A Better AI.

[ColdPhoenix]

There's no point if the top few levels are impossible to win on.

The AI used to be very bad at warfare and managing their economy. Now it's a lot better and getting huge bonuses to research, production and extra units at the start is just unfair.

It's effectively reducing the range of difficulty levels as the top couple won't be played. I think that at least reducing the bonuses to production and research would be good.

I don't know exactly what the bonuses are but if the AI pays 60% of what we pay for each tech and unit/building on Emperor and 70% on Monarch it could be moved to 80% and 85% etc.

[Arrian]

They likely won't be impossible - there are some amazingly good players out there. Not very many players will want to play Diety with Blake's AI, but some may, just as some will want to play on Settler.

It's not about "fairness" per se. It's about challenge. Some want more challenge the even Blake's improved AI can provide on a level playing field, and thus the AI bonuses. Some are more casual players and will want to play on levels where THEY get the bonuses (Settler-Warlord).

The only level where "fairness" is really an issue is Noble. That's the level that is designed to play about even. I think it can be made more even now that the AI is being improved. I bet it will still be much harder than stock noble level.

-Arrian

[ColdPhoenix]

You're certainly right about the fairness, a bad choice of words on my part. I play on "unfair" levels (admittedly only Prince now) as it's too easy at Noble.

Maybe you're right about the difficulty levels too. There could be players out there good enough. It's just I thought that even with the old AI there were very few who could win on Diety (and even for them it was far from guaranteed). The new AI has made a lot of difference, I've noticed in the new patch that they are much better at competing economically (I've had to drop a difficulty level), the reason I can still win is because are useless at warfare. If the most recent versions of the AI has improved warfare like I've seen here then there goes that player advantage. You'd have to be very good to beat an AI that can produce twice as many units and use them properly. Not to mention that they'll likely be more advanced as they're getting two beakers for every one of yours (and they now know to build cottages).

Of course, if there are players who want that challenge then they should leave the levels as they are.

[Diadem]

I think even with the old AI there were few players who could win deity, and very few who could win it without very specific map settings or very good starting positions.

In 2.08 it's a harder, but not even that much. You could never keep up with the AI anyway, being even further behind doesn't even hurt that much. Just trade even more to keep up.

However with improved military. There's just no way to keep up with the AI military-wise. You need their stupidity to survive. Smart deity AIs will just swath you like a bug.

[Harrier UK]

Everyone seems to forget that the AI bonusses ( in the original Civ4 and Warlords) as you go up a level, are to compensate for the poor AI play style - compared to a human. Which is to be expected.

Therefore when Blake has finished his improvements to the AI. It seem natural that some of the AI bonuses should be changed.

Simply saying - go down a level is not the correct or right thing to say.

For instance I do not want to go down from Noble to Warlords (or what ever it is called) - not because of vanity (as many seem to be implying) but because I do not want the extra advantages that lower level gives me.

I do not want extra advantages for me , I want the AI advantages to be slightly reduced - to compensate for the improved AI gameplay.

So to me, the ideal would be to keep the existing play levels, but add an additional one between each existing one that slightly modified downwards the AI bonuses.

Now what is wrong with that.

Of course this balancing should only be considered, when and only when The AI tweaking has finished.

In the meantime lets all thank Blake for his work.

[sabrewolf]

it's clear that with an improved AI value system the need for AI bonuses is reduced and i'm sure firaxis is aware of this.

but don't forget that balancing the game is a gigantic issue for the developers.
for instance, does blake's city placement and worker rules justify the removing of AI's free archery and the 1-2 archers in the beginning? probably not, because they affect different times of the game.
another example: would blake's more intelligent choice of civics justify that AIs don't get that much shorter anarchy times --> i believe it does!

and then there's always the question about how much change.
- reduce AI trade "cordiality" by 5, 10, 15, 20%?
- reduce AI's production bonus by 50%, 100%?
- full priced upgrades?
- etc

i guess a massive amount of testers should try to quantify the difference in city quality, total score and other measurements.

maybe firaxis developers might even release their proposed changes to the XML files here so people can say whether the compensations equalise the additional AI quality...

