Conquests AI changes

[Fried-Psitalon]

Not broken; just more erratic (barbaric?) than before. They run amok with less predictable patterns now.

[alva]

Makes sense

[Ckibler]

Originally posted by Saint Marcus
Can some of the Atari guys confirm the changes to the AI? Cause as far as we've been told, they changed little from the "old" AI. They have confirmed that AI is better at naval warfare though (can someone confirm this?).

Uh, sure, I'll step in and confirm that -- even though I'm a Breakaway Games guy.

Of course, the real proof is in the pudding. If you're actually seeing it perform better, than (evidently!), "Yes, the AI has been improved".

Just as an FYI, I mentioned a few AI improvements in a recent post in this forum's "WWII in the Pacific" thread.

[joncnunn]

Re: Re: Conquests AI changes

Don't workers have to be in the capital to be bought anyway? It's obviously not doing anything that turn.

Originally posted by Dominae

Incidentally, I still think this needs to be upped a little, considering the AI is willing to sell Workers disregarding the fact that it needs them. 160 seems a lot better. A better fix would be a function to calcuate whether or not an AI civ can "spare" the Workers and set the price accordingly, but that's not likely to get implemented.

Dominae

[alva]

Uh, sure, I'll step in and confirm that -- even though I'm a Breakaway Games guy.

Hi, and thanks for stopping by. , you might want to contact Mark or Dan (owners of this site) of the fact that you are with Breakaway.
They will give you a title which makes it more clear to the rest of us.
Makes the things you say official. ( good to cut down on rumours and/or clarify in general)

btw, thanks for what ATM looks like a great game (still haven't got it myself though )

[dexters]

Originally posted by Thoth
The Barbarian AI seems to have gotten broken somewhere along the line. I've noticed that they tend to just sit on their encampments (even after an uprising). I've only done a couple of starts so far, but I noticed the same behaviour in both.

Yes, I've noticed this too. There was an uprising and in one of the camps, the horseman just sat in their camps, moving around briefly and returning. They seem rather lathargic. Maybe they didn't have an inspirational barbarian leader to guide them? hehehe.

Also, they will not attack undefended cities 2 or 3 tiles away. This seems to be a fix in some ways since parts of the unit AI is no longer omniscient, or even if they are, they are not acting on it. This was highly exploitable previously when players simply empty out cities to guide AI units into traps.

One thing I've noticed though is that the unit AI (not just barbarians) in general seems to be a bit more weary of changing course to take advantage of an undefended city.

It used to be you'd have units bee-lining for undefended cities regardless or what's happening around it and you get these really strange unit movements where they are moving towards this undefedended city and don't really care if they are about to be picked off or not.

I was involved in a massive 20 turn war with the Hittites last night I freely moved defendeds from cities 5 titles away from the border to the cities sitting right on the border. When the knights came, they attacked my border cities and didn't go for the empty city. The AI obviously had its target picked out, and the empty city a little farther in my territory didn't interest them.

[Dominae]

Re: Re: Re: Conquests AI changes

Originally posted by joncnunn
Don't workers have to be in the capital to be bought anyway? It's obviously not doing anything that turn.

Just because the Worker is not doing anything that turn does not mean the AI does not need it. It is painfully clear that the AI puts its Workers "on the market" (i.e. ends the turn with Workers in its capital) even when there is a lot more terraforming to be done.


Dominae

[vmxa1]

Yes if the worker was working a tile near the capitol and was passing through to another tile, you could catch it in. I doubt the worker was just sitting there, it was moving around the capitol.
I alway try to buy any workers to help me and hurt them.

[dexters]

Or hiding from an attack.

[PeaSoup]

Originally posted by dexters
One thing I've noticed though is that the unit AI (not just barbarians) in general seems to be a bit more weary of changing course to take advantage of an undefended city.

I find that I'm still able to manipulate the AI in my current game. AI landing parties still go for my size 12 city (with 4 wonders) defended with only a warrior, perhaps you need to give them a jucy target.

And in another instance, I have an off continent city heavily fortified with units in barricades which the AI isn't stupid enough to attack, after a few turns, the AI chooses another target and moves its units away (always the case when the AI doesn't think it can take a city). So I move a unit out into the open, vola, the AI comes pouring back and I tie up a good 10+ units into doing nothing but eat maintance.

[dexters]

Yes. Fortify a stack on a hill in an invasion and the AI will just sit it out. It's frustrating since I was still in the "hope they will send all their forces to suidice" mode.

This fix may have been pre C3C, but I was playing a particularly hopeless gain on Monarch on an island with no iron. So that pretty much means no arty support and I was trying to get iron in that war half a world away. Needless to say, I quit playing it after my invasion went nowhere.

I also feel the AI seems to handle the 3 movement units (I've only played as far as early industry so I've only seen Cavalry) much better. There will stil be the unavioable wide open cavalry left out in the open after an attack, but most of the time, the AI is quite good in terms of retreating back to cities, and or sending cavalry from cities to attack and then retreating back. A rarer occurance in the past.

[MrWhereItsAt]

Yes. Fortify a stack on a hill in an invasion and the AI will just sit it out. It's frustrating since I was still in the "hope they will send all their forces to suidice" mode.

This fix may have been pre C3C,

I don't think so. I am playing a latest-version PtW game where the Russians are pouring 25 Cossacks per turn into attacking a city of mine with 40+ fortified MechInf with Walls. I lose an average of 2 per turn, they lose all of theirs. It only let up after ten turns when the Germans invaded on the other side of their continent, coincinding with the end of Russia's GA.


