AI questions

[Chris Pine FIRAXIS]

So, I was wondering if people could tell me some of their best strategies for beating the AIs? In particular, what does the game allow you to do that the AI should do, but doesn't?

Thanks for the input, guys!

Chris Pine
Lead Programmer
Civilization III

[Mark_Everson]

Hi Chris, thanks for asking! There is an awful lot of good stuff in the AI part of the suggestion list for Civ3. I'd suggest giving it a quick read if you haven't already.

Here's my own brief critique of the AI in Civ2 (Based on limited information I don't think SMAC is much better). I'll suggest a couple of obvious improvements the AI could use (IMHO anyway). Since I'm a programmer I'll start couning with 0... ;-)

0) AI needs to expand more quickly, especially at the start. It is waaaay too conservative, and incurs huge "opportunity costs" in size due to slow expansion. The AI should also build cities in niches on the shore that have only a few land squares but could develop into decent sized cities with a harbor...


1) AI should mass units for attacks (right now the AI throws individual units at enemies)

2) AI should have some concept of distance and "striking range" of each civ. I chuckle every time I extort money out of an AI civ half way around the world, that I'd be Very
fortunate to wound in the slightest way. The AI also caves into pressure Much too easily
IMO. It should take a Very serious threat to make it give up money or tech.

3) AI needs to understand the probablility of success of attacks. NO more attacking fortified units on mountains.... (this may have been improved in the recent products of the genre)

4) AI should properly execute surprise attacks (rather than not attacking at all, or with a single unit). When a human surprise attacks it is usually with masses of troops on the frontier or offshore. So you should have a flag tripped when the AI Wants to surprise attack, and then it should wait for troops to be massed before it actually carries out the attack. AI also needs to know what the player can see to do this well. That's so that massing troops doesn't just give the player advance warning.

5) AI should build more diplomats/spies and Use Them. Even used in a ham-handed manner they are pretty nasty. Bribing cities when enemies have a pile of units around the city are especially damaging to the enemy. If you could add logic to let the AIs use the ZOC-cancelling functions of diplos and spies AI attacks and counter-attacks could be Much more devastating.

I haven't included anything in this list that is particularly hard IMO... I think just improving these could help the AI to be a significantly better challenge.

When you get into difficult things I'd add a notion of geography: with this goes fewer defensive units in interior cities, control of strategic choke-points on the map, knowing who natural allies are against an enemy (what good is an ally that can't Reach the enemy?)

That's probably enough ranting for now

Good Luck!

[The diplomat]

Do you mean from civ2 or SMAC?

From SMAC, I have a few off the top of my head suggestions:
- have the AI build roads straight from one base to the next rather than filling all squares with roads. Filling every square with roads is such a waste of time. The "construct road to" command is great and works well, (I use it all the time) but the AI doesn't use it.
-be better at placing new bases. The AI squeezes bases as close as possible when placing bases more apart would use the city radius more efficiently.
- coordinate battles with allies. The AI often has enough units to try an attack but it keeps the units endlessly circling its base. Even when I asked the AI to attack a specific base using the "coordinate attack" option in diplomacy, it didn't.

In terms of strategies I use, that the AI should copy:
-I use amphibious assaults very often. put as many infantry/rover units as possible on ships and land them on enemy shores within striking distance to attack on the next turn.
-I often attack where the AI does not expect, like on the opposite side of where we are fighting. The AI then has fighting on both sides.
- for units with more than 1 mvt point, I move then close enough so than they can attack on the next turn, but not adjacent to the AI base. For example, a rover has 2 mvt pts, so instead of moving them adjacent to the enemy base to have 2 pts to attack with on the mext turn, I move the rovers 1 tile away and wait to the next turn to attack. And, I attack with all my rovers at once.
- once air power comes around, I always use my air force first then move in ground troops. If the enemy base was weak enough, my airforce often wiped everybody out, my ground troops can just walk in.

Thanks Chris Pine for asking about the AI.
Just be prepared to read A LOT of stuff.

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No permanent enemies, no permanent friends.

In Civ 2 the attacks were not planned well at all. The AI just threw units at you instead of making a game plan. They seemed to not know how to set up a strategic war. That's my only complaint.

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~~~I am who I am, who I am - but who am I?~~~
"Oh, they have the Internet on computers now!"

[Steve Clark]

As someone who has programmed AI in games, all I can say is good luck. Folks here have very high expectations. For me, what OrangeSfwr said is the least I would hope for.

