Scaring the A.I

[GePap]

For the most part the Civ3 A.I. is far better not only than the Civ2 (duh) but also in many ways better than SMAC's (specially at war). At the same time, it has a warped sense of priorites and strengths. When talking to other leadres, my adviser tells me how in awe they are of my culture, tech, and power. Well, if they are in such awe, why do they make crappy deals or fail to realize sometimes when things are not going to go their way? The bab's built a city close to my capitol, right smack in the middle of my continent. No safe passage agreement, so they could get to reinforcement to it. I got sick of it and marched a huge army right up to it. I was then nice and offered things for this city (even thought i had the force to take it, no problem) just to keep things civil- do they take the sweet deal? No. So then i threaten, telling them to do it or else. Do they listen? No. In the war that followed I took 6 cities and crushed many an army- all because they would not surrender one single city they could not have ever kept, even after i was nice! The A.I. needs to know fear (like we do) and sometimes do what is trully in their best interest.
2 side notes: Why would a civ not want to trade one luxury it lacks for one I lack? We both gain in such a deal so why oppose it? Again, ignoring self interest.
One major issue is the inability to trade resources with civs that have not discovered the necessary techs yet. When they get the tech they will realize how important it is and won't be likely to trade anyway. All I want is some shiny black rocks of no use whatsoever for this gold, isn't that just a great deal huh? Think of it, gold for useless black shiny rocks (or glowing green rocks, or gooey black slime)

[monkspider]

Originally posted by GePap
All I want is some shiny black rocks of no use whatsoever for this gold, isn't that just a great deal huh? Think of it, gold for useless black shiny rocks (or glowing green rocks, or gooey black slime)

Well put, I agree with your points completely, it would be wonderful if Firaxis implements this in a patch, and well they should!

[Pyrodrew]

Originally posted by GePap
2 side notes: Why would a civ not want to trade one luxury it lacks for one I lack? We both gain in such a deal so why oppose it? Again, ignoring self interest.

1st, a civ with 10 cities benefits less from a 1-1 luxury trade than a civ with 30 cities does. Thus the smaller civ is right to ask for a better deal than a 1-1 luxury trade.

2nd, a civ might not like you.

3rd, if a civ is technologically further behind than you are a 1-1 luxury trade will again help you out more than them. 1 more extra happy citizen often leads to better production... this allows you to build 1 more tank... but him only 1 more rifleman.

One major issue is the inability to trade resources with civs that have not discovered the necessary techs yet. When they get the tech they will realize how important it is and won't be likely to trade anyway. All I want is some shiny black rocks of no use whatsoever for this gold, isn't that just a great deal huh? Think of it, gold for useless black shiny rocks (or glowing green rocks, or gooey black slime)

You just need MUCH more gold rocks. I don't know the amount of yellow rocks you offered for his black rocks, but black rocks generally will help you more than the gold rocks will help him. The AI shouldn't be in the game to make a small profit... it should be playing to win & if preventing you from having railroads & strategic units do that... so be it.

Finally, since nothing is perfect I'm glad Firaxis decided to make the AI more of a tough negotiator rather than a spineless yes man.

[oriel94]

I agree completely with the 'gold for black goo' point. The AI should jump at that (gee, is that human player nuts, or what?)

As for driving hard bargains (eg wanting two luxuries in exchange for one), perhaps the AI is being smarter than we think. Quite often, I'm inclined to trade on their harsh terms because I desperately need to make my citizens happy. Does the AI know this?

[GePap]

I am glad to be stimulating debate with my extra notes but I also would like to get comments on my main point.

To pyrodrew:
You make a very good point on the luxury trading bit, but not on the other one. Remember, trade deals last only 20 turns so in those twenty turns the A.I. is getting gold (which they are always short in supply) for something it yet has no way of exploiting while at the same time retaining the ability to cancel the deal later, especially after it can exploit it. If a player is trying to make the deal it is because they are being nice and did not decide to get the resource by force. In such a situation it is very much in the interest of the A.I. to trade because:

1. It prevents war, which drains the treasury.
2. The A.I, really get something for nothing and has the ability to cancel later (lets be honest, many times it will take far more than 20 turns for the A.I. to catch up to you in tech, enabling it to exploit the resource itself)
3. I never said it would be cheap. If we were talking about oil, coal, aluminium, or uranium, most players would be willing to pay a very high amount for it. What I decry is that i can't even try to make the deal in the first place.

