How is the AI overall???

[kmedlinnc]

I think the AI is pretty dang reasonable.

I break it into 2 categories:

1 - The AI that manages your automated choices (cities, workers, etc.)

2 - The AI managing your rival civs.

While the common components I believe work in conjunction with the same codebase. (i.e. The Worker AI is certainly the same Worker AI the non player controlled civs are using) there are some significant improvements in the AI.

--

1. The AI knows how and when to scout. If you have an open borders agreement with your allies, be ready for them to go scouting once every hundred years or so. The AI stays informed on its own.

Counter: You better stay informed as well. I\'ve seen Civs gear up for war specifically on this \"intellegence.\" Very crafty stuff and very cool.

2. The AI knows how to research well and understands what techs give it a value add for trading and what are best saved for their competitive edge.

Counter: Try to cultivate good relationships early and start trading for as much tech as you can get. From what I\'ve seen weaker civs will pay out the ear for technology in the mid-game.

3. The AI can wage itself a war. Strategic production, good defenses, and an excellent understanding of attack give the AI some nice skills here. In my first war I got totally spanked by the AI. My second war was about even. My last war I had the upper hand, but it was pretty tense.

Counter: AN EXCELLENT understanding of the game mechanics for combat. You better know how to kill stuff right the first time around, and if not, have them so battered the next round you can beat them. The AI is a punishing opponent and mistakes WILL cost you.

4. The AI values friendship much less than enemies. By that I mean, you can be \"friendly\" with a civ and if you don\'t start cancelling deals with their enemy...they quickly lose faith. In the late game this becomes a problem as many resources like uranium and oil are scarce so both trade and allies get complex.

Counter: Make sure you cheer up an ally with gifts if you think you\'re ticking them off...It might not go very far, but I\'ve managed to make it through one game without a war and without any of my allies declaring war on each other.

5. The AI is weak on Naval Strategy. I haven\'t played around too much with this, but from what I\'ve seen...they just aren\'t that adept at using the Naval units to their advantage. I\'ve yet to see a naval invasion or a naval bombardment of a coastal city during wartime.

Counter: Beef up your navy and rule the seas. You won\'t have much opposition from what I can tell.

[Jon Shafer]

For those who want more AI-AI wars there's an option to make the AI civs more aggressive in the game startup.

[DeepO]

Originally posted by lethe
I'm frankly not impressed. But one of the early patches has to improve AI use of artillery. That alone would make it alot better. Combined arms warfare seems to be more a happy coincidence than AI cunning.

What difficulty are you playing? I find the AI make very good use of combined arms in most cases. There are some exceptions which will most likely be patched by Soren, but the general combined arms thing (including the use of promotions) is done reasonably well IMHO.

Oh, and to 'exploding decisiontrees': not really a problem in CIV, as there are certain focus points (e.g. diplo), which kind of linearise the exponentional options. So to speak

DeepO

[lex_kravetski]

Originally posted by Solver
Well, on Large maps the AI is probably indeed going to be more aggressive, and there's larger potential for blocs forming....

Is there any way to make AI more agressive? I agree it has sense to be peaceful but it's not too much fun. Maybe you can tell how to increase number of AI wars in game? It would be nice to have about 100-150 wars on epic speed with 18 civs. Not for human player only I mean but among all players.

[lex_kravetski]

Originally posted by Trip
For those who want more AI-AI wars there's an option to make the AI civs more aggressive in the game startup.

It's a pity but this option give 5-7 wars more. It's not enough. What is it needed to be changed in XML-files to get more AI wars? Not 5 wars more but 50 ones? And how to get more AI wars during the early years (until 1000 AD)?

[DeepO]

Originally posted by lex_kravetski


It's a pity but this option give 5-7 wars more. It's not enough. What is it needed to be changed in XML-files to get more AI wars? Not 5 wars more but 50 ones? And how to get more AI wars during the early years (until 1000 AD)?

If that isn't enough for your liking, try playing an always-war game.

Otherwise, just up the difficulty.

DeepO

[Volstag]

Originally posted by dconner
Has anybody noticed the AI nations being "too peaceful?" In my first two games (playing a peaceful building strategy myself), I saw about four wars total:

I've definitely noticed it. First game, noble, saw exactly three wars. Each was 10 to 15 turns, strictly one-on-one affairs, no territory changed hands (that I noticed). In the next game, there was exactly one war -- started by me. While I've heard that the AI no longer declares wars that it can't win, it appears that it doesn't have much interest in declaring wars that it can win.