[S. Kroeze]

I am also very glad you asked. Thank you! The problem is to know where to start.

I begin with a remark: on many issues I think the rules of CivII have to be changed. But all my remarks here apply to CivII as it is now. And it should be pointed out that I have only a very dim notion of the way programming AI works.

-It is obvious the AI doesn't have a plan and doesn't recognize an emergency. It doesn't understand whether it is weak or strong and is capable of making outrageous demands when it is on the brink of disaster. It doesn't comprehend what it most needs in an emergency. When its capital is conquered and its Palace destroyed it needs Masonry to build a new Palace, not Gunpowder or Railroad. When it happens to start on a small island it should research Map Making to build ships and colonize other continents as soon as possible. When I would gladly help an ally by giving it Flight for free when attacked by Bombers, it will not accept it but ask for Space Flight instead. The AI waits normally way too long before it changes to Monarchy.

-In general the AI should explore more. Its units very easily end up in a loop, making every turn the same movement and never passing a bend of the coast. The AI also tends to explore in one direction making its capital extremely vulnerable, because it lies not at the centre of its empire but on one of its borders.

-Border defence of the AI is incoherent. It will often forget to build City Walls in an important, but rather vulnerable city. Often a harbour town will not get the Coastal Fortress it deserves. And it very often builds Fortresses without garrisoning it, thus helping the attacker who gets a strategic bridgehead. I will only build a Fortress on the border and station troops within.

-The difference between land and sea seems for the AI an insoluble problem. Quite often it will concentrate half of its fleet in a small lake, where it is totally useless. Only by accident will it build a city on an isthmus, where it would act like a canal. A caravan just ends its voyage on the coast of one continent, never arriving on its destination, while its owner often has a huge fleet of two hundred ships of the line, all concentrated around its capital and blocking all naval movement, even of the most harmless Transport with Freight. When there is some virgin territory, fertile and spacious, the AI will generally prefer to found a colony nearer to home on the Tundra.

-In my opinion the settler unit is the true hero of the game: it costs a lot of shields, eats food, but is also capable of bringing about the most important changes: founding new cities, building roads, mines etc. It is vulnerable and should be well protected. The AI will send it to the war frontier, without any escort, where it will often meet an inglorious end.

-Supply management is not one of the AIs strengths. In general it tends to build too many units. In a city producing ten shields every turn only it will continue producing units until it takes fourty turns to produce one. Or it will build a new settler when there is certainly no food surplus, causing shortage. As far as I know it almost never disbands units to upgrade them, nor will it change the city out of which supply is provisioned. So we do regularly meet some amiable Archers or Frigates in the Nuclear Age.

-Often the AI forgets to build a road, which takes only two turns, in a tile it exploits and has irrigated, thus missing out on trade revenues. And of course its mines will not be provided with Railroads, while most Forests will be cut down. I belief it never changes any terrain to Forest, which in a region without Hills could boost shield production. Simultaneousy their Engineers roam about aimlessly or build Railroad in Farmland where it adds nothing to production, though it might help foreign attack.

-Often their choice of improvements is rather illogical. It builds the same Wonder in five different Cities, or tends constantly to change its capital when there is no apparent danger. When the Wonder is built somewhere else, it will not change to another Wonder but prefers to build a Musketeer: about 300 shields are lost. Often a Factory is build in a city without significant shield production, or a Bank in a city without Trade. The AI prefers to build a Colosseum or Sewer System in a City of four heads, while the much cheaper Temple is omitted. Neither seems it to rate a Granary, an essential improvement in my opinion, at its true value.

-The AI Civs seem never to have grasped the concept of budgeting. They spend money and luxuries in imitation of Louis XV: 'Après nous la déluge!' Because of massive cheating it will not ruin their empire, but it irritates the hard-working, honest Civer who has to think before he spends his money. Their royal coffers turn out to be inexhaustible, though they spend 40% of the budget on luxuries. And it is quite possible under Democracy with only 10 or 20% luxury to make a yearly profit and still invest in research.

-The AI inclines to stack units, while with the current rules that only makes them vulnerable to heavy losses. Only for slow units with a low defense value, like Catapults and Cannons, does it make sense to combine them with stronger units. The AI very often sends those in the open, an easy prey. And I hope the AI will learn to use the defensive possibilities of some terrain types. Nor should it sacrifice five Cruisers by attacking a city protected by a Coastal Fortress. Shouldn't it remember how well a city is protected, only attacking when its defenses are weak? It could use its Diplomats and Spies to examine city defenses. Would it be possible to change the order of moving? Often the AI starts an attack with the wrong unit.