[BigNick]

Originally posted by GePap
One major issue is the inability to trade resources with civs that have not discovered the necessary techs yet. When they get the tech they will realize how important it is and won't be likely to trade anyway. All I want is some shiny black rocks of no use whatsoever for this gold, isn't that just a great deal huh? Think of it, gold for useless black shiny rocks (or glowing green rocks, or gooey black slime)

Think of it as them asking you why you want the black, shiny rocks. They won't trade it to you without you telling them why you want it, and as soon as you tell them, it suddenly has a value to them.

[GePap]

My great god, Bubula, eats the rocks and if he is ever hungry, he will smite my land
Does anyone ahve any better lies to tell the A.I.?

[Mike4879]

Originally posted by GePap
The A.I. needs to know fear (like we do) and sometimes do what is trully in their best interest.

In one game I used ICBMs against a single civilization, crushing basically every city in their civilization, and they still would not surrender, and they had no atomic weapons whatsoever.

[oriel94]

In one game I used ICBMs against a single civilization, crushing basically every city in their civilization, and they still would not surrender, and they had no atomic weapons whatsoever.

Damn their stubborn national pride! Just goes to show how a people can behave without soccer moms.

[Pyrodrew]

Originally posted by GePap
To pyrodrew:
You make a very good point on the luxury trading bit, but not on the other one. Remember, trade deals last only 20 turns so in those twenty turns the A.I. is getting gold (which they are always short in supply) for something it yet has no way of exploiting while at the same time retaining the ability to cancel the deal later, especially after it can exploit it. If a player is trying to make the deal it is because they are being nice and did not decide to get the resource by force. In such a situation it is very much in the interest of the A.I. to trade because:

1. It prevents war, which drains the treasury.
2. The A.I, really get something for nothing and has the ability to cancel later (lets be honest, many times it will take far more than 20 turns for the A.I. to catch up to you in tech, enabling it to exploit the resource itself)
3. I never said it would be cheap. If we were talking about oil, coal, aluminium, or uranium, most players would be willing to pay a very high amount for it. What I decry is that i can't even try to make the deal in the first place.

The Egyptians have over 800 gold in my current game, so they are not always in short supply. The AI will trade coal it just needs another rare resource in return or a substancial offer of gold to compensate. Again, I don't know how much gold you offered nor the current situation, so it's hard for me to say whether the AI did the right thing. Same goes with the war situation - it depends on everyone's current situation... current wars, current treasury, tech knowledge, reputations, each civ's history, growth opportunities, military strengths, mutual protections, etc. Does the AI take all this into account - no idea, but more than just "gold = good" should be considered. The AI isn't getting "something for nothing" since it's trading away it's highly valued limited coal supply & it's losing it's coal advantage it has over you.

Gold isn't as benefitial as other things it could receive. Gold can be used to increase science %, but from what I recall from Soren is the AI cannot adjust it's science % & if it can... going from 16 turns to 12 turns is very weak compared to getting a tech instantly. Gold can increase it's military, but if it's not at war (which sounded like the case) that's not necessary. Gold can rush productions, but that's VERY expensive AND only if the AI is the right government type... and do we know for sure if the AI is smart enough to rush production? The only other thing Gold is good for is at the negotiating table... but the AI's Hoard of Coal or Oil is a MUCH stronger bargaining chip than... some yellow rocks.

Finally, and most importantly, game-wise is it is better for the AI to err on asking too much rather than for asking too little.

[Frito]

Agreed. I'm my last game I had to pay over 60 gold/turn for iron...but that was on diety and I'm sure it depends on the difficulty level your playing on.

[Pyrodrew]

Originally posted by Frito
Agreed. I'm my last game I had to pay over 60 gold/turn for iron...but that was on diety and I'm sure it depends on the difficulty level your playing on.

The AI is much more resistant to accepting trades at higher levels.

