Ai Ics.......

[Dale]

I was fiddling around with strategies.txt and unitbuildlists.txt last night. Anyways, I was trying to find out the intricacies of how they work. So I put UNIT_SETTLER in the DEFENSE build list to see what it would do.

WELL......................

I quickly ran through 100 turns (this is of WAW mod). Then went into cheat mode, and flicked to one of the AI's.

43 cities.

I blinked and flicked to the next AI.

38 cities.

By now I was starting to laugh. I continued flicking and every AI had built more than 35 cities.

But not ONE AI had built anything but settlers. Obviously, because the strategies.txt was telling them to have at least 1 defender in each city, it was building defenders. They happen to be settlers, and the AI moved them out to build cities. ICS on a big scale.

[Immortal Wombat]

Brilliant
How were they doing in terms of happiness etc. ?

[Locutus]

Yesh, how was the AI doing otherwise? Competitive with the human? How was the situation another 100 turns later?

I think this is good news as currently the AI at times still expands too slowly in some cases. This measure would obviously be too extreme but if we could tone it down a little and could be stabilized later on...

[Dale]

Ummm........ I can't tell ya how the AI was going in comparison to me. You see, when I'm testing to see how a change I make impacts long-term play, I setup my original city, fortify/disband anything else, set production to infrastructure, science to zero, hit ENTER and walk away for a smoke outside and make a coffee. By the time I get back, it'll be up to about 50-70 auto-turns. But from what I remember, the AI was keeping happiness about 77, but remember in WAW you get a cathedral as default.

After this 100 turns, after laughing for a few minutes looking around, I decided to jump out. So I don't know the 200 turn state.

Of course, with a bit of manipulation of strategies.txt, unitbuildlists.txt and a bit of SLIC to change strategies, we should be able to dictate what the AI builds.

[The Big Mc]

Any chance we can bring the same kind of intelligence to the AI so it can billed navel units

Could be a great upgrade

[Immortal Wombat]

A little while ago I made a little strategy that simply set the AI to build 0 settlers when it had more cities than the human, up to 60 I think.
It think it worked quite well, but I never reached 60 in my tests.

[hexagonian]

Must...use...this...only...for...good!!!

Boy, this really sounds promising. A possibility may be to place settlers within some of the less-researched branches of the unit lists, such as the UNIT_BUILD_LIST_MOBILE entry. So the entry would look like this. (This is Cradle's setup - the early settler is called Nomad)

UNIT_BUILD_LIST_MOBILE {
Unit UNIT_NOMAD
Unit UNIT_JAVELIN_CAVALRY
Unit UNIT_CHARIOT
Unit UNIT_HORSEMAN
Unit UNIT_CATAPHRACT
Unit UNIT_TEUTONIC_KNIGHT
Unit UNIT_KNIGHT
Unit UNIT_CAVALRY
Unit UNIT_FIGHTER
Unit UNIT_BOMBER
Unit UNIT_INTERCEPTOR
Unit UNIT_STEALTH_BOMBER
Unit UNIT_STEALTH_FIGHTER
}

Since Javalin Cavalry (enable tech Horse Riding) comes a little later in the tech tree, this may force the AI to build a couple of additional Nomads before it has the ability to build Jav Cavalry. The percentages to build the mobile units is also lower than the defensive units, so you should, in theory, not have the extreme results you were getting in your test.

To be really daring, place the Nomad in the middle of a list to build them in the middle of the game. But the one thing I have noticed is that once the map is filled up, the AI will generally respect borders when it comes to settling new cities. I do not know how that can be overcome though.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by The Big Mc
Any chance we can bring the same kind of intelligence to the AI so it can billed navel units

Just go to the strategies.txt and look the special units count here is the code from my GM1_strategies.txt:

    // Number of special units that should be built
    SettlerUnitsCount       4 //WW from 1 //MG from 2
    SeaTransportUnitsCount  8 //MG from 3
    AirTransportUnitsCount  2 //WW from 2 //MG from 1
    SpecialUnitsCount       6 //MG from 4

You sea I increased the number of sea transporters that the AI should build the only problem is to make the AI use them.

In the settle strategies I increased the numbers of settlers that the AI should build to 6, the result is that the map will be filled with AI cities until there is no space left:

STRATEGY_SETTLE_COMPACT {

    // Number of special units that should be built
    SettlerUnitsCount   6 //MG from 2

Originally posted by hexagonian
To be really daring, place the Nomad in the middle of a list to build them in the middle of the game. But the one thing I have noticed is that once the map is filled up, the AI will generally respect borders when it comes to settling new cities. I do not know how that can be overcome though.

Take a look into the CRA_goals.txt, there you find these entries:

GOAL_ATTACK {
  RallyFirst

  SquadClass:CanAttack
  SquadClass:CanCaptureCity

  TargetType:AttackUnit
  TargetType:SpecialUnit
  TargetOwner:HotEnemy
  TargetOwner:ColdEnemy

  Execute	ORDER_ATTACK
 
  ThreatBonus			  500
  EnemyValueBonus		 -250 //from 250
  AlliedValueBonus		 1500
  PowerBonus			10000 //from 20000
  DistanceToHomeBonus	    0 //from -10
  DistanceToEnemyBonus	    0
  ChokePointBonus		  250 //from 50
  UnexploredBonus	  -999999 
  ObsoleteArmyBonus		  100
  TreaspassingArmyBonus     0

  ThreatenType:DestroyCity
  ThreatenBonus 5000

  ForceMatch:Offensive

}

GOAL_SETTLE_LAND {
  NeedsEscort

  SquadClass:Special

  TargetType:SettleLand
  TargetOwner:Self
  TargetOwner:NoContact

  Execute	ORDER_SETTLE

  ThreatBonus			 -100
  EnemyValueBonus		 -100
  AlliedValueBonus		  100
  PowerBonus			  100
  DistanceToHomeBonus	    0
  DistanceToEnemyBonus     15
  ChokePointBonus		  100
  UnexploredBonus		 -100
  ObsoleteArmyBonus		    0
  TreaspassingArmyBonus     0

  ThreatenType:None
  ThreatenBonus 0

  ForceMatch:Special
}

The difference between the two goals is that the AI will only attack hot and cold enemies, the settle goal has only own land and noone's land as target type, if you add hot, cold enemey, alley and neutral than the AI shouldn't respect borders.

-Martin

[hexagonian]

There's always an answer somewhere! Thanks Martin for pointing that out.

I think I know how to use that info now...

[Dale]

Hex:
You might need to rethink the MOBILE list. The AI "appears" to use the MOBILE list for air units. During my tests I believe DEFENSE list covers the garrisondefenseunits. OFFENSE covers the garrisonoffenseunits. RANGED covers the garrisonrangedunits. MOBILE covers the air units. SEA covers the sea units.

I'm not positive, but I'm looking into it. I'll let you know how I go.

Also, it doesn't matter where in the list you locate something. The AI will build any possible unit, usually the newest. IE: for fun I turned the whole list over to see if that did anything. It doesn't. The AI just built units from the bottom of the list. Hope this helps.