Some thoughts on why the computer does so poorly after 1500AD (or so)...

[Bluevoss]

I'm just hitting gunpowder in my current game, and that means (of course) that its time to wave bye bye to the computer player and race ahead. Now the game does now play so much as a struggle against nations, but an empire management game (not that its bad). You can really verify this on the power chart. Its always at that point of the game that I pull away.

Maybe I'm repeating common knowledge, but I notice that right about the time I'm getting economics (with merchant speciallists) and republic/democracy forms of government, I really get into a cash crunch. Generally, up until that point, I don't have a lot of buildings. But after republic, I suddenly notice that I'm having to tinker with most of my cities to break even. Of course, generally this means a merchant or two in each city, no big deal. And this lets me rush some of my more important pieces when I need to.

Really, trade is critical in my games, since I go with very few goods (I want trade routes to be something special). I generally only have 3-5 in most games, and the comptuer might have 1 or 2.

Could this be where the comptuer is falling apart? He can keep up all through the early ages, but once money becomes critical, he cant shift enough speciallists into cash and science to keep up. Further, his trade isn't up to snuff (maybe with more trade items, its not so noticable).

The quick fix would be to give some some of cash/science/production break to the computer as you got further ahead. I'd like to see something modifiable like this. Otherwise, I'm going to always spend my endgames lanching jet aircraft off nuclear carriers to attack ironclads.

We need a LateMod grafted onto the Medmod to bring some ballence to the game.

[Az]

no... not another brake to the AI ! they should make the AI better ! I hate any AI cheats . they can make the AI more hard to win by being competitive not by the AI cheating . As I have heard around here , mods like cradle and medmod have improved the AI and armed it with big claws . A certain prove to me that it can be done !

[Bluevoss]

Yeah, I hate cheats too. I remember a Civ game once where the Egyptians built a wonder, then five turns later, they built the pyrimids (with about 4 cities, all at size 7 or less ).

Cheats suck, but the mid-aged crisis sucks more. I don't think the AI can handle the shift away from "nations" to "empires". I see a lot of cities that have a lot of phalanxes and caturpults, and a lot of improvements, and when I take the city, I'll find one speciallist set as a scientist. I gotta figure that they are going broke (I would be).

I guess what I think the game needs are a couple of things. The AI stratagy beyond middle-ages needs to be looked at. I don't know if you can toggle off ages and change the priorities, but I think that needs to happen.

Also, would it be possible to write an app that might act as a turbo boost on any saved game? It would be handy if YOU decide that your game needs some pepping up that you could run this program on a saved game file and give your oppoenents a boost. For example, maybe it could give them all three techs, upgrade all their miltary units to new levels, and give them a good chunk of gold. Making this user definable might help - that way, you could pick the boost.

For the record, I'm running on whatever the level is below impossible. I'm running 15 races on a normal sized map that has been developed with a lot of water and few trade goods (what I think the world should be like - I LOVE large oceans). This is my third game running in this manner, and in ALL games, when I hit this level, the computer falls away.

Next time, I'll set the barbarians to max. Right now, I've got them on the third highest setting.

[WesW]

I think you will see the AIs fade as the game goes on due to the superior play of the human. This happens in all strategy games I have played, not just Ctp. I am not saying we should just accept this, but it is hard to script the AI the further the game goes along.

Remember that the upkeep settings for the Medmod assume a regular amount of goods. If you change the game to have a scarcity of goods, you are taking a lot of gold out of the game that is needed for building upkeep.

[Gen.Dragolen]

Bluevoss,

You aren't the only one who out strips the AI early in the game. I'm playing on Impossible with 7 AI civs on a huge map. I have about 39-40 cities and the date is around 1270 AD. One AI is close to the same technology level. I have outpaced the rest by about 6-10 advances.

Earlier, I was at war with a neighbour who had several major advances like gunpowder and I was attacking with phallanx, bowmen and catapults. I sent in spies to plunder his advances and then to scout his defenses. I keep expecting the other AI civ on the continent to start sending in large numbers of spies, but after a short skirmish that killed several of his spies and cost him a city, he's returned to just sulking.

