Here is the problem, how do I make the ai use the STRATEGY_AMAZONS_DEFAULT I created?

(I look through all the text files, and can't find anything to get the ai to use the stuffs in strategy.txt...except for personality.txt. But when I add the words 'amazons' to the discovery parameters, the game spits out an error something about amazons not a member class of discovery...)

I just heard this i don't even have the game so i can't check it out.if someone sends me the strategy.txt file I'd look over it see what i can do (if you're too engrossed in the game to bother, I don't have it for 7 more days.

Don't flame me if i'm wrong.

For every goal type record in Goals.txt, there is a corresponding entry in one or more of the strategy records in strategies.txt. Each GoalElement specifies (for that particular strategy) what the priority is for performing a particular goal relative to other goals. The priority is sometimes also refered to as the raw priority. Before any units are assigned to a goal, all goals of a particular type are sorted based on their raw_priority modified by any positive or negative bonuses for that goal type from it's Goals.txt record. Only the top "MaxEval" number of goals are ever matched to units. The MaxEval number can be absolute (ie. the best three goals) or relative (ie. two per city, or best four goals if we have two cities). If you increase the MaxEval attribute, you increase the pool of goals that the AI will consider, and usually improve intelligence at the expense of processing speed. If MaxEval is set to 0, then no goals of this type will be performed. The MaxExec field limits the number of a particular goal type that will be performed. This lets you consider the 10 best seige goals, but only actually seige the best two cities so that your troops don't get too spread out.

In general, goals execute from highest to lowest priority. The defense goal type usually has the highest priority so that units will be assigned to defend cities first, and then assigned to seige cities and perform other goals. For example, if the GoalElement for GOAL_ATTACK has a higher priority than for GOAL_SEIGE, then AI units will first try to attack enemy armies, and then with any remaining unassigned units, try to seige enemy cities. However, if two goals have very close raw priorities, then the match priority becomes more important. The match priority is computed based on how good a match a particular army is for a specific goal. In general, the closer an army is to a goal, the better it's match. That way even when seige goals have a higher raw priority, an army right next to an enemy unit will attack it rather than move 20 cells to seige a city.

Hope this brief explaination helps. Although it's a complicated system, with a little work it should be possible for anyone interested enough to tweak and customize.

I have messed around with the Strategie files mainly to get the AI more aggresive.

I found the big problem. The AI needs to be bigger than you to attack. Also the AI needs alot of units to spare. The AI needs higher priority on attack.

I have done the following changes.
1. First the priority of Attack has been lifted in the strategies file.
2. The amount of support was raised

3. The build offence and build defence has been raised defence to same priority as growth (the highest before)
and offence to the one step below. for example 10000 and 9000.

4. The support cost for all middle game units have been lowered. Specilly all defence units halfed the support cost atleast.

5. Added higher bonus to production in diffdb

6. At the Goal attack and Goal siege i added target coldenemy so it will look for opertunites everywere.

7. Lowered distans modifier to 10-25

8. Lowered the force compare numbers some. Not sure if this part is good, some really stupid attacks. (But again thats like how CIV 2 was.

Preliminary Result: Alot more units for the AI and the defence part will quickly be reach and then the AI will build alot of offensive units and they will use them. Looks very promising. My weak cities is attacked.

Conclusion. The AI needs more units, And needs higher priority to attack. The first is the most important part.

If anybody else could try this and see the effect it might solve the problem of AIs not attacking.

/Mathias

Darryl, if you get time, write me up a brief description of the major improvements to AI behavior that you have been able to achieve, and what settings you altered to achieve them.
Wes

