A Better AI.

[Aro]

Originally posted by Adagio


Actually they do, as some has pointed out going down in level can end up giving the human player some bonuses that he/she doesn't want

Exactly.

[Harrier UK]

My point, exactly.

We want a more balanced game - with slightly reduced modified AI bonuses (will of course need some beta game play testers) [count me in]

We do not want an easier game - just balance between levels.

Maybe a new starter level ( a bit easier for the new player), an additional level just below noble level, (reducing any AI bonuses - if any?) - Noble was meant to be even. So with the improved AI - maybe a small bonus to the human - not sure what.

Well above that level ( the highest I played at was Prince {lost}.

So I will leave that debate to more experienced players.

[Senethro]

Theres absolutely no damn point in trying to make "new" difficulty levels "equal" to how they used to be.

I know how fast I can expand in Noble, Prince and Monarch and would appreciate you not screwing with it because you're too proud to lose to a CPU.

[Thedrin]

Theres absolutely no damn point in trying to make "new" difficulty levels "equal" to how they used to be.

I agree with this but I still think that the difficulty levels should be altered as the official AI - the one that Firaxis releases - is updated.

Eventually I'd like to see the affects of the different levels above Noble reduced to the health penalty, happiness penalty, bonuses against barbarians and unit upgrade costs.

[Dis]

Originally posted by eris


My problem with this statement is which "human" you are talking about. Is it you? Is it me? Is it Blake? A game that lets you play even at Noble is going to kill me. Why shouldn't it be tuned to me? I am a human too! What makes any of us the "norm" that Noble should be tuned to? Why shouldn't it be tuned so that Noble is a distinct challenge to Blake and even better players? Is Noble supposed to be for casual human players, experienced human players or expert human players? You have set a rather vague target there. Should Noble present the same no-bonuses-needed challenge to all three levels of player I just listed? Otherwise, how do we set the norm? Do we tune it to a person with an IQ of 100? It sounds to me that on this topic people tend to lean towards "It should be balanced for ME!" and leave off consideration of balance for others.

So, if I make the same request as you, that Noble be set that it gives me some challenge but won't kick me every time, it will be very boring for the rest of you people. That is why I do not support the adjustment of levels and their bonuses. I do not consider myself the standard of measurement that Civ should be tuned to. I consider myself just one of the standards to be considered. We all are. And I consider myself covered by the difficulty levels available, even with Blake's evil conniving smarter AI.

assuming we had the ability to really modify the AI behaviour (to a further extent than Blake has already done), ideally we would not modify the bonuses as certain levels, but the level of AI thinking. Kind of like Chess AI's. The rules are the same for both sides of chess. The only thing that varies at various levels are the ability of the AI to plan ahead.

[sabrewolf]

the problem of not adapting difficulty levels is the comparison. no one will beat the old hall of fame scores except if they make up a whole level and still finish the same fast as on the level below...

and yes... EGOs also have an influence. imagine if you cannot even beat level 2 of 8... some players may be shocked by the thought.

and last: the boni were given to let the average player be around "noble" level. now the average guy may be around "warlords" or so.

[ColdPhoenix]

I'm not bothered about what difficulty level I play at. If the AI was improved so that I had to play at Noble or lower I wouldn't mind. I just think that the gradient of the AI bonuses as you move up the higher levels should be reduced. A better AI will be able to use each % bonus more efficiently and so if they stay as they are each level up won't be x% harder but will be 2x% harder. I wouldn't like to see a stage reached where the AI plays like a good human player so that all players are clustered around noble or a level above or below leaving the top few levels redundant.

That said, I think the improvements to AI are fantastic and I hope it reaches a stage where I have a challenging game on Noble so I don't feel that the AI is cheating.

[Nacht]

Originally posted by sabrewolf
and last: the boni were given to let the average player be around "noble" level. now the average guy may be around "warlords" or so.

