AI Diplomacy Flaws

Pyrodrew · November 6, 2001, 10:15

The AI likes cities more than you can imagine, the following is either a serious game flaw or a bug...

On Regent Huge Map, I just lost a vulnerable-placed city due to the Aztec's culture & there was another vulnerable-place city I was going to lose soon. When I discovered the Zulus I thought well rather than lose the city to the Aztecs by culture why not just trade it to the Zulus now.

It was a size 3 city in tundra/pine trees & 1 deer/game, by no means a great city or any potential. I asked what the Zulus would trade me for this crappy city no where near them with only a courthouse, their answer: 2 techs, 2 gold/per turn, communication with the Babylonians, & Incense!!!

What a deal!
Thinking perhaps ShakaZulu might not be the brightest trader, I then went to Egyptians & Babylonians to see what they would offer for another crappy vulnerable-placed size3 city no where near them. The Babylonians offered me Gunpowder tech, their territory map, 15 gold/turn (the town was earning me 1 gold/turn), +10 gold upfront.

Cleo offered me Gunpowder tech, her territory map, 1 gold/turn +370 gold upfront (her treasury was 379!)

She wouldn't let me add her "Gems(0extra)" to the list & when I removed the Gems she declined to take her original offer. Yet when I went back & asked again what she would offer for the town she again offered me the Gunpowder, 370gold, etc. etc.

I did not have a stronger culture & my military was weaker compared to all 3 & all were "Annoyed" before I made these offers. How well was this Diplomacy AI tested???

2nd Question: If you were making the Diplomacy AI what kind of brain cells would you give it?

My suggestions:
1>AI should value their own cities highly, but not value other cities that are no where near it, especially when they are size 3 or smaller;
2>The MillionDollar Bug should be fixed;
3>AI Civ should never trade away it's techs if it's in the lead unless it's for a resource it desperately needs (not for a 20turn wine or gold) or under serious military destruction by that person. Staying in the tech-lead should be important!
4>AI Civs should be more fair to those in their same culture. As the Americans I accepted the 1st deal the Iroquis offered. Even after that they still refused to trade fair... and still do.

drake · November 6, 2001, 10:37

Using diplomacy and AI in the same sentence is flawed

Computer opponents will never grasp the implications of their "diplomacy" un-fortunately.

TheDarkside · November 6, 2001, 10:43

I just hate how trade is so off diplomatically. First of all, instead of consistent trade strengthening relations between 2 civs like it does in real life- it only seems to have a slight initial boost but then degrades. But more importantly- the civs get so greedy! At least for me, I can't trade with civs on a 1:1 basis.... they want my trade AND somethign else for their trade good. Not only that, they cancel it every 20 turns and I can't make the same deal! They keep wanting more and more. The sad part about it is I have the greatest culture by FAR, the greatest tech, and the greatest military. I am definately the dominate civ yet they all want to rip me off.

cort · November 6, 2001, 10:54

what is worse; you can never gain a city from AI via trade.
on a regent game; i am the #1 civ in tech, population, manufacturing.
even my gracious allies refuse to trade me their minor cities; i offer them 4 techs, ALL of my cities, more than 100 gold per turn, any resource they need.. so i guess it hardcoded into the diplomacy AI "not to trade a City".

request to fraxis; pikeman beating tanks might be ok but this diplomacy stuff IS REALLY important in terms of gameplay. i mean if you lose a tank, you build another.. but if your allies does not behave rationally in diplomacy it is no fun at all to play the game.

kmj · November 6, 2001, 12:25

Quote:

Originally posted by TheDarkside
I just hate how trade is so off diplomatically. First of all, instead of consistent trade strengthening relations between 2 civs like it does in real life- it only seems to have a slight initial boost but then degrades. But more importantly- the civs get so greedy! At least for me, I can't trade with civs on a 1:1 basis.... they want my trade AND somethign else for their trade good. Not only that, they cancel it every 20 turns and I can't make the same deal! They keep wanting more and more. The sad part about it is I have the greatest culture by FAR, the greatest tech, and the greatest military. I am definately the dominate civ yet they all want to rip me off.

