try the frenzy ai, as a solution.

Although it's very odd, it does not really affect gameplay because there is no way for the AI to build enough obelisks to make the wonder. So I just continue playing. The only problem is the AI devoting resources to the Gaia Controller instead of other things. Oh well.

If anyone knows why this would happen, please let me know. As magma12 says, the computer obtains the pre-req advance for Gaia but does not have ANY of the pre-req's for THAT advance. Very strange.

Although it's very odd, it does not really affect gameplay because there is no way for the AI to build enough obelisks to make the wonder. So I just continue playing. The only problem is the AI devoting resources to the Gaia Controller instead of other things. Oh well.

If anyone knows why this would happen, please let me know. As magma12 says, the computer obtains the pre-req advance for Gaia but does not have ANY of the pre-req's for THAT advance. Very strange.

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Author of Diplomod. The mod to fix diplomacy.

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Author of Diplomod. The mod to fix diplomacy.

The human ability to react, change tactics and have several different options available is something the AI programming isn't able to compete with right now.

How often in Civ-genre games have you tied an enemy down on one of their borders and got them funneling units to the front like mad, and then crushed them with a tank-based army hitting them from behind ?

But with the production adjustment in the diffDB file, that helps the AI have a bonus of whatever you want. Certainly not the ideal, but workable, and it was a good workaround.

As for unit selection, there are line of type in the strategies.txt file that breaks out the percentage of what the AI will build, so maybe tweaking those in conjuction with some creative relabeling of unit designations (calling a Knight a defensive instead of an attack or flanker unit in the units.txt file) will cause the AI to build more of them. You can also designate a higher level of devoted production for support costs in that file, allowing the AI to field an even bigger army without disbanding older troops, and raise the level of what the AI will tolerate for being in an 'At War' status. But these have to be balanced with the AI needing to maintain a growing infrastructure so it also does not find itself losing the tech war in the long term.

The one thing I would like to see fixed is the purely defensive stacking of the AI, especailly when faced with enemy units. I've seen 30-40 units parked outside of a city that I was attacking, and I was able to whittle down those forces without being counterattacked, before tackling the city. The AI had me seriously outgunned in numbers and could of taken out my stack if it employed a 1-2 punch, but it didn't do so. So I attacked, pulled back a bit and kept sending a steady stream of reinforcements.

Ultimately it comes down to playing style. I'm a controlled expansionist meaning i dont go out to conquer the world from day 1. I build some scouts, a garrison, then start on buildings. I build settlers (which are still expensive) when I find strategic or highly productive locations and I only use force when my borders need additional room or I've been attacked or encroached upon. I figure the results have spoken for themselves as I'm usually on the defensive until at least 500bc and usually much later. The AIs will beat me to about 75% - 80% of the wonders and feats. i've been down to my last city as late as 200ad (didnt take the lead in that game until 1970s). had multi-ship ai navies attack me and been invaded (8 units, 2 of which were settlers) via naval transport. I've seen civs fight long pitched wars among themselves (in one case the barbarians finished off the one civs last 2 cities, hows that for realistic!). All this without any SLIC coding.

Even with these results, the AI still does whacky things and there are too many flags in too many files for me to figure out what each one does on its own so I'm hoping that others will lend their knowledge

Also, I put in special code so if it sees it's Omni on the other side of the screen it won't even give him maps.

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Author of Diplomod. The mod to fix diplomacy.

Players get together on boards like this to share thoughts, tactics, strategies. We have the benefit of learning from everyone else that is playing the game. We adapt at an exponential pace. The best an AI can do is 'adapt' to one player's tactics.

Game companies could look at these kind of forums and then change the AI routines, but no company would keep spending the money required to do so. The game has been released and that is pretty much it.

The only place we might see some change on this front is in the massively multiplayer on-line games. In that situation, the game company is constantly monitoring and changing the game. Adapting the AI to the emerging player strategies might happen there. In the offline world, though , I fear that we are pretty much out-of-luck.

quote: Originally posted by Apollon on 02-14-2001 01:35 AM For Diplomod 3.2, it's easy to install, just follow the instructions in the readme's.

Hi Apollon,

From another software challenged person, what tool does
one use to edit the 'script.slc' file in the diplomod
instructions.

Everything else is easy because there all .txt files

Certainly not realistic, but the computer works with numbers, not realism.