I hope it's just these two particular games...

[Ninot]

In my first game, on Noble, the AI impressed me well enough.

I built the UN. Expected to win diplo victory due to great relations with everyone, and I won Secretary General by a landslide with the support of 3 out of 4 other civs.

I call for elections for the diplo victory, and Elizabeth, who voted FOR me for Sec-Gen, votes AGAINST me. That backstabding *****.

I find out soon neough afterwards that this was a brilliant stalling tactic, as she was well ahead of me in tech, and built the spaceship 2 turns or so later.

[lex_kravetski]

Originally posted by DeepO


If that isn't enough for your liking, try playing an always-war game.

Otherwise, just up the difficulty.

DeepO

I don't want to be in war all the time. Just more wars. Does difficulty level realy affect on war number? Which xml variable make it?

[DeepO]

I don't know which xml variable to tweak, I don't even know if it is exposed right now. You can't just go in blind and 'tweak a variable' to get a more aggresive AI!

For interesting play, up your difficulty level. That will not get you so much in front, which means you're a juicier target. AI's notice such things. Further, I would suggest asking a few demands now and then if you really like to spoil your relation ships. Or declare a few wars yourself: always fun to lit the powder keg, especially with warriors and archers.

DeepO

[alva]

Err guys, there's the option 'more aggresive AI'...not sure what it does..give it a whirl, never know what happens.

[lethe]

Originally posted by DeepO

What difficulty are you playing? I find the AI make very good use of combined arms in most cases. There are some exceptions which will most likely be patched by Soren, but the general combined arms thing (including the use of promotions) is done reasonably well IMHO.

Emperor. And it doesn't use artillery well at all. It does however pile on 'combined arms' attacks. But that's as often as not a case of longbowmen backing up the Panzers as it is a mix of swordsmen, archers and catapults taking a city, or archers, axemen and catapults defending one.

[quinalla]

I think the AI is pretty good.

First, the city goveners are a lot smarter, for example when you go to build a settler (and can't grow while you are doing so) it moves the tiles so you have max production. I still tweak things, but it is a lot smarter on its own. The worker AI is a lot better than civ3 too, though I usually micromanage, but at least the opposing civs get decent improvements.

As far as the opposing civ AI, they are decently smart about things. During war, if they can't take your cities, they will go after your improvements (and after things like horses and iron first), typically running around with some kind of 2 movement unit just like I would. They don't attack until they are ready and you piss them off somehow. Also, they offer intelligent and reasonable trades and will hold back certain techs or resourses if they either don't like/trust you enough or if they are building a wonder. The will offer 1 for 1 on similar resourses and 1 for 1 (sometimes with some gold either way) for similar "beaker amount" techs. They also place their cities fairly intelligently.

Sure, the AI isn't perfect, but I am pleased overall.

[dearmad]

Damn, what game you playing? My enemies have tanks and marines about 5 turns after I do.... grrr. Only the tiny kingdoms in the game are lagging behind in technology...

[art_vandelai]

AI use of Artillery

I am in the end-game, gunning for the space race as Egypt on Noble, and i've got some older defensve units fortifying the line to stop pillagers from walking in and unhooking my resources. Much of my front line defensive troops are still on the border with China about 12 squares to the west, and the rest are marching across Aztec empire as I head for his last 5 cities. I also have bombers, which I'm using to soften up the city defenses and then start wearing down his units.

I've got a pretty big tech lead over Montezuma (he's 6th out of the 7 civs in the game, with me and the Incas neck and neck for first). His best units are infantry and artillery, I have tanks & mechanized infantry.

As I move my small fleet towares him, I see an armada of about 8 galleys, loaded with units. I take out several of his galleys easily with the sub, battleship & transport that I have in the area., and then position them to block his path . (Transports CAN fight older units pretty well with their 24 STR). Still, he manages to sneak 2 ships around my fleet to my coast, and lands 6 artillery together, on a hill right beside a city with only 2 SAM infantry (18 STR, equal to the arty's). I figure I might just lose a pretty good city.

Fortunately, with the help of all 7 of my bombers, and the few marines I had loaded on the transport to head towards the Aztecs, I am able to do enough collateral damage that my SAM's have a fighting chance, and a few other unupgraded riflemen around could finish them off. Had I not had a small navy in the area to intercept that armada, I could have lost maybe more than just a single city.

Still, I thought that at least showed the AI is programmed to recognize the offensive potential of artillery quite well, although I'd like to see it use that same level of aggression in defending its homeland instead of pressing an attack in a losing cause.