Interesting to note the change in the Barb AI - when PtW was first released, the Barb AI was changed to be far more aggressive, which later resulted in the strat of guiding them or other civ's units into traps with empty cities or lone warriors. Looks like Breakaway have "fixed" that back to what it was. Maybe they have made the Barbs more sophisticated, or do you have some time to get yourself in gear to defend cities near Barb uprisings again?

[Arnelos]

In the Pacific WWII conquest, I rushbought an airport in Manila and started airlifting over MG squads, American GIs, and Flak Cannons. Though the Japanese took the rest of the Philippines and Wake Island early in the game, I still hold Manila by the end of 1942.

The Japanese have continuously tried bombing the city into the ground, but with the Flak Cannons and the starting defensive fighter, I've shot down a whole bunch of Japanese Bombers.

It's a VP location, so that's probably why the Japanese keep bombing it in hopes of wearing down my defenses to the point they can storm it, but the fact that they haven't yet wasted ground troops trying to storm the city they've been wasting bombers on is interesting. I simply have too many units in the city for them to wear it down purely with air power.

I suppose it's possible that the WWII AI aims for cities with airports because of the danger they represent and that's why the Japanese are willing to expend so many bombers trying to take out the airport I rushed, but I don't know.

As for the fleet AI, the Pearl Harbor attack force acted rather oddly. They didn't manage to sink very much and their retreat path took them in between Hawaii and Midway, so I was able to bombard them with wounded battleships and cruisers, finish off the carriers and battleships with attacks from submaries and bombers, and wipe out most of the Japanese Pearl Harbor attack fleet (I'd say only about 25% of it got away). The Japanese certainly picked the right time to retreat after the initial bombing run, but why would they retreat between Hawaii and Midway where I could concentrate what forces I had and pummel their carrier fleet?

I suspect that the battle over Manila might have been the carrier fleet's new target after I rushed the airport there and they went scooting off toward the Philippines (a direct route to which would pass between Midway and Hawaii) without regard for how this would put their fleet in potential peril to an American counter-attack.

[dexters]

Little Things Make me Go Wow

Wow. Little things make me go wow. Pangea, Monarch, Standard map size (120X60)

Firstly, I noticed that the trade AI is now very picky. They don't like GPT + lumpsum payments anymore. This makes it more difficult for players to basically grab the AI's gpt income and his entire treasure from an expensive trade. Even when trades exist, in some cases they will not tell you when you ask them "what can I trade for X" . There were several instances where I just grabbed some new luxuries and was hoping to turn around and sell the surplus off right away. I call up my favorite cash cow and ask him what he wants. No go. The only way I could get him to deal was to buy one of his techs, at which point, he presents me with a purchase package (amount he is paying) in exchange for the tech I want, which will then include the luxury, plus gpt plus maybe another tech.

This is key, especially if you don't have a luxury or a resource. It used to be that you can ask for a deal, see what the AI wants, strip out techs you don't want to trade the AI and offer a pure lumpsum payment. That is still possible in C3C, but only if you can afford to pay a lot of gold. The new system basically have the AI asking for techs in exhcange for a resource. no ifs ands or buts.



And you know how we used to all love moving around transports in short hops maybe, from a coastal city to another that's a few tiles away by sea? Well, I was doing that tonight. It was my only transport. I was at war with the Zulus. And as my transport was moving accross the distance, bombers started flying and sank the transport, with my 2 mech infs. Basically, despite being genrally backwards, Zulu had flight even before they had tanks, managed to build 8 bombers and flew them around their cities hitting my from several places. Air power is fantastic. FLAK/mobile sam works, and air intercept works. Lethal land bombardment is nice. The arty's reign of terror has been diminished somewhat with this. As long as you have flak and fighters you're fine. But all that lazy play we got used to in PTW is down the drain. If your enemy has an airforce, and he has a city within bombing distance, get ready because your ships, units and cities will be bombed!

The Zulus don't do particularly well in C3C either, but with Fascism, they can support this massive army of 100+ infantry. And this is on a STANDARD MAP! And they aren't the biggest civ! Even the celts, which by all accounts is a non-factor and was kept around mostly as decoration fielded an impressive 70+ units in their army, undery a democracy.

I also want to report that tonight is the first time I've seen the AI wheel out artys to enemy cities and bombard them. Then there is the naval aspect. No major naval battles in my current game, but the Iroquois, basically my ally, but major rival for the entire game has a navy so large it makes my PTW era navy looks like a dork.

They have 22 destroyers and 3 Carriers to my 7 destroyers and 1 carrier. I've seen large navies in vanilla Civ 3 too. I remember an old warlord game on HUGE and the greeks had 15 ironclads and 7 frigates at their peak.

But unlike Civ3 vanilla, the iroquois ships in tonight's game were hunting in stacks. I've see stacks of 7 escorts to one transport. Good luck picking that off.
And here's the difference. I see the navies being deployed constantly, even on a pangea map game. They hope around from city to city attacking by sea, even as land forces are moving. And no longer do the warships circle aimlessly in the middle of the ocean somewhere. They actually do work escorting and being badasses.

This is really so nice. I'm going to bed. it's 6 am .

[Myrddin]

This is really so nice. I'm going to bed. it's 6 am