What aspect of Civ should Firaxis most improve?

[Tassadar500]

I'd like to be able to think, where is Rome (or whatever civ) going to go next? Instead of, oh, they're just going to go to this city like always. Which means, I want the AI to know different possible strategies.

[asleepathewheel]

better ai with fewer bonuses and cheats. Is it to be in xml as well? I would love to be able to download ai mods that would mimic other players. And I want ai civs to function more differently ala smac. Civ3, they play out similarly, just a bit more or less agressive. I want the civs to feel different. tighter spacing, looser spacing, heavy ag,heavy mine, etc etc.

[Robert]

Master Zen, you have valid points.
There is for sure room for improvement.
But the AI is very good, for sure compared to other AI's in other games.

If you want to see an AI that plays like a human player.... forget it, you will not see it before your grandchildren have beards.

But I surely hope it'll improve from cIIIv.
But I can't say that the cIIIv AI sucked since Soren did a very good job on it.

[Urban Ranger]

I keep forgetting.

Make the next game play more like an empire builder instead of a-collection-of-cities builder.

That means shift certain things up to national level.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Drachasor
As for comments about it being too difficult to program the AI, bah, I say. The AI can already find targets to go after, so how much harder would it be to teach it to wait until it has a sufficient force gathered before it attacks? The same goes with the transport issue. That alone is a massive issue.

It's not that simple.

Suppose you find a target. The next question is, how much is a sufficient force? Then, you have to decide whether you have that available. If not, decide whether you want to switch the production of some cities to army units.

It's not like just moving N-K4.

[Silpy]

I have three main compliants with the AI

1) They don't understand when they have old units. By 2000 AD they usally still have masses of Warriors and Chariots.

2) They don't seem capable of serious naval/air threats. I've never faced an AI with a airforce of more than 3-5 units.

3) They don't seem capable of using artillery.

The AI in Civ II seem better in use of air units than in Civ III!

Do other players come to the same concusions?

[Dominae]

I vote AI, but the Tech model for me is a very close second.

Research in Civ3 is silly because it's so easy to trade for techs. This means that it's not really important what you research, so long as you have something to trade to the AI at every few turns or so. The decision to research a tech for the abilities/units/etc. it unlocks is typically irrelevant, since you can just trade for that tech when the opportunity arises (and it always does). Ever get the the feeling that the Ancient era just blew by in a couple of turns due to the AIs swapping scientific secrets? And please do not get me started on how you can just go to war if you find yourself lagging behind in tech.

I would like to see a game mechanism that restricts the power of tech trading (including extortion). This would make the whole research part of the game a lot more fun. Any ideas?

[Drachasor]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


It's not that simple.

Suppose you find a target. The next question is, how much is a sufficient force? Then, you have to decide whether you have that available. If not, decide whether you want to switch the production of some cities to army units.

It's not like just moving N-K4.

If the AI cheats and knows what you have in and around the City (as it does currently), then it should be pretty darn easy, now shouldn't it?

Otherwise it should do what any normal player would do, assume a somewhat tough fight against 3-4 units, and build an army large enough to supply 2-4 defenders after you take it, and give at least an 80% chance of victory (against the presumed opponent). Of course, there's no reason why they couldn't use the spy system to find out what's in a city.

As for switching production to military units, that shouldn't be too difficult, though production is another area that needs improvement. It does need some sort of priority queue, but if it doesn't have the troops to take a city, then it shouldn't be attacking (even if it can't figure out how to change its queues). It would be better off holding on to its current force for defensive purposes.

-Drachasor

[punkbass2000]

Originally posted by Drachasor


If the AI cheats and knows what you have in and around the City (as it does currently), then it should be pretty darn easy, now shouldn't it?

This is a ridiculous question. I suspect you don't know much about programming. IF that is not the case, then maybe you should take on such an 'easy' task.

[Drachasor]

Originally posted by punkbass2000


This is a ridiculous question. I suspect you don't know much about programming. IF that is not the case, then maybe you should take on such an 'easy' task.

So, you are saying that if the AI knows all the units in a city, then it will not be able to do a simple calculation to find out the sufficient force to achieve an 80% chance of victory (or higher)? That's is what is ridiculous. There mathematics involved are straightforward, and if you somehow think computers can't handle that, then you're just plain wrong.

For instance if 2 of Unit B is sufficent to defeat a fortified unit A in a city 80% of the time, and there are 4 unit A's in that city, then 8 unit Bs will be sufficient to defeat the force in that city 80% of the time (we'll assume the combat is one round, but multiple rounds only change the potential force involved--which can also easily be calculated if the AI assumes the opponent will switch everything to the defense of that city, that is the AI plays it safe).