-I think it should be possible to program the AI in such a way that it controls the happiness of its citizens more efficiently. It was one of the easiest things for me to learn, especially since happiness is almost 100% predictable. Build a Temple as an essential improvement, a Marketplace and Bank when there is some Trade! Under a Democracy most units should just stay home. And why not use other specialists than entertainers to make more money or research?

Basically the faults of the AI are easy to point out, at least for a human. Solving the problems will probably be very difficult.

I think many posters will send their contributions on this very importantissue. Thanks for all effort! I hope CivIII will be a REAL CHALLENGE!!

[The diplomat]

one thing I forgot to mention that is very important:
-teach the AI not to trade its supercity in exchange for my small city.
If the city has an invaluable Wonder, the AI should never trade no matter what!

[Steve Clark]

Just my final 2c before I shut up. The AI can be 'taught' or 'learn' or 'have a plan' if it is programmed to recognize certain conditions from many variables. In a consumer-based game such as Civ3, there are only so many variable and conditions that can be practically programmed. What most of you are asking is intelligence similar to humans in factoring many variables and conditions to make the best choice. I just don't think that's possible given the many other complexities of the Civ game. Even the best programmed wargame doesn't have a much greater sense of coordinated attacks from the AI than Civ2. Should we expect the same for Civ3 given that warfare is but one of many parts?

[Atahualpa]

When at war, the AI should be able to decide wether this is just some sort of cold war or if it will involve real fighting.
The AI should then, make proper attack plans. At first, it should look, if it has a large enough army to already launch a successful attack. Never launch attacks that dont achieve anything at all (meaning, its useless if they run and run against my city wall all the time). Now if the army is large enough, build supporting troops and send the army into battle.
Dont however send it, if the player is much to far away. In this case, rather go into defensive mode.
So yes in the beginning of a war the AI should decide wether it should go defensive or offensive. If the player is no real threat and is not worth to be conquered (no valuable cities and/or terrain) or is just too far away, go into defensive mode. There the AI just looks that its defenses are up and prepares itself from possible surprise attacks.
When however the player is a threat (near and strong) or sits on valuable land or has valuable cities the AI should go into offensive mode. There the AI only builds up defenses in the frontier cities, while the back cities are producing offensive units. However, the AI should make sure, if offensive units that would be produced would ever engage in combat. So that those cities that lie 20 or more tiles away and have only little production, dont bother much about unit-building.
After the defenses on the frontier cities are up, these are to produce offensive units too.
But as for defenses and frontier cities there is another thing to consider. If the offensive army the player has is valuable and can bear with the job to hold off any invaders, the AI shouldnt care about building defenses. In this stage, the offensive units would be used for defensive purposes. When then finally the newly produced offensive units enter service they go into attack mode.
If the first attack fails, make sure the AI knows if the Enemy has sustained damage or not. If there was no damage inflicted, mass more troops or if it is a hopeless situation go into defensive mode (hopeless situation is when with the current technology you are not able to inflict much damage upon the enemy). When however, nearly all of the defenders were killed: GO! GO! GO!
Also, after the enemy has taken a city of the AI, the AI should take strong effort to get it back ASAP. For example when I take a city, but only 1 or 2 units survived and are now defending, the AI shouldnt wait, till I have my defenses up. Of course this depends, on wether the AI could achieve something or not. If it cant achieve a victory or cause heavy casaulties, go into defensive mode. But well in most cases its best to start a broad organized counter-attack.

Never target a single city with your whole army. Depends of the army of course. For large armies, I suggest splitting them up and going for different cities. This would be also the ideal tactic when you want to surpress the enemy, so that you can build up either more offensive units or more defensive units. When the army is smaller, you can either choose a guerilla tactic or mass it altogether and try to capture a city.
Even if the enemy is able to capture the city back next turn, you have inflicted heavy casaulties! Of course be careful, when you are technically advanced and the option to get an advance when you take a city is on, dont go for this tactic and make sure you can hold the city you are capturing. If you are not able to hold a city go for it. Capture it at least for one turn. Of course this depends on the importance of technology you have over others.

Use air attacks to soften cities before you waste your ground troops.
Use ships to soften cities. Use anything to bring the defenses of the city down, before you are going for capturing it.
Also use spies to destroy city walls.

