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Traelin
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Miami, FL, US
Nov 2001
time: 00:24
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Over Thanksgiving I was playing PTW SP like a champ (and yeah, I wasted WAAAY too many hours doing so!) Here's a couple questions and thoughts I had:
1. When the AI build a radar tower, does the 2 square, 25% defense bonus they get cross over cultural borders? So if I'm attacking their tower from my territory, do they get the bonus?
2. Many many times I've mentioned in previous threads about how the diplomacy model really needs to be reworked. I wish I could say it just needs to be modified, but I think they really need to rework it. The reason I started thinking about this was because of the AI using my airspace to bomb enemy AIs' targets. Normally I wouldn't have a problem with it, but it started to annoy me when the Germans were using MY airspace to attack an "ally" of mine, the Americans. I wasn't at war with the Germans, so why do they feel they can exploit my territory?
I wish I didn't have to reinvent the wheel, but again I'm going to state what needs to be done with diplomacy...
2. a. "Use my airspace" agreement. Very different than a right of passage agreement, in that the enemy planes never end up staying in your territory;
b. "Call off your attack against X third party";
c. AI needs to be reworked in how it handles trades. The human player should not be punished for trades that are broken by the AI. The way it stands right now, the human cannot recover from a tech/gpt, resource/gpt, etc. deal if it's broken by the AI's incompetence. We as the humans cannot always foresee what will happen 15 turns from the beginning of the deal, so how do we know an AI is going to be attacked by everyone and knocked down to one city/eliminated in the matter of 2-3 turns?;
d. The AI is not punished enough when it breaks RoP agreements, Military Alliances, and Trade Embargos. Many times I have seen other AIs immediately make deals with the offenders that they wouldn't otherwise make with an offending human;
e. "Let us coordinate our attack at position X." This should be relatively simple to do with the more advanced Civ3 AI;
f. "Stop using nukes." This could be reworked with a global, SMAC UN-style treaty, but oftentimes I find that one AI in particular is the offender. I don't know how to best work this one out, but I'd like to be able to ask an AI to stop using nukes altogether, or to stop using them against a certain AI. It's ludicrous how liberal they are with them.
g. "Units for gold/gpt deal." IMHO we as the humans should be able to sell units to the AI. Many wars in this day and age are fought with equipment that are bought and sold on the military market, but without the vendor becoming directly involved. I do not think the AI should be able to sell units to the human player, because that would be a huge exploit. But I should be able to arm a backwards Civ to the teeth if I want to.
h. I do not know if the human is punished for buying workers from an AI, but if they are, this should stop. If an AI is willing to sell slaves, then the buyer shouldn't be penalized either. There should be a counter that checks for bought/sold slaves.
i. "Stop stationing your troops along my roads." Again, we all know how the AI thinks it has a global RoP. Fine. But they need to at least respect my road/rail systems. I don't want to have to go to war with someone just because they were using the Union Pacific RR for goodness sake.
j. If I've obliterated an AI in war (like I'm doing to the Ottomans), they should in reality do just about anything to end it. OK, so they offer me a couple crappy cities for peace. As far as I'm concerned, I've taken 2/3 of their empire, including their capital and second-biggest producer. I want a little more, and I'll be damned if I care if you're (the Ottomans) are insulted by the deal I offer. 
k. ATM we can informally create a "treaty organization" via triangular MPPs, etc. I'd like to see a bit more organization with this. For instance, say I have MPPs with America and Scandinavia, and they also have MPPs with each other. Couldn't we do something cool with this?
l. "Rules of War" agreement. Even in war, there should be certain rules. I personally don't disband any captured workers. That's the equivalent of ethnic cleansing. There should absolutely be some sort of agreement you can make with a warring AI, or perhaps have a global war crimes tribunal with the UN? I don't know, but it really annoys me that all my captured workers get disbanded, and actions like that IRL don't go unpunished.
m. "Modification to current deals". Let's say you're stuck between a rock and a hard place, and you are about to accidentally screw the AI out of its gpt for a resource or whatever. When the mathematics of the game determines this will happen, it would be nice to have a popup that asks if you wish to honor the agreement with future aid or something. It would result in a displeased AI, but not one that is so pissed that it won't do business with you again.
These are all my rants for now.
