AI Response to Victory Conditions

burly · June 5, 2003, 10:06

Hi All! I'm new to posting around here, but I've been ghosting for a couple of months now and gained some very valuable insight. I recently started playing around with limiting the victory conditions in my games (Vanilla CIV3, Regent/Monarch levels usually) and I was wondering about the AI response to victory conditions. Does the AI research techs differently? Do they build more offensive units in a "Conquest Only" game? Do they bee-line for SS techs in Space Race? Does it affect their early game play?

Any insight is appreciated. Thanks for having such a great forum for us newbies!

mrmitchell · June 5, 2003, 10:26

Welcome aboard burly

I haven't checked it out myself, but IIRC the AIs make no response to if you turn off a couple Victory Conditions. As in, if you turned off Cultural they might still try to go for a Cultural Victory.

Mountain Sage · June 5, 2003, 10:36

Quote:

Originally posted by burly

Thanks for having such a great forum for us newbies!

Every one of us was a newbie a (long) time past

Welcome abroad

Back to your question: I never read (or experienced) a change in the AI attitude relating to tech research or general behaviour if you switch off some victory conditions.

Nor Me · June 5, 2003, 10:57

I don't know and haven't seen anything on it. You could find something you could test about it. That's normally the only way to find out.

I expect that for the most part no. We know that on standard maps the AI isn't able to win by Domination. So it doesn't look like it was programmed to aim for it so you'd imagine disabling it would make no difference. I expect similar results for other victory conditions.

With diplomatic and space race victories disabled, the UN and SS components cannot be built. The AI might know this and so aim for those techs less. But I would not be surprised if it didn't. It will charge or pay 50% more for exporting or importing iron in the ancient age because of the Iron Works. It doesn't realise that you need Steam Power for coal and that you can't build it with imported iron anyway because it has to be in the city radius!

burly · June 6, 2003, 12:42

Thanks for the insight guys. I might try a couple of different games out with the same AI CIV's at the same level with variations in the victory conditions to see if it makes a difference.

BTW, is there anyway to find out what victory conditions are on in a game that's already started? I was playing as the French once, going for Domination or Conquest win, with only Russia left. I thought I had turned off Space Race, but Russia started building her SS, and launched it before I could mount a serious offensive on Moscow to destroy the ship. I had wondered about it when I started seeing the pop-ups that Russia was adding pieces to their ship, but thought they were just being dumb, since I thought Space Race was off. I thought to check the victory conditions, just in case, but didn't know how. Any advice?

And thanks for the warm welcome!

ghen · June 6, 2003, 18:53

use diplomats or spies to find the city with ss parts and nuke it with either ROP+tact nuke or ICBMs if you have 'em

Worthingtons · June 7, 2003, 20:59

IMO it's a broken element of the game, since I often turn off Cultural Victory.

Of course, The AI cant build spaceship parts, but I'm sure it researches Tech's if it 'thinks' it can get them

dexters · June 7, 2003, 21:30

The problem with spaceship victory for the AI is that as far as major building projects are concerned, the AI is at a great disadvantage when compared to humans.

Soren needs to thorw in a diagnostic algorithm that updates building projects on each city, if not every turn, at least every 2 or 3 turns, with each Civ doing it on different intervals so there is no one turn where your computer is hit with all these calculations. The main idea, and it has been suggested before, is for the AI to re-evaluate what it is building. A lot can happen in the 10 to 40 turns it takes to build a library or a Wonder. If the AI can mimmick human micromanagement and switching its projects around... it would benefit greatly.

The side effect of this probably will be a very competitive AI when it comes to wonder builds and SS parts.

On the note of AI gunning for victory conditions, there is some evidence (anecdotal from my own observation in the PTW debug mode) that AI have some sort of target victory. It may not be very complicated, but simply the "flow like water to the victory condition of least resistance" mantra. I've seen the AI build the UN and then go on to win a vote immediately thereafter in debug. If it wasn't planned, it wouldn't have gotten the votes. And if I recall correctly, it was an overwhelming victory.