Enhancing the AI very important...

[jeff76]

Hi civfans,

I just finished a very good game, in which the AI was far above its usual intelligence. I tried something. I gave every unit of middle ages +1 HP, every unit of industrial times +2 HP and every modern units +3 HP, except units with usually no HP. Then, I made ALL units upgradable to the similar unit of the next era, including the UU.

Here's the result. To keep up, you have to get science AND money AND ressources. You can't do without one of the 3. If you play at high difficulty levels, the AI is good at getting rich.. so be aware of upgrades...

Plus, I don't know what really happened (might be because of accelerated production but still) the AI achieved to plan a large scale attack on weaker civ (ie.. the ones not having the ressource to build tho effective defence... or the one having the ressource they need in order to keep up their army). I swear, it seemed exactly like those attacks humans are planning. You have the right units, on theright spots, you take as much as you can in the first turn, passing in fornt of allies to get cities of ennemies... It was really a tough game...

It had also another cool effect... we all ended up with modern armies.. making the war among quite equal opponent very hard.. it gets political in these situations...

Only one bad side. It makes the whole thing faster. So I'm thinking about slowing down the tech rate a little (and then not choosing accelerated prod.)

(Just for being technical, I used the AU mod 1.17... plus the changes I said above and one or two unit rebalanced but nothing big.)

Try this..

[Elias]

I would like to see the computers use their navy/air force more to gain and advantage on the land. they usyally only use ground troops. I have never seen a very effective invasion of my territory by sea. The computers need to use better stradagy and not just try to win by pure numbers.

[jeff76]

As I was playing on Pangae map the navy didn't really matter but I have to say the AI built more units than usually and effectively bombed all my ressources. It created a kind of blocus around my territory.

As for what you say about the AI making some strategies and not just having mor units... well that's what I say ! It's exactlu what happened. It improved all its territory (which is quite rare for the AI), and placed its units in position of attacking territories effectively (destroying as many units as possible and taking as many cities as possible on the first turn of the attack). The moment of the attacks were well chosen too. The Americans were Gracious towards me. I was at war with everybody else... they just attacked me to get the ressource they needed. (I was the strongest, they never could have done that normally). When I tried to invade by surprise, they nuked everything... How Gracious.

the only thing I can say is that the AI surpised me many times. It did have the usual reacting behaviour but took the lead of some actions, some totally surprising but intellgent, and achieved them in round up strategy..

I'll try this on archipelago map... we'll see for the navy...

[Stuie]

I'm actually trying something similiar in my current game, except I only added HPs to Industrial (+1) and Modern (+2) units. I wanted to lessen the impact of cavalry slightly, so I left all the units from the Early and Middle eras at the default.

I just entered the Middle Era, so no idea how this change will play out yet.

[jeff76]

About the cavalry thing... I had another solution which, IMHO suits better the era unit difference I'm trying to create. I made musketman cheaper and pikemen upgradable to musketman (or french musketeer). So they are more common and the cavalry has a harder time to conquer. And it still respect the ear difference between units as the musketeer has also (like the cavalry the +1HP for middle ages). If you want absolutely to change the units data. I suggest you to upgrasde the defence of musketman and not to lower the attack of Cavalry. The reason is the cavalry stays better than the knight for attack and the knight becomes a little more obsolete with gunpowder, which is historycally accurate. It also makes you use cannons with cavalry (combined arms tactics) which is also historically accurate. (the only bad side is that up to now I haven't seen any AI using artillery unit for attack... unless they have radar artillery. So i guesse this would weaken the AI.. or you have to check the attack unit box for cannons.. if this is possible)

So I thing my solution stays ok. Just make musketman cheaper and pikemen upgradable to musketman.

[Vlado]

Arn't pikes always upgradeed to musketmen?

[Arrian]

Yeah, they are. Unless he means he removed the saltpeter resource requirement...

-Arrian

[Elias]

Originally posted by jeff76
As I was playing on As for what you say about the AI making some strategies and not just having mor units... well that's what I say ! It's exactlu what happened. It improved all its territory (which is quite rare for the AI), and placed its units in position of attacking territories effectively (destroying as many units as possible and taking as many cities as possible on the first turn of the attack). The moment of the attacks were well chosen too. The Americans were Gracious towards me. I was at war with everybody else... they just attacked me to get the ressource they needed. (I was the strongest, they never could have done that normally). When I tried to invade by surprise, they nuked everything... How Gracious.

the only thing I can say is that the AI surpised me many times. It did have the usual reacting behaviour but took the lead of some actions, some totally surprising but intellgent, and achieved them in round up strategy..

I'll try this on archipelago map... we'll see for the navy...

Wow your computer is learning how to conteract you stradagies and forming its own.Wait a minuet computers cont learn oh no Your computer is like the Terminator Run for cover its going to take over the world!!