The main difference from my perspective is the AI's use of tile improvements: they will build fisheries, but not ports. That makes a huge difference in the science output for a city. I have a couple of cities that are surrounded with ports and pump out 200+ science without needing specialists. They don't grow as quickly, but they are putting out large amounts of research and gold. Once I get them going, I can usually buy most of the Wonders long before the AI can get close to finishing.

Even with the diplomacy improvements, the other AI civs won't trade advances. Not that I have seen anyways nor would I like to see it as a common practice. I could see it if an advance suited the leader's personallity, but I still remember hating it when the AI civs in Civ I used to declare war, send in a spy to steal the latest advance and then make peace.

In the end, we may just be too experienced at this game and will have to start playing against other human opponents.

[Bluevoss]

You make a good point about the ports - I figure that they never set up their people well to make money or science.

What I would really like to see if if the computer would become more antagonistic to you the more powerful you got. The computer players should start forming aliences and attacking your trade routes as you start to pull ahead. I'd even like it if the barbarian chance went up as you got bigger. The game should adjust so that once you get a couple of cities and advances in the lead, it really starts piling on the pressure. And this, of course, should be true for computer players that get too big, as well.

Thats what is needed - a good feedback to limit how far a race can pull ahead.

[VisionV]

Bluevoss,

It sounds like you need some multi-player action. I easily defeat any number of computers on impossible, but rarely win a multi-player game on the net. I love getting beat because I learn so much from it. Any time you want to go head to head, let me know. I also love low trade goods and big oceans.

VisionV

[BlackStone]

La la

[ragingrabbit]

The way i make the game competitive is to share my advances with the computer. If i have tanks I give them gunpowder to keep them at most only a few steps behind me. Just like an earlier post humans are just smarter then then the AI. When I hit my max cities and a little over I stack the city with tile improvements and give it away to one of the weaker empires out there.

[Cookie Monster]

Yeah I tend to give away cities to weaker civs just to keep them from being eliminated.

I usually find that at least one civ is very strong and I concentrate on weakening them until I catch up tech and size wise. Then I make peace. This seems to help keep the game interesting because there is a chance that the civ could rebuild and become a threat to me. All in all I really enjoy playing CTP2 with the apolyton mod pack.

[Bluevoss]

I'm running medmod - its sad that the computer can give you such a run up until, say, gunpowder and then it falls apart. I was fighting the Turks and finally, after a lot of effort, broke their spine and left them as a ruined culture. Its like I cowed the rest. Nobody is close to my scientific level, and militarily, I'm all over them.

Sure which they would gang up on you if you got too big for your britches. Even exchanging science when behind would be great. As it stands, the first half of a medmod game is a blast, the second have is sorta like dedication. Oh well. Better than originally released.

I'll have to download apolyton and give it a shot.

[Cube]

I've seen in the diffdb.txt file a line that says AI gangup factor or something like that. It's always set to 1 thought in medmod, and apolytonpack, is it not working or something.

How about setting this to a higher number and seeing if it works. I also give away advances about every five turns, and 2 or 3 turns if they're really behind. In my current game though, most AI players are about 12 advances behind me. the most advanced is 4 advances behind me, and the most behind is 33-39 advances behind me and this is by giving away advances, I can only imagine how much worse it would be if I didn't give them advances. I'm in the information age right now (using medmod), and there are only 2 other civs in the information age, and the others are in the modern age.

the lack of ports, and other commerce improvements built by the AI is bad. So far I have only seen, malls and trade post in bad terrains like swamp, desert, tundra etc... . The AI doesn't know how to manage science or gold either. When I use cheat mode to check on the AI I see that they only have at most 100 science in their cities, and only have 2-3 scientist at most. they also let their cities stay at 0 science. the way I see it, in medmod the school needs at least 100 real science(without scientist) to be effective If you have all the science Improvements, and the computer center(research park whatever) needs 300 real science to be effective. There's no way the AI can reach 300 science in It's cities with out commmerce Improvements. I think the commerce Improvements where never implamented into the AI behavior properly, and thats why they don't build them. I hope we don't have to use slic to make the AI use them, but if we did it would look something like this:

check city science
if AI player has (ancient advance)
and science<=20
then build trade post
if AI player has (renaisance advance)
and science<=40
then build trade post
etc........
(note I don't know slic this is just an example of how it should be to if I can inspire a slic guy)
but I think it would take a long time.