Lurking around a city will let the enemy stay in the city. So you can maybe win a few turns, that you need. Even if the army is not very large or powerful, two seperate stacks lurking infront of a city can achieve that the enemy, doesnt go out. This can give you the required turns. So, yes military units have a purpose besides fighting.
Remember a lot of bullets in a war are just shot to make the enemy duck!

Send scouts in the enemy terrain and watch how many turns it gets if they are slaughtered. This way you will now if the player has offensive capability in that area. Of course the AI knows if the scout was defeated with defensive or offensive units.

Try to make alliances with players near your enemy and tell them to attack them.

Never head into too much wars at the same time. Especially not if they lie close to you. A war with 3 of your neighbours is deadly. Rather pay some tribut to one or make alliances with neighbours of them, so that they cant fully concentrate on you.

So much for now, sorry that this is quite confusing written.
Ata

[Joe Bourque]

I think the biggest thing that would help AI invasions is follwing through with what they start. Often they'll unload a single transport with some troops (especially in SMAC) and put me off balance for a turn or two, but I can quickly turn the tide.

If that transport was followed up with another the next turn, and another the turn after that, and so forth, I'd very probably have a much rougher time.

I suppose it's quite hard for an AI to recognize it has a short term advantage that it has to push quickly or lose, but I think that would be a big help.

Feints would be nifty as well. A single transport or two lands (or land attacks) so that the player thinks `I'll just go mop this up' and sends thier forces over to the invasion, when the AI is actually planing on hitting them with most of their troops somewhere else far away within a few turns.

Joe
[This message has been edited by Joe Bourque (edited June 15, 2000).]

[adaMada]

As Mark_Everson said, a major thing (in Civ2) is that the AI has a tendency to not mass units but rather throw a rare few at you. I ALWAYS am a defensive, prefectionist civilization, which leads me to be able to repel any low-scale attack which the enemy throws at me.

Another thing. There are a rare-to-few cities which the AI defends well enough. I (persionally) always try to have at least two defensive units in every city, and city walls. Even the most perfectionist of civ2 civilizations have a tendency to leave there cities ungarded in such a way that they can be taken easily by a well coordinated, large attack (esp. one that includes cruse missles).

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adaMada
adamada@springmail.com
[This message has been edited by adaMada (edited June 15, 2000).]

[Par4]

Hehe, good luck you guys. I'll be content if the AI makes good empires and can plan an attack. Or attack my back side with an ally or something. But at least make them able to sack a Civ.

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I use this email
(stupid cant use hotmail)
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Your game will get worse
HappyLand
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But there is a knife

[Theben]

The best thing I think could be done for the AI is to leave a great portion of it open to be programed by a 0 level 'hacker' (as civ/SMAC allow in the .txt files). But allow more than is available now. FE, if I switch missiles in to affect air units, have the AI actually ATTACK air units with them. Allow allies that can investigate AI cities to "set up" the city for them, and have the AI capable of determining if the new set up is better than what it had for the task at hand (FE, it will not accept smaller mineral production when building a Wonder). Allow the player to alter a .txt file that improves the AI play: preferences for terraforming, ranking for wonders, build preferences for city improvements, etc. Of course the player can mess up the AI if he wants to but we can do that now. Hopefully after lots of play a group of players will determine what is the optimum configuration for the AI and players will set them up in that fashion when desiring a challenge.

[MBD]

Theben has is exactly right (again), although I'd prefer to take his idea further. It would be great to have every characteristic of each unit defined in text files, with an open-source modular AI, perhaps based on something like a Visual Basic scripting language, that provides a decent default AI, and also allows an advanced user to go in and modify either the weighting system that the AI uses to make its options, or to modify the AI's logic or decision-making process itself.

[Urban Ranger]

Programming AI is hard. Programming AI for strategic decisions is a lot harder. Consider the purest strategic game, Go (or Weichi, in Chinese). No competent computer programs have been developed, although its rules are much simpler than Civ 3.

One suggestion: the AI should think when the human player is making moves. That should allow the AI a lot more time to evaluate the situation. I am sure that's already done, but just can't be sure. After all, just sitting there while waiting for the human player to move is a waste of time.

An area of improvement for the AI is it never considers relative strength. Therefore, it has no idea whom it should threaten and whom it should appease. It's funny to watch a computer player making silly demands when I am capturing its cities left and right

[Urban Ranger]

Hm.

1. VB is not a scripting language.

2. You don't want your AI routines in VB since its too slow.

Just my $0.02, from a programmer's POV.