[jeff76]

I made some typing mistakes in the part of the post you copied. In the end I say : the computer did have the usual behaviour... I was meaning the computer didn't have... And it's true. No, it doesn't learn from me (that would be scary...) but it is able to be very dangerous given certain parameters : an up-to-date army, a good economy so it ca upgrade (on high levels the AI is usually quite rich, at least for big empires) and available ressources. Now, when it doesn't have the techs needed to be up to date (which is the goal of the AI, to stay up to date means that it will be always a treat to you), so, when it doesn't have what it takes (techs, ressources or money) it tries to get it. for this, it can plan things well, given it is not already out of date. The upgrade possibility makes it much harder to resist to the AI. ...

Well, I could try to explain what happened ten time.. it would be hard to do it rationnally as I don't know exactly what made the AI behaving differently than usually. Only one thing is sure, it didn't bahave like usually. Maybe I could send my .bix to some of you, so you can try a game... write to me.. europa07052002 @ hot... and please write only to get the file. Otherwise write here.
try it. As I don't have time to play one game everyday, this could be good to help me verifiy if what I experienced was just made of luck or not...

[Elias]

I have requested your game please check your E-mail and get back to me before the week end so I have somthing to do.
(If only I had a car)

[vulture]

I've just finished a game where my main AI opponent did some unusual things. But it was a kinf of unique case - the first time I've ever seen the Zulus become a killer AI and take out several civs, remain up to date in tech and still be a serious force in the modern era. One notable behaviour of theirs was to not build any navy. I'm sure almost everyone is used to the AI's 20 or so ironclads turning up when you go to war; the AI loves to build up a strong navy. Over the entire late industrial and early modern era, the Zulu nation (which had 120 or more Mech Inf just before our war) had built a whole 2 battleships, 1 sub and 1 carrier. They may have built a transport as well - I'm not sure. I guess the Zulu build preferences are very much biased against naval power.

Not a particularly exciting example on it's own, but the AI's behaviour was determined by its available units, which is determined by the build preferences. So some unexpected AI behaviour can come about because you are facing a civ that isn't normally that strong.

And the AI can sometimes plan very good attacks by accident. Even if it follows deeply silly rules for how to fight wars (which it doesn't), eventually you will hit on a situation where that is exactly the plan that is needed. Suddenly the AI stops being stupid and is instead brilliant.

the Civ3 AI seems to rely to some extent on emergent behaviour. It isn't scripted, but rather has ideas about goals and how to achieve them. At the current state of play this can sometimes lead to surprisingly complex plans that are appropriate to the situation, whilst unavoidably leading to other times where the AI does something very daft indeed when the good thing to do was fairly obvious. That's just the nature of 'emergent' systems (unless they can be extremely well trained). But it's nice to have an AI that can occasionally surprise you.

[Elias]

I have never seen the AI really do anything smart that I can recall at the moment. Is AI military inteligence related in any to diffuculty level. I Always want to play on high diffuculy levels so that the AI will challange me more with military but they always just reseach tech faster and outpace me then slaughter me with advanced units.

[alexman]

I like the idea of giving extra HP to advanced units. It probably makes the easy levels even easier and the hard levels even harder, but it might also have a good potential for producing killer AIs, as the more advanced AI roll over the weaker ones.

[Elias]

P.S jeff I have recived conquests so I will probably not try your senario and my pc was taken away so I wont be able to play conquests either I got it and played for about an hour the two days later on friday it was gone sorry for complaining.
If anyone is intrested I have made a list of changes to my mod

Subs are allowed to bombard and can carry 8 cruis missles
cruis missles range is increased
battleship shild cost increased by 20
privateers are now 2.1
aircraft have increased bombard and their def and off are the same.(Is it just me or does the F-15 look very odd?)
subs upgrade to nucular subs
Frigate to ironclad Ironclad to Battleship I got sick of building so many diffrent navys.
Rocket Artilary is renamed MLRS and can move 3
All units have lethat bombard
Longbowman can bombard(dont ask me about this one)
all units that can bombard now have blitz(no reason you can put only one shell into the Artillary)
Tow infintary will require rubber and aluminum(for a modern Infintary I dont know what they really require I thought it up the day before I lost my pc)
helecopters can carry 3 units
the Nuke defence is now either a great wonder or it reduces corruption (Deppends on the mood I was in when I modded it)
Navel units can now mover slightly faster
Modern armor has 4 movment points (Cavalry couldnt out run an abrams)
If anyone would like a copy of this mod E-mail me at It may be a few weeks before I can get this to you Since my pc with civ on it is gone so I cannot put it onto a disk to transfer it to this pc to give it to you seeing as how my pc is gone. I am bored to so if you have anything remotely intresing to say e-mail me too.

[Theseus]

"all units that can bombard now have blitz(no reason you can put only one shell into the Artillary)"

Are you loco? Buh-bye, AI civs. (Might be interesting in MP, though)

"Modern armor has 4 movment points (Cavalry couldnt out run an abrams)"

Actually, when you consider supply chain issues, horses ain't so bad. Oh yeah... another Buh-bye, AI civs. (Although a C3C-style 4xMA Army would be, uh, interesting. )