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Andrew1999
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I HATE having other civs' units wandering all over my territory. My last game I went to war with 5 civs to stop them from putting settlers and their escorts over my borders. This ties in with the AI's willingness to put a city anywhere there are a few open spaces, regardless of the local physical or political geography. I ended up having to put a couple of cities down in worthless antarctic wastelands to stop the AI's colonization frenzy. When I don't put a city in down in the middle of the Sahara, Tibet, or Greenland, there's probably a good reason for it.
New treaty suggestion: Environment Pact. If one of your cities is producing more than a certain amount of pollution, production is reduced until you meet the requirements (using the pollution formula in reverse.) There should probably be compensation for losing shields this way--maybe you lose 5 shields of production but 10 shields' worth of pollution.
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Dida
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Enviromental Pact is needed. AI civs are often the biggest polluter, and I'm sick of having my grassland turned into desert dispite the fact that I built recycling centers and mass transit all over my country.
There needs to me multi-party mutual protection. Much like NATO.
We should be able to trade military units, as well as workers.
The UN should be more than just a place to vote for leader of the world. It should be a forum where more than 2 nations can disucss matters of great importance.
AI should not be so keen in trading cities, but they should have at least great interests in taking/buying back their own cities, which they lost to me in a war. Like I took London from the British, and then I offer it back to them for peace + 2 techs, and they refused to take the deal. (Their military was crushed by the point, so they had little chance of gaining it back by force). I was puzzled. Why would they not want their old capital back?
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Traelin
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Miami, FL, US
Nov 2001
time: 00:24
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quote:
Originally posted by Andrew1999
New treaty suggestion: Environment Pact. If one of your cities is producing more than a certain amount of pollution, production is reduced until you meet the requirements (using the pollution formula in reverse.) There should probably be compensation for losing shields this way--maybe you lose 5 shields of production but 10 shields' worth of pollution. |
I agree with you that something needs to be done about pollution and how the AI is very bad about creating environmental improvements. Their liberal use of nukes kinda falls into this category, too. But I almost think this kind of pact would better be implemented via the U.N. A global type of treaty, if you will. Although the nuke problem could also be solved via 1-on-1 diplomacy.
Man, if only I had the diplomacy system I've been thinking about since Civ 3's release, it would be an absolutely, ridiculously addictive game. IMHO it would be the perfect game with better diplomacy.
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tonyhaug
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Columbia, MD
Nov 2001
time: 00:24
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Traelin, I like all of your suggestions. However, they probably don't conform to the simple diplomacy model of the Civ series. For a game that should include a lot of the stuff you want, try
http://www.supremeruler2010.com/index.html
Supreme Ruler 2010 looks like a really complicated version of Civilization with a lot more bells and whistles. BTW, this is not a pitch for SupremeRuler2012. But I have been following their development for about a year now and I'm very impressed and looking forward to playing it.
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Andrew1999
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Most of these things could be handled bilaterally. I wonder if the AI could handle multilateral agreements like SMAC? They would all have to be yes/no votes, but the person calling for the vote would need to choose who is being invited to participate. So to create NATO you'd select "Global Alliance", check that you (America) wanted to invite France, Germany, and England, and then there would be a SMAC Council vote but only with the invited parties.
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Ben Williams
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Ithaca, NY
Apr 2002
time: 00:24
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A lot of the AI colonizing problems could be solved by making the game itself more realistic. The fact that the AI will always try to place cities in statigic (even if otherwise useless) spots doesn't bother me, that makes sense. What bothers me is when they send their dinky little boat to EXACTLY the right spot. In short, the AI is given to much current information about the map. They shouldn't know where all my cities are or where my troops are located any more then I should know that stuff for them.
Also, I would like to actually haggle with the AI, rather then just be told how little I have to trade for them to accept it by some guy in the upper-right corner of the screen.
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CJM
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quote:
Originally posted by WarpStorm
The problem with a lot of your ideas are that the faults you find with the AI describe my prefered playstyle.
I pollute liberally until I get the techs to stop. Production it too important to stop.
I nuke liberally if I feel someone deserves it.
I station troops along allies' roads (and neutral civs' till they make me leave).
I regularly ignore the other civs borders if there is someplace I want to go.