Well, I just recently implemented them but so far I have seen the ai attack in stacks of 9 for air and naval units. To do this I set the priority for attack_troops_priority to the highest priority for all the aip files. It seems when other priority's took precedence that the ai would stack very ineffectively, for example you might see a stack of two or three for air and naval units when the explore or seige priority took precedence. Since I set the attack_troops_priority the highest in all aip files it takes cities a lot more effectively and more often.
Also, it seems that adjusting the min_attack ratio and max_attack_ratio to from 9.0 and down(i have 14 different aips for the war settings so I decrease this in each file) tends to have very good results for making the ai more inteligent about where to attack and when. Although I have tested this it is only the attack_troops_priority that seems to really get the ai to stack naval units in 9 a stack.
Also the distance_from_unit as well as the other distance priorities seems to have been interfering with making the ai a tougher opponent. Setting all these priorities to 0 has made the ai attack from farther distances and also made the ai less choosy about the cities it takes. For instance the per_capita modifier would make the ai not take easily taken cities, instead waiting for what appears to be a larger city to come into play. If that larger city doesn't come into play the ai seems pretty stupid and will just pass by or wait??? Crazy, but setting it to 0 has made the ai much more aggressive. I especially enjoyed it when I saw the Japanese attack the US mainland (seeing as my map is 120x240 at first it would only attack it's closest enemies), sending troop transport after transport to the mainland. I have also seen it use the aircraft carriers(but not often, still working on that).There still are some quirky ai behavioral problems going on but hopefully fixable.
Also I have set the num_city_defenders to different integers depending on the aip warsetting. I have randomized the aip files to switch on a random basis. I have created 14 seperate aip files just based on different styles of war to conduct and how many city defenders the ai will prioritize. Anyway, those are the major changes I can think of, sorry about some of the spellings for the priorities, I'm at work right now and I am going by memory.

Darryl states in other letters that increasing the max_eval numbers seems to get the AI to attack more, perhaps because it evaluates more cities and thus finds more opportunities for success.

1. all civs find it necessary to pirate your trade routes every once in a while. this is annoying not only because they do it totally arbitrarily- dosent matter if you're on good terms or not- but also they consider it "ok". sometimes i pirate their trade routes in return and then send proposal that ill stop if they stop - and they always reject! meanwhile his regard would be at "respects you". i just dont understand it... piracy should be something more hostile civs do and other civs should lower their regard towards a pirating nation. also- you should be able to avoid making trade routes through another nation's border- at a cost of more caravans of course. or maybe even plot the whole course yourself...

another thing is how civs value cities so minimally. id offer another civ a size 30 city for some size 1 hamlet they snuck into my borders (so i can then disband it) and they always reject... or if i offer huge cities for something like a peace treaty they reject that too. cities should be more considered much more valuable to the ai... just imagine usa offering New york city to canada!

First. There are alot of things in the files concerning dipolomacy that isn't used. The computer players don't do any diplomacy between themself.
They are almost always at war.

Activision needs to go through the whole diplomacy system.

perhaps, the 2nd aspect of azmel's comment, i.e. the match priority over-riding the raw priority might be skewing the AI into not attacking cities (which is what we want).

In that case, seems like we need to have the AI have ready stacks of tons of offensive units.

To some extent, having an AI that doesn't attack as much may be considered an improvement over earlier AI's in civ-type games.

In the past, I've defeated civilizations that were more powerful than myself by using a "rope-a-dope" strategy. That is I would set up a strong defensive position, then let the AI send wave after wave of attackers at me.

Often, with a combination of defense and counter-attack, I was able to inflict very heavy losses over a long stretch of time upon a powerful AI civilization. This was a resource drain on the powerful civ, and thus over time I was able to catch up or pull ahead of the civ, and eventually go over to the attack myself against this civ.

So, if the AI in CTP2 is not going to spend hundreds of years producing units and throwing them against my strong defensive line, then this might be considered an improvement in the AI's intelligence.

Even on massive maps, the Civs will move, settle, etc.
You have the 'Ghost Civ' problem. Stems from the scenario getting messed up internally while it was being created. Generally, although not always, this comes from not deleting the original settlers before playing with the 'Set Start Loc' options.

I had hoped to create a couple new unique civilisations with their unique units via the government types they can use without removing any strategies the ai is already using...

quote: Originally posted by Matte979 on 12-19-2000 11:57 AM I have messed around with the Strategie files mainly to get the AI more aggresive. /Mathias

Thank you for your research. I've had big problems with the standard AI behavior too.

First Question: Is it possible, to publish your strategies.txt in this forum?

Second Question: Modify the changed txt-files old games too, or must I start a new one?

Can you also ask him how to improve the transportion of units, and the other AI problems we've mentioned?

The strategies file is to big to post here. I can post the first default strategy as mine is configured and you will get the idea what i have changed.

Made some other changes aswell. For example don't like the new diffrent specialists so have removed all but entertainers and scientists.

