A Better AI.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Saurus
That exactly is my point and also the biggest gripe I´m having with the imporved A.I patch. That the A.I loses too much of its personality and all of them starts to act too much like each other.

I've been noticing that as well. It would make things a lot more interesting if he would include variations of style for each leader. It would be a huge task I admit, but I don't really want all the civs in the game to become homogenous.

[sabrewolf]

but an AI should adapt to each situation, even if it means breaching its personality.
ghandi boxed in in a low-commerce, production heavy area should try to expand, even if it means fighting for it, while montezuma should relish a rich floodlands and jungle bonus.

sure, the reaction should not be exactly the same (some more, some less prone to fighting), but i believe the starting location should have a bigger impact on politics than any real-life historical characters...

[Diadem]

I disagree with you sabrewolf. Of course Gandhi shouldn't be as pacifistic as he was in real life, and for example Stalin shouldn't be as insane.

But leadership personalities should be an important part of a leader. For Gandhi war should really be a last resort, while for Monty it's the first and preferable option.

This means they'll be slightly less strong. So what? I'd rather have an AI with slightly bigger bonuses, but a lot of personality, then 18 identical AIs that use any trick to win.

[sabrewolf]

diadem,
we actually agree on the base belief (adapt, but keep personality), just not on how far this adaption should go.

one problem i see with very definitive personalities is that the human player knows how to react. if i start between gandhi and tokugawa i will put 80% of my forces on the border to japan. if it's little bit less certain if and who will attack, the defence allocation is much more important.

also, regarding the realism: sure, gandhi was a peacemonger and would rather die demonstrating than fighting. but he was just one leader of thousands in india's history. i assume there we more wars there than in many other regions... so having a warring india is not wrong.

[wodan11]

Originally posted by sabrewolf
one problem i see with very definitive personalities is that the human player knows how to react. if i start between gandhi and tokugawa i will put 80% of my forces on the border to japan. if it's little bit less certain if and who will attack, the defence allocation is much more important.

That's why we have the option of random personalities via custom game.

Wodan

[sabrewolf]

Originally posted by wodan11

That's why we have the option of random personalities via custom game.

Wodan

afaik that's just random traits, right?

[Welshie]

Nope, it mixes up the personalities - eg, gives ghandi monte's personality and so on. Traits stay the same. I always play with it on, it helps keep the game spicy. On the other hand it can mean some civs dont play their traits to full potential - eg an Agg civ gets given a peacemonger personality.

[eris]

Is this work supposed to change stack attacking? I know there was something about the AI using stacks of bombers, and it seemed that an earlier version of the smarter AI changed the stack seleton of my bombers slightly. After putting in the 11-22-06 file I have a fairly good selection algorithm for my bmbers, but stack attack seems disabled completely for my land and sea units. They will only attack individually. I installed the new AI in the middle of a game, which may not be wise, and had a massive invasion gong. Attacking Thebes with 20 to 30 units took a long long time. Is this something that the new AI changes even touches, or just a wild coincidence?

[Thedrin]

Nope, it mixes up the personalities - eg, gives ghandi monte's personality and so on.

Are you certain about this? I was under the impression that random personalities assigns random numbers to the different elements of the leaders' personalities. Having always played with random personalities I've only twice seen the fabled Montezuma attitude to peace.

[Welshie]

Originally posted by Thedrin


Are you certain about this? I was under the impression that random personalities assigns random numbers to the different elements of the leaders' personalities. Having always played with random personalities I've only twice seen the fabled Montezuma attitude to peace.

No, I don't know for sure about this, I was wondering whether to "go there" in my first post I wanted to stress it's the personalities which are affected by the Random Personalities checkbox ( funny that) and not their traits, as suggested by sabrewolf

[snoopy369]

Hey blake, is there a way to teach the AI to pillage improvements that are not in my culture but are near to it? Especially when I've just taken an AI city, and the AI decides not to retake it, I've noticed it choose not to pillage squares with dead units (units that are clearly going to lose, such as single resource sentries that are behind my front lines). I'd like it to take those single resource sentries and pillage the resource they're guarding so I have to connect it again.

[Harrier UK]

Originally posted by snoopy369
Hey blake, is there a way to teach the AI to pillage improvements that are not in my culture but are near to it? Especially when I've just taken an AI city, and the AI decides not to retake it, I've noticed it choose not to pillage squares with dead units (units that are clearly going to lose, such as single resource sentries that are behind my front lines). I'd like it to take those single resource sentries and pillage the resource they're guarding so I have to connect it again.

Why would the AI want to do that?

For example: If that Sentry was guarding a Bronze resource - it would still be getting the advantage of that resource assuming it was still in its' culture - even if you had captured the City to which it orriginally belonged. (i.e. was in the fat cross.)

Even luxuries/food in some cases, are worth defending to the last man, because of the happy or health benefit they give each city.

If anything IMHO the AI should be reprogrammed to guard at least current strategic resources with a mixture of defenders instead of just one. That is assuming it still needs that resource to build units of course.

However pillaging Towns/Villages, Mines with no (or obsolete) resource, Farms with no resource etc. would be OK. As these give no benefit to the original owner once the City is captured.

[Tattila the Hun]

Grrr, I think there's a problem... I just lost 7 automated workers, working tiles around borders of a nation I was at war with. I'm not sure, whether they understand the danger. I seem to recall Blake making them less jumpy, only running if a unit, that can capture them, is at sight.

Not to mention, that Cavalry is a bit more expensive than a worker...

[Virdrago]

Hey Harrier; I think Snoopy meant this:

He took a city, which hasn't gained any (or little) culture yet, while enemy units are guarding a resource that isn't inside culture anymore (having lost the nearby city). They are about to die, and can't go anywhere, so instead of guarding the resource (which will go to Snoopy once the city isn't in disorder and gains culture), or uselessly waiting to get smoked, they could be programmed to destroy the road and/or mine (or whatever), instead of sitting waiting to give 1xp to a unit. Excuse the run-on sentence.

Of course, I could be wrong.

[snoopy369]

This is what I mean indeed