The AI and its obsession for food

[lockstep]

Originally posted by alexman
OK, so you won't have to build catherdrals if you have many luxuries, AND you don't have culture-flip dangers, AND you don't care about WLTKD. But you *will* have to build them otherwise.

But what if I won't have to build cathedrals if I have many luxuries, OR I don't have culture-flip dangers, OR I don't care about WLTKD? That would be dumbing down the game IMO. (At the moment, we don't know whether your or my assumption comes closer to the truth, so I appreciate your extensive testing. Still, entertainers that are twice as powerful as temples happiness-wise are a quite radical idea IMO.)

It makes more sense to use the luxury slider and waste commerce in other cities rather than lose the food from assigning entertainers.

I often use a combination of 20%-30% luxuries and one entertainer in border cities that don't have a temple yet.

[lockstep]

Originally posted by Arrian
Interesting study you did, Alexman. Like you said, the key here is an AI tweak, via a patch, to get it to use the luxury slider.

IIRC, some alpha screenshots of Civ3 showed a city screen without a luxury slider. This might well be a hint that there still isn't such a slider for the AI.

[nbarclay]

I think doubling the value of entertainers would add more strategic depth than it takes away. In the standard game, using entertainers is rarely worthwhile until a city gets about as big as you plan to let it get (at least for the time being). Certainly, it's rarely if ever a viable alternative to building happiness improvements or using the luxury slider when you truly want core cities to keep growing.

With doubled costs, entertainers would still hurt both growth and production compared with using city improvements or the luxury slider to boost happiness. The rules change would not even begin to create a situation where adding entertainers is always the right answer. But it would create more situations where using entertainers might be the right answer, and each such situation creates an additional strategic choice.

I do have one possible concern. AI cities already get ridiculously huge in the industrial era (at least if the terrain permits), and with double-value entertainers, they could get even bigger. Still, the prospects of AIs getting some kind of value out of most of the land in a city radius seem a lot better with double-value entertainers.

Oh, and there's one other interesting repercussion, for better or for worse. With entertainers more valuable, captured cities would be easier to control without starving them all the way down to (or at least near) size one. I'm not quite sure to what extent that's good and to what extent its bad, but I personally would probably enjoy the game more under such circumstances.

Nathan

[Fitz]

Flawed experiment. Since the AI only has one city at it's disposal, it must optimize it's income vs it's expense to a level that never exists in a real game. Given that every unit and every improvement costs at least one gold to maintain, and it cannot increase it's income except through growth of it's one city, is it suprising that it will not build excess units/improvements and will attempt growth (and "build" wealth)? Of course not.

Try this again, but give the AI room to expand up to it's optimal number of cities. Put each AI on a much larger island and disable boats so they cannot attack each other or settle other islands. Make sure there are a reasonable amount of rivers & specials for a decent income. You may still see problems, since the lack of contact with other civs means that they will never contact each other, and therefore will always have to research at the worst rate.

[Pyrodrew]

Given that every unit and every improvement costs at least one gold to maintain, and it cannot increase it's income except through growth of it's one city, is it suprising that it will not build excess units/improvements and will attempt growth (and "build" wealth)?

More tests are always good, but the AI still had no good reason to build that granary. That only increased their improvement costs & increased their # of unhappy citizens at a faster pace than necessary. Better structures/units could have been built instead. And it doesn't look like they are building wealth, rather a rifleman (more costs).

[Alex]

Interesting debate. Keep going.

[aaglo]

Originally posted by Theseus
I hate entertainers... unproductive b-stards.

HEEEEY!!!! Watch it!

[Nor Me]

I've already tried doubled value entertainers and it does not alter my style of play much. The A.I. would get as much out of them.

Looking at the example, if entatianers were doubled, Thebes would still need 2 of them. Only when it grows to size 7 would it make a difference.

A temple has the effect of allowing a city to work an extra square if it were 1 bigger whatever the value of entertainers. Only if up against a population limit of 6 or 12 can it be devalued

If Thebes were 1 square away from fresh water, A temple or rifleman would not help at the moment but would allow Thebes to work 5 squares if entertainers produced 2 entertainment.

Since entertainers are automatically content themselves, they would only really be 50% better.

Having said that they are much better at getting We Love The Haircut days than I first thought.

