A Better AI.

[Blake]

DoW's on distant people aren't entirely pointless, after all it prevents tech and resource trade. Alienating victims never hurts.

Screenshots of suspect city placement are useful. Sometimes it does make sense to place a city 1 tile from the edge of the map since it brings in 2 additional tiles, at the potential loss of 3 tiles - but if those 3 tiles are already taken, or aren't as good as the 2 tiles along the map edge, it can be the right move.

[DaveV]

Initial reaction to the February 9th build: the AI performs a lot better on Highlands maps. I've apparently picked up some sloppy habits; it seems like I'm always last in power at Monarch level, and the AIs are bullying me like crazy in the BC years. In one game, I was fighting off Cyrus and a bunch of barbs when Mansa Musa attacked my newest, weakly defended city. In another game, Julius Caesar attacked really early with a couple archers, killed one of my workers, and pillaged several mines. AI neighbors are now just about as annoying as human neighbors. I'll have to work on my early-game troop production.

[Adagio]

I've been playing with the Jan 25 version and there seems to be a bug with peace. For some weird reason I can sign peace with the AI on one turn, then the very next turn the same AI attacks me? I've noticed that when I hover my mouse above the AI after signing a peace treaty there's not the usual text "Cannot declare war"

[DrSpike]

Well that's one way of improving the AI.

[Iustus]

New build 2/12 on SourceForge

- War declarations should be back to their normal level
(was extremely high since 1/24)
- Chipotle war analysis updated to show correct percentages
- Crash fixed that was caused by a unit that wants to upgrade
but cannot path to any city

SVN revision 362

[joncnunn]

Thanks; I was wondering why on the Jan 31st build I appeared to be playing with an agressive AI.

[sjm]

Originally posted by Tattila the Hun
Another...

"Assert Failed

File: .\CvPlayer.cpp
Line: 11483
Expression: isHuman() || isBarbarian() || ((getGold() + iGoldChange) >= 0)
Message:

----------------------------------------------------------"

Could not reproduce, though.

I get this repeatedly (on a different line though, if I'm not mistaken).

Basically, every time a load my save game, I need to click on "Always Ignore" the after first round. Otherwise it happens each round.

I don't know if it's just my save game or not though; I've only started the one with the current AI. I could upload a save if you want (or hundreds of saves, as it happens every time).

[sjm]

Of course, once I got home yesterday after posting the above, the error stopped occurring

[Guynemer]

-bump-

Just because this is simply the best mod ever made.

[joncnunn]

It's definately the best mode ever made, but there's one part that appears to still need tweaked.

The AI / City Governor is allowing angry citizens to be born under Tribalism. The work force allocation it's using for both in exactly equal balance & one angry citizen looks more approative for the Slavery civic than the Tribalism civic.

Thanks

[TheCat]

Maybe you could put a link to this thread, or to the sourceforge file area, in your original thread(s)? I spent a while playing with the old version because it's linked as "Download the Latest Version : CIV1.61_ImpAI_v0.65.zip" and I didn't realize there was a new thread.

[Tattila the Hun]

Governors keep squandering my military upgrade fund...

[Willem]

I really don't like these new behaviours. The last few times I've played with them I've just had too many civs declare war on me, and for absolutely no reason. And they begin far too early. With this last game I just gave up on, I was still trying to get myself protected from the Barbs when all of a sudden Ragnar attacks and captures one of my cities with a stack of Archers and a Spearman. There was absolutely no reason for it either, our borders weren't even remotely close to each and we both had plenty of room to expand.

Plus I'm finding the civs who are at war with me are far too unwilling to make peace. My previous game to this, I had 4 civs declare on me, and this state of war went on forever. Even though with some of them our territories were so far apart that it was just a war in name only. They were never able to get any units into my territory, yet they were completely unwilling to make peace even after hundreds of years had passed. It made the game really boring, really fast, since I couldn't do a thing with all those civs against me. I had to focus all my attention on my defence, and was never able to go after anyone. And no, none of them were vassals, they all just decided to gang up on me independantly.

I feel that using these AI behaviours, the only viable strategy for the game is to be a warmonger. Trying to be a builder is out of the question since everyone is so eager to declare on you. You've done a great job in other areas of the AI behaviour, but you're really going to have to tone down the constant declarations to get me interested in them. The game's just not fun for me with them in place, it's gets tiresome always having someone try to kick my butt every single time I play.

P.S. I went back and checked my auto-saves before and just at the point where Ragnar declared war. Before he declared I had +1 Our years of peace... and +1 Open Borders. The turn he declared I had -1 for opposing religions. So diplomatically there was absolutely no reason for him to declare, nor were our borders even remotely close. There was a large tract of Jungle between us. And though he was more powerful than I was, I wasn't too far behind. I was at least in the top half. Plus he had Montezuma nearby who was weaker than I was and much closer, though they did share the same religion.

[Adagio]

Originally posted by Willem
Plus I'm finding the civs who are at war with me are far too unwilling to make peace

Yeah, this is getting annoying. In one of my games the Aztecs declared war on me around 1000 BC, 2000 years later they still refused peace. During the war not one battle has been fought (without Astronomy it wasn't possible for them to reach my shores)

[sjm]

I have had similar problems with making peace too. It strikes me that the algorithm used to evaluate whether making peace is to the AI's advantage or not is flawed.

For example, Isabella declares war on me. She's got a (slightly) larger army than me, but not by much. She hates me of course, because I'm a heathen. So I have no problem with her declaring war.

But 50 turns on, after not a single land battle between our opposing forces (because she's on the other side of a huge map in the middle ages), she's still unwilling to settle for peace for free - she want me to bribe her. Yet to me, it seems pointless to me to spend 100s of turns at war with someone you aren't even fighting. The AI needs to look past a simple power comparison when negotiating peace. It needs to realise that it is not advantageous to be bogged down in a prolonged war - especially if it's a war the AI isn't even fighting.

In fact it's detrimental to the AI, for instead of giving her free stuff for no gain, I bribed the Mongols to attack her instead. She then made peace with me for free - and I got two civs at each others necks for the rest of the game.

If an AI is crushing you, fair enough if it won't make peace or has exhorbitant demands. But if it isn't even fighting a war, it can't expect tribute. Making peace needs to be seen as advangeous in itself, especially as war weainess takes its toll.