A Better AI.

[Solver]

Well, not everyone's like that . Some of us actually don't attack AIs, provided the relations are decent.

[Adagio]

Originally posted by Solver
Humans go for soft targets, though. If there's one very strong civ on your continent, and another an era behind in techs on another continent, you'll probably go invade the other continent. Distance is a big factor when deciding, of course, but power and possible gains are bigger factors.

I usually go the other way: If the other civ on my continent is strong, I'll usually try to take him out before he gets too strong. The only situations where I go for the weaker civ on another continent are when
a) The neighbor civs causes no treat to me (friendly or peaceful)
b) The civ on the other continent is the only known civ with religion x, while all civs on my continent has religion y as state religion

[Blake]

No it's not really about being aggressive...

The thing is, either you conquer enough of your continent to be able to win by Space or Diplomatic, or you want to conquer it all for domination... if you are going for domination there doesn't seem to be much reason to not kill off everyone.

I suppose diplomatic is the main one, if you have staunch allies or a guaranteed #2 who hates everyone on your continent, then you want to sail overseas and kill off those who wont vote for you.

I'm looking for ways to make relationships matter more.

I'll probably make it so aggressive AI (the game settings) results in them just don't give a damn about relationships, while normal AI's care a lot more. So if the player is a heartless warmonger bastard and wants to play with like-minded AI's, they can use Aggressive AI.
This would replace the "We hate humans" aspect of aggressive AI.

[Solver]

Blake, I recommend you don't tweak the relationship of the default AI. I think it cares about relations just enough now, making them care more would use the game.

Speaking of Space, though, I don't see why you would want to take your continent for it? Taking another continent will work just s well for getting a more robust economy. As long as you're the tech leader, doesn't matter much which continent you control.

[DrSpike]

Conquering another continent may be just as good at meeting your objective, but it certainly way more costly.

[Solver]

Not if the other continent's civ is behind in tech, while the one on your continent is not. Conquering a civ that has just discovered Gunpowder with Cavalry and Riflemen = easy.

[Saurus]

Originally posted by Blake
Wouldn't you be at more risk from a warmonger eating Gandhi/Hatty and then moving on to you .

Actually, not really.

The thing is that if this all is predictable, it gives me plenty of time to build up my defense. I should easily be able to afford this since I will be able to more or less forget about my army early on so would be able to use theese resources to build up my infrasturcture of my empire instead.

When Monty or Alex or whoever then eventually comes for Gandhi, I will still have at least some 50-100 turns of time to prepare for the assumed later assault against me.

Not knowing who is going to come for you and when, actually forces you to spend valuable resources on your defense even when the overall situation apperas to be peaceful.

My most memorable defeats have, in fact, been just those when I have been taken compleatly by surprise.
When someone from somewere far away just suddenly stays at my doorstep with a huge stack of units.

Then again I understand the problem of wars beeing more cost-effective for the A.I when attacking neighbours than someone far away.

I´d say that I´d still rather see an A.I that sometimes fight stupid wars that forces the human player to steadily be on alert than an A.I that only fights smart but always predictable wars.
Some of the characters in Civ 4 (monty ) are in fact more or less supposed to fight moronic wars by design.

[Blake]

There is the possibility of an AI growing so powerful that you can't stop it.

In my latest game I got that with Mansa Musa, he performed a CS Slingshot (that scum!) in 850BC and the rest of the world never saw him again, just up up and away! He failed to get Liberalism first, but his near pact-mate Washington had that honor and the two traded tech back and forth (but with Mansa Musa being generally much further ahead - he just got Economics before Liberalism). When the powers of Washington and Mansa Musa combine...

I was Alexander and stomped my neighbor flat but the basic problem remained that when I crossbows, Mansa Musa had Knights, when I got Riflemen (having beelined it), Mansa Musa was totting tanks.

It wasn't made easier by the fact that Mansa Musa converted most of the world to Conf (helping fund his research and secure his dominance) and that the others who I had to work with were Saladin and Monty.

In the mid game I switched to Free Religion and Monty stopped liking me and bowled on up with a strong stack, I had just got rifling and the stack found my city garrisoned with a good 8 Rifles. It didn't mind and chewed through the rifles, he didn't raze the city. Fortunately due to remaining AI incompetence (and the fact that you don't take out Riflemen with trebs without heavy losses) Monty couldn't sustain the attack and was driven out and turned into my vassal.

On the other side of my Hatty was busily winning a Cultural Victory and my capital almost culturally crushed while my Hermitage and Kremlin city is trying to flip. BOTH of her non-capital Cultural Cities are on my borders!

The game isn't over yet. Saladin and Hatty have started to fight and Saladin has better tech. Hatty's cultural victory will be terminated by me mainly to save my capital and Kremlin.

But I'm still not at all sure that I can stop Mansa Musa before he blasts off into space and waves goodbye to the puny mortals who thought they could tech.

This is the second game I've played where an AI could be mistaken for the human, performing some very smart moves that catapult them into a permanent lead, over both AI and Human. The other time it was Augustus Caesar but the fact he meant with a Cultural Victory meant I could destory him (burnt a legendary city) on the 11th hour 59th minute through finally reaching tech parity. There will be no such joy against Mansa Musa, who will never turn off research.


Okay other issues...
With attacking near vs far... note it's only an increased tendency to attack near, they still might attack far... if it's less expected, it hurts all the more if it happens .

Blake, I recommend you don't tweak the relationship of the default AI. I think it cares about relations just enough now, making them care more would use the game.

IMHO the normal AI's care about the right amount about relationships. So only under aggressive AI will it change.

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Blake
I'll probably make it so aggressive AI (the game settings) results in them just don't give a damn about relationships, while normal AI's care a lot more. So if the player is a heartless warmonger bastard and wants to play with like-minded AI's, they can use Aggressive AI.
This would replace the "We hate humans" aspect of aggressive AI.

My impression with aggressive AI is that AIs who don't like you or each other are more likely to declare war, but if you have friendly relations, they stay friendly. Which is the way I like it: I want more wars, but I also want to have a means to avoid it: diplomacy. So I would too like to ask not to change the aggressive AI to just declare war on anyone.

[Solver]

Damn Blake, that's quite a story . Is that playing on Monarch level?

And how did Mansa manage his CS slingshot, it was quite tuned down in the patch?

[Blake]

He got lucky, it's as simple as that. Strong commerce capital.
He researched CoL extremely early (1240BC or something) and I guess he just chewed through mathematics and chose CS when the oracle completed.

The AI likes to perform a similar slingshot in the mid game, where they get liberalism and pick up economics and use the free merchant for a big cash bomb which lets them research off to lofty heights, catching up to that can be a challenge.

[Solver]

Well... when you have an AI that can make something useful of getting lucky, you're so in trouble!

[Forwarn45]

Reading your account - and not having too much experience with the latest version - I was just wondering if you did or can get the AI going for a cultural victory to make sure they protect their "special" cities? A human going for such a victory would probably not use border cities if possible, and in any case would put a special military effort into their defense. But otherwise sounds like a good game.

[MikeH]

Originally posted by Blake
The AI likes to perform a similar slingshot in the mid game, where they get liberalism and pick up economics and use the free merchant for a big cash bomb which lets them research off to lofty heights, catching up to that can be a challenge.

I like to do that, if I can.

[Arrian]

I like to try the "Democracy slingshot" by researching printing press and constitution before liberalism and then taking Demo for free (typically nabbing economics too for the free GM). This has been more difficult since 2.08, and it would seem even moreso with Blake's changes (I've not been trying out the better AI version-by-version).

-Arrian