Balance of Power

[polypheus]

One of the "features" that were lacking in Civ1/Civ2 was the AI Civ's ability to achieve good "balance of power" amongst all the Civs.

But this should certainly be a feature in Civ3. The computer should always be evaluating the relative positions of all the Civs and conduct diplomacy and warfare as appropriate in order that the balance of power is maintained.

Thus, for example, if the human player starts to outpace other Civs in science, most of the other Civs should cooperate in developing different sciences and trading them to achieve, in effect, a doubling or even tripling or quadrupling of scientific discovery so that it can keep up or come out ahead.

Similarly, if the human starts to come out ahead in other areas like military strength, the most of the other Civs should also realize this and aim to cooperate to keep their military strength up as well or even embargo the player to death if the player's military buildup becomes too threatening.

And if a player conducts wars of aggression or even takes a defensive war too far and starts to conquer too many cities then AI Civs should actually prepare and declare war with the human player to drive the human player back.

To effectively achieve balance of power, the computer will need to be able to manage a group of AI Civs as though it were effectively one Civ. This is good because a "virtual merger" of a few small Civs can add up into one powerful Civ this way!

It is always important that in maintaining balance of power, that the computer not only takes into account intentions and actions of the human player but more importantly the human player's capability!

Of course this should also work for the human player if the human player is weak and an AI is strong as well.

Of course, for the AI to be more challenging, it needs to be able to fight more effectively. However, by keeping in mind "balance of power" and having the computer be able to conduct "virtual mergers" of AI Civs at the appropriate time, it becomes possible for the AI to challenge the human player effectively.

[Sean]

Sounds reasonable. I think this is the general opinion on the matter. However, a peacful civ with good diplomacy should be able to keep out of war, even if they are significantly a-head. Like the USA is like today. However, the human capabilities proviso makes this very interesting to contemplate.

[Inverse Icarus]

um, they do that already.

they always sign alliances if you get to srtong/advanced/big.

sometimes even if your not.

i swear to god the civ 2 AI was better than the MGE one.

[Grumbold]

Forming power blocs is a good move, but for it to feel right there should be polarisation both toward and away from front runners. If we can get a situation where the factions polarise into balanced camps it will be excellent. I'm kind of hoping that the cultural groupings will help achieve that, provided they don't stereotype the relations completely. If the human player can routinely get to the point where they are outstripping 15 opponents then the game is already a failure.

[polypheus]

Originally posted by UberKruX
um, they do that already.

they always sign alliances if you get to srtong/advanced/big.

sometimes even if your not.

i swear to god the civ 2 AI was better than the MGE one.

But in Civ2, it is pretty shallow and meaningless. The computer doesn't seem to organize thse pacts/alliances by operating the various Civs as though it were a single "virtually merged" Civ. And in Civ2, by the time you saw those messages, it was already much too late as your power was clearly far superior to any AI.

Did Civ2 AIs achieve or restore any semblence of balance of power with these announcements or did these "contain aggression" announcements simply signal that the HP is on the verge of winning the game?

[polypheus]

Originally posted by Grumbold
Forming power blocs is a good move, but for it to feel right there should be polarisation both toward and away from front runners. If we can get a situation where the factions polarise into balanced camps it will be excellent. I'm kind of hoping that the cultural groupings will help achieve that, provided they don't stereotype the relations completely. If the human player can routinely get to the point where they are outstripping 15 opponents then the game is already a failure.

If balance of power is implemented correctly, it should never get to the point where a HP can outstrip all of the rest of the AIs even if the rest of the AIs were "virtually merged" as though it were a single Civ.

Thus a soon the HP even begins to get slightly ahead, counter-balancing by a group of rival AI Civs begins to restore the equilibrium.

But of course, if the counter-balancing bloc is clearly more powerful than the HP (even if individually the Civs are weaker than the HP Civ), then some AI Civs should join the HP in another bloc and so on and so forth. So I agree that the balance of power should be viewed from an individual Civ point of view but also from the point of view of balancing the different power blocs as well just as you suggested.

This is both realistic, fun, historic, and also makes the game far more interesting and challenging.

[MORON]

I think there should be all different Ai sets for different players.

I'd like to see the aggressive for no reason Ai

[Zeevico]

I definitely agree. In one game, for example, my small, but well run civilization was declared upon for being a small and well run civilization. So i get my production cities to churn out howies and two seconds later, the Roman civ is dead, the French have one city left, Zulus are down to their last three units and last (size 1) city and the Persians on the other side of the world are eventually hammered into peices.

I like what he said, but another thing to be added on is preperation before the AI declares war. For example, 10 turns before the AI decides to attack, it should take a more militaristic stance on production (start building bombers, howies, tanks and the like).

[SerapisIV]

SMAC did a very good job of improving upon Civ2 AI relations with human players, each other, and maintaining parity with the advanced civ. It all comes from improved AI. I'm not saying SMAC was perfect, but it was leaps and bounds ahead of Civ2. As long as the AI improves over SMAC, I believe this problem will be even smaller in Civ3

Though inevitably still there as humans will almost always be better then AI given enough practice. If Firaxis could make the AI learn, improving upon itself, that would be a major, major windfall for single player games.