A Better AI.

[fed1943]

Questions of an ignorant, but that's what I am:

I downloaded and installed (7th Nov.,I think) for Vanilla, but not for

Warlords, because I suppose the patch has it.

Now there is more for vanilla and new for warlords, if I'm not wrong.

The Mode for Vanilla is in a folder "Blake AI", I created.

So, to install more to Vanilla and some to Warlords, what must I

do,please?

My thanks in advance.

( And as a player I can say: great work,sir).

Best regards,

[kiky]

Soon, I think it may be time to review the AI bonuses.

Yes of course, if not I may need a new level below Settler level

[Dis]

my first game on noble level with the patch.

India is a research powerhouse. I found out the hard way taking my swordsmen against their longbowmen. And I had no catapults.

I'm only 100 points behind, but I have a feeling they will pull away. I'm not sure how to pull off a victory here. I did take 1 Indian town, but I could not get their capitol. I guess I'll hit the barbarian towns along my other border. But I wanted to bring the indians down a few notches.

[Welshie]

Originally posted by Dis
my first game on noble level with the patch.

India is a research powerhouse. I found out the hard way taking my swordsmen against their longbowmen. And I had no catapults.

I'm only 100 points behind, but I have a feeling they will pull away. I'm not sure how to pull off a victory here. I did take 1 Indian town, but I could not get their capitol. I guess I'll hit the barbarian towns along my other border. But I wanted to bring the indians down a few notches.

Pillage him :P

Blake - how early do these daggers happen? I think it's worth bearing in mind that it's fairly widely accepted in Civ games and RTS style games that it's just no fun being hit by an AI before you can do anything about it. The one in your screenshot seems to be happening in the late early game, and I wouldn't have a problem with that. I'm just imagining being hit by stacks of chariots by some evil AI who started off by horses when you are still placing city 3.

Obviously there's a degree to which you say "well more fool you for not focussing on military early enough", but what do you think?

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Blake
Not exactly. Sometimes in order to win the game you have to take risks. It can be too expensive to prepare for a massive stack of swords, instead it can be better to pray that they target someone else, buying time to get crossbows or whatever, since it's a lot cheaper to defeat them with crossbows.

If I have a neighbour with a stronger army than me and I'm not shooting for a military victory, I'd still increase my army size somewhat. Of course not to the size of my rival, but at least a certain size, so I can keep an initial assault at bay. Perhaps the peaceful AI could determine their amy size as well as a certain percentage of their neighbours?

[Dis]

Originally posted by Welshie


Pillage him :P

Blake - how early do these daggers happen? I think it's worth bearing in mind that it's fairly widely accepted in Civ games and RTS style games that it's just no fun being hit by an AI before you can do anything about it. The one in your screenshot seems to be happening in the late early game, and I wouldn't have a problem with that. I'm just imagining being hit by stacks of chariots by some evil AI who started off by horses when you are still placing city 3.

Obviously there's a degree to which you say "well more fool you for not focussing on military early enough", but what do you think?

worked out pretty good actually. I pillaged almost everything. I was surprised that alone sent him down on points. After that the carthagians were stupid enough to attack me. Real bad because they didn't bother building a military before they attacked me. So I took 3 of their cities. Much later I joined up with the Russians and Arabians (vassal of the russians) and gang banged the germans. What sucks is the germans capitulated to the russians even though I took 3 of their cities and the russians only took 1. Oh well. I then took 2 more Carthagian cities and burned 1 more to the ground forcing them to capitulate (putting me on top in points over Peter).

Now for the all important question. Do I go for domination or spaceship. Either way I'm attacking the Indians again. I want Dehli.

Dominations sounds more fun since Peter has two vassals. I'd like to take on 3 civs at once. I don't think I've done that (successfully)

[Solver]

I should say that I also remain against adjusting difficulty levels. I don't have a problem with playing a level lower, or even two if I had to - as long as there's a wide selection of levels (which there is), I think it's fine.

[Senethro]

Difficulty levels are meaningless as you're not playing against a real opponent anyway.

But soon, perhaps Blake will have a CPU opponent better resembling human behaviour.

[Solver]

As long as the CPU isn't always aggressive. Humans are cutthroat. Of course, opponents such as Montezuma or Shaka should often be aggressive, and do well at it.

[Kuciwalker]

Wow. Just wow.

[Arrian]

So when reviewing the difficulty levels should Noble still be the fair difficulty?

Yeah, probably. The AI does still get a few bonuses on Noble - those could be removed. Perhaps intermediate steps could be added between, say, Prince and Monarch, Monarch and Emperor. I'm not sure, exactly, and won't be until I get a feel for your finished product AI.

You find Monarch to be the level you enjoy. Great. I didn't mean that I wanted to remove Monarch. It could stay as-is (be it still called "Monarch" or moved to "Emperor")... whatever.

Or not. I haven't been playing with your newer builds, Blake, so I'm not sure about any of this.

-Arrian

[Risa]

Can those percentages of choosing various strategies be exported to XML files without causing save incompatibility? It would always be better being able to change those number things without touching SDK.

Also, how does "random personalities" interact with those percentages, if any?

[Kuciwalker]

With these changes, though, is there any point to the highest levels?

[Solver]

There's always a point to having higher levels, no?

[Arrian]

Of course.

This is all about personal preference, and to that end I've always been an advocate of many difficulty levels, thus creating smaller steps up between the levels.

My pride can handle dropping down to Noble. I just think it would be cool if Noble were even more even than it is now, plus there were levels between Prince and Monarch, or Monarch and Emperor, or both... and the same for the lower levels of course.

-Arrian