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Ozymandias
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quote:
Originally posted by alexman
Also, the Small Wonder implementation of the Kremlin does not work as expected.
Even though it does not show up in the list of improvements in the city, it actually continues to work even after the civ switches out of Communism. |
???? -- I've heard/read repeatedly that this was fixed with 1.29 -- ????
-Oz
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Ozymandias
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quote:
Originally posted by alexman
It's worth testing whether flagging artillery as AI "offense" instead of "artillery" will do the trick.
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"Historical" benefits as well -- e.g., siege and horse artillery offensive, "Napoleonic" artillery (in quotes to refer to the guns called that through the ACW) defensive. Yes, they were of course deployed as part of offensives, but weren't exactly the sorts of things you'd say, advance with under fire.
-Oz
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Ozymandias
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quote:
Originally posted by alexman
Impi are flagged as an offensive and defensive unit for the AI. This is not so bad in the first half of the ancient age (it's like building Chariots with an extra defense for the same cost), but it hurts them in the second half of the ancient age, because they continue building some Impi when they could be building swordsmen or horsemen. I think we should remove the AI offense flag from Impi.
Similarly with Numidian Mercenaries. They are flagged for both offense and defense, so the AI builds some of them for offense instead of Swordsmen, Horsemen, and Archers. I think we should remove the AI offense from this unit as well. |
Apologies, as I am jumping into this thread rather late on, but wouldn't flagging upgrade paths fix this?
-Oz
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Ozymandias
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quote:
Originally posted by alexman
Sorry, I'm not sure what you mean by flagging upgrade paths, but these two units upgrade to pikemen, at which time they lose their AI offense flags. But until then, the AI builds some Impi/Mercs especially for offense. That means that it builds less of something else, like horsemen. |
Hmmm ....
I understand that a major goal is to change as little as possible, BUT ...
Perhaps have them upgrade to swordsmen, and likewise flag the swordsmen offensive & defensive. IMHO, if the paradigm for the swordsmen is the Roman Legion, then they should have equal offensive & defensive factors.
.... Okay, I'll tiptoe quietly away now ... 
Happy Holidays,
Oz
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alexman
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Hunt Valley, MD
Jan 1970
time: 00:24
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Actually, the problem is solved with Feudalism, as both units upgrade to Pikemen. But I'm still not convinced that the AI is better off by using these units for offense. Remember, for the AI, each unit has only one function: offense or defense.
Take first the Numidian Mercenary. It costs the same as a Swordsman. Why build this unit for offense if you can build Swordsmen? If you don't have iron, you can build Archers, who have the same attack and are cheaper.
Similarly for the Impi. Why build this unit for offense, if you can build Archers that cost the same and have a higher attack, or Horsemen that are more expensive but have higher attack and the same movement?
In a test debug game I observed, the Zulu and Carthage were at war. It was very funny to watch the battles. Hordes of Impi would get slaughtered trying to attack Mercenaries. Then the next turn you would get mercenary after mercenary getting killed trying to counterattack the surviving Impi... They would have both been much better off using Swordsmen and Horsemen to attack.
More news on the Government-specific Wonders. They work as long as you don't use the flags that are only for Wonders. If you use flags that are for improvements, they work fine. Fortunately, happy faces are also available to improvements, so we can have the Kremlin (or whatever), as long as we don't give it free maintenance for trade installations as I had suggested.
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ducki
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quote:
Originally posted by alexman
Similarly with Numidian Mercenaries. They are flagged for both offense and defense, so the AI builds some of them for offense instead of Swordsmen, Horsemen, and Archers. I think we should remove the AI offense from this unit as well.
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I was actually thinking of trying a "Mercenary Rush".
Since Carthage doesn't start with any tech that allows any unit, if they get Bronze first, then they can start building an attack force that doesn't need defenders and that can easily hold any city they take.
It's like the Bowman, but stronger defensively, IMO.
It's a first-level tech, and with culture linking, you can probably buy Bronze from Greece or maybe Ottomans very early to begin building a strange attack force that is its own defense.
Since I haven't tried it yet, though, I can't say whether it works or not, but I have a feeling it would be even better than using Archers, since you don't need to build defenders once your conquest is over.