I wouldn't sign one of these pacts and if someone doesn't like my behavior they'll have to make me stop by force of arms. |
The thing is, with perhaps the exception of the pollution idea as presented, all of the ideas Traelin and others bring up would simply be diplomatic options. If your prefered play style involves liberal nuking and border violations, even with these changes you can still give other civs the finger when they ask you to stop. This may lead to war more often than not, but it seems like your style courts conflict, so this probably wouldn't be a problem for you. Yet, if someone doesn't want a whole lot of wars, shouldn't they have more options that allow for some diplomatic arm-twisting?
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Traelin
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Miami, FL, US
Nov 2001
time: 00:24
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quote:
Originally posted by CJM
The thing is, with perhaps the exception of the pollution idea as presented, all of the ideas Traelin and others bring up would simply be diplomatic options. If your prefered play style involves liberal nuking and border violations, even with these changes you can still give other civs the finger when they ask you to stop. This may lead to war more often than not, but it seems like your style courts conflict, so this probably wouldn't be a problem for you. Yet, if someone doesn't want a whole lot of wars, shouldn't they have more options that allow for some diplomatic arm-twisting? |
CJM, exactly my point. What I am proposing would be implemented as options. Just like Warp was suggesting, you don't have to sign an agreement you don't like. Most of the things that Warp mentioned would be provocations for war anyways, regardless of whether or not the options were in the game. You can nuke whomever you want, and not sign a treaty. You can station your troops wherever you want, and not sign a treaty. And IMHO all of the things I mentioned can indeed be implemented. Let me take each one and analyze it.
2. a. "Use my airspace" agreement.
This one would be programmatically "interesting" to implement in Civ, perhaps difficult. Why? Due to the turn-based nature of Civ3, if nothing else. Bombers and fighters, unlike regular troops, do not end their turn in your territory, but rather end up back on home turf. The only way I can see this being implemented is by either disallowing people to do it without an agreement in the first place, or by treating an invasion of airspace in much the same way as a settler building a city in someone else's territory -- automatic declaration of war.
The AI as it currently is programmed doesn't seem to understand how to learn alternative methods to attacking an enemy. For instance, you can tell them to leave your territory, but what do they immediately proceed to do the next turn? The same darn thing. I think that if it was modified to find alternative means of invasion that we would all be a lot happier. Use transports more effectively, for one. Use carriers, for another.
The airspace agreement can indeed be implemented, but this would probably be the most difficult thing to program correctly.
b. "Call off your attack against X third party."
This was implemented in Civ IIRC. This would be easy to implement. If it can be done 10 years ago, it can be done now.
c. AI needs to be reworked in how it handles trades.
This needs to be done ASAP. It is very silly how the human gets punished for the AI's limitations. It can be done.
d. The AI is not punished enough when it breaks RoP agreements, Military Alliances, and Trade Embargos.
This also needs to be done ASAP. It simply is not a good enough excuse to blame it on AI limitations, or on game equilibrium between human and AI. IMHO they have enough of an advantage by knowing the entire map.
e. "Let us coordinate our attack at position X."
This was also done in Civ IIRC. It can be done now as well. The AI just sucked at it in Civ. I think it would be an awesome, awesome addition in Civ 3, what with the advanced AI. Can you imagine a true tet offensive in Civ 3, versus its limited couterpart in Civ? OMG military alliances would actually have meaning.
f. "Stop using nukes."
This NEEDS to be done. This won't change another player's wartime strategies. Simply don't sign the deal, or vote against it in the U.N. (depending on how it's implemented). The AI seems to be a heck of a lot better in Civ 3 (vs. Civ/Civ 2) in conducting war. But it seems like diplomacy has been shuttled away for it. In Civ, I remember Napolean telling me "his words were backed with NUCLEAR weapons". It kinda added to the hesitation to go to all-out war. Why can't we do this again?
g. "Units for gold/gpt deal."
C'mon, I know you guys want to see this as badly as I do. I want to pull an America and arm people. And it would be so darn cool to see it bite you in the arse down the road, like it has for America many times (not that I would enjoy it, but it's realistic at least).