One thing I discovered in experimentation is that range factors have to start at 15. A range factor of less than that will put those units on the front lines, so if you tweak numbers, you have to take that into account.

But here's an example of what I did in diplomacy.txt

The original:

ProposalElement {
Proposal PROPOSAL_TREATY_ALLIANCE
SendPriority 100
AcceptPriority 110
RejectPriority 100
SenderRegardResult 200
ReceiverRegardResult 200
ViolationRegardCost -100
ViolationTrustCost -30
}

The moded:

ProposalElement {
Proposal PROPOSAL_TREATY_ALLIANCE
SendPriority 200
AcceptPriority 200
RejectPriority 50
SenderRegardResult 250
ReceiverRegardResult 250
ViolationRegardCost -300
ViolationTrustCost -50
}

As I said, an extreme. But the increased priorities made the AI consider them. By increasing accept priority to the same, it makes the AI accept more alliance requests, as lowering reject makes it not want to reject it. The violation costs make the AI want to hold onto it a little longer. For example, with a -50 trust, by violating an alliance, the other party is going to take a LONG LONG time before it trusts the violator again. More in line to how I think.

I'll try and fine-tune the diplo a bit more tonight and let you know tomorrow.

But here's an example of what I did in diplomacy.txt

The original:

ProposalElement {
Proposal PROPOSAL_TREATY_ALLIANCE
SendPriority 100
AcceptPriority 110
RejectPriority 100
SenderRegardResult 200
ReceiverRegardResult 200
ViolationRegardCost -100
ViolationTrustCost -30
}

The moded:

ProposalElement {
Proposal PROPOSAL_TREATY_ALLIANCE
SendPriority 200
AcceptPriority 200
RejectPriority 50
SenderRegardResult 250
ReceiverRegardResult 250
ViolationRegardCost -300
ViolationTrustCost -50
}

As I said, an extreme. But the increased priorities made the AI consider them. By increasing accept priority to the same, it makes the AI accept more alliance requests, as lowering reject makes it not want to reject it. The violation costs make the AI want to hold onto it a little longer. For example, with a -50 trust, by violating an alliance, the other party is going to take a LONG LONG time before it trusts the violator again. More in line to how I think.

I'll try and fine-tune the diplo a bit more tonight and let you know tomorrow.

------------------
Author of Diplomod. The mod to fix diplomacy.

------------------
Author of Diplomod. The mod to fix diplomacy.

Another thing I recently noticed. They ask me money for improvements.

STRATEGY_BARBARIAN {

// must inherit from default
Inherit STRATEGY_DEFAULT

STRATEGY_BARBARIAN {

// must inherit from default
Inherit STRATEGY_DEFAULT

I've bumped up the Barb setting in the risk file at about the same level as what you have, though I do not have the goody hut chance set so high, and also bumping up the setting to make them a problem for longer in the game

What I've found to happen is that in just about every test I've run, the Barbs manage to take out a civ early. Then they continually crank out military from their cities they have captured. If the Barb civ is far away from me, then they become a thorn in the AI's side. From a personal preference, I would rather have the original civ in place and the Barbs be an ongoing irritant, but not to the point of having the Barbs overrrun everyone.

On the flipside, I like the fact that I continually have to keep my cities well-defended, as they are constantly popping up. And when they attack a city, even if they lose, they often reduce the pop of that city, setting me back a bit.

What I may do is push back the starting time for barbs from the default setting of 20, allowing the AI civs a chance to establish themselves. Any opinions on this?

A question - how much percentage-wise did you reduce the cost of units? In my setup, I went in the opposite direction for units cost, bumping them up a small amount. (but this is because of the AI boost in DiffDB and the fact that in my early game, there are only military and settlers to build on the tougher levels, as improvements are pushed back) I may have to reverse that trend.

Swiching AI build priorities in the AdvanceList.txt file should help - you may have to determine just what is effective for the AI to build though (and once again, this is a subjective matter), and that may mean having it build something first that goes against its personality. (Having a economic personality go for military advances first, and bump up the production support tolerance levels too)

Could you email me your risks.txt file and your diffDB.txt file to look at?

However, even though I haven't read many of the strategy posts, and I haven't beaten the civ2 and c:ctp AIs at anything beyond 'Prince', I'm still finding that the CtP2 AI is easier to beat. And it isn't that I'm using any fancy strategy, just doing my own thing and attacking cities when they bother me. So there's definitely something lacking here.