[GePap]

The point of my argument is to allow the A.I. to trade resources it CAN'T yet use. Until I get steam power, I don't even KNOW if I have a coal supply, and neither does the A.I. Until the necessary tech is found, the A.I. has NO USE whatsoever for this resource, so we can't claim to be depriving it of anything. Let say a friendly A.I. came to you soon after you reach industrial age and asks for something you don't see (aluminuim) and offers 70 gold per turn. You can't yet use aluminium for anything, but you can definitely use 70 gold per turn. Would you turn them down? Perhaps if you are afraid they might use that alimunium on you, but of course at the same time, these friends of yours might disapprove of your stinginess and decide to take this thing you CAN'T SEE or USE by force, meaning the loss of treasure, perhaps cities. Based on simple, selfish reasoning, taking into account the possible harm the enemy may be able to do to you (thus returning to my initial point), it would make much sense to get 1400 gold over 20 turns (the lenght of deals) for something you CAN'T yet USE while at the same time avoiding war.

[Badtz Maru]

You have to realize that if they don't know what the resource is, they don't know how to harvest it. Aluminum isn't just something you pull out of the ground and use, you have to extract it from the ore. You aren't paying the AI for the right to go mine it yourself, you are paying them for the finished product, which they can't produce if they don't know anything about it. Also, if some advanced alien civilization came to Earth and offered us huge amounts of money for some ore we didn't even know about and had no idea how to use, do you think we would sell it? I think instead we would start researching the hell out of it to figure out why they wanted it so much.

[GePap]

If a civilization that advaced came here and asked for something, i would sell in a heartbeat. A Civ so advanced could probably wipe us out easily, so if they are offering to pay, they are being nice as hell- better take advantage of that quick before we make them angry- which was the original point of this thread. Sometimes others make 'offers you can't refuse' so why refuse and risk destruction? It makes no sense to try to defend the undefensible(is that a word?) while risking everything in the process, which is something the A.I. does all too often.

Besides, none of the strategic resources are finished products, they are the things needed to make a finished product. As such, yes, they could be exploited by a civ, mining them,while not knowing their use.

[Pyrodrew]

1st, I would have some backbone & NOT sell... but be extremely kind & gracious to them. Stress the importance of us getting to know each other 1st... if they were civil they should respect that. Giving in to "what-if fears" is never a good leadership tactic. However, IF the aliens then pointed their giant lazer & said "are you sure?" I would reconsider & say relax, let's talk. Obviously if they were civil enough to ask they would be civil enough to discuss this further.

Originally posted by GePap
If a civilization that advaced came here and asked for something, i would sell in a heartbeat. A Civ so advanced could probably wipe us out easily, so if they are offering to pay, they are being nice as hell- better take advantage of that quick before we make them angry- which was the original point of this thread. Sometimes others make 'offers you can't refuse' so why refuse and risk destruction? It makes no sense to try to defend the undefensible(is that a word?) while risking everything in the process, which is something the A.I. does all too often.

Besides, none of the strategic resources are finished products, they are the things needed to make a finished product. As such, yes, they could be exploited by a civ, mining them,while not knowing their use.

Someone mentioned that the AI is far more acceptable in negotiations when you have heavy military units near their cities/borders (forget exactly). But if the threat is not there (you have a weaker military than they do) then they have NO REASON to give it to you.

Until I get steam power, I don't even KNOW if I have a coal supply, and neither does the A.I. Until the necessary tech is found, the A.I. has NO USE whatsoever for this resource, so we can't claim to be depriving it of anything.

Again the AI loses it's coal advantage it has over you if it sells it to you. If it doesn't have the tech & you don't have the coal & it sells you the coal... now YOU gain the uses of coal. Thus the "cannot use coal" attribute now only applies to that civ & not you. So it is losing something.

The point of my argument is to allow the A.I. to trade resources it CAN'T yet use.

That's a little different. If an AI has a resource it cannot use, but *wants* to trade I posted earlier in another thread I don't see a problem with that. I kept saying one doesn't need to know horseback riding to sell a horse. Some starting going into horse husbandry, etc. But that is NOT horseback riding otherwise the tech would be horseback riding & husbandry. If a city can take care of cows, they can take care of horses... and then sell them. Someone also made an additional point of saltpeter just laying around waiting to be picked up. And who says that civ that is selling the resource is the one extracting it? Why couldn't the Civ buying it send in their scientists & engineers... for the right price?

