Role-playing AI versus winner AI

[Strategist83]

I call the AI the game currently uses the role-playing AI. This is because it takes things like religion very seriously: If you have a different state religion than the AI, it has serious impact on diplomatic relations. In much the same way, Mao wants you to adopt his favourite civic - state property - and it has negative impact on relations if you decline to do so. All this in spite of the fact there is no benefit* to them gameplay-wise (at least that I know of) from having you convert to their religion or switch to their civics. They do not want you to convert to Buddhism or adopt 'slavery' or adopt 'free speech' because it will help them win - they want it only because they are role-playing.

In the opinions of I and others, this is wrong. We would much prefer a 'winner' AI - one that values winning above anything else. Needless to say, a such AI would only ask you to convert/adopt civics if it would be advantageous to it from a gameplay point of view. Diplomatic relations would then be determined by things like:

Originally posted by yin26
"-2 You have grown too powerful."

"-1 You were the first to discover deadly technology X."

"-4 You attacked a civ that was friendly with you."

In this way, Civs will be more "aware" of your threat in ways that make some sense and can (mostly) be controlled by the player. Don't backstab. Avoid being the first to discover a certain tech. Etc. This would make the game a bit harder without making it impossible to win. It just means that if you play out front -- and ruthlessly -- you *should* be dogpiled at that point.

Now, the question is: Which type of AI would you prefer?


*Of course, if they have the religion's shrine there is a benefit, but this is rarely the case.

[Adagio]

I prefer it to be a little random, like having 50% of the AI's to roleplay, while the other 50% will go after the victory conditions, where they set one or two goals from the beginning. This way we might actually get an AI that'll try to get a culture victory (who will try to be friends with as many as possible, and spread religion inside the borders as much as possible) and an AI who will do anything to conquer the world, etc...

[Blake]

I prefer role-playing, as AI's are better at it.

Allow me to elaborate.

In a multiplayer game A LOT of success (at least for successful players) comes down to meta-strategy and mind games - staying under the radar, subtlely turning players against each other without being percieved as a whiny rat, being the backstabber rather than the backstabee and such, along with scouting, feinting and all that strategy stuff. AI's are terrible at strategy and completely immune to mind games, and without mind games multiplayer games just aren't any fun AT ALL.

Role-playing however can be scripted and thus is suitable for single player.

Also a large problem with Civ4 is the arbitary victory conditions. Domination/Conquest are really the only ones that make sense both from a strategy game and roleplaying perspective. Diplomatic works for roleplaying. Spaceship and Cultural are just nonsense.
This isn't inherint though, the cultural victory could be fixed by having a gameplay mechanic wherby your culture spreads globally in some meaningful way (think America), there could be a religious victory which involves converting most the world and thus actually having global power (there is no power at all in cultural).
Spaceship could be changed as a way to escape global-loss, for example nuclear holocaust and/or ecological meltdown. The player with the best spaceship wins.

[Vince278]

Both at the same time sounds good.

[Strategist83]

I just hate how easily you can exploit the current role-playing AI. Afraid they are going to attack you? Just convert to their state religion and you will be safe. Would this work in a multiplayer game? Hell no!

Give me an AI that tries to win so I at least get the impression of intelligent opponents.

[TheHateMale]

That tactic should only work on some of the AI. Apparently (from reading other threads) Montezuma and Tokugawa don't care about it. Try setting up a custom game with them in it and the 'Aggressive AI' option and see if that produces a game more to your liking.

[Hauptman]

I posted banana because well, like ive said before, all the ai personalities are different.

Ghandi wants to sit back and build wonders and cities, thus aiming for a "points" victory.

Mansa Musa and Cyrus are almost always the ones I'm competeing with for the spaceship, yet their styles throught the game are different.

Hatshepsut is the largest kissass in the game, even to the point that she gives free techs without me asking, you know why? she wants that UN victory.

Tokagawa WONT LET you be the same religion as him. Ive seen him change religions even though every single one of his cities had mine in it, and it was the one he started with, he changed JUST to be different.

Montezuma could care less what religion you are, if you have what he wants, he comes to take it.

