AI giving away cities

NeoStar · July 17, 2002, 07:10

Hi, been visiting Apolyton for some time now, decided to finally post something.

Anyway in a game I played a few weeks ago I was fighting China where I kept taking a city they had only to lose it again and again. I finally made peace but before I did I asked for that city and they gave it away! It was a bit ravaged by war but it had access to iron.

Never seen that before, has that happened to someone else?

I know the AI isn't exactly smart but it sure as hell hates giving up cities. Still, I'm going to try more often now!

miccofl · July 17, 2002, 07:21

I have never seen the AI give up a city, not even in a 5:1 trade. You should post the save.

Nubclear · July 17, 2002, 07:26

I've seen the Ai give cities plenty of times, however usually its because they've declared war on me only to find that ive overpowered them....about 10 times.

I really wish that they would make the AI a little more cooperative when it comes to cities....I mean, if I had two cities and each of them were surrounded by 100+ modern armour, I would probably accept peace and give them the cities instead of being furious and saying no.

wervdon · July 17, 2002, 07:33

Quote:

Originally posted by NeoStar
I finally made peace but before I did I asked for that city and they gave it away!

The key to that is before. The ai will trade cities for peace if its losing. Ive never seen it trade a city for anything else though, and if you try to trade for peace + something for one of its cities it'll suddenly refuse. (ie, you ask to trade peace for London, the english will accept, you ask to trade peace and 1 gold for London and the English would never accept that deal)

I do wish the ai would occasionally consider trading cities in normal trade though. At least on a city for a city basis (value based on corruption + cities access to resources + # of troops it has stationed in the city you asked for) The only problem is though it'd probally end up being too easy to take advantage of the ai since it has no way of realizing if a city has some intrinsic strategic value like a human can (such as being a canal between two large bodies of water, or in a choke point)

Quote:

I really wish that they would make the AI a little more cooperative when it comes to cities....I mean, if I had two cities and each of them were surrounded by 100+ modern armour, I would probably accept peace and give them the cities instead of being furious and saying no.

I wish there was an option to demand an unconditional surrender at that point

NeoStar · July 17, 2002, 07:38

Quote:

Originally posted by miccofl
I have never seen the AI give up a city, not even in a 5:1 trade. You should post the save.

I actually finished up that game. The point where that happened is lost!

NeoStar · July 17, 2002, 07:41

Quote:

Originally posted by wervdon

The key to that is before. The ai will trade cities for peace if its losing.

I could understand that, but they were fine!

However, I had made EVERYONE declare war against them (not that they were doing anything, China was huge).

Saint Marcus · July 17, 2002, 07:43

If you are way stronger than the AI, you can get cities by renegotiating peace. This worked better in pre 1.21f versions though.

wervdon · July 17, 2002, 07:49

Quote:

I could understand that, but they were fine!

The ai is not the best as truelly assessing strategic situations. About all it does is count units on both sides I think.

Quote:

I had made EVERYONE declare war against them

That probally had a large impact too. They always seem much more eager to get out of a war when they are in multiple wars at once than others, but that could be my imagination

Adm.Naismith · July 17, 2002, 08:18

While in SMAC it was too easy to grab good cities from AI, I consider almost useless that part of trading in Civ III

I understand how difficult could be for AI (...programmer) to evaluate on a strategic basis if a city trade is bargain or not, I would like to see at least some value considered into the equation.

Sometime I'll be happy to trade (sometime exchange) early or half developed city because I can better manage corruption, borders, allies' strong if I can:
- buy a small city, already inside or near my border, without the need to wait for culture flipping, maybe in exchange of a previously conquered city near the selling Civ.
- give (but not as a gift) some cities to a Civ I want to help to keep it stronger enough to be a valuable ally (this worked very well in SMAC, where you can have long pact very useful if you keep up the friendly AI development)
- excert some kind of "diplomatic influence" forcing a cities reallocation (a trade "buy from winner &sell back to original owner") after some silly attrition war between AI Civ

I know some particular situation are quite difficult to manage (beachead city, chokepoint city), also because the AI know in advance where strategic resources will appear, and it will fight forever before abandon the city or trade it.

I simply suppose that a mixed model between SMAC and CIV III mode can help in this part.

Maybe it's only my wrong opinion, because in Civ III others Civs are often furious with me (and I'm not a backstabber!), so it's very difficult to sign good trades for me.

NeoStar · July 17, 2002, 08:30

Quote:

Originally posted by Adm.Naismith
also because the AI know in advance where strategic resources will appear, and it will fight forever before abandon the city or trade it.

