Apolyton University Mod (PTW version)

[BRC]

To answer your question, an AI civ that gets knocked down to a few cities will expand again if land is available (or else Domination would be a lot easier!).

Most of the time, the AI overexpands at the beginning of the game, and is ripe to be hit. This is why archer rushes are so effective. I understand when you say they will expand again, but at what cost. Is it a full blown REX, comparable to their Ancient Age expansion, or is it a more controlled settling of the land? Basically, do they spread their defenses too thin and make it easy to overrun them again??

[Dominae]

Originally posted by BRC
Most of the time, the AI overexpands at the beginning of the game, and is ripe to be hit. This is why archer rushes are so effective.

Actually, I think the AI handles early expansion quite well: it escorts its Settlers, produces defenders in each new city, and does so at a reasonably fast pace.

Archers rushes are effective because us humans know the AI's habits (and the AI doesn't know ours!). Rushes are also effective against humans, by the way. Striking a fine balance between expansion and defense against a possible rush is not easy. This is primarily why I think Expansionist is amazing.

Originally posted by BRC
I understand when you say they will expand again, but at what cost. Is it a full blown REX, comparable to their Ancient Age expansion, or is it a more controlled settling of the land? Basically, do they spread their defenses too thin and make it easy to overrun them again??

This an interesting question, but purely academic. If a civ is knocked down to half its cities, "spreading its defenses too thin" is irrelevant, because it's going to lose in the long run. Even if the AI did "regroup" and solidify its defenses, it would just prolong the inevitable. The point of the 'Killer AI' effort is to teach the AI to "go the distance" and wipe out such defeated civs.


Dominae

[BRC]

Actually, I think the AI handles early expansion quite well: it escorts its Settlers, produces defenders in each new city, and does so at a reasonably fast pace.

I agree. From reading Vel's earlier threads, they were amazed at the speed that the AI expands. I shouldn't have said "overexpanding", but I feel that this is one of the best times to hit the AI.

This an interesting question, but purely academic. If a civ is knocked down to half its cities, "spreading its defenses too thin" is irrelevant, because it's going to lose in the long run. Even if the AI did "regroup" and solidify its defenses, it would just prolong the inevitable. The point of the 'Killer AI' effort is to teach the AI to "go the distance" and wipe out such defeated civs.

Here is where they tie in.

Let us say that on another continent, the Iroqouis are mauling the Aztecs. The Aztecs lose many cities. Do they start building Settlers instead of Military Units? If the answer is yes, then the Iroqouis should continue to run them over.
Now from the other side.
The Iroqouis are punishing the Aztecs. They have not yet reached OCN, and so are still building settlers pretty fast. Wouldn't it be more advantageous for them to keep producing military units so that the attack doesn't bog down?
Depending on how it works, the Iroqouis could end up as a "Killer AI".

What I want to know is if the Aztecs prevent the Iroqouis from becoming a Killer by locking down and fighting a slow war of attrition? This would not be a good thing.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by BRC
What I want to know is if the Aztecs prevent the Iroqouis from becoming a Killer by locking down and fighting a slow war of attrition? This would not be a good thing.

I think I understand your point. My comments:

1. The AI is rarely so focused as to build only Settlers (or a majority of Settlers). The sole exception is at the beginning of the game, where the AI does appear to have a definite REX phase. I think what you're asking is whether it can be knocked back into this phase during war. I would guess: usually not. If enemy units are threatening their cities, AI civs will tend to build defenders (in my experience).

2. The major problem in AI behaviour that I see with the "Iroquois mauling the Aztecs" scenario is that the Iroquois will be too open to a peace treaty. Unless the Aztecs have almost nothing to give, the Iroquois will stop their onslaught at a moment's notice. The difference between humans and AIs is therefore not "Am I close to the OCN?" but "Am I almost done defeating this civ?". Unfortunately, we cannot change this particular AI behaviour with the editor.

3. Confusing the AI is possible in some situations (thinking it's directly at war, believe now is a good time to build a Wonder), so maybe it is possible to trick it into entering a new REX phase. Again, I'm not sure.


Dominae

[BRC]

I think what you're asking is whether it can be knocked back into this phase during war.

Yes, this is what I'm asking.

I would guess: usually not. If enemy units are threatening their cities, AI civs will tend to build defenders (in my experience).

Ok. I just didn't know.

2. The major problem in AI behaviour that I see with the "Iroquois mauling the Aztecs" scenario is that the Iroquois will be too open to a peace treaty. Unless the Aztecs have almost nothing to give, the Iroquois will stop their onslaught at a moment's notice. The difference between humans and AIs is therefore not "Am I close to the OCN?" but "Am I almost done defeating this civ?". Unfortunately, we cannot change this particular AI behaviour with the editor.