[Dis]

Originally posted by 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.

I think it is fine as is. In fact, as I noted in my example above. I didn't see that much difference. The civs were a little more advanced than they usually are, but they are still susceptible to getting their cities taken.

Though you could say as some have, it weakens the builder game. I play a hybrid game myself.

Anyways I did try one game a difficulty below mine, but I was so far ahead I quit. So I went back to the same difficulty level. it's a little more challenging, but I can still pull off a win.

[Dis]

Originally posted by Arrian
They likely won't be impossible - there are some amazingly good players out there. Not very many players will want to play Diety with Blake's AI, but some may, just as some will want to play on Settler.

It's not about "fairness" per se. It's about challenge. Some want more challenge the even Blake's improved AI can provide on a level playing field, and thus the AI bonuses. Some are more casual players and will want to play on levels where THEY get the bonuses (Settler-Warlord).

The only level where "fairness" is really an issue is Noble. That's the level that is designed to play about even. I think it can be made more even now that the AI is being improved. I bet it will still be much harder than stock noble level.

-Arrian

I think what we want, what we all want is an AI smart enough to play toe to toe with the human with NO bonuses. What we want is to play a challenging game at Noble. That way we feel the AI doesn't have to cheat to compete with us. Sure it makes the top levels useless, but if need be we can rearrange them.

[frenzyfol]

Hi Blake,

I was told to post the ideas from a thread I recently created in this forum

I haven't had time to read through this whole post ( I plan to, very interested!) so apologies if what I say has already been discussed.

Anyway here's the link and summary.

Original post

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=4668083&t=6742#post4668083

Basic rundown
"Programmable AI"
Instead of giving just the simple order of "Go and improve terrain" I should be able to layout simple AI scripts for my workers, such as.

If Terrain = hill + plains Do Windmill

You could increase the complexity as far as you want

If Terrain = Hill + plains
And city food surplus is > 3
Else
Build windmill

Scripts could be savable preferences so you can load different ones for different situations
Scripts should be assigned to cities (not workers), this allows you to customise per city. Workers just use the AI script of the closest city.

Now I'm no programmer, this stuff isn't beyond the understanding of most gamers.

[Swiss Pauli]

Originally posted by sabrewolf ...maybe firaxis developers might even release their proposed changes to the XML files here so people can say whether the compensations equalise the additional AI quality...

I don't think it's only Firaxis that matters here. I think the main thing about the AI playing better is that modders can then tinker with the bonuses to create different feels: one might like to reduce production bonuses, but increase tech ones to give close space races, whereas another might do the opposite to give an AI that spams huge but backwards military that the human can 'Chuck Norris' to his heart's content.

[eris]

Originally posted by Dis


I think what we want, what we all want is an AI smart enough to play toe to toe with the human with NO bonuses. What we want is to play a challenging game at Noble. That way we feel the AI doesn't have to cheat to compete with us. Sure it makes the top levels useless, but if need be we can rearrange them.

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.

[eris]

Originally posted by Dis


I think what we want, what we all want is an AI smart enough to play toe to toe with the human with NO bonuses. What we want is to play a challenging game at Noble. That way we feel the AI doesn't have to cheat to compete with us. Sure it makes the top levels useless, but if need be we can rearrange them.

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.

[Senethro]

Damnit people, just leave the difficulty settings as they are. They don't /MEAN/ anything. Lets just have the AI make as good decisions as possible on all difficulties and let the player decide what the handicap is.

[Aro]

Originally posted by Senethro
Damnit people, just leave the difficulty settings as they are. They don't /MEAN/ anything.

:hummm: It's not true. They /MEAN/ a thing.
In fact, I'm being able to play at noble was a /GREAT/ achievement... To me.
Not anymore. The (not so) stupid AI is beating me almost every time!

But I like the new and improved AI. Thanks, Blake... . err... I mean...

[Adagio]

Originally posted by Senethro
Damnit people, just leave the difficulty settings as they are. They don't /MEAN/ anything

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