Originally posted by eris
My problem with this statement is which "human" you are talking about. Is it you? Is it me? Is it Blake? A game that lets you play even at Noble is going to kill me. Why shouldn't it be tuned to me?

The Noble level is being called 'even' because neither side receives any bonus. (well the ai receives some, but it's the most even).

So it isn't tuned at all. Not to Blake, not to eris and not to the average guy.

[Forwarn45]

If the AI is improved to the point that I could play on noble (or a close to level playing field) with a competitive AI, I'd be happy enough. But the level discussion seems premature at this point.

Looking forward to the next version of the improved AI!

[Iustus]

New downloads, both Warlords and Vanilla are posted today, 11/17/2006 on the sourceforge downloads page

Overall Strategy:
- Cultural Victory: the AI now may decide to try for this victory type
- Dagger: sometimes, the AI make make a big military effort somewhat early

Military Strategy:
- larger stacks should be more likely
- units are split off to heal while the main stack moves on
- quite a few minor changes

Military Tactics:
- when attacking, with low odds, sacrifice units are sent first
- The AI will pillage a lot less.
- When sieging cities, the AI will attack with all of it's units if it thinks it can win.
- AIs use promotions more sensibly, they will try to make a medic in large stacks and are less likely to use "conflicting" counter-promotions (ie Shock+Cover)

AI Tech Preferences
- Techs that give buildings should be valued more highly than before
- Meditation and Polytheism are closer in value, which one an AI chooses to do first will be more random
- AIs will prefer techs that give them their UUs and UBs

Worker AI:
- automated workers correctly will improve over city ruins
- all known bugs with city ruins and 'leave old improvements' fixed
- other minor tweaks

Diplomacy:
- AIs will be less likely to accept peace when they have a large advantage in land area

City AI:
- AIs will try to spawn a prophet in their holy city if they do not have a shrine yet

Governor changes:
- the default case of the governor should now be one you usually use
- food has a higher priority when cities need to grow
- if you pick emphasize, it will be more likely to do what you wanted
- in general, emphasize nothing is a better choice than emp food/prod/commerce
- emph commerce will also emphasize gold (also pick emphasize research if thats why you want commerce)
- emph great people rate should actually do what you expect
- emph research should work commerce+food tiles when appropriate
- the governor knows how close you are to the happy cap of the city

Cheat mode: (= chipotle, to enable)
- lots for AI debugging, including messages created for all AI trading (see how much or little the AI really trades)

Enjoy!

-Iustus

[Mergle]

Woohoo! cultural victory! thanks Blake! I don't know how its coded but it occurs to me it might be a good strategy for a weak vassal of a strong player (esp. if the master is the human - teehee can't attack!)

And the warmongering improvements actually make me scared to go back into the water after I only just survived a Monarch game thanks to incompetent attackers...

[Nacht]

I tried three games and they all ended in the game going into an endless loop inbetween turns.

Here is the third game: Warlords 2.08, the latest dll (11/17), all standard settings, noble level. When hitting next turn the game stalls. suprisingly popups and the main menu keep working.

[Iustus]

Endless loop bugfixed. (It was related to healing units.)

A new build is up on SourceForge

-Iustus

[ben04]

Is it just me or do only AI civs fight between each other when you havn't meet them?

In my last game I sent out a caravel out to travel around the world and to discover the few civs that hadn't done sailed to me before. I was too busy conquering my main land to send it earlier. As soon as I meat 2 civs who are at war it lasts about 10 turns and then there's peace and they don't declare war anymore for the rest of the game.

It might have been an odd coinicdence but I have the feeling that the presence of a humain is pacifing. On my main land I was also the only one warring and there were around 8 other civs that just sit there doing nothing.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Petek
It's possible that this behavior was fixed in patch 2.08 instead of your most recent mod.

No it wasn't. I've been playing with just the patch changes so far and they will still stop what they're doing. Nice to hear this latest alteration has done away with that. I wasn't sure whether to try it or not, but this has convinced me to do so.