A Better AI.

[Tattila the Hun]

I wonder, would fixing the "nuking AI" be in scope of this mod? As it is, a city with one inner square within foreign culture is safe from AI nukes, because they only seem to target the center of city... And can't attack someone they are not at war with.

I wonder if AI uses nukes against naval units it spots?


A minor thing.

[Iustus]

Originally posted by Saurus
Played a few games again...

I was just wondering a bit about holy cities.
Now that A.I is happily spreading every religion so that they spread like a wildfire, the holy shrines seem to be very, very powerful now considering you hardy even need to build any missionaires yourself. Maybe even a bit too much so!

Normaly, before the A.I patch, by the time I have my holy shrine built, I´ll get out some 4 - 12 gold/turn from it initially. Then gruadually increasing.

Now with the latest patch by the time I have built my holy city I have a MUCH greater income. During my first game I had an income of 26 initialy and during my second a whopping 32(!)
This modified with the economic buildings makes for a huge difference compared to how the game was playing out before the patch.
I think this is more of an issue on higher levels (Since I assume religions then spread quicker becouse of A.I building missionaires much quicker)

Don´t now quite what to do about it though...
The feeling I´m having right now, though, is that shrines are way too powerful as it stands right now.

The AI should only be spreading religions if it either owns the shrine, is its state religion, or is trying for cultural victory.

-Iustus

[Saurus]

Originally posted by Iustus


The AI should only be spreading religions if it either owns the shrine, is its state religion, or is trying for cultural victory.

-Iustus

Guess I´ve only been lucky then. Have to play some more..

[MikeH]

Finished my third game at the weekend (still on 7th December build). Randomly got Shaka this time won by domination. As someone who is too lazy to micro, I think the governer improvements are helping me a lot.

[Blake]

On the topic of religion and shrines.

The AI is more eager to use missionaries but it wont train them aimlessly, it will train missionaries slowly for it's state religion if it has no holy city and use them internally only (actually they help teammates too). If it has the holy city it trains them more readily and will use them to convert neighbors before spreading to it's own cities (making a smart choice basically).

An AI going for cultural victory will spread internally every religion it can get it's hands on, doing so very rapidly. But bear in mind this helps the AI win the game by culture... since if they get 4 religions they'll quite easily win a CV.

The AI is good enough at using missionaries and building holy shrines (it gets very eager to pop a prophet as the potential shrine income increases) that I feel there is not a human bias here... Shrines are possibly more powerful, but also the entire economy is hotter due to larger trade routes and stuff.
Mansa Musa with a strong shrine is a truly fearsome research machine....

To a certain extent you might need your own to compete, but it's not too hard to get a shrine... one way or another...

[Tattila the Hun]

I think I have a bug to report. The game, using the newest AI, crashes to desktop, when I take a barb city, which has a worker outside. Maybe there are no other barb cities for it to head for? Dunno. The crash does not happen, if I let the worker retreat to the city, and capture it with the city. And the bug report thingy says the problem lies within cvgamecore.dll.

I''ll see if I can attach a save.

[Blake]

I get that crash too. Shouldn't be a problem to fix. Thanks.

edit: Bug Fixed, thanks again.

[Willem]

So your latest build wasn't very effective at keeping the civs apart at a respectable distance. I just had a game where the Vikings and Germans started three squares away from each other. Sorry, but I didn't keep a save game. I was really hoping you had put an end to that, I find it annoying as h***. Especially when another civ starts that close to me.

[Swiss Pauli]

Played out a 12/12 Monarch game to a space win for Wang Kon (well, I'd hardly choose a weedy leader). Alex launched a dagger attack at Washington in 1000BC! He had a HUGE military throughout, so I converted him to Taoism and sucked up to him the whole game. Even stayed in HR to keep him Friendly when REP was possible. Very near the end he went Free Religion and down to Pleased, but by this stage I could afford to bribe him into war with his worst enemy.

Did some warring of my own: pointless 1 turn on GW that Alex asked me for before GW capitulated, and my own crusade against Monty. One possible improvement here was that Monty accepted peace when he could have re-taken his capital. Any chance the AI can understand this sort of situation?

Excellent game against some strong AIs!

[Iustus]

For your holiday pleasure, new 12/21 build on sourceforge

Sea Assault changes:
- cities build transports and escorts more often when in a sea war, also building units to load onto the transports when they are empty
- fleets are generally created larger, with proper escort ships
- target city for a sea assault should be slightly more random
- transport fleets will now stop to bombard after they have dropped off their units, prior to returning home for more troops
- dagger AIs should not build sea units when in a land war

Governor Changes:
- if any specialists are forced, then all future specialists will attempt to be assigned at the same ratio as the forced specialists
- emphasize buttons should never stagnate a city that wants to grow to its happy cap except under the most extreme conditions
- changed the way non-starving food is forced, more likely to work lower food plots if they are good plots and sufficient to prevent starvation (eg: three 1f3h plots will be worked rather than two 2f0h0c plots and a specialist)
- multipliers returned, cities with high relative multipliers (production, etc), should again prefer these
- commerce value slightly increased in comparison to hammers, this is offset by situational increases to production value.
- governor understands building gold/research/culture (to recongnize when a mine or specialist is best)
- merchants are no longer discriminated against compared with scientists

City Changes:
- true AI city specialization implemented
- workers use city specializtion to decide which improvement to make
- cities in serious danger will panic and abuse population to build defenders
- Wonders should be built more frequently
- Dagger AIs will build settlers more often
- tweaks in the AI city production choices
- AI worker training changes
- Build governor tweaks
- AI uses emphasize buttons less, using new city specialization functions which provide greater precision.
- cultural victory AIs should be less likely to stagnate when expansion-limited.
- city production choices utilize specialization
- limited wonders should be built in the correct specialized city

Misc Changes:
- AI values gold more in trade (known issue with rounding to 10g broken)
- Fixed crash bug, as seen with some mods combined with BetterAI
- Misc Crash bug fixed (as reported on apolyton)
- land units will not bombard a city with zero defenders or when they have attack odds over 95%
- AI will upgrade units more smartly.
- AIs should build more defenders for cities, particularly in wartime
- The AI is more flexible in breaking up large stacks (such as to defend cities).
- Starting point refinement (both placement and normalization), close starts should REALLY be gone.
- Workboat automation changed, so they will camp a presently-unconnectable bonus they are automated near.
- The AI should build more mines and enjoy stronger production
- under chipotle, ctrl mouseover units gives grouping information
- under chipotle, now displaying detailed (declare) war/peace status

-Iustus

[Qwertqwert]

Thanks man! I'll try it tomorrow, (last day of school)

I see you got rid of the round to 10g thing, thanks, it was really annoying me.

[DrSpike]

[lockstep]

Great - a massive AI update just when I can spare again some time to play!

[Willem]

Originally posted by Iustus
- Starting point refinement (both placement and normalization), close starts should REALLY be gone.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but here's a save with Monty starting just two squares away from me.

[Willem]

So I've been suspecting a problem for awhile now, and I've finally confirmed it. Units, or at least Scouts, on Auto-Explore no longer stop to heal themselves like they used to do. They'll just keep on moving regardless of how badly injured they are.

And I'm still waiting for a routine where they'll turn in the opposite direction of a known enemy. Please, pretty please?