----
STRATEGY_DEFAULT {

//
// POPULATION ASSIGNMENTS
//

PopAssignmentElement {
// percent of workers after minimums have been achieved that
// should be used as specialists
Specialists 0.1

// Percent of allocation to different specialist types (total = 1.0)
FarmerPercent 0.0
LaborerPercent 0.0
MerchantPercent 0.0
EntertainerPercent 0.3
ScientistPercent 0.7

Top 0.2 ProductionCities
}

PopAssignmentElement {
// percent of workers after minimums have been achieved that
// should be used as specialists
Specialists 0.1

// Percent of allocation to different specialist types (total = 1.0)
FarmerPercent 0.0
LaborerPercent 0.0
MerchantPercent 0.0
EntertainerPercent 0.3
ScientistPercent 0.7

Bottom 0.2 GrowthCities
}

PopAssignmentElement {
// percent of workers after minimums have been achieved that
// should be used as specialists
Specialists 0.1

// Percent of allocation to different specialist types (total = 1.0)
FarmerPercent 0.0
LaborerPercent 0.0
MerchantPercent 0.0
EntertainerPercent 0.3
ScientistPercent 0.7

Default
}

//
// GOVERNMENT SETTING
//

Government GOVERNMENT_TECHNOCRACY
Government GOVERNMENT_VIRTUAL_DEMOCRACY
Government GOVERNMENT_CORPORATE_REPUBLIC
Government GOVERNMENT_DEMOCRACY
Government GOVERNMENT_REPUBLIC
Government GOVERNMENT_MONARCHY
Government GOVERNMENT_TYRANNY

// other governments
// Government GOVERNMENT_ECOTOPIA
// Government GOVERNMENT_VIRTUAL_DEMOCRACY
// Government GOVERNMENT_FASCISM
// Government GOVERNMENT_COMMUNISM
// Government GOVERNMENT_THEOCRACY

//
// WORKDAY, GOLD, FOOD SLIDER SETTINGS (WGF)
//

// set how unhappy our most unhappy city be
MinimumHappiness 73

// set maximum deficit spending percent (ie. spend no more than
// 10% of our savings each turn)
DeficitSpending 0.1

// set maximum percent of gold that should ever be spent on wages to not choke science
MaximumWagePercent 0.25

// try to decrease food
SliderElement { Delta 2 Food }
SliderElement { Delta 1 Production }
SliderElement { Delta 1 Gold }

//
// SCIENCE SETTINGS
//

// percent of gold to put into science
SciencePercent 60

//
// MILITARY READINESS SETTING
//

// maximum percent of production used for military readiness
MaxSupportCostPercent 50

// Peace = 0, Alert = 1, War = 2
ReadinessLevel 2

//
// TERRAIN IMPROVEMENTS
//

// percent of production to put into public works/materials
PublicWorksPercent 30

// amount of public works (materials) to keep in reserve
PublicWorksReserve 100

// only consider building best n tile improvements
MaxEvalTileImprovements 200

// rounds to wait before fixing roads
TimeToFixRoads 10

// rounds to wait before fixing polluted tiles
TimeToFixPollution 20

// stored PW must exceed cost to fix + threshold
FixPollutionThreshold 2000

// bonus for building road tile improvements
RoadUtilityBonus 200

// bonus for building production tile improvements
ImproveProductionBonus 150

// bonus for building growth tile improvements
ImproveGrowthBonus 100

// bonus to apply to cells with goods
ImproveGoodBonus 75

// bonus for growth improvements in smallest 20% of our cities
ImproveSmallCityGrowthBonus 100

// bonus for production improvements in most productive 20% of our cities
ImproveLargeCityProductionBonus 150

// ordered list of terrain improvements that increase growth
ImproveGrowthList IMPROVEMENT_LIST_GROWTH

// ordered list of terrain improvements that increase production
ImproveProductionList IMPROVEMENT_LIST_PRODUCTION

// ordered list of terrain improvements to be randomly spread around
ImproveRandomList IMPROVEMENT_LIST_MISC