WHAT? I know the AI cheats but thats just rotten. How do you know?

DeepO · July 17, 2002, 08:42

He doesn't... because it ain't true. It's a myth like the ocean-going unsinkable AI galleys, something people speculate about because it would explain strange situations. Sometimes it's just bad karma when the AI outsmarts you

Regarding city trading: I wish they changed it again in next patch, or in the one after that. I fully understand that it was too easily exploitable in the first version of CivIII (Build a small city in an uninhabitable place, and sell it the same turn to an AI for all their cash, techs, lux and resources), but that could be changed with hysteris: Make AI cities very expensive for humans, while human cities are cheap for AI. This way you can't abuse the lack of strategic insight of the AI, while you still are able to purchase cities peacefully.

DeepO

dunk · July 17, 2002, 08:52

The AI gives me cities all the time. IF you whoop upon them, they'll give you two or three small ones at the peace table.

Good idea DeepO.

Deathwalker · July 17, 2002, 09:02

If your beating the crap out of them they will give up a city for pease. I once Joan of Arc give up a french city for pease. I like it because it was on another island.

NeoStar · July 17, 2002, 09:03

Quote:

Originally posted by DeepO

Make AI cities very expensive for humans, while human cities are cheap for AI. This way you can't abuse the lack of strategic insight of the AI, while you still are able to purchase cities peacefully.

DeepO

Cheers mate Mail Firaxis on that one. Peaceful domination? Now that's interesting.

Iskandar Reza · July 17, 2002, 09:08

Quote:

Originally posted by wervdon
Ive never seen it trade a city for anything else though, and if you try to trade for peace + something for one of its cities it'll suddenly refuse. (ie, you ask to trade peace for London, the english will accept, you ask to trade peace and 1 gold for London and the English would never accept that deal)

Why not? Isn't that a common thing in real life?

waiting patiently for Coracle to come in and start Civ3 bashing....

wervdon · July 17, 2002, 09:15

Im not sure what your saying Iskandar. Isn't what a common thing in real life?

It seems a bit odd to me that the ai will accept a deal, then you make it better for them and they refuse, but its not a big deal by any stretch

If you just meant that if you offered the english peace and 1 gold for london that they'd refuse, well id agree

But they'd also refuse peace for london

If its say peace for a colony in south africa, and they'd accept it though, I can see where they might in a spiteful tone say "just keep your **** gold and get out." if you tried to offer them money & peace for territory. Its what I would say I guess, since the home political scene would probally get bad if it come out you took cash in a peace deal that cost your empire some of its citizens to your hated enemies.

NeoStar · July 17, 2002, 09:25

Quote:

Originally posted by wervdon

It seems a bit odd to me that the ai will accept a deal, then you make it better for them and they refuse,

That is weird - I recall asking for a city with that advisor bloke saying 'we're getting close to a deal here' then adding gold and losing it compltely. My theory is that Firaxis wanted to limit the exploitation of a defeated civ. Not that I'd do that...

Blake · July 17, 2002, 09:40

I think that one easy exception is, AI's should always accept gifts of cities you captured from them. This can't really be exploited (asking money for the city could be exploited). I would like to give cities back to a civ which has effectively surrended.
(Agree about the need for a total surrender.)

They should also be conductive to giving back cities which they captured from you, if you pay a sutible price, or if you are big and ugly enough to take it from them.

An additional critera could be that the city must not be closer to their Palace than yours. ie they wont ever give back a city which you built in their home land, and they later captured.

Iskandar Reza · July 17, 2002, 09:54

Quote:

Originally posted by wervdon
Im not sure what your saying Iskandar. Isn't what a common thing in real life?

It seems a bit odd to me that the ai will accept a deal, then you make it better for them and they refuse, but its not a big deal by any stretch

If you just meant that if you offered the english peace and 1 gold for london that they'd refuse, well id agree

But they'd also refuse peace for london

If its say peace for a colony in south africa, and they'd accept it though, I can see where they might in a spiteful tone say "just keep your **** gold and get out." if you tried to offer them money & peace for territory. Its what I would say I guess, since the home political scene would probally get bad if it come out you took cash in a peace deal that cost your empire some of its citizens to your hated enemies.

What I meant to say was you know was that sometimes in the real world you add in say for instance a 100 bucks just to seal the deal. So it wouldn't seem like you took the city or land from them, but you "bought" the city.

Blake · July 17, 2002, 10:04

"Understand that I cannot agree to peace while you continue to control the resources near city B. However I will compensate you for the loss of city B."

AI's should also give flipped cities back, for a fairly reasonable price, and offer a reasonable amount of money for the return of a flipped city. It would help prevent the needless wars which result when a city flipping is simply not tolerable.

