AI behavior

[vondrack]

Originally posted by Theseus
That would take, hmmm, 40- 50 Swordsmen.

Well, Cleo committed suicide in RL too, so at least there's precedent.

[Jaybe]

Arrian,
I would wager that this "fatalism" factor is what Soren devised and termed "let's try to keep this game interesting" factor.

If we didn't have surprises in this game, would we be still playing it?

--
OT: So what do people think of the dispersing of the SOD tactics in PTW? (ref: CF chat)
I am imagining a massive wall of troops, especially over similar terrain (e.g., grassland), emanating from any salient into your territory, similar to what I might use.

[Arrian]

40-50 swordsmen in your hands... yeah, that could have hurt me. It might have even killed me. Or rather my offensive forces present on the Egyptian/Roman continent at that time. I would have returned with Tanks, or paid the Romans to assist me. Hey, I even saw a 2-archer, 1-legion army (Rome & Egypt had fought a war in the past which somehow failed to result in a single city changing hands, despite Egypt's lack of horses... so a GA empowered Rome w/iron could not beat a WC-deprived Egypt!)

Jaybe,

It's no longer really surpising. Why did I want a foothold on that continent? Simple - I knew that eventually one of them would declare war on me. So I wanted my troops in position to wipe out the offender quickly. Same principle as in my Egyptian game with what Theseus called my "Sword of Damocles."

OT: what dispersing of SoD tactics... CF chat? Do tell.

-Arrian

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by Arrian
...
OT: what dispersing of SoD tactics... CF chat? Do tell.

-Arrian

From CivFanatics PTW chat Q&A

< Some_God> to Anyone, In the middle-late part of the game everything becomes so easy. Once you start a war A HUGE pack of enemy units comes at you from one square. That makes everything boring and takes away strategy ( movement of units everywhere ) That's the main reason y I stopped playing Civ3 for a while. Will you have a limit on how much units can be in one square (stack) ?
<+Soren_Johnson_Firaxis> some_god: I have worked on that to encourage the AI to spread out it's attack force... sometimes it happens naturally though if there is a terrain bottleneck
<+FXS_Speed_Bump> I can attest to the fact that the AI does split it's stacks and attack from different sides now
<+Mike_Breitkreutz_FIRAXIS> So do the barbarians
<+FXS_Speed_Bump> Yeah
<+Soren_Johnson_Firaxis> barbs are much more a pain in PTW

< VaderFLAG2> Soren: What did you change (or what changed) to make barbs so much more of a pain?
< Hygro> how are barbarians more painful?
<+FXS_Speed_Bump> They are sneakier now
<+Mike_Breitkreutz_FIRAXIS> Hygro: they got smarter

< VaderFLAG2> Smarter how?
<+Soren_Johnson_Firaxis> vader: to be honest... I don't know! it was a combination of strictly unrelated things. what AI programmers call emergent behavior
<+FXS_Speed_Bump> They don't blindly attack and they will tear up improvements like nobody's business

< VaderFLAG2> Can you give an example of the emergent behavior? The causality is interesting, but I'd rather know how it manifests itself =p
<+Soren_Johnson_Firaxis> vader: for example, in the path manager, the AI know prefers to move to empty squares - all other things being equal. thus, a stack of barb horseman will split themselves up when going for you... attacking different squares and different cities. I implemented the change because of the SoD problem, but it also helped the barb AI.

[Arrian]

Interesting. Thanks.

-Arrian
(who already hates barbarians)

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by Jaybe
...
< VaderFLAG2> Can you give an example of the emergent behavior? The causality is interesting, but I'd rather know how it manifests itself =p
<+Soren_Johnson_Firaxis> vader: for example, in the path manager, the AI know prefers to move to empty squares - all other things being equal. thus, a stack of barb horseman will split themselves up when going for you... attacking different squares and different cities. I implemented the change because of the SoD problem, but it also helped the barb AI.

Good Gad, Soren! I sure do hope that "the AI now prefers to move to empty squares" is referring to Offensive/Defensive mixes (A/D strength-wise). It would be a shame to see longbows in one stack and muskets in another without integration.

Hopefully some FAST units even would stay with the slowmovers, maybe 1/3 of the fasts would outpace the slows.