[GodSpawn]

Saltpeter is strange to have as a special resource, isn't it? Because you can make it out of any old crap (and I mean that quite literally )

[Shiva]

Originally posted by GodSpawn
Saltpeter is strange to have as a special resource, isn't it? Because you can make it out of any old crap (and I mean that quite literally )

Lol yep, you can leach it out of crap

[GePap]

Pyrodrew:
Before having gotten sidetracked by the resource bit (which i still think is a good idea but we won't come to an agreement nor will we convince each other) I said, in my little story that the babs built a city in the middle of my land. My military had not only a technological but numerical edge as well, especially in the zone of battle since I had better infrastructure. There was no way in hell they would win a war vs. me, and i was nice in offering them money and minor techs for it. They were in a simple gain-lose situation: Give up a city you can't hold for money (yes, I do think it matters) and tech (certainly matters), otherwise risk a war with a superior power. A human player (regardless of 'backbone', {substituting for brains}) would probably have taken the deal because they loose what they can't keep while gaining something they did not have, plus avoid a dangerous war. The Babs still said no, and the only reason they did not pay for that mistake with total destruction was the fact that I did not want to waste my time on a campaign to take cities i would not keep anyway. This is the sort of semi-suicidal behavior that the A.I. should avoid. Think of all the times a minor civ is dumb enough to join some grand coolition war with all the big boys involved, many times paying with its life- in real life there might be ideological or sentimental reasons for a minor power to join a dangerous war, but this is a computer, with very little ideology installed in it. It's calculations are based on cold equations enabling it to try to survive and thrive. So why does it keep doing things that are near suecidal?

[Pyrodrew]

It's calculations are based on cold equations enabling it to try to survive and thrive. So why does it keep doing things that are near suecidal?

Regarding the AI putting pocket cities in the center of your empire, I think your prior sentence answers your question. Personally, I let the AI keep the pocket cities & let them work the land & build up the city... then I get to take it for free with culture later. Yet, in another thread I explained how I received VERY GENEROUS offers for a worthless size 3 tundra city far away from other AIs which was about to be absorbed by AI Aztec culture. Thus, I believe the AI is *literally* blind when it's placing it's cities & considering cities in deals. It doesn't know which cities are surrounded by an foreign empire nor which cities have growth potential. I'm not Soren so I don't know how hard/long it would be to program that. I've also seen game companies make their game AI worse... it'll put a chill down my spine if that happens with Civ3.

[GePap]

I agree with you that the A.I. expands mindlessly in order to survive-but there are multiple aspects to survival, and the number of cities is not the be all and end all. Your ability to survive, and win, is based on a combination of factors, from your culture, economy, tech, defense, and number of cities. Lets think about a game in MP (when that occurs) in which a human player behaved like the A.I., creating new cities everywere, never giving them up, and always wanting more: would this person win? More likely, the other players would gang up on them and kill them to end their reign of annoyence-so in the end the strategy was counter productive. Again, to my example: just in order to maintain one city about to be lost anyway, the babs risked a war that cost them 6 and set them back, plus their long term strategic survival is now far worst than before. An A.I. who really built up cites, expanded quickly but at some point stopped and consolidated, would have a better chance at long term survival. After that war, the babs exist only at my mercy while before, if they had let that go but consolidated their defenses and improved their culture, they would be a serious contender. Just for Telloh, they shot themselves in the foot!

[Blaupanzer]

In both the "fear" case and the resource case, the actual problem is personification, not the AI. The AI is programmed to put premium value on cities containing their own citizens. All cities have a "disproportionate" value to the AI compared to our values. Fact is, the AI will respond politely in the face of power, but computers are never, ever afraid.

As to resources, you can see the site you want them to mine/exploit, but they cannot. That's why the resouces don't appear on their list and cannot be traded for. To the AI, you are talking total nonsense, "What goo, what rocks?" Since you can't colonize or build a city on their territory, nobody who can see it also can get at it. This is the truest reflection of non-exploitational technological advance I've ever seen in a game. In the "real" world, the exploitation was often cruel and has left much bitterness. In this world, the response has been, "What the heck are you talking about?"

[GePap]

To Blaupanzer:
I realize that a computer can't technically fear, but that value that the computer has is not a moral value either, it is an equation, a number imputed and given to the A.I. to use as an assuption about how it should behave. What i think is that this value is too high and it makes for an A.I. that ignores other pertinent information, like looking at relative power and so forth. Yes, the A.I. should value units of pop. of its own nationality but this should never come ahead of making clear desicions based on relative power. There does come a point when even a much more powerful enemy will make demands that you can't say yes to, even if you know you will loose, but that is a difficult place to reach and is certainly not true of each time someone asks you to tarnsfer pop points.

