06-11-2000 03:05									#1
	What does the AI know? Enter the AD-FREE zone

With all of the talk of AI improvement, I was wondering... currently, what does the AI know to do? The reason is that its a little difficult to determine what needs to be improve or what CAN be improved without knowledge of what is.

For example:

• Do they know to target a city's resource tiles?
  
  
• Do they know to target larger cities?
  
  
• Do they know to target more powerful enemy attack units when possible?
  
  
• Do they know the advantages of certain terrain for defense?
  
  
• Do they take resources into consideration when constructing cities?
  
  
• Does the AI take another civilization's power into account when negotiating? I know it makes all of those comments when your powerful, but do they know to use more tact with the powerful guys?
  
  
• Does the AI know why it builds tile and city improvements?
  
  
• Is the AI "aware" of the effects of government and happiness?
  
  
• What other things does the AI know to do that we might not be aware of?
  

	06-11-2000 04:37									#2
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What you mean!?!?

If you mean what firaxis should improve on the AI, then I totally agree with you. they need tons of improvement.

	06-11-2000 05:23									#3
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The post was meant to get a better idea of what the AI's capabilities are so we know what the boundaries are of what we can expect to improve. It is an important step to improving the game.

	06-11-2000 05:53									#4
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Good questions. It will be interesting to see the answers. (Hint, hint)

Especially the question about negotiating. I can be twice as powerful (in SMAC) as all the other factions put together and still some puny little faction throws threats and the like at me.

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	06-11-2000 08:22									#5
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Firaxis'll never tell us - I think that'll be like Coca Cola telling us the recipe for Coke. But one of the civ-clone developers like Thue could tell us...

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	06-11-2000 15:18									#6
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AI is the one secret they will never let out, AI is the key to games, good and bad AI can break a game.

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	06-11-2000 18:10									#7
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More info about how Civ/SMAC AI works will be interesting, still... what's the help about players suggestions?

Just for fun:

Q. Do they know to target a city's resource tiles?
Firaxis A. No.
Lot of Apolytoners (screaming) R. Heck! Then just do it so, silly loosers! (disclaimer: title I write here are not real in any way, just to underline some mood here and there ).

We can try to help Firaxis suggesting things AI should do with manageable (in algorithms terms) info.

Usually AI cheats right because it knows info that human player don't (like know every enemy unit position, just to cope with "surprise" attack and ambush).

Tactics to use with available info is another story:
is it smarter to attack stronger enemy units or to strike back on flank, against weakest units, decimating them before they recover strenght?

Better move your settler for another bunch of turns, just to reach a better production site (that AI can know because of cheat), or sit down here and found city ASAP to gain production time?

So, can someone try to write down AI player tactics a computer can properly... compute ?

BTW, AI cheating are frustrating, still actually the only way to keep game interesting till the midgame.

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Admiral Naismith AKA mcostant

	08-11-2000 06:52									#8
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well, heres what i know for what its worth...

the ai does take into account relative power when negotiating, this is modified by weather the civ is 'aggressive', neutral, or 'rational'. it certainly seems to take into account military power, i.e. if your more powerful, ai is more likely to be friendly. if you are the most powerful thought they seem to treat you badly regardless of what you do.

they seem not to have a clue about how large or important particular tagets are, it seems they are just as likely to attack any target.

they also dont seem to know about defensive terrain either, overall the computers military capabilities are appalling. it seems to just consist of attacking a unit/city until it is destroyed/taken. they dont seem to consider relative attack/defence strengths, as shown by how often the ai throws itself against a mountain with a phalanx-in-a-fortress on top...

as for resources, im not sure, i know the ai generally only places cities on grassland and plains squares, each square has a special ai value, so that desert/glacier, etc will never be built on. im not sure about forests/hills. they seem to ignore special resources, using them if they happen to be located in a city radius. but im not sure about that.

ai seems to have some idea about governments. for example theyre more likely to switch to fundy when theres little left 'interesting' to research, that is when all the techs available have a low ai value (although 'civilized', and 'militaristic' civs have different tech ai values). i assume they are more likely to switch to demo when theyve got lots of interesting tech to research.

the ai in the game is a pretty poor match for a human, all thing considered, which is why the ai cheats to create more of a challenge.. but im not even gonna start goin into how many ways the ai cheats... .

hope this has been of some help, at least, i tried to answer your questions, there are probably other things i couldve written. one thing i hope they can improve for civ3 is the military side of the ai, truly it was terible on civ2, and it is probably the hardest part of the game to cheat on, without spoiling the game by making the cheating obvious. fingers crossed, theyll be no more 'wasting hundreds of units on a fortified phalanx' again.

	10-11-2000 10:52									#9
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What about caravans? Does the AI send them to larger cities that demand their commodities or do they just run into the first city they find?

	09-11-2000 23:01									#10
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The reason why I asked about targeting of tile resources is because the other day I was playing a game where I constructed a city on a one tile island in the gulf of the continent where my enemy was with only one other one tile island that had Gems. It was supposed to be a launch point. Suddenly, that civilization dropped a chariot right on that other island and deprived me of the trade points, so I began to think that maybe the AI had planned that. Is there any sense to that statement?

	10-11-2000 03:50									#12
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I agree with HsFB, the AI probably planned to explore that one tile 'continent' LMAO.

	10-11-2000 05:23									#13
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ai definitely seems to send caravans to specific cities.. just today i was playing on world map, as chinese, i had most of asia. my biggest cities were located in china, and they sent plenty of caravans to my chinese cities, ignoring all of the smaller ones in the way. so they definitely try to go for larger cities, for maximum trade.

probably just chance about the ai landing on that island. frankly im suprised they didnt drop off an explorer

	11-11-2000 10:32									#14
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Ok, I'm probably not going to get the attention I wanted by putting this in this existing thread, but I've got some ideas on improving the AI.

