop others from obtaining these victory conditions so it doesn't lose. By not having the AI defend these victory conditions from opponents it's like a football team with everyone on offense and no defense.

And "everybody kill themselves while the guy (human or not) in lead always wins" is hardly a better solution. It's a strategy game where only 1 player can win. It's not the Sims.

[ChaotikVisions]

Really the biggest flaw in the AI currently is it doesn't know how to use siege engines. It doesn't seem all that different from the Civ3 AI. Often it will trickle units in and either bash themselves to deaths in cities or split up trying to pillage. Either tactic results in their death. I've even seen the AI do this when it is the one to declare war. When it does actually get siege units it often doesn't wait until defense is completely bombed down.

So assuming the player has a decent garrison its still easy for them to beat an attacking army. I've also seen the AI place too much importance on its capitol. It will leave 10-15 units in it while its other cities are slowly captured by me. Chances are it couldn't actually destroy my attacking force completely but it could atleast inflict some damage. By the time I get around to clearing out their capitol all those units are useless because its just a matter of time until I wear them down.

I have occasionally seen the AI launch good attacks with lots of units accompanied by siege units. The only problem is its a rare occurence that seems to take the AI a long while to build up to. Unfortunately these problems with the AIs tactics mean it will almost never conquer neighbors fully or quickly so an aggressive human player can easily out-conquer and end up on top power wise.

[Freddz]

First of all, the strategy discussions here for A.I. performance in war have developed towards two goals as I see it:

A/ Improving the warmongering so aggressive A.I.s become as fearsome as peaceful ones.
B) Improving combat pressure. As I said a number of times, the Civ-series is largely about pressure and war-pressure aren't nearly as great in Civ 4 as in the previous games in the series and this must definately be improved.

I'd like to see this thread as a thread to help Firaxis find easy solutions to improve warmongering in human vs computer games, without unbalancing human versus human games. Also as a thread to promote the importance of feeling pressure in war. Which is lacking many times now.

Can we find easy, really helpful suggestions or insights to improve warring for the A.I. as I am sceptic that we can get Firaxis to do large-scale improvements on the strategically thinking engine.

Our chance of actually getting something done would be to present clear insights here together with potential fixes in the simplest possible manner. For example, I believe an A.I. cheat is easier to get Firaxis to buy into when it comes to aggressive A.I. than that of spending weeks or months of rethinking A.I. strategies and then programming the fixes sensibly without programming flaws added as well.
Some of that "The A.I. shouldn't cheat" gotta go I'm afraid. But Firaxis should also be ready to reprogram some changes to A.I. behaiviour as well. At least in an expansion. Without that, I won't buy an expansion.


Fix examples that are fairly simple to execute:

1) A somewhat reduced production cost at building military units for aggressive opponents would improve the Aggressive A.I. loser problem, as some observations points at that if the A.I. is given enough time he can actually launch some well done attacks now and then. That with a small bonus to economy to take care of those extra units.
The A.I. has some set requirements for it to launch an attack to a city , and not only stop at pillaging. Those requirements are easier achieved when having some more units. Is this a possible solution to anything? One good thing with this idea is that the aggressive A.I. actually becomes a better builder with this(less time spent to build units is more time spent building other things.)

2) Another fix could be to lessen the defence gained from culture. That way the A.I. would not be in such desperate need of several siege which it appearantly doesn't use to its best advantage now.

Any other suggestions to simple fixes added to those sharp analysis of A.I. behaiviour presented in this thread? Of course, we still need to find out the things that are causing this mess in A.I. tactics.
Okay, some responses to thoughts here:

Originally posted by Pauli
...i'd rather not go back to civ2 style "everybody vs the guy in the lead (if he's human)," thanks.

Well, something has to be done in the end game as it is now. I agree with the posters who feel that it is a problem the A.I. doesn't play to win. It would also make the end game more interesting if you don't lead all the way through it without hardly anyone declering war to you, which is the way it stands now. That's more terrible to me. Last game I played and led towards the end I longed for an A.I. to war on me for me to feel excitement. It never came, and the end game excitement never came either.

Originally posted by Shaka II
FootieMad is also correct in that pangea offers the aggressive AI a better map to excercise that attribute. Pangea is the map I play for that reason and offers that "Land war on Asia". But even on pangea, the aggressive AIs fall behind, or are usually not aggressive in the right way to achieve dominance.

Playing the Earth maps some, I have noticed that Genghis Khan are always last or in the bottom. The starting location may not be the best of the Earth map starting locations(I don't know), but the opportunity for land war should be great yet the mongols invariably fails. The civs I attack always drop towards the bottom as well, which really isn't a great grade for A.I. performance in war. So A.I war behaiviour has to improve, not just with cheats. But which improvements can realistically be done? The half-rookie human player is at the moment tons better than the A.I. at conquering cities.

Originally posted by ChaotikVisions
Really the biggest flaw in the AI currently is it doesn't know how to use siege engines.

I agree that this is a major flaw that needs improvement. Another great flaw is that I am rarely at war with several opponents, as most neighbours are of the peaceful, non-opportunistic sort.

It doesn't seem all that different from the Civ3 AI. Often it will trickle units in and either bash themselves to deaths in cities or split up trying to pillage. Either tactic results in their death. I've even seen the AI do this when it is the one to declare war. When it does actually get siege units it often doesn't wait until defense is completely bombed down.

True. I rarely ever see them use siege weapons to bombard. The attack of the A.I. must improve, no doubt about it.

I've also seen the AI place too much importance on its capitol. It will leave 10-15 units in it while its other cities are slowly captured by me.

I also see this all the time as well. This is a thing that needs careful balancing though, as moving too many units from the capital would make it too easy for the human player to deal a deadly stroke to the A.I that it can't come back from.

All in all, I become more and more certain that the (aggressive?) A.I. need a small boast to unit production to give a challange. That together with several of the ideas presented in this thread about diplomatic aggression and improving A.I. behaiviour with siege weapons and pillaging could do something good I think.

But I'm unclear whether pillaging behaiviour really needs improvement though, or if it is actually a fact that when the A.I. hasn't got a half-decent chance of taking a city, it pillages to do something good. Maybe this is MORE of "a lack of units"-problem. So with more units, the A.I. would more often see that it has a chance of conquering cities. Let's face it, even a well-programmed A.I. needs more units than a human player to be a threat.
Raising the difficulty level won't solve these problems since the A.I. may do very well in research and other areas.

[Bluefusion]

Don't forget, AIs cannot always go on a pillage frenzy. They're shooting themselves in the foot if they intend to capture a city whose land they pillaged just turns ago.

And...I actually see this very often.

[Freddz]

Originally posted by Bluefusion
Don't forget, AIs cannot always go on a pillage frenzy. They're shooting themselves in the foot if they intend to capture a city whose land they pillaged just turns ago.

And...I actually see this very often.

The first goal should be to capture, not to pillage. Are you saying it is the other way around at times?
Or are they waiting for re-inforcements?