Yeah.... The Iroqouis will stop. Is this where aggression factor could kick in? Does aggression affect how likely the AI accepts a peace treaty?

[Catt]

Report from the Labs 2

Too much beer, not enough civ.

Originally posted by alexman
I ran another test last night (beer or no beer on the enter key, it's still boring, and takes way longer than 20 minutes when the AI are at war BTW), and the higher OCN didn't seem to increase aggressiveness this time.

Ain't that the truth. I am up to about 1700 AD in my "standard" game. One AI has been at war for over 1000 years. The other continent has been at war off-and-on for 700+ out of the last 1000 years. Much more than 20 minutes invested in this one (although I have found it much more interesting than alexman becuase this was the first time I had run a "debug mode" game and it's interesting to watch the AI development habits).

In my test game (only one sample) Egypt systematically destroyed 2 of its 3 continent mates and was well on the way to owning an entire (large) continent. It then began razing cities instead of keeping them, and wasn't settling the exposed land.

With Soren re-visiting to explain his concerns a bit more (and to inadvertantly provide an explanation as to why my Egypt razed and razed), I'm not really sure that continued "increased OCN" testing is worthwhile, at least in connection with a desire to induce more aggressive exploitation of relative advantage. What do you all think?

If this is indeed the case, I still think that the AI would benefit from increasing the OCN because a) the game has less corruption than when Soren first established that the AI should stop expanding at the OCN, . . .

The current mod increases it by 50%, right? (For AI FP placement reasons, not corruption iteration reasons, of course). Let's hear some reports from AU 202.

. . . and b) the AI rarely expands enough to win by domination.

With Soren's comment re: razing, I wonder if the AI will ever win via domination. Maybe another reason to increase OCN (aggression will still trigger with lack of elbow room)?

Catt

[alexman]

Catt, thanks for the report. You're right, I found it very interesting the first time I tried it too.

After your tests and Soren's comments, I'm convinced that we should increase the OCN, if only to avoid razing cities that could have been productive (reduced corruption), and to threaten domination.

I also agree that there is no need to further test the increase to the OCN in connection to AI aggressiveness.

BTW, the current mod makes no increase to the OCN at all. It gives the AI a 50% bonus to the OCN by way of the percentage in the difficulty levels, but apparently it's the raw OCN number that signals the end of expansion. (Otherwise our tests at 150% OCN and 67% the difficulty percentage would not result in any change in expansion).

Good work! This was a good series of posts!

[Catt]

Originally posted by alexman
Catt, thanks for the report. You're right, I found it very After your tests and Soren's comments, I'm convinced that we should increase the OCN, if only to avoid razing cities that could have been productive (reduced corruption), and to threaten domination.

I also agree that there is no need to further test the increase to the OCN in connection to AI aggressiveness.

I agree - I'd still like to experiment with an increased OCN; I just no longer believe that it can assist in exploiting relative advantage. If it helps stop the razing without creating problems elsewhere, it would be welcome. [Egypt wouldn't settle the land, but others would. Egypt would decide that the land was too cluttered and would wipe everybody out. New civs would again settle (since Egypt wouldn't). And Egypt would again decide to raze everything to the ground.]

BTW, the current mod makes no increase to the OCN at all. It gives the AI a 50% bonus to the OCN by way of the percentage in the difficulty levels, but apparently it's the raw OCN number that signals the end of expansion. (Otherwise our tests at 150% OCN and 67% the difficulty percentage would not result in any change in expansion).

Doh! I knew that.

Good work! This was a good series of posts!

Yup. I had fun.

Catt

[Fosse]

I agree that OCN should go up for the AI just to stop the razing habits that Catt's Egypt got into.

I played a standard PTW game in which Japan razed a gigantic subcontinent of Mongolian cities, and only kept cities with access to resources. While the resource keeping was smart, the giant whole in the map meant that all of the other civs put all kinds of distance corrupted cities on former MOngolia, and Japan's strength didn't go up nearly enough to relfect winning such a definitive victory.

If Japan (or Egypt) had kept all of the cities then they would have been in a much stronger position, even if many of them were corrupted.

Would it be to the AI's advantage, without being too much of a human helper, to reduce corruption levels with the slider?

That way AI's (and human) distant cities that they keep under increased OCN percentage would be even more profitable for them, assuming they build courthouses and police stations in them.

Since humans are better at dealing with corruption than AIs are, (better city placement, chopping forests for production, disbanding military units, etc) making corruption less crippling would, I think, help the AI out more than it would us.

[alexman]

Corruption stays as is for the human!
Don't get me started with all those reduced-corruption mods out there!

Sorry, just acting out my signature.

However, we could play with the slider at Chieftain (a level which is used exclusively by the AI in this mod), instead of increasing the percentage of optimal cities to compensate for the bad FP placement.

