questions on AI on Diety

bobbo008 · May 31, 2003, 20:08

I'm playing on diety, although I must confess an edited game so i can have some advantage, but anyways:

first, the Ottomans, like in my previous game, have stopped researching and have their entire cashflow going towards the treasury, so they are sitting at 40,000+ gold... we're in the late industrial age

no AI civ has researched sanitation so they can build their cities beyond 12...

curiously, after constant fighting, they've all but stopped...

bobbo008 · May 31, 2003, 20:47

another thing, on this game, guerillas have hidden nationality and 8 for attack and defense (as opposed to 6)

the AI is using it great. It found out it can take over my cities with it, somewhat bad, but fair.

also, if you have a hidden nationality unit guarding your own city, the AI can attack it, and therefore can take over your city without declaring war and it can use any unit.

vmxa1 · May 31, 2003, 21:54

Ok, I must have missed it, but do not see the question, just statements.
Anyway what is the value of having 40K in gold? It is good to have cash on hand, but it is often best to spend most of it. 5K or so is plenty in all but the most severe cases.
It is hard to address modified games as we have no real idea of what all was done. AU mod is different as it is well documented.
I have looked a lot posted games, only to find changes were made and not mentioned. So it was hard to evaluate.

Panag · May 31, 2003, 22:27

hi ,

bobo , can you attach a SAVe

have a nice day

MyOlde · June 1, 2003, 18:40

Deity.

vmxa1 · June 1, 2003, 19:07

MyOlde, I think we can let a transposing of letters slide.
It is so easy to mess up typing on a computer, at least for me.

bobbo008 · June 1, 2003, 21:12

yeah, sorry, i guess those are "implied" questions, or maybe statements that someone could reply to...

i do not know how to post a save, but here's a picture of something else that just happened...

sorry for its size, if you didn't notice, the AI has cleverly decided to use its newfly created leader to create an army of... 3 warriors...

if you can tell by the minimap, I am the Americans (black color) pushing up from the south, although "peacefully" with my hidden nationality guerillas.

just wanted to repeat again that, while this game is on deity, the rules/locations are edited in my favor so its not a "true" deity game...

dexters · June 1, 2003, 21:46

bobo, it seems like an exploit to me if you can peacefully take over an enemy civ without declaring war.

Sounds a lot like the diplomat armies of Civ2, which were kinda cheap

vmxa1 · June 1, 2003, 22:15

To post a save game, just use the button for post reply (as opposed to quick reply). Scroll down a bit and find the browse button for attachments and select it. Then browse to the location that you have the file and select it.
They have a restriction for file types and size, but sav is one of the allowed ones.

vmxa1 · June 1, 2003, 22:27

Originally posted by bobbo008
"first, the Ottomans, like in my previous game, have stopped researching and have their entire cashflow going towards the treasury, so they are sitting at 40,000+ gold... we're in the late industrial age"

Well I do not know the reason, but I can speculate. If you can research at a rate of 4 turns, no need to spend on science.

"no AI civ has researched sanitation so they can build their cities beyond 12..."

One reason you may skip sanitation is that a larger pop is going to mean happiness problems and pollution.
Both of these could just be a broken AI.

"curiously, after constant fighting, they've all but stopped... "
As the game gets past the mid point the AI will tend to gang up on the human in an attempt to win. Typically the human as gotten in the front and no land is free, so it must be approriated from someone.
Sp it is common for them to not fight each other for very long periods of time.

dexters · June 1, 2003, 23:13

vmxa1, I thought the AI doesn't know or care who the human player is when declaring war.

I play a lot of regent games, and I haven't noticed any ganging up going on against me when I'm ahead. In fact, when I get so far ahead, the AIs tend to steer clear and just fight amongst themselves.

vmxa1 · June 2, 2003, 04:00

I did not mean to say that the AI is doing it to you because you are the human player. It is doing it, because you are the front runner.
The devs say they AI does not even know the human from any other player.
It is like playing hearts, if one player is well on the way to winning, good players will try to stop it. Bad player will still play for themselfs and wonder why they lose.
Now it could be that my perspective on the AI is atypical as I tend to be at war with the AI most of the time.
Again this is what I have observed in many of my game, not all. These games are mostly Monarch and Emperor, with a spattering of Deity.

dexters · June 2, 2003, 05:33

Ah. I see.

