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Making the AI diplomatically aware.....
Folks,
Just so you know, even though I've been saying I can't be bothered fixing the AI, I'm looking into the one section as I see as needs work. Diplomacy, and it's prioritys. So last night I ran some experiments.
1 - I changed the prioritys on sending and receiving certain diplomatic events (namely pacts and alliances).
2 - I set the regard bonus amount for each turn at peace/pact/alliance a little higher.
3 - I changed a couple of the response priorities as well.
4 - I fiddled with roads to make them more 'attractive' bonus wise for the AI, and added roads to the lists of improvements to build for all categories (growth, production, etc).
5 - As an expansion on diplomacy-war, I made the ATTACK and SIEGE goals almost irrisitable to the AI.
Here's what happened. Remembering that at this point I'm working on extreme conditions and will narrow down to something balanced.
Setup a mid-size planet with 8 civs on impossible. I cheated and gave each civ advance: cannons (and everything below it added in auto), 10000 PW and 20000 gold. I also gave each civ 4 settlers. Basically, I wanted it to be a bit further on than a beginning game. Myself as a player did nothing but build defense units (keeping 6 in my city at all times, disbanding excess). I didn't improve or anything. I quickly ran through 50 turns. Turning off FOW I saw:
1 - The AI had spread all round the globe.
2 - The AI had built roads EVERYWHERE! It had gone nuts with them. I even saw a roman city in the centre of 6 cities with double roads to each city. Even roads going to nowhere.
3 - Units flowed down these roads comfortably. There was no congestion of stacks, no blockages or whatever. Just stacks moving comfortable to where they were going without hindrance.
I took a look at the diplomacy of every civ. 3 civs were fighting an all-in war (with stacks of cannon/riflemen on the borders). But the interesting thing was that these three civs had built roads to this triple-border area and had connected. Therefore, battles were occuring between AI stacks. 2 civs had research pacts with each other, one of them having a normal pact with civ number 8 as well. Civ number 7 was on an island all by itself, and only had a couple of contacts, but couldn't do anything as it hadn't got diplos to them yet. I kept the turns rolling. I noticed:
1 - The AI would declare war, fight an intesive battle with someone, then after a while when one sues for peace the war ends. The wars were short and bloody. I saw one civ send three stacks of 6-8 units at another civ at the one time. When peace reigned between two civs, the regard went up quickly till the next war (or sometimes turned into a pact).
2 - During peace, the AI built roads like nuts for infrustructure. During war, it built roads near the frontier (reminding myself to add forts to the improve lists as well) thus making unit movement good.
3 - The diplomats of the AI civs actually interacted. Admittedly it was usually an extreme (refuse a pact and they declared war) but it was something.
Maybe there is life in there afterall. Will go back to moding tonight.
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Rommell to a sub-commander outside Tobruk: "Those Australians are in there somewhere. But where? Let's advance and wait till they shoot, then shoot back."
Just so you know, even though I've been saying I can't be bothered fixing the AI, I'm looking into the one section as I see as needs work. Diplomacy, and it's prioritys. So last night I ran some experiments.
1 - I changed the prioritys on sending and receiving certain diplomatic events (namely pacts and alliances).
2 - I set the regard bonus amount for each turn at peace/pact/alliance a little higher.
3 - I changed a couple of the response priorities as well.
4 - I fiddled with roads to make them more 'attractive' bonus wise for the AI, and added roads to the lists of improvements to build for all categories (growth, production, etc).
5 - As an expansion on diplomacy-war, I made the ATTACK and SIEGE goals almost irrisitable to the AI.
Here's what happened. Remembering that at this point I'm working on extreme conditions and will narrow down to something balanced.
Setup a mid-size planet with 8 civs on impossible. I cheated and gave each civ advance: cannons (and everything below it added in auto), 10000 PW and 20000 gold. I also gave each civ 4 settlers. Basically, I wanted it to be a bit further on than a beginning game. Myself as a player did nothing but build defense units (keeping 6 in my city at all times, disbanding excess). I didn't improve or anything. I quickly ran through 50 turns. Turning off FOW I saw:
1 - The AI had spread all round the globe.
2 - The AI had built roads EVERYWHERE! It had gone nuts with them. I even saw a roman city in the centre of 6 cities with double roads to each city. Even roads going to nowhere.
3 - Units flowed down these roads comfortably. There was no congestion of stacks, no blockages or whatever. Just stacks moving comfortable to where they were going without hindrance.
I took a look at the diplomacy of every civ. 3 civs were fighting an all-in war (with stacks of cannon/riflemen on the borders). But the interesting thing was that these three civs had built roads to this triple-border area and had connected. Therefore, battles were occuring between AI stacks. 2 civs had research pacts with each other, one of them having a normal pact with civ number 8 as well. Civ number 7 was on an island all by itself, and only had a couple of contacts, but couldn't do anything as it hadn't got diplos to them yet. I kept the turns rolling. I noticed:
1 - The AI would declare war, fight an intesive battle with someone, then after a while when one sues for peace the war ends. The wars were short and bloody. I saw one civ send three stacks of 6-8 units at another civ at the one time. When peace reigned between two civs, the regard went up quickly till the next war (or sometimes turned into a pact).
2 - During peace, the AI built roads like nuts for infrustructure. During war, it built roads near the frontier (reminding myself to add forts to the improve lists as well) thus making unit movement good.
3 - The diplomats of the AI civs actually interacted. Admittedly it was usually an extreme (refuse a pact and they declared war) but it was something.
Maybe there is life in there afterall. Will go back to moding tonight.
------------------
Rommell to a sub-commander outside Tobruk: "Those Australians are in there somewhere. But where? Let's advance and wait till they shoot, then shoot back."
But the increased priorities made the AI consider them. By increasing accept priority to the same, it makes the AI accept more alliance requests, as lowering reject makes it not want to reject it. The violation costs make the AI want to hold onto it a little longer. For example, with a -50 trust, by violating an alliance, the other party is going to take a LONG LONG time before it trusts the violator again. More in line to how I think. 
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