Apolyton University Mod (PTW version)

[Nor Me]

There are non-Grey Side players out there?

[ducki]

I actually still like to play White, and still haven't really learned to embrace Dark.


I was actually thinking of experimenting with being a rabid warmonger as Carthage.

[Nor Me]

I'm still a builder at heart. But I've learned to see a horseman rush as just another way of building.

[Catt]

I spent some time running an experiment this morning. I set up a debug game on an editor-generated standard map (middle of the road all options), regent level, random civs, with the human starting on a one-tile island. The rules had been modified to: (1) provide communism with an MP limit of 12; and (2) start everyone in the Industrial Age (didn't help to shorten the process). Using the ol' beer can on the spacebar testing method, I hoped to see how the AI handled the modified communism.

It was only one test; it turned out to be a game without war until relatively late (almost tanks, and not until 1300 AD +), and the war concluded quickly enough that I didn't have an AI in communism for hundreds and hundreds of years -- an AI ended up building the UN and winning, shortly after the final combatant had been eliminated. Nonetheless, I got to see some behavior that leads me to make a tentative conclusion.

Contrary to my expectations, the AI did not seem to make a concerted attempt to build up and garrison cities with up to the maximum MP limit (12). Instead, the AI seemed to be content with a modest (by AI standards) garrison, even if a few additional units would eliminate some waste. See the screenshot below -- it's not the best example, but it's one I happened to grab. The city in question currently has 4 MPs but several unhappy citizens. It suffers from a modest amount of waste. Not pictured in the screenshot are nearby (and RR'd) areas of the AI empire that show numerous units "hanging out" -- i.e., not guarding radar towers but rather moving from turn to turn (i.e., "AI patrolling"). You can just make out that a nearby city is building a courthouse instead of a unit (although it too suffered waste, only had 4 or 5 MPs, and didn't enjoy WLTKD). This situation was not unique -- I saw many instances where the AI was not pumping out units (was in fact building various city improvements) to reach available MP levels, as I expected it would, both during the war and after its conclusion.

Again, although only one limited example, it certainly produced a result quite different from what I expected, and, if one sample is to be trusted, seemed to imply that raising the MP limit will only have incidental effects -- if the AI is cranking out units but is unable to use the units (is having to make intercontinental invasions and transport them with a limited navy, for example) and chooses to garrison cities rather than "patrol" as it does so often, then maybe an increased MP will be utilized. I simply saw nothing that would imply that an increased MP availability induces markedly different behavior from an unmodified MP level -- and therefore that a modified MP level may not be a real help to the AI (even if for wildly different reasons than I hypothesized).

Catt

PS: I saw some other interesting things which I'm posting in the "Why, oh why . . ." thread.

[Dominae]

Catt, you test provides some information that is definitely good to know. Most importantly, it shows that the AI will not use Military Police to enter a WLTKD. This is a definite shortcoming, but not a major problem. As long as the AI uses MP efficiently to alleviate unhappiness, everything is ok. We're trying to help the AI here, not make it "smart" (which is impossible for us to do, really...).


Dominae

[Pyrodrew]

AI Artillery

Why even have any AI Civs build artillery at all?

Rarely (if ever), do I find a case where artillery in a city actually helps an AI more than another defensive unit would have. The AI building artillery in cities is like putting extra candy in cities for the human player when he/she conquers those cities. It only makes the game easier. Flagging 'Never Build' for artillery would "help the AI". If the AI could build ships, but never be able to move ships out of the city it was built in... would we want the AI to still be building ships?

[Dominae]

Making Artillery-type units have 1 Defense means they cannot be captured. Consequently, the AI can use them liberally (however ineffectively they do so), without the human player exploiting the weakness of being able to easily capture stacks of AI Artillery. Without "teaching" the AI to use Artillery effectively, I think this is the closest thing to a solution to the Artillery "problem" (i.e. that humans use Bombard effectively while AIs do not).


Dominae

[player1]

Of course it makes human's Artillery attacks much easier.

If you lose Arty defense, they can't be captured (and not even destroyed without having at lest as many unit as human has artilleries).

