A Better AI.

[Qwertqwert]

Playing with that newest patch (of both the game and this), I am having some oddity. Basically military stacks of warring nations are standing outside 1 of my cities, sending 1 or 2 units a turn, and keeping most of the stack just waiting there, while I heal those damaged units. Really this has only happened once, but it's so bizzarely stupid I though it should be mentioned. I was playing as Brennus, with the warring leader as Alexander if that helps any.

[Blake]

Solver:
Saves from later in the game are most useful (especially around biology), because it takes a long time to play to that point. It is certainly not essential for there to be any visible problems, since I have a well developed eye for AI problems and I can also use the save to test things. But saves showing a problem are also much more useful than just mentioning a problem, it means I can also test that the fix works for that case.

Qwertqwert:
It's a known problem - not fixed yet. Previously the AI would just mass pillage in that situation.
At the moment not all AI units have been rounded up, some still wander off on their own (those are the forces which dribble in, and the ones which pre-emptively declare war before the main stack arrives).
Also if an AI stack finds itself in a position where it can't win the fight, it'll be a bit apathetic and will just sit there. At some point I'll get around to making them either pillage (if they just out-defensive-bonus'ed) or run away (if they are outnumbered).

[Blake]

edit: dp

[rjmatsleepers]

Originally posted by Traitain

One more thing, is there anyway I can tell if Blakes Mod is running or not? Just to be sure I'm getting the goodness.

Originally posted by Solver
If you put into CustomAssets, it will always run.

Another indication is when you get your ass kicked .

I get my ass kicked all the time with all versions.

More seriously, I now have 4 dlls, and they each have the same name. I would like to be sure that I'm correctly keeping track of them. Would it be possible to put something in "about this build" to show which is which?

RJM

[Willem]

I've been playing with your new build Blake and there's a couple of things I noticed. First off, I believe you mentioned somewhere that the AI wasn't supposed to build cities on top of resources, but I saw Mansa build one on top of a Gold resource, and Hannibal built one on top of Marble.

And the Missionary usage needs some tweaking. Elizabeth had founded Confucianism and sent 3 missionaries my way. And every one of them went straight for my Holy Cities, Hinduism and Christianity. This doesn't make any sense since those cities are the hardest to plant another religion in, and having another religion there is actually something of a benefit to me. If I don't have my shrine yet, I can build another Temple and run another priest for some extra GP points.

Also, while she was beelining for my holy cities, she completely ignored a couple of other cities that were much closer to her. She really went out of her way to try and plant her religion in my holy cities. Plus she would have had a better chance of having her religion stick there.

[Willem]

By the way Blake, I forgot to mention. The work you are doing with the AI is truly awesome. I was so impressed when my Worker behind the Great Wall completely ignored the Barb going by next to it. And I was just playing a game on Noble with all the AI bonuses in HandicapInfo turned off that turned out to be a real nailbiter. I had my work cut out just to hold on to 4th place, and keep myself in the middle power wise. Plus I was always a little bit behind on techs.

I was told in a different thread that the AI gets a unit cost bonus as soon as it meets the human player, one that can't be changed in XML. Is there any chance that you could eliminate that in some future version? I really don't think it needs it anymore. I'd really like to be able to play Noble on an even field as it is meant to be, and I sincerely believe it's possible now, while still having a challenging game. Unfortunately I ran into a repeatable crash, not sure if it was your changes or mine, so I don't yet know how the end game will turn out. But it looks to me like the AI can hold it's own now, thanks to you.

[Diadem]

Well religion gives line of sight. So it makes sense to convert the most important cities of an enemy asap, to see what he has there.

But yeah, it's a bit weird to ignore all the pheriphal cities. Those are easier to convert and converting them makes them harder for you to convert.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Diadem
Well religion gives line of sight. So it makes sense to convert the most important cities of an enemy asap, to see what he has there.

If that was the rationale, then my capital city should be her first target, but it wasn't. She only went after my holy cities. She sent 3 in total, 1 didn't stick, the other 2 got planted . And I saw no missionaries between the time after she had planted her religion in my Hindu holy city, and when I popped Theology/Christianity from a Great Prophet that appeared. The only time she sent anything was when there was a holy city without her religion in it, and they headed straight for it.

By the way, the outlying cities already had my religion planted in them. I'm very zealous that way. If I build a Settler, I build a Missionary to go along with it. Still it would have been easier to get a new religion into them than the Holy City. It probably would have been more strategic too, since those would have been the first cities she would conquer in the event of war. It would be a good idea to know what kind of defences were in them.

[Fosse]

I believe the city placement does not have hard and fast rules about never founding on resources, or always founding on coast. The values are just weighted, and with the cities built on gold or marble it made more sense (to the forumla) for some reason than founding next to them. Did those cities have access to other resources they couldn't have gotten by founding near the gold and marble?

Many people here have discussed the benefit of converting cities that already have religion in them before ones without any. The idea is that religions don't tend to spread naturally to cities with religion anywhere nearly as quickly as they do to to cities without any. So if you convert a religious city then your religion may now spread to another enemy city without religion, getting you more bang for your missionary buck.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Fosse
Many people here have discussed the benefit of converting cities that already have religion in them before ones without any. The idea is that religions don't tend to spread naturally to cities with religion anywhere nearly as quickly as they do to to cities without any. So if you convert a religious city then your religion may now spread to another enemy city without religion, getting you more bang for your missionary buck.

But the point was that the only city Liz targeted was the Holy City, and that's the hardest one to get another religion planted in. And she really went out of her way in order to do it. The first time she bypassed two or other cities that were closer to her, and which had a better chance to adopt the new religion. Then I never saw any missionaries again until I had another Holy City pop up, which she targeted as well. And she again bypassed a city in order to get to it. It didn't really make any sense. She really had no option but to plant her religion in a city that already had one, since they all did at the time. But why try to get it into the hardest one?

[Penjo]

Originally posted by Willem
Unfortunately I ran into a repeatable crash, not sure if it was your changes or mine, so I don't yet know how the end game will turn out.

If it happens when you attack with a stack of aircraft, split 'em up. If not...then what what it?

[Willem]

Originally posted by Penjo


If it happens when you attack with a stack of aircraft, split 'em up. If not...then what what it?

No, it was long before aircraft came along. I'm not sure what it was, it happened right at the end of a turn after I hit Enter to proceed. I had made a chnage to the Forge mid game so that might have been it as well.

[Nacht]

Originally posted by Diadem
Well religion gives line of sight. So it makes sense to convert the most important cities of an enemy asap, to see what he has there.

Border cities, especially those that are bordering you, can be much more valuable to watch. The more I know what happens at my borders the better.

[Nacht]

Originally posted by Fosse
The idea is that religions don't tend to spread naturally to cities with religion anywhere nearly as quickly as they do to to cities without any.

Lets just say that that chance is zero.

[Chaos Theory]

Here's a reproducible crash for Blake:

From Seville, attack the American rifleman to the north. CTD if and only if Blake's DLL (current as of a few days ago) is in CustomAssets.