It can be done by using some of the same code that's already implemented for workers. Just don't allow AIs to sell units to us. I think one of the reasons they didn't implement this thus far is because Firaxis already had a smooth human-AI communications/trade window. Perhaps if this was changed to be more fluid in unit trading it would be better. My humble suggestion would be as follows:
g. 1. Along the bottom of the window, replace "New" and "Active" with your categories on the left (i.e., Resources, Agreements, etc. etc.). Then add a "Units" tab. This way you don't have to scroll through a ton of irrelevant stuff to make one deal. So if you want to sell a unit, you click on the "Units" tab, select your city, then select your unit(s) to sell. Some other tweaking to the GUI can be implemented as well. I'll discuss the details if the need arises.
g. 2. Now, put your "New" and "Active" tabs on the left part of the screen, and voila, a much nicer way of doing things.
This can be done, but would have to be included in an XP. This would probably take the most work out of all the options, except perhaps the U.N. tweaking and airspace coding.
h. I do not know if the human is punished for buying workers from an AI, but if they are, this should stop.
It only makes sense, and it can be done.
i. "Stop stationing your troops along my roads."
If one has a RoP agreement and RRs, this is almost never a problem. But we all know how the AI treats your territory if it doesn't have a RoP. It would be nice to have a happy medium, where you can so "OK, I submit to the AI being semi-stupid, and I don't feel like going to war every time they enter my territory, but just please let me use my own road/rail system."
This would be much less of a problem if, as I mentioned above, the AI learned how to manage war more effectively. But let's be realistic, that would be a pain to recode. The guys at Firaxis are damn good programmers, but we can only ask so much from them in such a limited period of time.
j. If I've obliterated an AI in war (like I'm doing to the Ottomans), they should in reality do just about anything to end it.
*Sigh* I just miss the way SMAC had vassal states. In SMAC, if you beat the tar out of an opponent, their demeanor would go to "Submissive". You never had to worry about them again. I thought that was cool. It can be done, but this is more an opining on my part than anything else.
k. ATM we can informally create a "treaty organization" via triangular MPPs, etc. I'd like to see a bit more organization with this.
I think it would be really cool if we had treaty organizations existing under the current system. Yeah we can already kind of achieve it, but wouldn't it be neat to pull up a NATO submenu and talk to your allies separately?
l. "Rules of War" agreement.
I understand why the AI disbands certain workers. It's simply because they are either a) not their native workers, or b) they are too far away from a native city and deep within enemy territory to provide them protection. This is fine if you only want the Civ to perform admirably in warmongering. I just want a bit more realism added to the game in this area. Yes, it's just a game. And yes, some things are going to be gamelike. But obviously the game has some reflection of reality, else we wouldn't be playing with the Egyptians, Mongols, etc. -- we'd be playing with that Green chick from SMAC. So can't we add a bit of reality to the whole notion of the atrocity of ethnic cleansing?
m. "Modification to current deals".
This is really just a wish. It's nowhere near as pressing as the issues mentioned above, which I think must be added to add realism and color to the game. But it would still be neat to avoid an all-out AI boycott on the human for inadvertently messing up a deal. I mean the AI messes up deals all the time and has no consequences, so why can't we have a happy-medium?
Last edited by Traelin on 03-12-2002 at 20:08
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cyclotron7
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Drowning in Schnitzel
Jan 2001
time: 21:24
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Excellent points, good options. I agree 100%... actually, more like 90%, because of this:
quote:
j. If I've obliterated an AI in war (like I'm doing to the Ottomans), they should in reality do just about anything to end it. OK, so they offer me a couple crappy cities for peace. As far as I'm concerned, I've taken 2/3 of their empire, including their capital and second-biggest producer. I want a little more, and I'll be damned if I care if you're (the Ottomans) are insulted by the deal I offer. |
This seems like you want the AI to roll over and play dead once you are winning the war. I've seen sudden alliances, last-minute offensives, newly found techs, culture flips, and overwhelming war weariness all force the hand of the apparent winner or end the war even when the loser only has a few cities left. I like the AI to make peace when necessary, but I think the current AI handles it pretty well and I would not include more submissiveness.
What would I include? Well, I think I have a solution for this issue without making the AI get on its knees. Right now, the AI seems to sue for peace readily when you have units in their territory. That makes good sense, but I've had times when the AI was asking for peace, and then I take one of their big cities and suddenly they won't even discuss the issue until my units are back in their cultural borders.
If the AI were programmed to remember the fact that you have a fat *** army right outside their borders that just trashed their largest city that they saw last turn, even if they can't see it this turn, their peace overtures would certainly be more sensible. They would sue for peace after you take a big city, instead of waiting until you move your forces into siege position on their next city. I think this would really extend the lifespan of the AI, and probably would solve the problem you are observing.