//
// GOALS
//

GoalElement { Goal GOAL_DEFEND Priority 500000 MaxEval 2 MaxExec 1 PerCity }
GoalElement { Goal GOAL_SEIGE Priority 510000 MaxEval 50 MaxExec 40 }
GoalElement { Goal GOAL_ATTACK Priority 510000 MaxEval 80 MaxExec 50 }
GoalElement { Goal GOAL_HARASS Priority 455000 MaxEval 50 MaxExec 35 }
GoalElement { Goal GOAL_SETTLE_LAND Priority 900000 MaxEval 25 MaxExec 5 }
GoalElement { Goal GOAL_SETTLE_SEA Priority 900000 MaxEval 25 MaxExec 5 }
GoalElement { Goal GOAL_EXPLORE Priority 7000 MaxEval 15 MaxExec 2 }
GoalElement { Goal GOAL_ENSLAVE_SETTLER Priority 420000 MaxEval 5 MaxExec 3 }
GoalElement { Goal GOAL_SLAVE_RAID Priority 400000 MaxEval 5 MaxExec 3 }
GoalElement { Goal GOAL_CHOKEPOINT Priority -1000 MaxEval 5 MaxExec 1 }
GoalElement { Goal GOAL_PATROL Priority 5000 MaxEval 0 MaxExec 3 }
GoalElement { Goal GOAL_CONVERT_CITY Priority 400000 MaxEval 5 MaxExec 3 }
GoalElement { Goal GOAL_BIOTERROR_CITY Priority 450000 MaxEval 5 MaxExec 3 }
GoalElement { Goal GOAL_NANOATTACK_CITY Priority 450000 MaxEval 5 MaxExec 3 }
GoalElement { Goal GOAL_HARASS_CITY Priority 30500 MaxEval 3 MaxExec 1 }
GoalElement { Goal GOAL_BOMBARD Priority 510000 MaxEval 60 MaxExec 30 }
GoalElement { Goal GOAL_EXPEL Priority 9000 MaxEval 5 MaxExec 3 }
GoalElement { Goal GOAL_PILLAGE Priority 393000 MaxEval 10 MaxExec 5 }
GoalElement { Goal GOAL_PIRATE Priority 393000 MaxEval 10 MaxExec 5 }
GoalElement { Goal GOAL_COUNTER_STEALTH Priority 390000 MaxEval 0 MaxExec 0.1 PerCity }
GoalElement { Goal GOAL_GOODY_HUT Priority 7800 MaxEval 10 MaxExec 3 }
GoalElement { Goal GOAL_PLANT_NUKE Priority 450000 MaxEval 5 MaxExec 3 }
GoalElement { Goal GOAL_CREATE_PARK Priority 450000 MaxEval 5 MaxExec 3 }
GoalElement { Goal GOAL_SOOTHSAY Priority 450000 MaxEval 5 MaxExec 3 }
GoalElement { Goal GOAL_ESTABLISH_EMBASSY Priority 900000 MaxEval 10 MaxExec 3 }
GoalElement { Goal GOAL_FRANCHISING Priority 450000 MaxEval 5 MaxExec 3 }
GoalElement { Goal GOAL_STEAL_TECHNOLOGY Priority 440000 MaxEval 5 MaxExec 3 }
GoalElement { Goal GOAL_INVESTIGATE_CITY Priority 430000 MaxEval 5 MaxExec 3 }
GoalElement { Goal GOAL_INCITE_REVOLUTION Priority 460000 MaxEval 5 MaxExec 3 }
GoalElement { Goal GOAL_INJOIN Priority 450000 MaxEval 5 MaxExec 3 }
GoalElement { Goal GOAL_ASSASSINATE Priority 450000 MaxEval 5 MaxExec 3 }
GoalElement { Goal GOAL_UNDERGROUND_RAILWAY Priority 450000 MaxEval 5 MaxExec 2 }
GoalElement { Goal GOAL_NUKE_CITY Priority 450000 MaxEval 0 MaxExec 0 }
GoalElement { Goal GOAL_WANDER Priority 1 MaxEval 0 MaxExec 1 }
GoalElement { Goal GOAL_SALLY Priority 0 MaxEval 0 MaxExec 1 }
GoalElement { Goal GOAL_REFORM Priority 450000 MaxEval 1 MaxExec 0.5 PerCity}
GoalElement { Goal GOAL_SUE_FRANCHISE Priority 450000 MaxEval 1 MaxExec 0.5 PerCity}
GoalElement { Goal GOAL_RETREAT Priority -300000 MaxEval 1 MaxExec 1 PerCity}
GoalElement { Goal GOAL_DESTROY_ENDGAME Priority 450000 MaxEval 20 MaxExec 5 }
GoalElement { Goal GOAL_PROTECT_ENDGAME Priority 460000 MaxEval 30 MaxExec 15 }