DeepO · July 17, 2002, 11:03

Blake, I agree with your idea that it should be possible to purchase flipped cities back, but I feel it should be possible to purchase any city if the price is right (I do want to pay 10k in gold for a size 4 city with a luxury the AI has in abundance).

However, you are always free to give cities to the AI, I've done it multiple times when I'm attacked in a new, not defended city: I give it to some other AI (who is most of the times pleased to gain another city), while I have time to gather my defenses. It has a very pleasant side effect: When you do this, you create a buffer between yourself and the aggresive AI, and there's a big chance that the next time he will attack something it is not you, but the second AI you gave the city to.

DeepO

Level · July 17, 2002, 13:46

I got 5 or 6 citys once I had to try diferent combonations of diferent citys.

I think the price should be set by the size of the citys, what wonders and improvements it has, the orignal owner, amont of culture around it, and the distance from the capital.

Dan Severn · July 17, 2002, 15:29

I've gotten cities for peace plenty of times. Usually crappy little cities.

Strange, If I ask for 5 cities, all their treasury, their maps, and all their tech, that's fine.

But if I throw in my world map or decide to give them reparations to sweeten the deal, they're insulted!

wervdon · July 17, 2002, 23:43

Things the ai would definatley have to take into account when trading cities for something other than peace:

1) Total possible commerce from the city, taking into account terrain with best possible modifications (roads) wether or not currently present, and presence of improvements like markets and adjusted for corruption
2) Same for production
3) Same for food
4) Presense of its citizens (citizens native to its civ)
5) Presense of military units in the city
6) Importance of location: if its a choke point, that one is hard but important (a canal city is also a choke point by definition really, or close enough to be considered one) This should also not just look at the city tile, but any tile within the city radius.
7) Resources in the city's squares
8) Culture generated by the city for the civ in question
9) Potential future but unseen resources in the city radius
10) How much its worth to the civ its going to: ie) is it giving them access to a resource the lacked?

There's probally more than that involved, but thats just a few of the things i'd look at it if another human player asked me to trade the city. Maybe not as thoroughly (with regards to commerce), but I would assess its economic, military/strategic, and cultural value.

I can see why they didnt make ai's want to trade cities. Thats a hard sort of thing for an ai to accurately judge if its getting the short end of the stick.

NeoStar · July 18, 2002, 03:45

Quote:

Originally posted by wervdon

I can see why they didnt make ai's want to trade cities. Thats a hard sort of thing for an ai to accurately judge if its getting the short end of the stick.

When you put it like that, yeah

Suppose it doesn't really matter. C'mon, we all get the city we want in the end.

Adm.Naismith · July 18, 2002, 09:38

Quote:

Originally posted by DeepO
He doesn't... because it ain't true. It's a myth like the ocean-going unsinkable AI galleys, something people speculate about because it would explain strange situations. Sometimes it's just bad karma when the AI outsmarts you

DeepO, admitting that sometime I suspect that computer are smarter than me, if not of a real human being

, I have tested quite often the AI strategy to suspect city placement have at least some algorithm that share same rules with resources position algorithm, if not a real cheat helping the AI.

Of course I'm all in favour of a properly scientific tested experiment, but lacking that I still keep with my line that if I smell smoke often enough, there must be some fire around

DeepO · July 18, 2002, 10:48

Oh, I too saw several occasions where the AI had suspicously good city placements for future resources, but look at what your own cities look like. It doesn't show that much, but you might find that your own cities aren't placed any worse. I doubt it is a cheat, because so far, the AI cheats are documented, and boil down to production bonusses, and faster AI-AI tech trades.

How many times have you seen that an AI city could build the Ironworks, as opposed to one of your own cities doing it, for instance? I had, in all my games, 4 AI cities with IW, or the possibility for IW. While at the same time I had 2 IWs in native, human cities. That is not decisive information, but from the looks of it I had better placement than the AI...

I think it is more an artifact of the algorithm that spaces out AI cities: they do try to cover as much ground as efficiently as possible. It's only normal that doing so will give them access to all resources. I have not seen that many cities placed on spaces that later give access to a resource without at least as many cities being placed on tiles that are just off, while my neighbouring city (built later) gets the resource. It is a matter of luck, or bad karma as I put it

As to the smoke: there is a famous saying in Dutch, from a historical comedian-freedomfighter. Roughly translated it goes like this:
"Where smoke is, is fire" said Tyl Uylenspiegel, and he warmed his hands on a pile of horse dung.
I guess that says it all

DeepO