NOTE: My experience with programming is very limited, and I don't know if my ideas have any validity, but I figured I'd post them anyway.

I think that there should be a series of pre-planned campaigns and templates for the AI to follow.

The templates (as was previously discussed) should be ones that specify that the AI will always construct certain things after building a city. And then after those things have been built, the AI will make its own decisions. This is to ensure that the cities are properly defended and have adaquate city improvements.

Such templates would also force the AI along certain technology lines that they will not divert from much.

Then there should be a series of civ-specific campaigns that would make the AI accomplish things. These campaigns would be divided into short-term and long-term goals.

Short-term goals would include ordering the AI to build three units (Ship, Defense Unit, and Settler) and making it go out for a new continent. Or also, after a declaration of war, ordering the AI to send a percentage of attack troops to one enemy city.

Long-term goals would be ordering the AI to begin construction of a wonder after discovering its technology and forcing it to continue until its built by them or someone else.

Another thing, a continuation of the rural population concept is to have each tile with a desirability rating based on coastal or river location and mineral resources. Each tile would be given a rating when the map is generated. The most desirable spots will automatically fill in first. Roads and railroads increase desirability. This not only relieves the responsibility of migration on the AI, it also helps the AI to determine what to fight for. The ultimate goal of civs is to have the most desirable lands inside their borders.

The purpose of all of these things is to help relieve the load on the AI. This will allow for more civs, a rural population, and more complicated diplomacy.


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"...The highest realization of warfare is to attack the enemy's plans; next is to attack their alliances; next to attack their army; and the lowest is to attack their fortified cities." - Sun Tzu

Dom Pedro II.... aka Hannibal3

Dom Pedro II - 2nd and last Emperor of the Empire of Brazil (1831 - 1889).

	11-11-2000 11:10									#15
	Remove this text

Another idea is strategic campaigns that can be activated for the civilization to carry out during war.

These would include plans like a Decoy Plan that make the AI send one or two units into one place and then the invasion force is sent in from another point. I don't know how possible move unit commands would be on a random map though...

Another possibility is a long-term amphibious invasion plan. The AI would be ordered to construct several transports and then ordered to put a certain number of attack units on board and then send them to a heavily populated enemy city.

The fact is that the limit of this is the imagination of the programmer. But again, I don't know if it would be possible to create pre-planned strategies to limit AI thought, so come on programmers. Pick it apart.

	12-11-2000 03:33									#16
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Just a simple question about AI. Why is not possible for the program to keep track of each civ and all the locations that each specific civ has searched?

So it takes nine maps into consideration: Master map, and 8 civ maps. No graphical information would have to be stored on eight of those maps, just numbers. Only the human map has to have the colors and pictures. That way the computer, when computing if it is more powerful than you or not, would only count the units and cities it has explored. Of course it "knows" the whole map, but the calculations will include what it should only know. Has this been discussed before?

	12-11-2000 05:53									#17
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shogun:

as far as i know the computer DOES actually keep its own maps for each civ. probably the programmers thought that it would take too much processing power for all the civs to calculate everything they can see. probably not the case nowadays tho. or maybe its just to help the ai...

	14-11-2000 06:44									#18
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The AI knows you are going to kick its ass so its makes endless 'agression containment' pacts against your civ with all other AIs. That's all it knows!

	16-11-2000 04:18									#19
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i hate those 'pacts'. i mean, there i am the most peaceful civ in the world, never started a war, etc. and the computer civs are signing pacts to contain my agression???

	17-11-2000 13:26									#20
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It's really hard to write any decent AI at all. For example, how do you come up with an algorithm for effective exploration? Is it better to build settlers and explorers, or is it better to use military units? When is a good time to stop exploring and start attacking? There are no fixed answers to these questions and largely depend on the map, which is entirely variable.

	18-11-2000 07:12									#21
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yep, the ai is a very complicated matter. and of course, the programmers must estimate how much processor power they want to go into the ai. too much and youll end up with a game that wont run on low spec machines which is no good at all, considering there are probably lots of civ2 players using older machines. ai is without a doubt the most difficult part of the game to program effectively.

	19-11-2000 07:22									#22
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These "pacts" imply the AI civs count everything, even stuff they can't see. There have been many games I have played where I was really ahead of the curve and I prevented enemy civ units access to whole continents. There should be no way for them to know anything about all those cities/military units/resources, but they start ganging up on me - even when I have been completely peaceful. This suggests to me that the AI cheats by counting everything.

I really don't think the processing power requirements are that high for this AI cheat move. We do know the computer adds all your offensive and defensive power on one continent before it decides to be aggressive or passive towards you during negotiations. I think this is written in the Developer notes of the Civ II manual. If you have a phalanx, catapult and warrior it counts that as a 8/3 (6/1 catty, 1/2 phalanx and 1/1 warrior). I don't think that's hard to do from a programming standpoint.

The question remains whether that's the best way to balance the dumb computer against the smart human. I'm hoping for a better way in Civ III.

	19-11-2000 10:46									#23
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In fact, I'd say that the majority of information that is available to you on other AIs in the early stages of the game is considered a cheat. How could you possibly know what rank your population is in the world? And, how could you figure out whether you are the strongest or weakest civ when you haven't even discovered other nations yet. My point is while 'cheating' is all that desireable, it helps the human in a similar way as it does the AI.