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Nakar Gabab
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of Pedantic Nitpicking
May 2001
time: 00:24
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Speaking of which, why is a Furious postwar AI so apt to make war against me again? Since you wind up with an angry opponent, it's harder to deal with them and easier to make them go to war with you.
Shouldn't the AI realize that if I obliterated half his army (obviously not all, or he probably wouldn't be aggressive), took a bunch of cities, and have my whole army garrisoned on OUR borderline, I'm probably not the dude to be messing with for at least a little while? You didn't see Germany invading France again in 1920. They battened down the hatches and waited until their army was competitive before their invasions began.
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Traelin
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Miami, FL, US
Nov 2001
time: 00:24
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quote:
Originally posted by cyclotron7
Excellent points, good options. I agree 100%... actually, more like 90%, because of this:
This seems like you want the AI to roll over and play dead once you are winning the war. I've seen sudden alliances, last-minute offensives, newly found techs, culture flips, and overwhelming war weariness all force the hand of the apparent winner or end the war even when the loser only has a few cities left. I like the AI to make peace when necessary, but I think the current AI handles it pretty well and I would not include more submissiveness.
What would I include? Well, I think I have a solution for this issue without making the AI get on its knees. Right now, the AI seems to sue for peace readily when you have units in their territory. That makes good sense, but I've had times when the AI was asking for peace, and then I take one of their big cities and suddenly they won't even discuss the issue until my units are back in their cultural borders.
If the AI were programmed to remember the fact that you have a fat *** army right outside their borders that just trashed their largest city that they saw last turn, even if they can't see it this turn, their peace overtures would certainly be more sensible. They would sue for peace after you take a big city, instead of waiting until you move your forces into siege position on their next city. I think this would really extend the lifespan of the AI, and probably would solve the problem you are observing. |
I see your points. And you make another good suggestion -- that the AI should remember previous urban losses. That's a good idea, and I bet they could work that into the code. I mean after all, the AI remembers you pissing off someone else 1000 years ago, so it shouldn't be too bad remembering things in the short term.
I've actually done tests on stationing troops right outside the AIs' cities before. Sometimes they will offer progressively more as you increase the number of troops in their territories. I've used this exploit once or twice when I was hard-pressed...once when I needed a chokepoint, and once when I needed Iron.
I want the AI to remember city razing and capturing in more than just their attitude toward me. Perhaps this would be a happy-medium between SMAC's philosophy toward Submissive attitudes, and the way the system is currently implemented.
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Traelin
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Miami, FL, US
Nov 2001
time: 00:24
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quote:
Originally posted by UberKruX
exactly. then i starve the cities of their native population and all is done...
oh, what wasn't your point. |
Haha I will admit I do the same thing. I am a warmongerer after all. But I think this would be damn hard to implement. It would be impossible to determine if someone deliberately starved a city, or if it was merely due to growth problems. Perhaps what they could do is set a limit to how many foreign citizens are starved in a certain number of turns? This may work, although it would change my gaming style considerably.
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planetfall
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Incoming from CO
Jan 2002
time: 22:24
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quote:
Originally posted by cyclotron7
Production is not compromised by pollution; in fact, ignoring pollution frequently lets you get away with more production. There is a difference between having production reduced because of pollution controls and automatically losing productivity to pollution. |
Huh, what is the difference?
For me the problem with pollution is it is not well thought out:
1) too many times you can outproduce by being a polluter and filling cities with coal plants,
2) pollution seems only to be added to give the player something to do during the Modern Age, especially since the Shift-P command starts workers cleaning up pollution but does not reawaken them with new pollution. Directing working to clean up pollution is not a value added game play feature.
However, if pollution effected all tiles in a city and not just one and we had a new choice of building a Health Agency, then civs which pollute would also have to pay either a food or production cost to continue with short range city management of putting short term gains over long term gains. Thinking about it some more, it would work best if effect of pollution build up over time, like WW, and then if say in 10 turns, pollution is not addressed, then there is a productivity hit. After 20 turns it gets more severe, and after 50 turns it really penalities, but not totally cripples polluting civ.
I say either fix pollution so it makes sense, or get rid of it. The current pollution model decreasing the value of playing the game for me.
== PF
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02-12-2002 21:33
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