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Mad Bomber
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Columbus, Ohio
Nov 2002
time: 00:24
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Jaybe:
The idea with this mod are conservative changes in order to balance out the game, removing all land artillery is too radical, and IMO tilts the game too heavily in favor of the AI. Have you used extensive Airpower? After the avent of SAMS and Jet Fighters, Airpower becomes very costly until the discovery of Stealth, even then it is still rather costly way of reducing enemy metros. Sea bombardment is simply not effective enough and cannot be employed against large areas.
Alexman:
Try flagging the cruise missle as a tactical missle, this should let the AI be able to load it onto any ship w/ transport capacity and "only transport tactical missle" flag. Not sure if this will work in fact, because the AI does not load tactical missles on any ship even nuc subs which it should be able to do with vanilla 3.
as for the Zulu's I modded the Impi to a 2.1.2 and had them replace archers, the impi was used almost soley for offense, even if they are spearmen.
Not sure about Numidian Merc, as I do not have PTW yet.
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Jaybe
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Las Vegas, NV USA
Sep 2001
time: 21:24
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quote:
Originally posted by Mad Bomber
Jaybe:
The idea with this mod are conservative changes in order to balance out the game, removing all land artillery is too radical, and IMO tilts the game too heavily in favor of the AI. Have you used extensive Airpower? After the avent of SAMS and Jet Fighters, Airpower becomes very costly until the discovery of Stealth, even then it is still rather costly way of reducing enemy metros. Sea bombardment is simply not effective enough and cannot be employed against large areas. |
I SAID it was a radical idea! 
I HAVE used airpower extensively, and find that substantial use of offensive fighter missions mitigates much of defender AS missions and bomber losses become small. Both bombers and artillery have the same strength (stock values), 8 x 3 RoF or 12 x 2 RoF.
The point was that only the player will use artillery to reduce a city's population/defense bonuses and is a gross advantage. Can you imagine having to come up with different tactics or even victory strategies to compensate? Might even have to reduce difficulty levels! ***Disclaimer: I have always played at Regent.
The loss of those offensive fighters I have reduced by increasing their defense strength to almost their attack strength (e.g., Jets are 8/7), with the exception of the F-15 which is equal (8/8). Chance of Intercept increased to 67%.
OTOH, this is probably a tactic which only the player would use substantially. I have never witnessed a SAM situation.
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alexman
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Hunt Valley, MD
Jan 1970
time: 00:24
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It turns out that Communism as used by the AI is not as bad as we thought. At least it's not as bad as it is for the human.
As we know, for the human who has a good Capital/FP placement, Monarchy is almost always the better war-time government. But for the AI, which generally places the FP close to its palace, Communism is about as good as Monarchy.
To prove this point, I did a simple test. I made a rectangular grid of 25 cities (the OCN was 16), spaced 3 tiles apart on a diagonal. I put courthouses everywhere, and police stations in all cities (but not in towns). The following diagram shows the city arrangement, where the numbers are the city sizes:
code:
| A B C D E
------------------
1| 9 9 9 9 6
2| 9 12 12 9 6
3| 9 12 12 9 6
4| 9 9 9 9 6
5| 6 6 6 6 6
With the Palace at position B2, and the FP at B3, which is a realistic AI setup because the AI usually has its Palace and FP close to each other and its total number of cities rarely go over 150% of the OCN, the percentage of commerce lost to corruption was 20% for Monarchy and 21% for Communism!
When I moved the FP to D4, which is more like what the human would try to do, the corruption for Monarchy dropped to 15% (and of course for Communism it remains 21%).
On top of that, humans usually have more than 150% the OCN. A typical game where the human is achieving UP is more like 250% the OCN, with all those cities being productive. A switch to communism in this case would be even worse for the human.
So, to summarize, because of better FP placement, Communism is almost never a better option than Monarchy for the human player. But for the AI, these two governments can be comparable.
Communism still needs bonuses to help the AI that chooses it over Monarchy, but not huge ones.
Consider adding an extra courthouse-type improvement, specific to Communism, to each of the 25 cities in the example above. This would bring corruption down to 16% for Communism, helping the AI in its choice to select Communism over Monarchy in the first configuration, but still not giving the human a better government that Monarchy (15%) in the second configuration.
I believe this is the best way to balance Communism.