[Nemo]

1) The AI should know who/what is weaker/stronger than itself and attack/retreat accordingly.
2) The AI needs to attack all at once using the appropiate units. e.g. a) build some bombers, attackers, defenders, and engineers. b) send them all out, maybe have the engineers build airports or forts near cities that are far from the AI's home cities this way the units can recooperate. c) have the bombers attack for a turn (or several) then follow up with the offensive units. the defenders are to protect the attackers and engineers while the bombers are...well...bombing. d) leave a couple of defenders in the base and move on to the next city if there are still ample units left.
3) If it is in battle, it should either send a second wave to a different location of the enemy's civ or bring up reinforcements to the battle.
4) Oh, yeah and give it the senses of tasting, seeing, hearing, smelling, and feeling while your at it...
[This message has been edited by Nemo (edited June 16, 2000).]

[Seeker]

About AI:

Please be influenced by other developers!!

Despite what Steve Clark said, it is still possible to have a challenging AI.

In particular, several old games by developer SSG (Strategic Studies Group, in Australia) had very good AI in comparison to todays modern games:

Warlords 2: The AI would build "taskforces" appropriate to capturing the city. It would hammer weak points. In the original Warlords 2, the player could give the enemy warlords "personalities" that affected their STRATEGIES, not just cosmetic things, ie "ratsbane" fights 'on the cheap', ravager uses 'scorched earth' tactics, ect.

Carriers at War: very good AI.

SSI:
Panzer General, particularly Panzer General II.

The Operational Art of War 2:
Simply because, again, it would attack weak points and build taskforces.


My Suggestions to Improve Civ 2 AI that do not involve many variables:
-the AI must have a low and a high intensity war mode.
-the low intensity is default. In this setting the AI will ATTACK WEAKPOINTS, with spies, battleships, and try to CONTROL VITAL TERRAIN. Vital terrain are the areas near civilizations (and of course the homeland), but not built up, where an enemy force must travel to attack the AI, or vice versa. Examples from earth map: panama canal, the Middle-East, India, Central Asia. Securing these areas is accomplished with the "two move, high attack" type of units, followed by fortresses, followed by cities. Once an area has reached 'x' level of security, the AI moves on to control areas ever closer to its enemies.
-high level war: If the AI is at low-level war for more than 'x' turns without peace, or if the enemy has successfully driven the AI out of more than 'x' VITAL AREAS ('x' should be '1' on Deity), or if the AI has a military advantage over a foe who is inferior and has a poor diplomatic relationship with the AI for 'x' turns, the AI goes into high level war.

-under this setting, the AI BUILDS TASKFORCES, using the following variables: number of cities to be taken (at least one of large size), number, type, and defense strength of units, combat relevant improvements such as barracks, walls, coastal fortresses. The number of units that could be built in the target city before the AI taskforce arrives is added to the final variable.

-the taskforce is proceeded by x number of support units (depending on enemy units in airbases, the sea, fortresses) who carry out a CONTROL VITAL AREAS function in a region of whatever size around the target city (ies). The taskforce is always launched regardless of the success of this "softening up" approach so that humans can't keep the AI at bay by killing a few subs or armours.

-While in high-level mode, no superflous things are built like marketplaces or defensive units. The game should be made in such a way that, after early expansion, a typical AI can put together a TASKFORCE capable of taking one large city in 20-30 turns (at least).

-If the TASKFORCE is successful, the AI EVALUATES following: Has more than x% of the taskforce survived? Does the enemy have a numerical/qualitative advantage? Has the enemies taskforce been more successful? and any other variables, such as a sneak attack by another civ. If these weighted 'IF, Then' questions add up to more than x% the AI tries to make peace, and if that is refused, goes into its defensive low level posture again until it can build up another taskforce. If the IF, THEN questions add up to LESS than x%, the AI will immediately examine a new target city, sending appropriate force to CONTROL VITAL AREAS around it, and immediately build up a new taskforce (in this scenario, 80% of AI cities are building offensive units)

If the TASKFORCE is unsuccessful, the computer will EVALUATE a more lengthly IF, THEN list to make a yes/no decison. This list would contain relative military strenghts, how far ahead/behind the civs are economically and scientifically, attacks on the AI homeland, diplomatic vendettas, ect. You should get the spirit now.
The yes/no decision is to see if the AI should build another TASKFORCE of that is +x larger (growing larger with each defeat), or try asking for peace. If peace is refused, and the AIs EVALUATE list still gives results unfavourable for AI success or existence, it returns to low-level war (ie, CONTROLLING VITAL AREAS, defensive units, science and taxes, ect., until such time as it recieves a favourable result from its EVALUATE list. (or makes peace).