[Catt]

Originally posted by Dominae
Catt, you test provides some information that is definitely good to know. Most importantly, it shows that the AI will not use Military Police to enter a WLTKD. This is a definite shortcoming, but not a major problem. As long as the AI uses MP efficiently to alleviate unhappiness, everything is ok.

My concern is that I'm not convinced that the AI uses MP efficiently to alleviate unhappiness. I think it uses whatever units happen to be available, but will not "consciously" take advantage of an increased MP level -- in other words, the number of units garrisoned in each city is determined based primarily (if not totally) on other factors. A screenshot below shows a Persian city from my test game (modded with up to 12 MP) -- despite numerous units "patrolling" the homeland, far from any fighting (which is all on another landmass), only four units are garrisoned in Tarsus, which is using 3 entertainers. Three additional units would eliminate the need for entertainers, and well more than three additional units are quite readily available.

In other words, I think the otherwise interesting proposal to increase MP limits under communism will have only incidental and minor effects, because the AI (from what I can see in one sample) will not take advantage of the increased MP limits.

Catt

[Pyrodrew]

this is the closest thing to a solution to the Artillery "problem"

Well, I would still say just remove the "problem" and not let the AI build them. Most (all?) of the AI's use of artillery consists of only sitting in city. A 10 defense unit would be better than a 1.
Nevertheless, I am impressed with the creativeness & I guess it keeps things "as much like the original as possible" while at the same time "helping the AI."

[MiloMilo]

Suggestion re: artillery--

In addition to giving them a defense of 1, I've lowered their hit points, so a regular has only one hp and a veteran has two. It makes just about zero difference, but it comes closest to making them indefensible-but-not-capturable, which I think is the goal.

This is contrary to everything written so far, but what of the price of artillery was lowered, so the AI would think they are more valuable and produce more of them? Maybe having more in the field would induce the AI to use them more effectively?

What if they were flagged as offensive? Would they then bombard units instead of tile improvements?

Don't citizens, buildings, and tile improvements have some kind of inherent defense value? Maybe if these values were made to be higher than 10 then an AI artillery would see an infantry unit as a better target? I know we can't mod this it's just a thought.

[Mad Bomber]

Originally posted by MiloMilo
Suggestion re: artillery--

In addition to giving them a defense of 1, I've lowered their hit points, so a regular has only one hp and a veteran has two. It makes just about zero difference, but it comes closest to making them indefensible-but-not-capturable, which I think is the goal.

This is contrary to everything written so far, but what of the price of artillery was lowered, so the AI would think they are more valuable and produce more of them? Maybe having more in the field would induce the AI to use them more effectively?

What if they were flagged as offensive? Would they then bombard units instead of tile improvements?

Don't citizens, buildings, and tile improvements have some kind of inherent defense value? Maybe if these values were made to be higher than 10 then an AI artillery would see an infantry unit as a better target? I know we can't mod this it's just a thought.

The defense of buildings and Citizens are able to be modded, its just that the values are too high as they are (16 as of v1.29f). Your idea of flagging artillery as offensive and defensive has merit as I have seen others report that the AI will use them offensively if flagged as such. As for the defense value, I am thinking that 2 or 3 may be more appropriate, but I have yet to test this in a mod.

[alexman]

Cruise Missiles

Well, so much for the idea to make ships carry cruise missiles...

The plan works well for the human, but the AI "cruise missile" strategy does not allow loading the missiles, even if there are units available to carry them.

So what happens is that the "naval transport" ship goes to get the missile, but the missile doesn't want to load into the ship. The ship stays in the city waiting, and the cruise missile ignores it.

Apparently a missile needs to be a nuke in order for the AI to know to load it in a ship. Oh well, look at the bright side... one less change to the mod!

[alexman]

Also, the Small Wonder implementation of the Kremlin does not work as expected.

Even though it does not show up in the list of improvements in the city, it actually continues to work even after the civ switches out of Communism.

[alexman]

It's worth testing whether flagging artillery as AI "offense" instead of "artillery" will do the trick.

I recently tried something similar with ironclads, giving them a low attack and a high bombard strength, and the AI just didn't attack with them often enough. It just ran away. But it's worth another test.