SAP2 AI V's other mods AI

[Colwyn]

Ive played most of the other mods and still found the AI so weak.

But the new SAP 2 AI is brillant and for the first time makes CTP2 a very good game, I would love to see this new AI in MM as I like the new units etc.

What are other people's experiences with the AI in SAP2

[Maquiladora]

Have you tried Cradle? I thought the AI was tougher on that. Maybe more in WAW.

[Immortal Wombat]

SAP uses a modified version of Cradle, as does WAW, so I think they'll be pretty much the same. Except that the tech tree, amount of units, buildings, decisions in SAP is less than in Cradle, so the AI is probably able to cope better overall.

I wonder if it is possible to set up a game with 8 AI players, 2 each using MM2, SAP, WAW and Cradle AIs... See who wins!

[Maquiladora]

My vote goes to the ones using WAW, with all that modern weaponry and big cities

[HuangShang]

Originally posted by Maquiladora
My vote goes to the ones using WAW, with all that modern weaponry and big cities

Me too!

and i think Cradle has the hardest AI

[Maquiladora]

I think he just meant the AI, so yeah id go for cradle too.

[centrifuge]

The AI in SAP is tough, but from my point of view, the problem with it as well as the AI from WAW, (I assume that this goes for cradle as well, but I haven't played enough of it), is that in a war, if you can withstand the initial bombardment of the masses of troups that are sent your way, the AI's cities are then easy pickin's. In my last SAP tournament game, the AI defended its cities fairly good at some points but most of them were defended only with a single unit...against my stack of 12.

[Maquiladora]

And more often than not, a large amount of their units are old ones, hoplites archers etc when the standard is infantrymen and cannons. I think its because they dont go to war with anyone else so they dont need to replace them, so they think a city defended by 12 units is well defended. Yet they dont realise not with older units. i dunno.

[HuangShang]

WaW is easier for me b/c of the quick start

cradle doesn't start w/ too many types of units thanx to the age... and the AI can stack up quick

[TheArsenal]

Originally posted by centrifuge
The AI in SAP is tough, but from my point of view, the problem with it as well as the AI from WAW, (I assume that this goes for cradle as well, but I haven't played enough of it), is that in a war, if you can withstand the initial bombardment of the masses of troups that are sent your way, the AI's cities are then easy pickin's. In my last SAP tournament game, the AI defended its cities fairly good at some points but most of them were defended only with a single unit...against my stack of 12.

Agreed. I play a lot on this mod (SAP). And for me it has a challenging fun AI. But it is definitely attack minded at the expense of defense. But those initial onslaughts are generally fierce enough that I'm in reactive mode for much of the start of the game anyway, and if I'm careless I lose cities. So in one respect its really a case of the best defense is a good offense because I'm too pinned in to go after the AI's cities. But as you said, once I do mount a counter-attack, I am able to go slicing through AI civs. And as a rule, I'm finding the larger AI civs (especially if they've been at war a while with other civs) with lots of cities will only have a few well defended ones, but the more compact civs are better defended.

[Dale]

Since the issue of AI defense has come up again, I'll put my two cents on as well. What I've noticed is the same as TheArsenal, where smaller AI civs are well defended, where large AI civs have trouble putting up a good defense across the nation.

But if you think of how IRL history is, isn't this true of our world? When nations got too big, they found it hard to maintain a strong defense across the board. Consequently, smaller nations were able to take little bites out of the large nation bringing it back to size. Our whole history is rife with "The Rise and Fall of Nations".

The only thing I see happening is for the player, we overcompensate for this by building more units. Maybe we need something SLIC'ed in, that as the player gets larger, military costs escalate exponentially, as opposed to sequentually like it does now. That sounds reasonable to me. The more units you have, the sheer logistics and cost of keeping track and co-ordinating everything exponentually grows.

What's other's ideas on this? My thoughts are that this idea could cause the "Rise and Fall of The Player".

[HuangShang]

i'd agree w/ Dale too

after i grow enough, i leave some cities totally unguarded on perpose... and only heavily(6-9) on border cities.

but at least no puny nation will take a peice of this!

[Dale]

I had a thought at lunch.....

The AI has no problems making PW and gold, and TONS of it! (PW cheat, free unit upgrades, tile imps, etc)

CTP2 only simulates wages when it comes to military support. It doesn't take into account:
- Barracks maintenance
- Infrastructure maintenance (the more tanks on the road, the more damage they are doing to the roads)
- Wages of auxillarys (cleaners, cooks, etc)

So here's my proposal:

- Unit's 1 --> 25 cost: 1 gold + 1 PW per turn.
- Unit's 25 --> 50 cost: 1 gold + 2 PW per turn.
- Unit's 50 --> 100 cost: 1 gold + 3 PW per turn.
- Unit's 100 --> 200 cost: 1 gold + 4 PW per turn.
- Unit's 200+ cost: 1 gold + 5 PW per turn.

So, to compare how much extra support you pay:
- 1 unit: 1 gold + 1 PW (no big deal)
- 20 units: 20 gold + 20 PW (still no real big deal)
- 40 units: 40 gold + 55 PW [25 + 15*2 PW] (starting to take a dent out of economy)
- 70 units: 70 gold + 135 PW [25 + 25*2 + 20*3 PW] (this is starting to hurt production!)
- 150 units: 150 gold + 425 PW [25 + 50 + 150 + 50*4 PW] (OUCH!)

So basically, the larger an army you have the more hurtfull to the economy that army is going to be. This in my mind should cause the "Rise and Fall of Nations". Of course, my figures are only a guide as to how it'll work, and is open to discussion.

Any thoughts on the above?

[Maquiladora]

I like it. Really brings public works into its own, makes it far more important. And stops that insane build up of PW at the end when all tiles have decent improvements.
But there seems to be a general want to make the game harder for the human rather than improving the AI thinking when it comes to its armies. You can add this to make the human build units slower but the AI will still have the same problems with units defending cities, and what type of units. In the end the human *will* catch up in terms of units and will still find the AI woefully defending its cities.
I dont claim to be in any way an proficient in SLIC or this AI, but like production bonuses, making the game harder for the human rather than concentrating on improving the AIs efficiency seems a false way of making the game more difficult.

[child of Thor]

Yeah, it seems to make sense - and i suppose if it doesn't penalise the AI too much(with all the bonus's it gets), then it would make fielding huge armies much more of a logistical problem for the player.Gold from trade would be very important, PW from improvements,treaties and special attacks(franchise?), would all be vital to try to maximise. I like it very much.