Terrain city bonus

[Gilgamensch]

Originally posted by MrBaggins


Easy: give your the capitol building growth, science and gold bonuses, as well as the small happiness bonus.

Good idea too...

No, not the capitol, just the first city............ Might be more fun even

[MrBaggins]

Well... you couldn't do it easily in your 'first city'... there is no way to single this out... unless you create duplicate terrains for every terrain, keep the city bonus for those terrains, and when you create your first city, terraform it with that terrain.

Alternatively you could go the simple route, and just give the capitol building bonuses... you can only have one... and its usually your first city.

[Gilgamensch]

Originally posted by MrBaggins


Well... Terrain becomes more valuable, as it can be improved. Specialists have... useful at first, although not overridingly so, fixed values, that don't improve as the game progresses.

It would be nice if specialists could be improved by advances as well as terrain.

That's actually a thing I don't like so much. Like 'entertainers', with the introduction of TV, you can reach far more people......

Same for the rest of the specialists.......... they should increase when you advance, but I guess the AI couldn't handle it

[Gilgamensch]

Originally posted by MrBaggins
Well... you couldn't do it easily in your 'first city'... there is no way to single this out... unless you create duplicate terrains for every terrain, keep the city bonus for those terrains, and when you create your first city, terraform it with that terrain.

Alternatively you could go the simple route, and just give the capitol building bonuses... you can only have one... and its usually your first city.

Not possible to add this as a bonus to the terrain?

The reason why the capitol wouldn't be a good choice, is that I wouldn't like to see the bonus being moved with it.

I mean take England: biggest city London.
France: Paris
Germany: Berlin
Russia: Moscow

You see what I mean? It is normally their first capitol being olsa the biggest.........

[MrBaggins]

The AI just needs a little help is all... especially since we can force it to do certain things...

Like for instance settling: at the moment the AI chooses where to settle based on a scoring system, where terrain has one 'usefulness' value, and is increased by the presence of a river.

It pays no attention to its goals... the AI does not consider distance enough, or goals of needing production or science at all.

The best settling system is one where a range of distances are considered, and each site is graded... yet that grading is modified by the ratios of the goals that it wishes to pursue:

Say an AI starts, at the beginning of the game with a growth desire of 1, a production desire of 1 and a commerce desire of 1.

If it finds out that its got enemies close, its important to grow quickly, to land grab, and to defend itself... so it increases its growth desire, but not its commerce desire and production desire... at first: its more important to have more cities than fewer 'perfect' cities. If its alone on its continent, and its a small continent, then it doesn't need to concentrate on growth so much, but on commerce; scientific desire should increase: it needs to develop a navy to be able to colonize other land masses... and also is relatively free of danger from other civs... and so should prioritize scientific development.

These are just examples, but you get the concept.

Discover 'high level' information. Use that to form weighted decisions. Use those weightings to form low level decisions. Enforce them through SLIC.

Theoretically, the AI could get better than placing cities, than a player who doesn't use a spreadsheet or calculator, to figure the odds...

That is the absolute fundemental flaw of the AI (and from where most of its troubles originate)... it just doesn't have a clue about city placement... the decision system is too simplistic.

MrBaggins

[MrBaggins]

Originally posted by Gilgamensch


Not possible to add this as a bonus to the terrain?

The reason why the capitol wouldn't be a good choice, is that I wouldn't like to see the bonus being moved with it.

I mean take England: biggest city London.
France: Paris
Germany: Berlin
Russia: Moscow

You see what I mean? It is normally their first capitol being olsa the biggest.........

If you add it to the terrain, it effects all cites. (unless you do a ton of work)

All of the cities you mention, would have the 'capitol' building, with the possible exception of France.

[Gilgamensch]

Originally posted by MrBaggins

These are just examples, but you get the concept.

Yes I do. And it would make sense

Discover 'high level' information. Use that to form weighted decisions. Use those weightings to form low level decisions. Enforce them through SLIC.

Theoretically, the AI could get better than placing cities, than a player who doesn't use a spreadsheet or calculator, to figure the odds...

That is the absolute fundemental flaw of the AI (and from where most of its troubles originate)... it just doesn't have a clue about city placement... the decision system is too simplistic.

MrBaggins

But that would leave another problem:

How often would you re-evaluate those factors? Very turn, every time unknown terrain would have been discovered? How do you want to 'create' the long term goal? Do you want to 'attach' it to the leaders personality?

And know, I haven't read the SLIC-docu's yet, but I often 'tried' to create things myself (basic/C++/pascal/....), so I know a little bit about the basic's

[Gilgamensch]

DL, problems with Apolyton ??????????

[Gilgamensch]

Originally posted by MrBaggins


If you add it to the terrain, it effects all cites. (unless you do a ton of work)

All of the cities you mention, would have the 'capitol' building, with the possible exception of France.

Not really

Germany the capitol was moved back only 'recently' And the old capitol (past 2nd WWW) was Bonn, and that wasn't really growing quickly............

Why for France exception?

[MrBaggins]

France 'capital' = Versailles

[MrBaggins]

Originally posted by Gilgamensch

*snip*

But that would leave another problem:

How often would you re-evaluate those factors? Very turn, every time unknown terrain would have been discovered? How do you want to 'create' the long term goal? Do you want to 'attach' it to the leaders personality?

*snip*

Strategic considerations should be reevaluated in a strategic time period: say every 50 turns. Certain conditions, such as the declaration of war, should also cause reevals.

The goal is based on 'optimal development' given the situation. We might add on personality later...

You should allow the AI to see what it could not ordinarily see (cheat basically)... so it can be adaptive and predictive, and not reflexive.

MrBaggins

[Gilgamensch]

OK, beaten me, but it belongs to (translated) Isle of Paris. Which most people 'consider' nowadays as Paris.........

not really true, but...........

[Gilgamensch]

Originally posted by MrBaggins


Strategic considerations should be reevaluated in a strategic time period: say every 50 turns. Certain conditions, such as the declaration of war, should also cause reevals.

The goal is based on 'optimal development' given the situation. We might add on personality later...

You should allow the AI to see what it could not ordinarily see (cheat basically)... so it can be adaptive and predictive, and not reflexive.

MrBaggins

That sounds feasible. Is it actually possible to check the percentage of newly discovered land? (start of turn/end of turn)
Reason why I mention: Imagine AI receives a map-exchange/offer and at that point it would need to re-evaluate....or it would do major exploration.....

The point of giving the AI this advantage, might be to big. It should be the same as for the human. Espacially, think of small maps, where it would really matter.........

[MrBaggins]

All it does is act as a balance to the connective reasoning capability of the human.

Ultimately, we may be able to reduce some of the inherent AI production bonus... as we make it artificially smart(er?).

I really like the idea of a smart AI. A lot. and I don't mind if it has to 'cheat' to appear smart. Its better than cheating just to get more units/gold/pw.

MrBaggins

[Gilgamensch]

Originally posted by MrBaggins
All it does is act as a balance to the connective reasoning capability of the human.

Ultimately, we may be able to reduce some of the inherent AI production bonus... as we make it artificially smart(er?).

I really like the idea of a smart AI. A lot. and I don't mind if it has to 'cheat' to appear smart. Its better than cheating just to get more units/gold/pw.

MrBaggins

Getting it smarter is nice, but too much cheating could be an overkill. OK, it would be less cheating for the evaluation of the map, then actual boni for the production. But would be nice to have it without (don't think it is possible, without major changes)