Exciting AI improvements.

[binTravkin]

Blake, maybe you should move the latest (stable) file to first post along with an explanation where to copy it (and reminder to backup the old file).

[ben04]

A few thought : To have an interesting late game you need less but bigger and stronger nations. The Humain player is good at this and he does go on shopping tour early on. However the AI doesn't and that's the reason why the modern age is so disappointing. You don't have any worthy opponents.

This means that the AI needs to conqueror. However if they all share exactly the same code then they will do about equally well. This means that in a war situation the forces will probably be more or less equal and so there wont be a clear winner.

It might be better to have strong and weak AIs in the game. At the game start it is choosen which will be weak and which strong. This would allow strong AIs to expand easier at the cost of weaker ones creating bigger nations so that humain player will still have an opponent in the modern age.

This could also cause very interesting situations in combination with Vassals.

[binTravkin]

There will be strong and weak AIs anyways, there are a huge lot of factors which can change the development of not only AI but human civ aswell.

[Blake]

Blake, maybe you should move the latest (stable) file to first post along with an explanation where to copy it (and reminder to backup the old file).

That's a good idea. I have done so.

In the latest version, the Civic code has been seriously tweaked. The AI should now use every civic except Caste System, should be circumstances demand it (CS is useless). Spiritual leaders should switch civics more readily.

Some civics are adjusted by the AI's tendency to wage war (ie rabid warmongers will favor Vassalage over Nationhood), Slavery is now a wartime civic (ie the AI will always prefer Slavery over Serfdom in a war). AI's should be slightly less prone to using their favorite Civic beyond all reason, technically, with the old code, there were two cases when a favorite civic could be overwritten, firstly anything by Emancipation (but no AI have a favorite labor), secondly, Merchantalism by Free Market, with enough trade partners (poor ever-misguided Tokugawa).

Anyway I am wisely uploading the latest DLL I've actually tested, rather than making a few "simple" change which shouldn't cause any crashes (but do anyway). You can find it at the very start of the first post in this thread.

Something to watch for in this version is AI's "mass switching" to a given civic - for example it's expected that every civic will get at least some usage time by some AI personalities - but it would be bad if all the AI's decided to mass switch to Police State as soon as they get it.
Another thing is switching away from favorite Civic - they should do this if it seems important enough (ie US near the end of the space race, for town hammers) but they shouldn't do it on a whim.

Also I reinstated the AI's pillaging privelages, unchanged.

[JackRudd]

A note for when you upgrade this to Warlords: some of the Warlords leaders do have favoured civics in the Labour column. (Wang Kon is the only one I can think of offhand: Caste System.)

[Blake]

Originally posted by JackRudd
A note for when you upgrade this to Warlords: some of the Warlords leaders do have favoured civics in the Labour column. (Wang Kon is the only one I can think of offhand: Caste System.)

Wangkon like CS eh? Well he wont when AI modded *cynical laugh*. CS is given such a low value that even when amplified by the favorite civic boost that it'll only upgrade it to sometimes used by Wangkon, given current logic he'll use it until he has about half a dozen cities, and never in war. That logic might change, mind you, but it seems about right.

[Forwarn45]

Caste system should have a very low value, but the AI may consider it if running mercantalism (or maybe with statute of liberty). That's about the only circumstance I ever used it - assuming I have a bunch of new undeveloped cities that couldn't otherwise employ specialists. Maybe after a war? Don't know if this is doable but thought I'd mention it.

[binTravkin]

That's a good idea. I have done so.

Also I reinstated the AI's pillaging privelages, unchanged.

Whyso?
I think pillaging is not needed in 90% cases when AI does it.

[Solver]

The AI is poor at attacking cities. Until its city-taking algorithms are improved, pillaging is good, because that's the only thing the AI can do effectively in many cases. TO attack a city, it needs more units than a human.

[lange17]

Stupid question- I can get the mod to load if I go into advanced and manually select it (the game restarts and I see "Blake AI Mod" text on the welcome screen), but I have no idea if its loading when I try to follow the auto-load instructions. In programfiles/firaxis/civ4 there's a shortcut to the _Civ4CustomAssets folder- do i just drop the .dll in there? Not in a subfolder or anything? And even if I don't see any welcome screen text, trust that its working?

[player1]

Hmm, just asking:
Is AI smart enough to put artist specialist (possible in caste system), in cities which have no culture output, just to expand to 20 tile radius?

If not, this should be implemented...

This could actually make Caste System more useful in AI hands...

[DaveV]

Blake - I don't have a screenie, but I saw some questionable suggestions from the worker AI with your latest version. I had corn, pigs, and horses in my capital radius. After I irrigated the corn, the blue circles were appearing over a couple grassland hills instead of the pigs or horses. Pasturing the horses will give me just as many hammers, and more food, than the hills. And I'd always pasture the pigs before building any mines.

In another game, the blue circle for settling was SE of my starting position. Thinking the AI knew something I didn't, I moved to that spot (it was a hill, so end of turn). Next turn, no blue circle on the spot I'd moved to, and the blue circle was on my original square.

[Blake]

I havn't looked at blue circle code much, it's *not* the same as what the AI will do, I think it looks in a smaller radius around the worker and stuff.

I can't really think of why it'd priortize mines over horses AND pigs, unless there was already an autoworker enroute to those resources and laying a massive tract of road - that may well be the most likely explaination unless you didn't have 3 workers. (only one AI worker works on each task at a time).

[DaveV]

Originally posted by Blake
I havn't looked at blue circle code much, it's *not* the same as what the AI will do, I think it looks in a smaller radius around the worker and stuff.

Maybe you haven't touched that code, but I don't remember the blue circles being this misdirected in the past. Here's one where I went worker first on a highlands map. I started with hunting and researched animal husbandry, but I guess it wants me to irrigate the turndra?

[dannubis]

Very good work Blake !

I started on a standard continents map. Normally at prince I just cruise along. Now I really had to make an effort to stay in the tech race. (I actually had to take Elisabeth out by force or I would have been very dead I am sure)

However, one thing I noticed: for hills the AI does not seem to be able to make up its mind: mine or windmill. It happened a lot that I saw 5 workers mine all the hills around a city and 10 turns after that they were building windmills. Once these were build, they switched back to mines, etc