As many have stated, this is not the ideal way of improving the AI though.

[Dominae]

I'm confused: how often does the AI raze cities if it's already reached or surpassed the OCN? In my games, I've never seen a big AI leave land unclaimed. Rather, it always gobbles everything up (much like the human player). In 'Son of SVC', the Germans were nearing a Domination victory by the time I launched the Spaceship. Have things changed with PTW?


Dominae

[Fosse]

Alexman, I've no problems with human corruption as is, and am in agreement with your rant (though scared! Plese don't hurt me! )

If it can be changed for only the AI and not the human then I'm all for that... if it can't then I would favor a global reduction IF we can show that it would be more beneficial to the AI than to the humans.

You say it's not the ideal way to improve the AI... but will it cause any improvment? My guess is it's effect would be to increase the development speed of units and infrastructure, since it give them more shields/commerce per worked tile. Does it have any negative effects on the AI?

Dominae, I don't have exact answers, but I've played several games where wars past the middle ages result in the AIs burning down twenty or thirty cities in a war, leaving a barren wasteland that gets filled in by smaller powers.

My interpretation of Soren's earlier post is that the AI will burn any city past its OCN unless that city has a wonder or access to resources or luxuries. I would also hope that it would keep any cities that it captures that it also founded or has signifigant culture. (for example, I take Babylon, it has no wonders, Babylon reaches its OCN and retakes its old capital... they shouldn't burn it).

[alexman]

Dominae, perhaps your Germans had very high culture compared to their victims in that game? I'm sure another factor that determines whether or not the AI razes a city is the probability of a culture flip of that city. Another is, as Fosse mentioned, access to resources or a Wonder.

As an extreme experiment, reduce the OCN to 1 and watch the AI never build a settler. I did it yesterday. Definitely not domination threat from such an AI.

Fosse, the AI's corruption can be changed without affecting the human, because in this mod the AI plays at a difficulty level that is not meant for the human. I say this is not the ideal way to help the AI, because the idea is to make it react better to game situations, not to make it cheat more.

[Catt]

Originally posted by Dominae
I'm confused: how often does the AI raze cities if it's already reached or surpassed the OCN? In my games, I've never seen a big AI leave land unclaimed. Rather, it always gobbles everything up (much like the human player). In 'Son of SVC', the Germans were nearing a Domination victory by the time I launched the Spaceship. Have things changed with PTW?

I'm only making inferences (i.e., wild-ass guesses) based on Soren's short post from above, the "debug mode" game I'm watching, and memories of other games -- but I think that OCN must be a reasonably important factor in an AI's decision to capture or raze (I would guess that flip chances, "terrain value" and the like also are included in the calculations).

I have never seen the AI win by domination. To be honest, I've never heard of the AI winning by domination.

In the "debug game" (again, admittedly only one sample), Egypt has taken a large portion of the largest continent. It is also a cultural powerhouse, having built a bunch of wonders and enjoying a strong infrastructure. In wiping out a couple of smaller civs, it seemingly refused to keep certain cities -- the terrain was decent (though no, or very few, resources), and the enemy culture was not a danger. Not only was it razing, but it wasn't building settlers to settle the land -- but it was building workers and other non-military units / improvements.

I have seen games where, if it gets down to an AI civ and the human, unless the human settles razed lands, they will remain open. Always assumed it was the AI's attitude towards OCN at work, but never tied that attitude to a decision to raze or capture. I briefly went back to "Son of SVC" -- I don't think your Bismarck was very close to domination. Compare your winning minimap to Dave McW's upon his domination win.

It might be worth the twenty minutes to play a human-AI "duel" on a small or standrad map, lots of land, with the human on a one-tile island, in debug mode. No possible war means only 20 minutes of debug mode (). The way would be clear for an easy AI domination win if the AI settled enough of it's large continent (on a small map, or even a standard map, would the AI continue to settle, or stop short of Domination?)

Catt

EDIT: Doh! Cross-posted with alexman. And his OCN=1 test much easier and simpler than my duel. ("give me a santa hat" )

[Dominae]

Catt, you're right in saying that Bismarck was not going to win via Domination in my Son of SVC game right away. Probably he needed another 30-50 turns or so. But from the time I started building the SS to its launch, he almost doubled his land mass through conquest alone. He didn't raze many cities, as far as I could see. Maybe he didn't win earlier because he was in fact razing cities...I wasn't looking too closely at the time. But there's probably a good explanation for this (relative culture, etc.).

This is how (I think) the AI should behave: if it's above the OCN and has low relative culture, it should raze and rebuild; if it's under the OCN, it should always conquer; and if it's over the OCN and has high relative culture, it should always conquer. The second scenario isn't exactly optimal, but big civs are usually the stronger ones, so I don't think it happens too often. Now, the question is: does the AI do this?


Dominae