// multiplied by #rounds to target
DistanceModifierFactor -10

// number of armies to try and disband units from per round
DisbandArmyCount 3

// minimum distance between settled cities
// (eg. new cities must be founded atleast 2 cells from nearest cities collection border)
MinSettleDistance 4

// cells with settle scores below this threshold will not be used
MinSettleScore 600

//
// BUILD LISTS
//

// Scaled bonus (#turns) to reduce the estimated time to rush buy in most threatened city
// used when deciding what city to rush buy in
RushBuyThreatBonus 10

// Percent of gold expenses last turn to keep in reserve when rush buying
RushBuyReservePercent 2.0

// Percent of civilization support dedicated to units
UnitSupportPercent 0.50

// Unit Percents must total to 1 (100%)
OffensiveUnitsPercent 0.20
DefensiveUnitsPercent 0.30
RangedUnitsPercent 0.20
SeaUnitsPercent 0.15
AirUnitsPercent 0.15

// Number of special units that should be built
SettlerUnitsCount 2
SeaTransportUnitsCount 6
AirTransportUnitsCount 2
SpecialUnitsCount 6

// Do not certain items in cities where if it takes too many turns
MaxSettlerBuildTurns 30
MaxUnitBuildTurns 20
MaxWonderBuildTurns 40

// maximum percent of conventional units to build before building
// special units of specified type
BuildTransportProductionLevel 0.25
BuildSettlerProductionLevel 0.25

// Types of standard units that should be built
OffensiveUnitList UNIT_BUILD_LIST_OFFENSE
DefensiveUnitList UNIT_BUILD_LIST_DEFENSE
RangedUnitList UNIT_BUILD_LIST_RANGED
SeaUnitList UNIT_BUILD_LIST_SEA
AirUnitList UNIT_BUILD_LIST_AIR

// Types of special units that should be built
SettlerUnitList UNIT_BUILD_LIST_LAND_SETTLER
SeaTransportUnitList UNIT_BUILD_LIST_SEA_TRANSPORT
AirTransportUnitList UNIT_BUILD_LIST_AIR_TRANSPORT
SpecialUnitList UNIT_BUILD_LIST_SPECIAL
FreightUnitList UNIT_BUILD_LIST_FREIGHT

// minimum number of units to keep in cities as a garrison
OffensiveGarrisonCount 1
DefensiveGarrisonCount 1
RangedGarrisonCount 1

// For each city with an empty build queue, build from
// first sequence that applies

BuildListSequenceElement {
Priority 10000
BuildListSequence BUILD_LIST_SEQUENCE_GROWTH
Bottom 0.2
GrowthCities
Advice BUILD_GROWTH_ADVICE
}

BuildListSequenceElement {
Priority 9000
BuildListSequence BUILD_LIST_SEQUENCE_PRODUCTION
Bottom 0.2
ProductionCities
Advice BUILD_PRODUCTION_ADVICE
}

BuildListSequenceElement {
Priority 6000
BuildListSequence BUILD_LIST_SEQUENCE_GOLD
Bottom 0.2
CommerceCities
Advice BUILD_GOLD_ADVICE
}

BuildListSequenceElement {
Priority 8000
BuildListSequence BUILD_LIST_SEQUENCE_OFFENSE
Top 0.2
ThreatenedCities
Advice BUILD_OFFENSE_ADVICE
}

BuildListSequenceElement {
Priority 8000
BuildListSequence BUILD_LIST_SEQUENCE_SCIENCE
Top 0.1
ProductionCities
Advice BUILD_SCIENCE_ADVICE
}

BuildListSequenceElement {
Priority 4000
BuildListSequence BUILD_LIST_SEQUENCE_WONDERS
Top 0.1
ProductionCities
Advice BUILD_WONDERS_ADVICE
}

BuildListSequenceElement {
Priority 9000
BuildListSequence BUILD_LIST_SEQUENCE_DEFENSE
Bottom 0.2
PowerCities
Advice BUILD_DEFENSE_ADVICE
}

BuildListSequenceElement {
Priority 6000
BuildListSequence BUILD_LIST_SEQUENCE_HAPPINESS
Bottom 0.2
HappyCities
Advice BUILD_HAPPINESS_ADVICE
}

