22-11-2003 10:42									#1
	C3C flavors can make the AI smarter! Got spare money?

At last, we can now make Religious AI civs beeline for Monarchy, Scientific AI civs grab Literature ASAP, Seafaring civs build curraghs (maybe) and other trait-specific science and build decisions come true!


The new C3C feature of 'flavors' in the editor can associate each civilization, building, and technology with a flavor (up to 7 flavors). So if we create a flavor for Religious civs, and another flavor for Scientific civs, and another flavor for Seafaring civs, et cetera, we can get different behavior for each trait!!!

Can you say smarter AI for the AU mod?

We humans have developed some civilization-specific strategies. Besides what I mentioned above, would you care to brainstorm with me about ways to put these 7 flavors to good use in the epic game? None of them are currently used.

	22-11-2003 11:18									#2
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Can you use these flavors to specify civilizations to focus on building specific classes of wonders (agricultural, industrious attributes...) or just specific buildings? I'm surprised that these 'flavors' weren't allowed before C3C or even included in the core epic game as it truly helps civs to be distinctive!

-donZappo

	22-11-2003 11:36									#3
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You have to specify each wonder with its own flavor (can't do classes of Wonders), but you can give all Agricultural Civs and all Agricultural Wonders the 'Agricultural' flavor.

Each flavor has a percentage association with each other flavor. So Flavor 1 can have a 50% association with Flavor 2, for example. That means that Wonder with Flavor 1 is half as likely to get built by a civilization of Flavor 2.

Before moving forward with this idea, we would have to test and see what happens if a technology or building has two flavors. Do the percentages multiply, or does one of them get chosen? So if a building has both flavor 2 and flavor 3, (and say flavor 2 and 3 both have a 50% association with flavor 1), is a civilization in flavor 1 50% or 25% less likely to build that building?

I'll be away from civ for a whole week, but maybe some kind volunteer can do some tests in the meantime?

	22-11-2003 18:35									#4
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If it is in the editor does it imply that the developers have used/will be using the feature?

	22-11-2003 19:46									#5
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I won't have Conquests until after the Holidays, but I have to say that this idea, alexman, is incredibly exciting to me.

I just want to make sure that I understand correctly... each Civ can have one flavor, so a decison would have to be made for each Civ as to which of its traits gets flavored. Correct?

Can flavors have negative modifiers? Can we make certain buildings less desirable as well as more to certain nations?

Also, I haven't followed the AU discussions much lately (in part becaue my PtW CD broke) so I know little about the new panels and upcoming games, but I see a nice set of flavor courses as being lots of fun.

Brilliant thinking, Alexman.

	22-11-2003 20:35									#6
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Each civ can actually have one or more flavors, and the same for techs and buildings.

Flavors can be only negative modifiers, but I'm sure there are ways of getting around this, if only we knew how multiple flavors affect the AI.

Again, some testing (or clarification from Breakaway) is needed as to what the AI does when multiple flavors are involved. (I can't test this before a week from now)

Flavors are already used in the Fall of Rome and Medieval Scenarios, but in those cases each civ, building, and tech, has at most one flavor.

	22-11-2003 20:54									#7
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quote: Originally posted by alexman Flavors can be only negative modifiers

Did you mean positive?

	22-11-2003 21:07									#8
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No, I mean 'negative', as in they can't make the AI want to research something more than if it didn't have any flavors - only less or equal.

Say flavor 1 has a P percent relationship to flavor 2. P can be anything between 0 and 100.
If P = 0, a civ with flavor 2 will never reseach a tech in flavor 1.
If P = 100, a civ with flavor 2 will research a tech in flavor 1 with the same priority as if the tech had no flavor at all.
If P = 50, a civ with flavor 2 us half as likely to research a tech in flavor 1 than if the tech had no flavor at all.

	22-11-2003 21:22									#9
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Hmm... this definately holds a lot of potential. I'll try and take some time this week to start tinkering with them, but with the holiday coming up, it might take a little longer

	22-11-2003 21:35									#10
	Re: C3C flavors can make the AI smarter! Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

quote: Originally posted by alexman At last, we can now make Religious AI civs beeline for Monarchy, Scientific AI civs grab Literature ASAP

You could do that before, using unbuildable UUs.

If this is really a negative effect then balancing it to get a positive one is going to be tricky.

I doubt flavours work in the way they say so testing obviously going to be a good idea and it might not even be practical.

	22-11-2003 21:40									#11
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Yes, your unbuildable UUs was a great idea.

However, it didn't have much flexibility in the amount of value you can add to techs, and it didn't affect buildings, only techs.

	22-11-2003 22:21									#12
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I wondered how long it would take alexman to start a discussion on how flavors might enhance the AU Mod. Now awaiting word on how effective the new editor tool is at enhancing AI gameplay.

I suppose, alexman, that you're canceling your week away to instead explore the joys and possibilities of "flavors?" And Nor Me has, presumably, now acquired a copy of C3C?