Hueyana Capac is a GREAT opportunist, he will play nice until your havin a bad time then he will use that against you.

Rosevelt may never backstab you, heck he might even vote for you in a diplo victory, but only if he has no chance.

Now yes, they are all roleplaying. but they roleplay a way that lets them go for there prospective win.

so I like how they did it, but i also agree that there could be more, especially "-4 you attacked YOUR friend" and it should be a large negative to counter the "our mutual military strugle". On one hand they will be happy to have your help, on the other, they know not to trust you.

[Arrian]

The current system is at least in part due to complaints about previous iterations of the game where the AI seemed "souless" and lacking in personality - no roleplaying. People seemed to want it. I kinda like it the way it is. It's more immersive. Keep in mind that, although most of us play the game to win, you can play to win AND have other goals (e.g. let's see if I can have the dominant religion in this game, or this time I'm going to forgo offensive war, etc.).

You can't please everyone, I guess.

That aside, I do like the idea that backstabbing a friend should have more consequences for diplomacy, and I would add (and you won't like this one) that you should face stiffer penalties for attacking your "brothers and sisters of the faith." Perhaps any other empires that share your faith would have a high % chance of jumping in to stop your aggression? Or at the very least their +4-7 "brotherly love" diplo bonus should vanish.

-Arrian

[MightyTiny]

It's Banana for me!

I lean more in favour of the role-playing type AI, simply because making the AI's controlling your opponents 100% victory seekers would make the single player part of Civilization a poor version of the multiplayer game.

Want opponents that only care about winning? Multiplayer is for that. A computer AI will never (or rather, never in forseeable future) be as crafty as a human opponent, nor do they seem to give even an adequate illusion of understanding the details of circumstances that crucially affect what sort of decisions should be made (especially in diplomacy). So single player would be like crappy-multi-player-wannabe-mode.

Also, you'd have to get rid of the UN victory option, obviously - since if your overriding concern is to win (and you know that this goes for the other players too), then OF COURSE you are always going to abstain, or vote for yourself in UN victory elections.

What I'd like to see is an AI that holds winning as a strong priority among other considerations, but most of all an AI that actually appeared intelligent. Meaning an AI that would reveal, in their diplomatic dealings, that they'd understand the ongoing tensions and subtleties (or at least the most glaringly OBVIOUS things) going on in the world.

This would of course also improve their possibilities in going for a win. As it is, the AI refuses demands or requests in situations where it is simply absurd to do so, and doesn't often even consider (option redded out) diplomatic requests that would, in a real situation, be very, very hard to justify refusing at all.

Roleplaying, yes, but BETTER roleplaying.

[Alex]

Role-playing for me. I hate the generic AIs that seem like carbon-copy of one another. Give me an AI with some personality and I'll be happy. After all, I don't play to win, I play to have fun. If I can manage both things, I'm happy.

[Strategist83]

Originally posted by Arrian
That aside, I do like the idea that backstabbing a friend should have more consequences for diplomacy, and I would add (and you won't like this one) that you should face stiffer penalties for attacking your "brothers and sisters of the faith." Perhaps any other empires that share your faith would have a high % chance of jumping in to stop your aggression? Or at the very least their +4-7 "brotherly love" diplo bonus should vanish.

I would be willing to accept that - under the condition that there is backing for it in the game. Make war weariness insanely high when fighting 'brothers of the faith' and I would call your suggestion an excellent addition to the game.

[kevin2zoo]

Role-Playing for me. I like the additional choices it forces me to make when choosing religions, civics, etc. Plus, as someone pointed out above, the role-playing AI seems to role-play towards the victory condition that makes the most sense for that civ. I don't think it detracts a whole lot from the AI "playing to win"

[Mergle]

I voted "winner", but what I really want is both. I'd like it if the roleplaying actually made sense. To an extent it already does - it is legitimate to try to win by an agressive rather than a builder strategy and vice versa. But I'd really like it if there were eg serious penalties against attacking co-religionists - meaning the roleplaying element in this would also work in a game winning sense.

And I'd really like the AI to go for cultural victory...