I think i know why AI doesn't build armies!

[Antrine]

It is great to read of such goodly uses, I am finding better game play with the Army dimension more developed. And great idea with the forests and wheels. Especially since that sounds so close to a 'real' strategy situation.

[sloejack]

Since I'm not familiar with the opportunities to mod I have what may be a nieve/stupid question. Go back to someone's earlier idea about having palaces generate armies, instead of having it happen on a turn basis, could it be triggered by units? For example, when your total military size is 20 (this may or may not be high concidering workers/settlers/explorers count) spawn an army, at the next multiple of 20 spawn an army. The hang up I see is that there would need to be a way to enforce the armys-to-cities ratio otherwise you could flip back and forth at 19/20 units to spawn infinite armies.

[sloejack]

Hmm, and one other slightly one off question for the modders, is it possible to generate a naval leader/armada through a mod?

[Antrine]

Hi sloejack!

Controlling when units appear is found in editor as three distinct methods, barring consideration of the Barbarian CIV.

To wit, a city builds them, an improvement/wonder spits them out every so many turns if so designated to do so and lastly they are randomly generated in combat under specified terms.

The first is well understood, that is by cities. The second, somewhat and is the only one that affords controlling exact timing of every so many turns. With the third, you can designate the 'kind' of unit spawned albiet only randomly via combat, but not number or frequency. There are factors that influence the third, such as being a 'militeristic civ'. And those spawned randomly fall into two catagories; namely found on the General Tab and for Vanilla settings control Leader spawning in battle. The other is found on the Unit Tab, available to any unit and is utilized via the 'enslaved' trigger and must be defined to what unit is so enslaved further on down that same Unit Tab.

We work our mod wonder within these opportunities.

As to naval/armada, no or so I have read but have not tried it.

[Antrine]

Please note, enslaving units is the trigger for units to appear randomly via combat.

Also, for point of knowing; if a city is 'rioting' on a turn designated for a unit to appear via an improvement or wonder then it will not appear in said rioting city for that timed sequence and is lost.

[Cerbykins]

*makes note to leave mood governor on Temple of Zeus and Knights Templar cities *

[MattPilot]

hmm ... how cheap do armies have to be for the AI to build it? I've got it down to 50 now (available with palace) and it won't build it.

[Antrine]

Good question. And so far I have discovered 'no proof' that the AI's will ever build an Army!

That it why I emphasis giving AI's Armies via improvements/wonders. And still keep building them (with a city que) a little expensive and off yonder for I am sure the human will do it. Except of course now for a class of cheap armies I have available early on, but they are not so powerful to mess up game balance and they are all additionally available acting like a Zeus wonder excepting being Small Wonders and are all early, cheaper wonders.

For it is still far more likely the AI's will build Small Wonders than build any Army anywhere. So access to building Armies via cities needs be tempered a little.

My first theory was the AI's are preoccupied with building Wonders and meeting the victory condition tied thereto. So I eliminated ALL Wonders and down-graded them to Small Wonders and improvements and eliminated that victory condition. These small wonders every AI can build and with this more balance is assured.

I am going to play some full games on 'debug' so I can better monitor what is happening with the AI's. I already shoved spying very early on so I can spy more often without stopping the game.

[Antrine]

Oh, and just a thought did you place any wonder with the trigger set, 'build army without a leader'? For without first having built a wonder with this trigger, the AI's of course cannot build Armies anyway. And just because I have no definate proof it may simply be that I have been preoccupied with giving them so many Armies that I have not noticed or looked well enough to see what they are doing in this respect.

It is complicated. One must have this 'trigger' operational in some city and then they still may only build any army (if you have more than one type) in just such a city. This of course also assumes that some resource required is not also holding things up for the AI or tech.

[MattPilot]

yea i made sure the i flagged the palace correctly - i can build armies early on, so the AI should be able too.

I don't really like giving away armies every few turns. Initially i tried every 20 turns, but that basically means each player will get at least 25 armies during the game.

I might try it with every 50 turns next, so i should only expect about 10 armies during the game. But before i do that, i'll probably try to set the cost to 1 shield. Maybe it will get built then ?

[Antrine]

Shield cost of 1 won't matter, I tried that with speciality units I created, leader type with radar and some with load or rush abilities, no luck there. Unless armies are loaded, they are just fodder. Additionally, considering the AI's aggressiveness in using their Armies, especially from the third or fourth one they receive will they build up? They do bogart some in the capitol, however but they do that with all units anyway. So with attrition I do not think any AI will even get 10 or more Armies stock piled unless everything is set to passive building? I set to max aggressiveness all the way around, so this skews my experience and thinking. In a peaceful builder's game, I do not think one would want to set any improvement or wonder spitting out the units as I do, and that especially armies.

Now about the palace, how can you flag it to build armies in contrast to just spitting them out every so many turns? It is an improvement and the flag, 'build army without leader' is muted out and found available only to wonders?

[MattPilot]

i changed the palace to be a small wonder. Though when you do that, you have to add the following to the pediaicons.txt:


Under the heading #WONDER_SPLASH_ART add this at the very end:

#WON_SPLASH_BLDG_Palace
art\wonder splash\forbidden city.pcx

Otherwise it will crash if you dont as it tries to show you the screen. Btw, you can use any splash screen you want. I just figured this one was most appropriate.

----

In one of my previous posts i said i had an engagement with another army. In that particular case, the AI's army attacked me in my own territory (i was defending and losing badly). Though at that time, each AI should have had roughly 4-5 armies (as we were already playing 100 turns). After i killed it though, i haven't seen any more armies (quit playing since to many armies were being generated).

[Antrine]

Great idea! On the other side of this one might carefully use the 'rendered obsolete' flag. My vision for this is kind of like rolling waves. Sets of improvements/small wonders with their respective units and powers come on line and off-line through time. So units can be retired out with their respective improvement/small wonders. The trick is timing, of course with hours and hours of play-testing.

With your idea, you could simply have a Palace (small wonder) for every Age, thereby negating any unit with another or none.

[Antrine]

Maybe with this, each Government could have a specialized palace available for to be built each with particularized attributes and a unit of course that typifies that government. Could add more flavor and power when one has that said government. What do think?

[MattPilot]

each civ having their own version of a palace? hmm... I doubt that will work out since its hardcoded (?) that the palace will appear in your first city.