A general guidline: the longer and more thought out the lists of variables(and their numerical weights) that the AI uses in its IF,THEN evaluations are, the better the response will be. If there is enough development energy, these variable lists could be difficulty level dependant, for example a cheiftain AI might look only at numerical values and not at qualitative things like bonuses, firepower and hit points, ect.


I hope you take the time to make a good basic AI, 'cause if you do I would buy expansion packs FOREVER.

[Biddles]

Eliminate general stupidity.

For example: If I am playing SMAC (original, not expansion), and I have the HSA, then why do morgan and miriam still throw probe teams at me? It is stupid actions like this that make me wonder if a pocket calculator could play better. Things like this wouldn't be difficult to fix. If you have the HSA then the AI should realise "No point in using probe teams against him/her" and instead put the rescources into military units.

Give the AI a Tech goal.
When researching, I never just sit there and research 1 tech in physics, then 1 in economics, then 1 in transport etc.
If I am going to research I have a far off goal. In SMAC I usually play as UoP. My first research goal is Secrets of the Human Brain. Then I go for Cyberethics (to get knowledge) Then I go for Eudiamonia (With a few stop offs for weapons techs). The AI just tends to sit there and research across the board.



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- Biddles

"Now that our life-support systems are utilising the new Windows 2027 OS, we don't have to worry about anythi......."
Mars Colonizer Mission

[Bill Billingsley]

Things the AI allows me to do that the AI should do:

1) For expansionist civs, go _straight_ for Republic at the beginning. Forget military for the moment -- buy peace treaties, or buy units if it needs them. The diplomat is about the best defensive unit early on!

2) Use luxury bursts for growth -- at appropriate times in Republic/Democracy, put luxuries up really high for a few turns just to grow the cities. Tremendous advantage.

3) Use a third nation's city as a staging post.


Things the AI allows me to do that it shouldn't let me do:

1) Talk it into having a revolution before I buy its city (When at war, if you talk to an AI civ it will invariably overthrow its Democracy so that it doesn't have to make peace. Now it's not a Democracy, you can buy the city).

2) Fortify units on mountains in fortresses the AI has built for me, right in the middle of its own territory.


Things the game lets me do that it shouldn't

1) Use my enemy's railroad.

2) Use spys to 'sneak' entire tank regiments past its units' zones of control.

Things the game lets the AI do that it shouldn't

1) Know which of my cities have SDI

[Bill Billingsley]

Things the AI allows me to do that the AI should do:

1) For expansionist civs, go _straight_ for Republic at the beginning. Forget military for the moment -- buy peace treaties, or buy units if it needs them. The diplomat is about the best defensive unit early on when units come one at a time. Anyone comes near, you bribe them!

2) Use luxury bursts for growth -- at appropriate times in Republic/Democracy, put luxuries up really high for a few turns just to grow the cities. Tremendous advantage.

3) Use a third nation's city as a staging post.
Often there will be one city of a neutral country on the continent of a larger civ. Conquer that city and stack it to the hilt with units before declaring war on the real target.

4) Conquer by continent -- concentrate on clearing whole islands to avoid your enemies using 3.

5) Don't go for war when there are still nearby uninhabited continents to claim.

6) Go on goody hut expeditions with a two-move unit and a ship. (Horsy gets off ship to claim coastal goody hut, and can then get back on to avoid the nasty barbarians he just released).

7) Send your caravans only to your own cities. In the long run, the increased income from owning both ends of the trade route outdoes the initial bonus for faraway/foreign cities.

8) Build cities in defensible positions slightly beyond the outskirts of your civ (but on the same continent). Then fill in the vacant area with more cities to support them (and 'connect them up' to your civ). Avoids too many messy border wars early on. In short: grab land quickly.

9) Nuke sea fleets (no pollution)

10) Use airports to ship troops into handy staging posts

11) Phase your growth -- this goes something along the lines of 2, but you make sure you build your settlers in big synchronised waves so that your luxury-fired growth bursts will be more effective. (And it makes settling a continent really quick when you have 20 engineers on the job!)
Ie: declare 'for the next X turns, you're all building settlers & we'll have ten new cities to cover that island.' do the settling and then stop settler production to concentrate on growing the new cities fast.