Are you somehow telling me the computer can't do the combat calculations a few million times in a few seconds? Because you are quite wrong if you think that. I may not be an expert at programming, but I know my bit.

As I said, the switching of production in the AI cities would be a bit tricky (to balance), but it naturally isn't impossible to get a so-so to decent implementation. Heck, even keep the current one, but have it take into account numbers before it attacks. How the heck can you think the AI can't figure out its chances?

-Drachasor

[Japher]

"What aspect of Civ should Firaxis most improve?"

The manual and box art

As I know nothing about AI, being only a post bot, I will go with City/Tile improvement

[punkbass2000]

Originally posted by Drachasor


So, you are saying that if the AI knows all the units in a city, then it will not be able to do a simple calculation to find out the sufficient force to achieve an 80% chance of victory (or higher)? That's is what is ridiculous. There mathematics involved are straightforward, and if you somehow think computers can't handle that, then you're just plain wrong.

For instance if 2 of Unit B is sufficent to defeat a fortified unit A in a city 80% of the time, and there are 4 unit A's in that city, then 8 unit Bs will be sufficient to defeat the force in that city 80% of the time (we'll assume the combat is one round, but multiple rounds only change the potential force involved--which can also easily be calculated if the AI assumes the opponent will switch everything to the defense of that city, that is the AI plays it safe).

Are you somehow telling me the computer can't do the combat calculations a few million times in a few seconds? Because you are quite wrong if you think that. I may not be an expert at programming, but I know my bit.

As I said, the switching of production in the AI cities would be a bit tricky (to balance), but it naturally isn't impossible to get a so-so to decent implementation. Heck, even keep the current one, but have it take into account numbers before it attacks. How the heck can you think the AI can't figure out its chances?

-Drachasor

Look, as has already been stated by several people, there are many, many more factors than what you are suggesting. Just for starters, what if amassing this 80% victory chance requires the deployment of all the military units the AI currently has?

There is clearly more to this than a simple combat calculator. IF that were not so, do you honestly believe SOren would not have implemented this ages ago?

[Drachasor]

I don't know why it hasn't been implemented, but when over the course of 10 or so turns the AI attacks the same city 5 or so times with one unit each time, then something is going wrong.

And yes, there are other factors, and certainly the AI already considers some units as relatively free to move about and others as not very free to move about (the later being city defenders). It seems to me that if the AI finds that it can't attack the city with sufficient force to take it, then it should probably not attack (especially if the attack requires declaring war). If it has decided it should really take that city or that it should go to war with you at some near point, then it should start building units for war. Certainly the AI shouldn't be attacking an city that can heal all of its troops in 1 turn if it doesn't think it can destroy most of the defenders....yet the AI DOES do this. That is something that isn't hard to stop, but could quite possibly dramatically improve the game. Suddenly the AI wouldn't be losing troops for stupid reasons, which means it would build up a sizeable force (for it is not tossing them away like garbage), and then eventually it would attack with that force.

Clearly something is currently a bit off, and it wouldn't be too hard to fix. Now, perhaps the reason why that isn't there is because there ARE a lot of other things to work on in the AI, and so sometimes less complicated details are missed. Afterall, if things can be "balanced" by making the AI cheat to a fantastic degree, then proper unit usage and other things can be ignored. I am merely proposing they aren't ignored to the same extent.

Clearly already the AI has some definition of the minimum number of troops it should have, all it needs now is to consider its war footin a bit more, and devote more resources to a war if it deems that war will be difficult. More complicated than current implementions? Yes, but it isn't impossible. It does require the AI to have some means to consider what city improvements and what cities are more important relative to when it can get an army out. I don't expect a perfect implementation of this, but I think it could be improved quite a bit.

-Drachasor

[Brent]

AI with personality would be good.

I want the manual to have more documentation on the editor and premade scenarios.

[Jon Shafer]

I voted AI, but Economics is close behind.

The AI's great flaws only appear when you become very good at the game. The vast majority of players "out there" who have never heard of Apolyton play at Chieftan and Warlord and get a good run at their money.

But I'm greedy, and the fact that I am very good at the game and I do enjoy playing it means that I would like more of a challenge to keep me busy.

The AI will be exposed to scripting, which means there ought to be a chance for some pretty heavy editing stuff, allowing for custom AIs that can be tweaked. What really matters is how much is exposed to that scripting - the more the merrier. And the better the community can make it.