A Better AI.

[Adagio]

I'm with Solver on this one. If a change is unrelated to the AI, then it doesn't belong in the "Better AI" mod

[Solver]

But the problem is that linked code. Better position evaluation by the AI is related to the AI. However, better position evaluation is impossible without some tweaks to the generator.

[rjmatsleepers]

Originally posted by Solver
But the problem is that linked code. Better position evaluation by the AI is related to the AI. However, better position evaluation is impossible without some tweaks to the generator.

My two bits worth. If a particular AI improvement requires a change in the game set up, I vote for not improving the AI in that direction.

RJM

[Mergle]

Originally posted by Solver
But the problem is that linked code. Better position evaluation by the AI is related to the AI. However, better position evaluation is impossible without some tweaks to the generator.

Yes. I'd prefer a pure AI-only mod. But the point is, Blake's AUI changes broke the setup code (more), so he has to fix it. And fixing it to broken-as-originally-written seems silly.

[eris]

Here is a concept question:

Is playing with the Better AI mod in effect a sort of multiplayer game? Doesn't it become a case of all of us against Blake? It would explain why so many of us need a handicap since so few of us are of that playing level.

Has anyone checked to see if there is a hidden piece of code that tracks how many times we lose to the Better AI so that Blake can secretly gloat about it? It would be well deserved gloating!

[DaveV]

Originally posted by Solver
I like Civ4 just the way it is, and would prefer not to have any changes unrelated to the AI.

Like the pop-rush bug in vanilla? Blake's dll is a great addition to the vanilla game, and big thanks to him for still supporting it (even though Firaxis isn't). But I'd agree that this mod shouldn't add new features, as opposed to bug fixes. The distinction between the two depends greatly on your viewpoint, of course.

[Tattila the Hun]

I wonder if something like this could be fixed...



Those ruskies have been sitting there for couple of turns, at war with Isabella, bombarded the defences to zero, and attacked with cannons for collateral. And the infantry, they do nothing. There are six Longbowmen in that city, there were seven in the last turn. There are ten or so russian inf in that stack, and about similar amount of egyptians, vassals of russia.

Not that I'm complaining, that city made a nice addition to my small empire.

[thyrwyn]

Originally posted by rjmatsleepers
My two bits worth. If a particular AI improvement requires a change in the game set up, I vote for not improving the AI in that direction.

RJM

Why do you feel that way? If the 'game set up' is not ideal, and changing it would result in both improved AI performance and a better game experience, why shouldn't it fall within the scope of Blake's project?

Given the concentrated resource allocation around start locations, broken start site selection and improvement can really break the game. Start locations are such clearly superior city sites, that starting too close to an AI is a mandate for an early Axeman, Chariot or Archer rush. It is much easier to take the AI capitol early than it is to try and fight their culture while settling around them.

I'll voice my support for "change the code, Blake!".

[Arrian]

Grassland Furs... yikes. Sorta like the fabled grassland gems start (that I've still never seen).

So of course I start a game last night and I get grassland gems. Only one, though, and the other aspects of the start made it good but not great.

-Arrian

[Willem]

Originally posted by Jaybe
What civ(s) do you play, Willem? My huge/fractal starts as Rome are mostly inland (Warlords 208).

I play random civs, I like the variety.

[joncnunn]

A few of comments:

1.
The "leave existing improvements alone" really should leave existing improvements alone regardless of presence of new resources. The human can take one worker off of auto and manually add the new resources.
City ruins though should not be considered an improvement for this purpose at all though, they don't add any benifit to their tiles.

2.
On the imporoved AI city placement, I really like it, but the one major thing it's missing is considering if the new location is close enough to the rest of their empire to be defended. See the latest AU game where the Cyprus AI in many(most?) of them pouched an excelent city site too far from their empire (and too close to the humans) to defend, promptly resulting in the human taking the city from them. Maybe the alogrithm could go something like (on standard map; scale for different sizes) if another player's culture boundary is within 6 tiles of proposed city site and on this landmass and I don't have culture already on this landmass within 6 tiles of this proposed city site, then don't build here.

3.
And on the AI bonuses & penalties. Any section where the AI gets bonsuses on Noble is an indicator of where the vanilla unmodified AI is weak in a specific area. The stronger the bonus, the weaker the AI was. So anything that improves the AI in that regard so lower the AI bonsues in proportion to how much the AI was improved.

Ex 1: AI gets very low cost unit upgrades at Noble; this indicated the default AI had difficulty with the concepts of saving for unit upgrades/ and with Great Merchant cash for upgrades. So anything that improves the AI in this regard whould reduce the AI bonsus with unit upgrades.

Ex 2: AI gets lower support cost at Noble; this indicates the AI is wasting units in unproductive tasks during wars such as isolated units on resources too few to do any real good. So anything that improves the AI in that matter should reduce the AI lower unit support cost bonus.

Ideally the AI would be acceptable enough in all areas so that on Noble level, the AI would get neither bonuses nor penalties. The other levels should scale from there.

4.
On better AI behavior at higher difficulty levels, that should depend upon how "advanced" the concept is. Something that only a few expert humans are aware of are definate candidates for only high level AIs.

[rjmatsleepers]

Originally posted by thyrwyn
Why do you feel that way? If the 'game set up' is not ideal, and changing it would result in both improved AI performance and a better game experience, why shouldn't it fall within the scope of Blake's project?

Blake is free to include whatever he wishes in his project. He has done a great job on improving the AI. But I go along with Solver. I would prefer no changes other than improving the AI. For me, other changes would not be a better game experience and I would stick to the vanilla game.

RJM

[Solver]

The "leave existing improvements alone" really should leave existing improvements alone regardless of presence of new resources.

Absolutely. The very reason I have that option is because, if I automate a Worker, I want to be sure that he WON'T go mine an Uranium tile that I have another improvement on.

[joncnunn]

On the starting locations changes so far; their pretty minor. I'd still be hiting the regenerate map button.

I'm thinking I'd actually want the greenland effect increased and also I don't like it when the AI starting location gets too many more resources than mine. Perhaps they could be in seperate files?

[Forwarn45]

Just wanted to add another vote against changing non-buggy game mechanics. I'd prefer this mod be to improve the AI and otherwise remain as close to vanilla civ as possible. I don't think the AI improvements have "broken" the game at all.