Catt

	22-11-2003 22:50									#13
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No. Pre-ordering it is not enough.

	23-11-2003 03:08									#14
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quote: Originally posted by alexman No, I mean 'negative', as in they can't make the AI want to research something more than if it didn't have any flavors - only less or equal. Say flavor 1 has a P percent relationship to flavor 2. P can be anything between 0 and 100. If P = 0, a civ with flavor 2 will never reseach a tech in flavor 1. If P = 100, a civ with flavor 2 will research a tech in flavor 1 with the same priority as if the tech had no flavor at all. If P = 50, a civ with flavor 2 us half as likely to research a tech in flavor 1 than if the tech had no flavor at all.

Got it. Thank you for the clarification.

Nor Me is right about the balancing being more tricky, with negative modifications only. But, hey... I have a lot of faith in you guys.

Must get Conquests....

	23-11-2003 03:26									#15
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Wow, this could be very cool. Ultimately, we could HUGELY increase the chances of AI civs (given the right environment) developing into KAIs.

	25-11-2003 07:23									#16
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Alright, I've figured out how multiple flavors work. If any percentage is needed to be taken into account, it adds them all up and averages them to determine what's going to happen. Here's some examples of how it would work:

The Wheel is set to have Flavor 1.
Flavor 4 is set at 80% to Flavor 1.
Flavor 3 is set at 10% to Flavor 1.
If Greece has both Flavor 4 and Flavor 3, when taking into account what initial tech to research, the odds of researching The Wheel will be diminished by 45% [(80+10)/2] after, I believe, all other considerations are taken into account first.

The Wheel is set to have Flavor 1 and Flavor 2 associated with it.
Flavor 3 is set at 80% to Flavor 1 and 20% to Flavor 2.
Flavor 4 is set at 10% to Flavor 1 and 50% to Flavor 2.
In this case, since Greece has Flavor 3 and 4 there is a lot more to take into account. They would have a 40% diminished chance of researching the wheel. [80+20+50+10)/4]

Basically, you just have to find out any and all flavors that would be triggered by any such event and throw that number into the pool to be averaged with all the other numbers. There are a lot of different combinations of how things could work, but hopefully those two examples illustrate it pretty well. By the way, I have a lot data on this since I tried a number of incorrect hypotheses before this simple answer dawned on me. If anybody really wants to see it I can compile and post it. It seems relatively easy to incorporate this into the game since it's just based on averages, but changing the likelihood of research by just a couple of percentage points has a very profound effect upon the results. I can't count how many times I saw the AIs in my debug game research the same tech every time without giving me a more useful statistical variation. Heh.

	25-11-2003 07:40									#17
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A lot of the conquests also use flavors. Maybe the authors of those scenarios would care to comment on why they chose what values they did and why.

	26-11-2003 00:20									#18
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Good work, donZappo! Thanks!
I would be interested to know more about how you came up with those percentages when I get back next week.

So what happens if a civ has no flavors but a tech has a flavor? I'm guessing that the flavor has no effect because it looks like if a civ has a flavor but a tech doesn't, then the flavor has no effect (from the conquests).

	26-11-2003 03:29									#19
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Are these flavors already incorporated into the epic game, or is this editor-specific?

The flavors don't have names? Pralines and Cream, for example? Are there "flavor blocs" akin to the Civilizational bloc?

oh nevermind, I'm too tired to list the jokes associated with the concept of flavors.

But are they in the epic game?

	26-11-2003 10:47									#20
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I'd be more than happy to share the results with you when you get back, Alexman! I'm going to be out of town myself until Sunday night so I wouldn't be able to provide the stats any sooner anyways. Also, I'm assuming that if a civ doesn't have any flavors associated with it that it doesn't matter at all how many flavors a tech has. That would be something easy to check out, though, since flavors have a very noticeable impact upon the game.

And Yahweh Sabaoth... the flavors are not incorporated at all into the epic game. You can rename the flavors anything you want, though! If you want the germans to have a hankering for Pralines and Cream, no problem!

	29-11-2003 03:40									#21
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I have Conquests, and tried the Middle Ages scenario conquest. This has flavors, I played one of the christian flavors, which are also all millitary religious trait civs. I haven't seen much of the tecnologies researched in it, but the germans did research a christian tech, though I dont know if the other civs will research the arabic/nordic trees as they aren't needed for tech progression.

I would still like these flavors to be able to effect actual game abilities.. so if the tech matches your civs flavor, you research it in half the time for a bonus.

You can also start each civ with a special Tech with age set to none, this should allow separate tech trees which only certain civs can research. Together with flavors this would allow very differeing AI research.

	29-11-2003 06:41									#22
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quote: Originally posted by Yahweh Sabaoth Are these flavors already incorporated into the epic game, or is this editor-specific? The flavors don't have names? Pralines and Cream, for example? Are there "flavor blocs" akin to the Civilizational bloc? oh nevermind, I'm too tired to list the jokes associated with the concept of flavors. But are they in the epic game?