[Dale]

On the resource thing, I can understand the principles behind the AI being harsh in trade negotiations.

Take Australia for instance. We don't have the technology to make nuclear weapons, but we sure as hell know the Yanks want all our uranium for things that go KABLAMMO! And a LOT of it. I'd be just as harsh in my negotiations if it was the other way around.

I mean COME ON! The AI is going to see you running around with tanks to his knights, and you ask him for his "black goo for a couple of gold rocks"??

Doesn't take a genius knight (is that a contradiction in terms? ) to realise the long pointy end is bad?

[Pyrodrew]

Originally posted by GePap
I agree with you that the A.I. expands mindlessly in order to survive-but there are multiple aspects to survival, and the number of cities is not the be all and end all. Your ability to survive, and win, is based on a combination of factors, from your culture, economy, tech, defense, and number of cities. Lets think about a game in MP

An AI Civ will never be better than a human player... until maybe Civilization XII or something. Since the AI is blind (as far as it knows you're planning on buying all it's cities around it's capital & then will smash them) I prefer having it err on being conservative than saying yes to every deal. Worse case here we see a stubborn ignorant AI... worse case the other way we have TONS of posts on this forum about how the AI sucks because everyone can buy their cities & wipe them out. Yet, does that mean I think the AI should stay the way it is... no, the AI could always be improved.

[GePap]

The basic question for me is, how willing should the A.I. be to go to war? When should it draw a line? As of now, unless you have already beat them down to a pulp and have them at your mercy they won't talk, which makes no sense. The A.I. is blind but it also has embassies so it should be able to gahter a basic knowledge of how powerful you are. Also, it can see yous units on tis land and recognize their power-just as we do- so all I ask, which might be difficult, perhaps not, is for the computer to be, as you say, cautious and conservative when it comes to the biggest decision you can make in this game, to go to war or not. It must look at the specific deal in its generaal power balance with you, just as I, or you, do when making your deals. This should not be hard to figure out, even for this level A.I.

[Pyrodrew]

Originally posted by GePap
The basic question for me is, how willing should the A.I. be to go to war? When should it draw a line? As of now, unless you have already beat them down to a pulp and have them at your mercy they won't talk, which makes no sense. The A.I. is blind but it also has embassies so it should be able to gahter a basic knowledge of how powerful you are. Also, it can see yous units on tis land and recognize their power-just as we do- so all I ask, which might be difficult, perhaps not, is for the computer to be, as you say, cautious and conservative when it comes to the biggest decision you can make in this game, to go to war or not. It must look at the specific deal in its generaal power balance with you, just as I, or you, do when making your deals. This should not be hard to figure out, even for this level A.I.

As I said earlier, IF you have a stronger military than the AI the AI should be more willing to trade. Every game I've played this has been the case for me. I've never been turned down what I've wanted when I'm considerably stronger. However, I realize that just because I'm considerably stronger doesn't mean I can pay peanuts for what that smaller Civ has. Example: 1 luxury for 1 luxury. As explained earlier 1 more luxury for a small Civ is peanuts for a small Civ compared to what 1 more luxury does for a superpower. This is why it is considered "an insult"... you might as well go to war with them if that is what you are demanding. Again the weak Civs should play to win, not play to simply "survive."

[Raleigh]

Also, some trades only seem unfair. Your third luxury (plus a market place) will be worth more to you (2 happy faces) than one luxury will be to a country that only has 1-2. I could never understand why some countries would give me 20-30 gold per turn for some luxuries and others only 6/7 gold.

As for the surrounded City, West Berlin was guarded by a superpower a full continent away with 1/2 the army of their communist rival with nukes as the only alternative. We didn't "sell it" to the soviets. Nations refuse to give up a square foot no matter how useless (strategically or economically) land is. Why else all those border wars in asia (Inida/China, Pakistan/India, etc.).

That being said, it would be nice if your opponent could recognize the writing on the wall Since there is now no penalty for going to war, I suppose there should be some way of dealing with this...