To FIRAXIS: Army Comparison

[FrantzX]

Your military advisor is often way off when comparing you military strength to another civilization. The best way to fix this would be to make a civilization's total troop strength would be that sum of all their ground forces attack and defense values. Because workers, settlers, artilery and the like do not have attack or defense values, they will no longer skew the comparison. Also, the military advisor should compare the strengths of navies.

[Allemand]

IIRC, Civ2 did this.

[Stuie]

There was a discussion about this over at that OTHER civ site. One thing that came to light is that the AI is using the same estimations to gauge whether or not they can take you out in a war.... so they compare number of units without regard to strength (one warrior = one modern armor). This leads the AI to enter some obviously unwinable wars, and keep fighting them long past the time when their strength is spent. Also, it keeps the AI from upgrading old units. My thoughts on the matter from the post "over there":

The calculation definitely needs to be fixed. The one to one comparison is doing a disservice to the AI, thinking his one swordman matches up evenly with my Mech Infantry. However, I would suggest the formula per unit go like this:

non-blitz unit = HP + A + D + M
blitz unit = HP + D + (A * M)

That would provide me (and the AI) with a fair asessment of my opponents strength.

[King of Rasslin]

Stuie, do you mean civfanatics.com? That is one AWESOME web page, man I wish Apolyton was as cool as they are!!!

J/K

[Stuie]

Originally posted by King of Rasslin
Stuie, do you mean civfanatics.com? That is one AWESOME web page, man I wish Apolyton was as cool as they are!!!

J/K

I only go there when I've read everything here and there's time left to kill in my work day.

Seriously though, I wish Firaxis would do something about the way the AI treats army strengths.

[Arrian]

I remember Soren posting that the AI does NOT use the same strength comparison as the idiotic military advisor. The military advisor does a 1 to 1 comparison (warrior/modern armor), but apparently the AI has a more sophisticated method that runs "under the hood." I have no idea where that post from Soren was, though.

-Arrian

[Solver]

Arrian is right, Soren said so, and so it is. An AI with 100 Cavalry won't attack you if you have 60 Moden Armor.

[fittstim]

Maybe, maybe not...

But in the game I'm playing currently, I was amazed to see the Russians declare war against me when my attempt to plant a spy in Moscow was detected. Russia had maybe 10 horsemen and a mishmash of warriors/swordsmen which at max was 25.

My force consisted of over 100 panzers and 183 cavalry.

Needless to say, they didn't last many more turns after that declaration.

So either the statement concerning strength comparisons is wrong or there should be an asterisk next to it to say that sometimes other things overrule the AI's sense of a winable war.

[Arrian]

Yeah, if the AI owes you money and cannot pay. That will trigger a war sometimes. Sometimes they just seem to hate you enough to commit suicide.

I agree that the AI occasionally picks fights that make no sense. Last night, Rome (#3 civ) attacked me (#1 civ). That, in and of itself, was fine. The problem was that Caesar used ONE ARCHER, which he dropped off on an island of mine. Next turn, Caesar found himself at war with three civs. I don't think he much enjoyed dealing with Impi, Samurai and Riders all at once. Heh. He gets to spend the rest of his days on a little offshore island, kinda like Napolean.

-Arrian

[Stuie]

Originally posted by Arrian
I remember Soren posting that the AI does NOT use the same strength comparison as the idiotic military advisor. The military advisor does a 1 to 1 comparison (warrior/modern armor), but apparently the AI has a more sophisticated method that runs "under the hood." I have no idea where that post from Soren was, though.

-Arrian

I must have missed that one. Still, the AI (in my experience) seems to routinely get into unwinnable wars with units that are older than mine.

And the idiotic military advisor should be able to give me the same information that is used "under the hood" once I have an embassy with the other civ (or maybe increment it - better knowledge with embassy, best knowledge with spy).

[Spiffor]

Stuie :
In the chat, Mike said the military advisor was fixed, and will be more sophisticated in its calculations. It won't count workers in your military might.

[Jaybe]

Another solution, when the time is right, is to plant a spy.
For me, the time is right just AFTER I save the game, in case I don't want to face the results of a captured spy.

[Mike Breitkreutz FIRAXIS]

Originally posted by Spiffor
Stuie :
In the chat, Mike said the military advisor was fixed, and will be more sophisticated in its calculations. It won't count workers in your military might.

It will also take into account the relative strengths of the individual units in your military (so a Modern Armor counts more than a Warrior). It now uses a calculation that's very similar to what the AI uses.

[King of Rasslin]

The advisor should be more specific. More than just "we have a strong military!" or "we need more knights!" He doesn't give great advice. And he should get smarted as you get a spy in there or an embassy.

[Solver]

Does what Mike said apply to PtW or the fourth Civ 3 patch?