[alexman]

Originally posted by Fitz
Flawed experiment.

As I said, maybe it doesn't represent a typical game situation, but it does reveal some areas where the AI needs some help.

Given that every unit and every improvement costs at least one gold to maintain, and it cannot increase it's income except through growth of it's one city, is it suprising that it will not build excess units/improvements and will attempt growth (and "build" wealth)?

As Pyrodrew said, the does AI build units, which also cost support. As for having only one city, you might have less income, but you also have less expenses (you have only one of each building to support). Actually, because of corruption, your income/expense ratio is greater when you have one city!

...therefore will always have to research at the worst rate.

As I mentioned in the first post, I reduced the tech cost, so everyone was discovering new techs after 5-10 turns. I also tried reducing the optimal number of cities to 1, and got the same results.

[alexman]

Update: I tried doubling the happiness produced by entertainers and the AI seemed to do better for most cases. In some cases it still irrigated too much, but in others it actually mined instead. I think this is the best the AI can do without using the luxury slider. Here's a picture of Babylon from approximately the same time:

[Dominae]

I would really love to see an improvement in the AI, especially concerning the "Irrigation problem".

However, I'm not sure I like the double effect of Entertainers. Am I the only one that thinks this creates an entirely new game for the human players, which revolves around never building Cathedrals, Sistine Chapel, heck even Temples, instead focusing on the Luxury slider and population? Regardless of how the AI plays, one of the main aspects of Civ3 is having to become the builder eventually to deal with problems in your cities (unhappiness, corruption, etc.). With the proposed change, all you need is Workers to keep everything in order. Furthermore, I'm still not convinced that the Cultural value of happiness improvements is terribly important, even less so with the proposed change; Temples would only be built for their culture value, which doesn't seem worth it to me (might as well build Libraries instead).

Again, I hope the Civ3 AI improves sometime in the future, but not at the expense of the "stock" Civ3 feeling. The proposed change is a huge leap in the other direction, IMO. If only we could actually tell the stupid AI to build Mines more often...what a simple solution that would be!


Dominae

[alexman]

I don't think the double entertainer value changes strategy that much for the human. I really don't. At the same time as the AI reached the point of the screenshot, my single city was size 7, full of improvements, and much more productive - mostly because of my use of the luxury slider. I never used a single entertainer. As Nathan pointed out, the food lost from assigning entertainers is a steep price to pay.

As for telling the AI to mine more, I don't think it would solve the problem. The real cause of the problem is the fact that the AI doesn't use the luxury slider, so it has to assign entertainers, which reduce the food surplus, so it HAS to irrigate to grow.

[Dominae]

alexman, maybe you could try irrigating everything yourself in the test run. Your city would grow extremely quickly (especially with a Granary), and you could just use entertainers to keep happiness in check until you reach size 12. At that point you could "go back" and build all the improvements you like, slowly replace the irrigation with mines...basically transform your now huge city into a more productive one. This unnatural growth spurt is made entirely possible by making entertainers doubly powerful.


Dominae

[lockstep]

Originally posted by Dominae
I'm not sure I like the double effect of Entertainers. Am I the only one that thinks this creates an entirely new game for the human players, which revolves around never building Cathedrals, Sistine Chapel, heck even Temples, instead focusing on the Luxury slider and population?

No, you aren't. Making entertainers more powerful is very likely to make building happiness improvements an option instead of a necessity, and I wouldn't like that at all. Seems like a violation of the core game design to me.

[alexman]

Maybe I could have done better by irrigating. I didn't really try to optimize my growth. But one thing is for sure: In this test, I am ALWAYS better off using all my citizens as laborers and using the luxury slider for entertainment than I am by using entertainers.

Why? In this test, 1 entertainer gives 2 happy people and nothing else. 1 laborer gives you 2-3 food, 2-3 shields, and 2 commerce. Using the luxury slider, the 2 extra commerce from the laborer has exaclty the same effect as a double-value entertainer, but you get to keep the extra food and shields.

This is not the case in corrupt cities, and this is where the human strategy will change. Corrupt cities will become easier to manage if you double the entertainer value and irrigate everything, but this is what is already optimal in totally corrupt cities. What will change is the percentage of corruption where this strategy becomes optimal.