I've only played about 10 to 15 games in total, completed with a win about 1/3 of that. So my experience is a small sampling.

Now that you mention it, the AI does seem rather competent in bringing in the top Civ in large entangled wars. The idea being to force it to switch governments and pull it down. This may be more effective against an AI than a human player.

One thing I'd like to see beefed up in the next patch or in conquests is the AI's government management during wartime. AI players, even the monolithic ones tend to self-destruct by engaging in long 40 turn wars that never seem to end and with the last 20 turns being just a long stalemate and or extended by involvement of another Civ.

In my current game, the Greeks were on their way on being a major threat against me (Carthage) until they made the mistake of declaring war on me in the ealry middle age. Their initial success (taking one city and razing another) was completely turned back when I brough the war right to their doorstep, taking 2 cities before making peace.

I had at the start of the war brought in England and the Vikings on my side. While the Greeks and England made peace pretty fast, the war with the Vikings just dragged on and on. While the Greeks were kicking ass and almost swallowed up all the Viking cities, they were in monarchy, and the captured cities were almost useless and to them, with the high corruption. Not to mention they were doing it very slowly. Taking 1 city about every 5 turns. That pretty much meant I had pulled way ahead and the Greeks were a non factor.

Thus, a strategically sound move made by the AI, a surprise attack to cut me down to size (since I'm sure the AI saw me as its biggest threat too) turned into a massive self inflicted wound.

Something needs to be done in the code to make it manage its long wars better. I'm sure the AI KNOWS how long it's been at war with a certain Civ. It should be logical about it and cut its losses when a war begins to drag and switching governments is kept as a last option. It should also be active in the diplomatic end to prevent its neighbours from being dragged in. The AI is good at making alliances and planning its wars several turns ahead of time, but sometimes, they counter the human player's border alliances against it with a totally nonsensical alliance with another Civ half the world away. And they almost always drag in other players one or two turns AFTER initial hostilities start. In my game, the English were furious at me because of an early territorial dispute with me. They had lost that dispiute and I ended up using my Numidian mercs. to push up and destroyed several of their pop 1 cities.

Diplomatically, it would have been cheesecakes for the Greeks to shop around my neighbours and easily find the English were willing to join in an alliance against me. Theyd didn't do it, and let me beat them to it by buying the english of 1 turn after they attacked. Had the declarations of war occured simulataneously, it would have been a different ball game.

The AI should value border (land connected) alliances more. And they should be aware of other AI civs' attitudes toward each other as a kind of "fix" for the AI's lack any capacity to remember. At least the attitude sliders keep track, in some imprecise form, past actions.

The Democracy/Republic to Monrachy/Communism switch is almost always the AI's weakpoint against a human, since we usually will stay in a government and avoid switching, unless we play religious. I see no reason why the AI can't be programmed to behave the same way.

Another thing, there is usually a lag time after a war ends where the AI will stay in their monarchy or communism for no apparent reason.

Anyways, I've kinda strayed a little, but I'm interested in your thoughts on this.

bobbo008 · June 2, 2003, 19:18

ok, they all started kicking again and are caught in the usual unnavigatable tangle of alliances.

christ, right when i'm doing great, escorting captured workers back to my territory, i get a remove troops or declare war message from them for having the damn workers there. now all of my guerillas are sent back to my side. leave it to a design flaw screw my game up.

i wouldnt call what i'm doing an "exploit" as i could easily sign a right of passage and fight under the cover of a normal unit. and the AI is doing great, fighting from the mountains and hills and attempting to take workers, cities, etc. although it does seem odd how the last NINE guerillas that they used to attack defeated my NINE guerillas who were fortified in mountains...

on other thing:

i set this game to zero corruption, but when i investigate AI cities, it appears as if they have corruption, any explanation?