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Dominae
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quote:
Originally posted by alexman
Consider adding an extra courthouse-type improvement, specific to Communism, to each of the 25 cities in the example above. This would bring corruption down to 16% for Communism, helping the AI in its choice to select Communism over Monarchy in the first configuration, but still not giving the human a better government that Monarchy (15%) in the second configuration.
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Why would the AI select Communism over Monarchy with an added improvement? I assume you mean that the improvement will help the AI since it already chooses Communism over Monarchy, given it builds the improvement with any regularity.
I must say I like this solution compared to the ones proposed above, essentially because it does not change the human's strategy very much (and therefore the feel of the game). However, I'm still not sure why the changes I myself proposed are not satisfactory. Basically they all work together to make Communism (and therefore the AI) better. If the Republic and Democracy are better than Communism in the long run, so be it. Communism just needs to be better than Monarchy in wartime.
Dominae
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alexman
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Hunt Valley, MD
Jan 1970
time: 00:24
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Sorry, somehow I posted before I was done...
The "communist courthouse" approach is the most we can help the AI without forcing the human to consider Communism instead of Monarchy. OK, the human might consider using Communism for war if he has terrible (or no) FP placement, but I think this is not very common, and even if it is, it's a welcome strategic option. Note that this corruption reduction is in some ways a bigger change than the previous small wonder suggestion of happiness enough for a WLTKD. WLTKD affects waste (and the small wonder works only on the same continent), whereas the extra courthouse affects both waste and corruption everywhere it is built.
The "Dominae tweaks" approach changes very little, so that's good. The changes will benefit the player in a defensive war, since he needs units in his cities to take advantage of the MP bonus (he will be able to either draft without unhappiness, or build units and to get WLTKD). But Communism is still not as good as Monarchy, even with terrible FP placement. The AI does not take full advantage of the MP limit, but the changes should help a little, especially defensively. But is defense what we want to strengthen here? Tougher defense means more bloody battles of attrition, which in turn means less killer AIs (and perhaps more late-game tedium).
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ducki
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alexman =
you edited out a comment about making Communism good enough that the human would consider it over Monarchy...
I feel that is - or should be - the goal.
It should not be obviously and categorically better than Monarchy, but it also should not be obviously and categorically worse...
If it's good enough that it would be considered and occasionally and situationally chosen, then I think it's right.
Currently, Communism is the only of the "real" governments that is never the right choice.
In keeping with both Improve AI and Increase Strategic Choice for Human, I think that the goal "should" be making Communism good enough for human consideration.
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Dominae
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alexman, as usual I'm quite ready to test out your new proposal (in this case, regarding Communism); I've been wrong in the past, and I'll surely be wrong again. I'm quite happy that the latest proposal does not change human strategy too much, which (as you may know) is important for me (along with only even Attack/Defense values!).
However, here are some things to think about (in case you haven't already):
1. Correct cost for the new improvement. If the cost is too high, the AI will either not build it, or will waste a lot of time building it. If the cost is too low, then switching to Communism will be too much of an immediate boost, which feels wrong. Ideally the cost should be such that the AI will consider building it under Communism, but still require a few turns to construct.
2. Effects for the human player. Will a good FP placement always favor Monarchy, or will the improved Communism be better once the new improvement has been built in all cities? If the human player has many many cities, will the reduction in Corruption due to Courthouses, Police Stations, and 'Improvement X' be better than a partially corrupt empire in Monarchy (or even the Republic or Democracy)?
3. Balanced level of corruption-reduction. Again, the compounded effect of Courthouses, Police Stations and the new improvement should not be too great (factoring in the Commercial trait as well).
4. Upkeep cost and Culture. Should the improvement have either of these?
Finally, I will try to test the changes I proposed earlier when I get the chance. I can see how they only add to the "attrition factor" of AI to AI warfare; I was only thinking about a Communist AI putting up a good fight against the human player. If the changes I proposed detract from creating Killer AIs, then clearly something is wrong.
Oh, and Merry Christmas everyone!
Dominae
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ducki
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There's an option to make a scenario run in Debug mode on the Scenario Options dialog box.
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23-12-2002 01:50
But I support your idea, simply because I know it would help the AI. That's why I also am designing a mod on the side with AI help being the only goal - for a truly diabolical AI. 
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