Game-Level AI Advantages

[mkorin]

Kuci, first you need to lighten up. If you don't like a post ignore it. Second, maybe you should read the post before answering. I am not taking about the percentages. Since they started putting them in, I have defended them. I am talking about AI getting an extra combat bonus, which I still believe they do. I have now observed numerous combats in the combat log and I either get a negative extra combat bonus or the AI gets a positive extra combat bonus. This is on top of any bonuses like the city raider etc. Until someone explains that, I will assume it is a bonus built in. Lastly, if you really think you or anyone else with a non-professional stake in it, understands every line of code and routine in a program as complex as this, you really don't understand coding. Yes, the code is fairly simple to read and understand and yes the referenced file doesn't have anything about AI combat bonuses, As I stated. However, this does not mean that it isn't in a different sub-routine.

To the rest, even paranoids have enemies. In this case, I am not being paranoid. I always assumed that the AI got a combat bonus, that being the easiest way to make a level harder. My personal observations certainly bear out my assumption especially in the higher levels when combat rarely goes the way I think it should. Lastly, I am fine with their being a combat bonus for the higher levels, nor do I think Firaxis is an evil conspiricy out to get me. Until someone can explain the constant -10 extra combat in the log or +10 for the AI, I will maintain that my assumption is correct. If someone has an intelligent answer to that, I'd love to hear it.

Mike

[Garth Vader]

You said you believe the percentages are correct.
You said "The AI knight had Flanking 1 & 2 so I gave it to my knight. My attack % was 27.2. The AI's when it attacked me was also 27.20". That would seem to indicate that however they display combat bonuses in the log, they calculate out to the same result.

[mkorin]

Garth, then it added in an extra combat bonus. You're right, I may be misreading it, but it's easy enough to look at the icon and see if it has a little star etc to see what bonuses should be. The case above there was no promotions except for Flanking. Thus, why does it say +20% (Extra Combat Bonus) when he attacked and -10% (Extra Combat Bonus) when I attacked. Thus I assume that it adds the 27.2 to 20 and gets 47.2. Since the AI knight beats my knight about 1/2 the time and my knight beats his knight about 1/4 of the time, my personal observation seems to agree with my assumption.

As I have stated, I am defending my assumption, I may be wrong and if someone can prove that to me, I'll at the very least move up to Monarch from Prince. (Which I'm thinking of doing anyway), and I'll start defending the idea to anyone else who posts.

Mike

[Supr49er]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Winners don't do drugs

Marion Jones. Ben Johnson. Barry Bonds (allegedly), Roger Clemens (allegedly), Floyd Landis.

[sowings]

Originally posted by Supr49er
Floyd Landis.

(allegedly)

[Garth Vader]

Originally posted by mkorin
Garth, then it added in an extra combat bonus. You're right, I may be misreading it, but it's easy enough to look at the icon and see if it has a little star etc to see what bonuses should be. The case above there was no promotions except for Flanking. Thus, why does it say +20% (Extra Combat Bonus) when he attacked and -10% (Extra Combat Bonus) when I attacked. Thus I assume that it adds the 27.2 to 20 and gets 47.2. Since the AI knight beats my knight about 1/2 the time and my knight beats his knight about 1/4 of the time, my personal observation seems to agree with my assumption.

Mike

In that case the %'s would be wrong. Which might be the case. I just moved from Prince to Monarch, maybe I'll load up an old game and compare bonuses from the log.

[mkorin]

The mouse over percentages are right. However, there are no mouse over percentages for when the AI attacks, I really haven't paid much attention to the combat log before until my long held belief was attacked. So, I may be reading it incorrectly. My next game, I'll move up to Monarch also and compare what I've been seeing in my current game.

Mike

[Blaupanzer]

The defender gets a 10% bonus indepently of all other measures. This may show as a negative to you the attacker or a plus to him as the defender. So that explains your -10%. His +20% is perplexing, but not due to some secret formula modification. Not sure how to help with this.

Mike, note that many of the people on this forum were playtesters for the BTS mod. They worked , directly or indirectly, with the testers. (One of them became a Firaxis tester full-time.) So they have a pretty good sense of how the code was derived and tested. One regular contributor here, Blake, wrote a great deal of code improving the AI's performance in doing Civ-type decision-making. So try not to be too cavalier with what you might think you "know," with folks who have seen and tested the code. Not sure how to help with this.

[Jaybe]

The defender gets a 10% bonus indepently of all other measures

Surely, you were thinking of defending in a coastal tile, but applying it generally by mistake?

Two unpromoted units of the same type, on a featureless tile with no river between, have a 50/50 chance.

[Krill]

With the exception being units that have an intergral retreat chance, such as knights...

[mkorin]

OK, I've watched the combat log for too many combats and it appears my assumption since CIV II is incorrect. There appears to be no AI extra bonus in combat against the player. I still would like to know what the Extra Combat bonuses are. Especially since I saw some that went my way.

Blau, you misunderstood me. I would put Blake, Solver and a few others into the professional interest column. I am referring to the yahoo who thinks he can look at 20 lines of code in 1 sub-routine and thinks he understands all the code. Heck, that's were most of the bugs come from. Someone changes or fixes one simple thing and that triggers something in a part of the program that someone else wrote. Heck, I've done it to myself when I've gone back years later to fix a minor issue and forgot something clever I did in a different sub-routine and then had to go back and fix the new problem. You'll also notice that those I named and others never claimed that they understood all of the code, thus a point is right or wrong. As I have said before, I have nothing but Respect for Blake etc for taking the time to basically debug someone else's program for free. I have a true understanding of the time it takes as I've done it for a living for 30+ years. If any of them took my offense to my comments, I apologize.

Mike

[snoopy369]

Can you show a few of them?

The -10% and such are just certain types of combat 'bonuses' that are added as a negative modifier to the other unit in the combat. I don't understand which end up as which, it's a bit complex ... if you watch the left side of the screen, you'll often see the numbers be quite lower than the original, or higher, just depending on the type of modifier being applied.

[Blaupanzer]

Is the 10% margin for the defender only applicable to coastal tiles? Applies only to ships? News to me, but I'll believe what someone has actually evaluated. I kept track in last night's game, and sure enough, I did not see a land defender advantage, as I had expected I would. Always something new to learn.

To paraphrase Borat, "What a site!"