BuildListSequenceElement {
Priority 2000
BuildListSequence BUILD_LIST_SEQUENCE_DEFAULT
Default
Advice BUILD_DEFAULT_ADVICE
}

//
// ADVANCE LIST
//

Research ADVANCE_LIST_DEFAULT
StopResearch ADVANCE_LIST_STOP_RESEARCH

//
// DIPLOMACY
//

// priority for fear motivations
FearInvasion 1000
FearCityDefense 1100
FearPiracy 900
FearScienceRank 800
FearMilitaryRank 800
FearTradeRank 800
FearPollution 900

// priority for desire motivations
DesireAttack 800
DesireGold 900
DesireScience 900
DesireMakeFriend 1500
DesireEnlistFriend 1500
//
// TRADE
//

// only accumulate count of piracy if it occurs within
// memory of last piracy
PiracyMemoryTurns 3

// number of piracy events to accumulate before we kill the route
MaxPiracyEvents 3

//
// FORCE MATCHING
//

// AttackMatch - ratio of army's attack strength to target's defense strength
// DefenseMatch - ratio of army's defense strength to target's attack strength
// RangedMatch - ratio of army's ranged strength to target's ranged strength
// BombardMatch - ratio of army's bombard strength to target's bombard strength
// ValueMatch - ratio of army's value to target's value

Offensive {
AttackMatch 0.6
DefenseMatch 0.2
RangedMatch 0.5
BombardMatch 0.0
ValueMatch 0.6
}

Defensive {
AttackMatch 0.2
DefenseMatch 0.6
RangedMatch 0.2
BombardMatch 0.6
ValueMatch 0.7
}

Harass {
AttackMatch 0.6
DefenseMatch 0.3
RangedMatch 0.6
BombardMatch 0.0
ValueMatch 0.4
}

StealthAttack {
AttackMatch 1.2
DefenseMatch 0.0
RangedMatch 0.0
BombardMatch 0.0
ValueMatch 1.1
}

Bombard {
AttackMatch 0.0
DefenseMatch 0.8
RangedMatch 0.0
BombardMatch 1.1
ValueMatch 0.0
}

Special {
// no force matching for special attacks
AttackMatch 0.0
DefenseMatch 0.0
RangedMatch 0.0
BombardMatch 0.0
ValueMatch 0.0
}
}

What I would really like is if someone would go through each flag, and explain 'exactly' what it pertains to and does, and how the negative sign affects the AI's decision. 90% of the time, these are pretty self-evident, but it's that other 10% that always seems to be the crucial part.

GOAL_DEFEND {
ExecuteIncrementally
NoTransport

SquadClass:CanAttack
SquadClass:CanDefend

TargetType:City
TargetOwner:Self

Execute ORDER_MOVE

ThreatBonus 1000
EnemyValueBonus 0
AlliedValueBonus 1000
PowerBonus -100
DistanceToHomeBonus 0
DistanceToEnemyBonus 0
ChokePointBonus 250
UnexploredBonus -999999
ObsoleteArmyBonus -500
TreaspassingArmyBonus 0

ThreatenType:None
ThreatenBonus 0

ForceMatch efensive
}

GOAL_SEIGE {
RallyFirst

SquadClass:CanAttack
SquadClass:CanDefend
SquadClass:HasZoc
SquadClass:CanCaptureCity

TargetType:City
TargetOwner:HotEnemy

Execute ORDER_ATTACK

ThreatBonus 500
EnemyValueBonus -250
AlliedValueBonus 1000
PowerBonus 500
DistanceToHomeBonus 0
DistanceToEnemyBonus 0
ChokePointBonus 500
UnexploredBonus -999999
ObsoleteArmyBonus 100
TreaspassingArmyBonus 0

ThreatenType estroyCity
ThreatenBonus 5000

ForceMatch:Offensive

TargetProtectionWonder WONDER_THE_FORBIDDEN_CITY
}

GOAL_ATTACK {
RallyFirst

SquadClass:CanAttack

TargetType:AttackUnit
TargetType:SpecialUnit
TargetOwner:HotEnemy

Execute ORDER_ATTACK

ThreatBonus 100
EnemyValueBonus -250
AlliedValueBonus 1500
PowerBonus 500
DistanceToHomeBonus 0
DistanceToEnemyBonus 0
ChokePointBonus 50
UnexploredBonus -999999
ObsoleteArmyBonus 100
TreaspassingArmyBonus 0