12) Buy improvements, especially factories (Especially in small underproducing cities that will produce well once you've grown them)

13) Target wonders in your invasions, especially happiness wonders. There's nothing like conquering Michelangelo's and having all your opponents cities instantly fall into disorder and become so much more buyable!!

14) When looking to war, go for a technologically superior opponent. Invade with waves of diplomats, stealing their technology and buying their cities. (Don't forget to steal tech before buying the city so you get 2 techs from the city)


Things the AI allows me to do that it shouldn't let me do:

1) Talk it into having a revolution before I buy its city (When at war, if you talk to an AI civ it will invariably overthrow its Democracy so that it doesn't have to make peace. Now it's not a Democracy, you can buy the city).

2) Fortify units on mountains in fortresses the AI has built for me, right in the middle of its own territory.


Things the game lets me do that it shouldn't

1) Use my enemy's railroad.

2) Use spys to 'sneak' entire tank regiments past its units' zones of control.

3) Prebuild wonders (keep building a wonder someone else has already built so I can switch to another in a few discoveries' time)

Things the game lets the AI do that it shouldn't

1) Know which of my cities have SDI

General Game Tweaks:

1) The fact that invasion by diplomat is so superior to warfare indicates that it's too easy & cheap in Civ2.

2) After the development of Economics, the caravan should become obsolete, and trade routes should just set themselves up.

3) (I suspect you'll already have this in your Civ3 prototype by now.) Have a General/Field Marshall unit which modifies attack/defense/movement of stack or confers other bonuses. I'd suggest the general's bonuses could be random and decided at general-create time: eg, 'all units stacked under general count as veteran' or 'doubles terrain defence bonuses', etc.
Special generals (Nelson, Napoleon, Wellington, Montgomerie...) with multiple bonuses could also be created like wonders.

3) There are a number of other elegant modifications to the rules that would improve the game no end (no I haven't posted them here & no I haven't seen them here.). These are short & uncomplicated, but off-topic for this post.
Email me at wbillingsley@crosswinds.net or bill_billingsley@adc.com if you are interested.


William Billingsley,
Senior Developer,
ADC Software Services Division.

[TheTron]

the ai in civ3 should:

expand early. most important.

fill thier own continent before they invade others. stay peaceful if possible until there is no more easy expansion room.

try to conquer all of thier continent.

give a bonus to stacked units, make the ai stack inteligently.

always attack in force, never single units.

always attack with the highest offence units first working thier way down, the best defence units go last and occupy the city.

build coastal cities or build inland, not one square in.

let the ai see unit strength just outside their borders, if it is high, plan for a defence.

protect settlers with a troop, if the settler builds a city, switch support and use it for defence.

the longer a peace treaty lasts, the harder it should be to break and the better it gets.

allow an ask nicely option for tech.

allow an ai to ask for me troops to defend itself from another ai. (the enemy of my enemy...)

monarcy and graneries early.

always build the cheaper improvements first. buy the granery if the civ is rich.

move offencive troops to the borders but keep them supplied from the interior.

recycle any troops two generations old.

extra defences for active wonders.

dont allow the player to buy ai cities.

[Bubba]

Here is a strategy that my friends often use against the AI:

1) Concentrate on trade and build up a very large reserve over a number of turns.

2) Use multiple diplomats to harass an enemy's capital city and destroy all its defensive buildings. (These same diplomats can be used to force a civilisation out of democracy if necessary).

3) Invade the capital city with overwhelming force.

4) Use additional (multiple) diplomats to buy as many cities as possible.

With a strategy like this, a very powerful CIV can be knocked out of a game fairly quickly and consistently.

Suggestions:

1) Better AI use of Diplomats and other special units that you might employ in CIV III for counter-intelligence.

2) Removing the ability of a diplomat to bribe an enemy city to join your CIV directly. Perhaps they should start their own CIV as in CTP.

I sometimes use diplomats to get my units through where I've lost ZOC. I think thats cheating, I think'd be nice if that weren't possible to do.