They're not in the default epic game, but can be added to mods via the editor. You can change the names of the flavours from the default "Flavour 1". It's a pity that they can't be used to increase the odds of the AI researching a given tech or build a given improvement.

	01-12-2003 05:50									#23
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OK, I was thinking again about the best way to use flavors in the epic game to improve the AI.

Scientific flavor: All scientific civilizations. Beelining for Literature in Ancient age, and for Education in Medieval Age. Scientific flavor techs:
- Alphabet
- Writing
- Literature
- Monotheism
- Theology
- Education
- Computers

Religious Flavor: All Religious civilizations. Beeline for Monarchy in Ancient Age, since with Ceremonial Burial they need one fewer tech to reach it, and they can quickly switch out of it once they eventually obtain the Republic. Give the Oracle a Religious flavor so other civs don't go after it so eagerly. Beeline for Theology in Medieval Age. Religious flavor techs:
- Mysticism
- Polytheism
- Monarchy
- Monotheism
- Theology
Religious flavor building:
- The Oracle

Seafaring Flavor: All Seafaring civs. Aim for techs that allow new ships and coastal installations. Seafaring flavor techs:
- Writing
- Pottery
- Map Making
- Monotheism
- Theology
- Education
- Astronomy
- Navigation
- Magnetism
- Steam Power
- Ironclads
- Mass Production
- Computers
- Miniaturization

Militaristic Flavor: All militaristic civs. Emphasize Chivalry and beeline for Military Tradition. Flight for cheap airports. Map Making is already a high AI priority, and so are the techs that allow ancient units. Militaristic flavor techs:
- Feudalism
- Chivalry
- Engineering
- Invention
- Gunpowder
- Chemistry
- Metallurgy
- Mil. Tradition
- Flight
- Ecology
- Synthetic Fibers

Generic Flavor: Since we can't make techs and buildings more valuable, the thing to do would be to create a 'generic' flavor, which would be assigned to every civ that doesn't have any of the other flavors. This flavor would also be assigned to all techs that don't already have an assigned flavor. The relationship of the generic flavor to all other flavors, including itself should be 50%. If all techs have 50% less value, they will all actually have the same chance of being researched as before, so that makes it possible to give non-generic flavor techs an extra value (anything above 50%) to non-generic flavor civs.

I originally thought that flavors could be assigned to units, but I see now (after being away for a week) that they can't, so I don't think it's possible to encourage the AI to build more curraghs, for example.

Anyway, that's my first take at using flavors in the epic game. Any other ideas or suggestions? By the way, there are ways of making the AI improve its research selection (see the AU mod for details), but here we care only about civ- or trait-specific research and building choices.

	01-12-2003 07:20									#24
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Alexman

Great thinking but , according to Warpstorm once the AI decides not to research a tech it will never do so. I suspect this would cause problems if it decided not to research a required Generic tech.

	01-12-2003 09:22									#25
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Hmmm, that doesn't sound right.

I just gave flavor 1 to the Egyptians and to all ancient techs, and flavor 1 a 50% relationship with flavor 1, and the isolated Egyptians proceeded to research the entire ancient age tech tree in my debug test.

	01-12-2003 11:49									#26
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Just got back in myself and had a quick comment before looking more into this tomorrow. We're going to have to be careful when assigning the flavors to specific civs. I don't think we want to make it so that each civ researches a given tech 100% of the time as this could be exploited pretty easily by a human player. If you know that your opponent is going straight to Literature while skipping bronze working, then you're going to have a pretty easy time overwhelming them with even a basic archer rush. It seems like we should be able to make it so that they're more likely to research a tech when given the choice; not going straight to that tech, and not always doing it every time. It's pretty easy to implement them to do this if you spend some time fine-tuning the flavor percentages.

	01-12-2003 18:02									#27
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There's a difference between bee-lining in research and getting techs through trade. You may know that a giv is heading straight for monarchy, but that gives it some pretty good trade bait to get other ancient era techs. Or is tihis going to be more of a problem with the reduced contact civs have in C3C?

	01-12-2003 18:59									#28
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Like your first pass at this, alexman.

One thing I'd like to see is something to prod some of the AI Civs toward Scientific Method. I always get there first, and thus always build ToE (and then Hoover), thus ensuring my tech lead for the remainder of the game.

	01-12-2003 19:57									#29
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donZappo, I thought that a 100% relationship between flavors just means that the AI is as likely to research a flavor tech as an unflavored tech. (so the tech gets 100% of its original value).

Am I wrong? If 100% means that the AI researches the tech 100% of the time, what happens if there are two techs at 100%? From my small debug test (giving everything a 50% value), I saw that the AI researched techs in the order it would if there were no flavors at all.

	01-12-2003 19:59									#30
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quote: Originally posted by alexman Hmmm, that doesn't sound right. I just gave flavor 1 to the Egyptians and to all ancient techs, and flavor 1 a 50% relationship with flavor 1, and the isolated Egyptians proceeded to research the entire ancient age tech tree in my debug test.

Awesome news.