ThreatenType estroyCity
ThreatenBonus 5000

ForceMatch:Offensive

TargetProtectionWonder WONDER_THE_FORBIDDEN_CITY
}

GOAL_SALLY {
IsSally
NoTransport

SquadClass:CanAttack

TargetType:AttackUnit
TargetOwner:HotEnemy

Execute ORDER_ATTACK

ThreatBonus 0
EnemyValueBonus 0
AlliedValueBonus 0
PowerBonus 100
DistanceToHomeBonus 0
DistanceToEnemyBonus 0
ChokePointBonus 100
UnexploredBonus -999999
ObsoleteArmyBonus 0
TreaspassingArmyBonus 0

ThreatenType:None
ThreatenBonus 0

ForceMatch:Offensive
}

GOAL_ESTABLISH_EMBASSY {
NeedsEscort

SquadClass:Special

TargetType:City
TargetOwner:Ally
TargetOwner:Neutral
TargetOwner:NoContact

Execute ORDER_ESTABLISH_EMBASSY

// just want to establish embassy at closest city.
ThreatBonus 0
EnemyValueBonus 0
AlliedValueBonus 0
PowerBonus 0
DistanceToHomeBonus -1
DistanceToEnemyBonus 1
ChokePointBonus 0
UnexploredBonus -1500
ObsoleteArmyBonus 0
TreaspassingArmyBonus 0

ThreatenType:None
ThreatenBonus 0

The game is not yet out in the UK so I won't be able to get it for another week or two. I'd really appreciate it if someone would e-mail me the most important AI files; this looks very interesting.

Thanks,

Peter

Oh one more thing that pisses me off! When another civ pirates my trade route (which they all do every now and then) I tried sending a battleship or something to tear their pirating ship apart... and guess what happens: that nation declares war and under the intelligence report it says "this nation is incesed about your unprovoked attack"... unprovoked?!? The problem is this diplomacy is a half-assed job and it shouldn't be up to us to learn how to edit it so it's playable and not frustrating. The least activision could do is offer comprehensive documentation on how to edit this stuff. SLIC looks real easy- it's just you need to know all the variables and classes.

I have no idea if that is a well known fact or not so forgive me if it is but to increase the performance and the combat capacity of the AI the first thing on you're todo list should be to increase the Production, Gold and Science bonuses it gets.

As it is the AI gets 0 (that's right ZERO) bonus on those 3 things onless it's already 25% weaker than the human player (which means that it's already dead aniway).

The production bonus is particularly important because the AI can do much less than a human with the same ressources and it doesn't have much left to build an offensive army with.

Why as Activision shipped the game with those difficulty settings is beyond me, at first i tought the AI was very bad but once the settings are correctly set it's...still bad but much better.

Also what I would call the Gold Bug (the player end up with so much that it's hard to spend it all) is partly because of game balance and partly because they didn't set the Wages Right, medium wages is 4 instead of 12 and maximum wages is 6 gold instead of 20, as it is you should always pay you're peoples maximum wages because it cost almost nothing and it gives you extra happiness.

MAX_HUMAN_ADVANCES--------3
MAX_AI_ADVANCES ----------6
HUMAN_SCIENCE_BONUS--------0.4 # % amount to add to advance cost for the player
HUMAN_FOOD_BONUS-------- -0.2 # % amount to add to food collected for the player

oh another silly flaw im noticing- the trade routes dont take tile improvements into consideration- if you have a railroad going from one town to another the trade route will still establish the easiest route through the unaffected terrain even when the RR would obviously be much faster. anyone else notice this?

-----------------------------------------------------
UNIT_WAGES 1.0 # what does 1 notch mean
BASE_WAGES 4.0 # gold per person when slider is zero
-----------------------------------------------------

Wich means that the Wages at the middle of the slider is 4 gold and that each tick on one side or the other is worth 1 gold and for example

UNIT_WAGES 4.0 # what does 1 notch mean
BASE_WAGES 12.0 # gold per person when slider is zero

would gives possible wages of 4, 8, 12, 16 and 20.

I am not sure I understand you're comments about handicapping the AI, i can tell you that personnaly i hate it when the AI start with a lot of stuff because i feel it unbalance the early game and everything becomes a catch-up race BUT i think bonusses through out the game are good and necessary.