[Stuff2]

Here are som stuff:
- The AI players don't know how much power they need in one attack if it's gonna beat me. Even when the Ai player has alot of units it simply cannot focus on a specific target (like a specific city) and instead it just tries to do too many things at the same time, if the Ai-player could concentrate on a few specific goals it would become a much more dangerous enemy.
- The AI-player should have some idea of it's own power compared to the power of other civs, especially those where they have established an embassy.
- As it is now, AI-controlled units move around aimlessly. Instead of every unit having it's own agenda i think that it somehow should be some kind of overall coordination for the army.
- If the AI learned not to waste so much time on suicidal units it would be more able to concentrate on other things. Like growth, and economy.
- But lets not forget. Stupid leaders has made stupid decisions throughout history. I think that the AI-players should atleast sometimes do stupid moves, but not always as it is in the existing games.

[TCO]

Improve the algorithm uesd for settler actions. adam smith had good algorithms that are implimentable. He started several threads in the strategy section.

[Father Beast]

here's my 2 cents.
SETTLERS. And engineers. What do they do with them? Irrigate, roads/rr, found. I am playing a game that lasts into the 2700's, and am using armies of engineers to transform all my land to grass land and hills. I go out every few turns and buy another engineer or two off a neighbor. whenever I buy a enemy city, I get them all to work at improving the land I now possess. I don't get it! why don't they improve their own land? even settlers can clear jungles and forests, but they never do that.
While we're at it, how come they don't come and buy one of my settlers/engineers now and then. I can buy huge amounts of theirs without incident, but they don't bribe my units unless we're at war, and then only frontline military.
that's all for now

[UltraSonix]

Wow! I don't visit the forum for a day and this thread's had a million posts already!

First of all I'm not trying to sound arrogant and tell you guys what you should be doing, but I think in Civ3 the AI should be improved in many ways:

*In normal empire management the guys above have said it all.
*But I think the main area of improvement is threat assement.
The AI should scan areas of the map, and examine each according to a set of rules. (So obviously the AI would need to scout often with diplomats/scouting units). A particular rule used could be related to the amount of friendly/enemy units there. This would allow the AI to detect an incoming invasion fleet accurately and rush reinforcements there.
*The same area scanning technique could also have other rulesets so that the AI can probe areas for lack of enemy units, but the presence of enemy cities. This would obviously be a weak spot in the enemy civ and the AI sohould respond accordingly (ie go into a special mode or something and continuously pound that weak spot with military units)
This would allow a AI civ to detect and launch a surpise attack on a spot away from the main battle front.
*Once again, the rule-base area scanning can be used to determine which part of an enemy empire is most critical to the enemy - eg a city on/near a vital landbrige/bottleneck, a capital, or a city packed with wonders, or an easy stack of units to kill.
*Of course the same technique could be used to detect weakness in the AI's own civ.

I think if a rule based system is adopted then it shouldn't be too hard to program AI civs of different behaviours. Just change the varibles used in the rulesets.

Most of the military-related AI improvements that the guys mentioned above should be able to be implement with this system.

(BTW Like I keep ranting on about in other threads, I think the AI should be open source. It could have a custom language, a bit like Civ2's events.txt, but it could very maybe use VB, even though that is slow - but at least it's easy to learn/program in.)

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No, in Australia we don't live with kangaroos and koalas in our backyards...
[This message has been edited by UltraSonix (edited June 16, 2000).]

[Ralf]

What? "Strategy to beat the AI"? Do one need an stategy?

1/ Well, theres an very old saying that says "an army marches on its stomach".

You can parafraze that by saing: "An strong CIV3-AI marches on its many city-improvements and well developed city-areas.

A good AI should constantly monitor the human player, an ALWAYS try to accomplish the same infrastructure/ the same number of cities*. Any CIV-AI ignoring above, is gonna be beaten again, again and again...

It is as simple as that. Dont let AI waste time bulding buckloads of "cost-effective" crap-units. For most of the game: build and upgrade max 3 high-class units per city.

(*to avoid cluttering up the map with to many cities, any 20+ city -empire should be MUCH more prone to empire-unstability, then in previous civ-versions. Furthermore:

- No indevidual city should be able to build 2 or more settlers in a row, without building a city-improvement in between.

- 3 totally undeveloped cities at any given time means 20% chance that these cities "break out" and become renegade city-states (have to be conquered).

- 4 totally undeveloped cities at any given time, means 40% chance..., and so on).

I just Lay Back and build the most powerful civilization by created dozens of trade routes; giving me the economic egde. I build a strong group of cities; about 10-15 cities create one unified megalopolis to create a power command center. Build MECH INF. because they have the best land defense capabilities and fortify them in my cities. Finally I position my battleships & carriers to blockade their capital, bombard the city an see it get taken over by the relentless forces of the POLIS.

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GAMEOPOLIS