I think perhaps they want an uneven trade because you are ahead... they expect you to be a nice "big brother" (kinda like how real world wealthy countries provide aide to less wealthy countries).. I hope that is the reasoning behind the unbalance, but I have not played enough to be able to judge... you too should withhold judgement until you've seen it from all angles. Perhaps that's why the AI was so nice to the original poster? was he weaker than them? It would be nice to know how that's all layed out..

I mean, I don't know if I should or shouldn't be insulted when a civ offers me a fair trade of luxuries, plus I have to pay them 15 gold per turn. If I turn around and make it fair, 1 for 1, my advisor says they'd be insulted. Granted, I'm ahead of them in almost every way. If I were behind, would it be the same? If so, then there are some real issues to be worked out. I mean, I'm playing on cheiftan.

So in summation, (forgive any incoherence, Civ3 and work don't leave room for sleep), I hope that the AI doesn't always automatically expect me to submit to an unfair trade every time, because that would be a real cheesy way to make the game harder... and at cheiftan level, the efforts should be to make it easier. If, on the other hand, the more powerful civ is always expected to give a little more, I can happily understand and accept that.

Leonidas · November 6, 2001, 12:41

kmj: If you are ahead, the AIs expect you to be a "Big Brother" and they trade unfairly. Yet if you are behind, the AIs will look at you as inferior and will trade unfairly.

A real Catch-22. . .

Pyrodrew · November 6, 2001, 17:34

*duplicate post*

Pyrodrew · November 6, 2001, 17:35

Quote:

Originally posted by kmj
I think perhaps they want an uneven trade because you are ahead... they expect you to be a nice "big brother" (kinda like how real world wealthy countries provide aide to less wealthy countries).. I hope that is the reasoning behind the unbalance, but I have not played enough to be able to judge... you too should withhold judgement until you've seen it from all angles. Perhaps that's why the AI was so nice to the original poster? was he weaker than them? It would be nice to know how that's all layed out. If I were behind, would it be the same?

In the prior game mentioned, the Egyptians would only trade me their territory map for my territory map + 50gold. I never received any favorable or fair trade from any AI Civ. And the Aztecs who I had a trade deal at 17 gold/turn for their spices later broke the deal after 20turns & then started asking for 19gold/turn. As mentioned earlier, when I added gems & then removed the gems from Cleo's initial offer... she refused to take that *exact* same deal she offered me. So the AI is not consistant.

However, I LOVE that the AI drives a hard bargain at the negotiating table! When the Aztecs increased the price for spices from 17gold/turn to 19gold/turn that was brilliant since they made me somewhat dependent on the luxury & accordingly raised the price. AND since I had more cities 20turns later & built up my cities more, those spices were earning me more money 20turns later as well! So that was actually smart & logical.

2nd, fact is a human player should be considered the greatest threat to AI Civ. We all fear human players much more than AI players ALL the time, thus so should the AI. So it's ok if they do not offer/accept 1:1 fair trades, but I agree atleast *some* civs (those of the same culture or random) should so there is some balance. And this hard bargaining should not be for those on Chieftain & Warlord, but for Regent & up it should!

3rd, I strongly agree on a point kmj made about the AI being unfair (or even unreasonable) against a player who is winning (this was 1 of the BEST parts about Civ2). In Civ2, whenever I would start gaining a clear big advantage over the other AI civs they would team up against me, rather than kill each other off & let me continue to expand & grow. Now some might say that's "not realistic" in today's world, but truth is it IS. If the world (the game in this case) was ending & only 1 civilization would survive (the winner) it is realistic! Today's real world has no "end game date", Civ3 ends the game at 2050 (should be longer) or by a victory condition. All Civs should be playing to be the winner... not play for 2nd place or 3rd place! What I fear is this Civ3 AI isn't playing to win like the Civ2 AI was.

kmj · November 6, 2001, 18:29

hmm. early in the game, I had plenty of fair trades, world maps, territory maps, resources, and advances. Later, I would start to get offers demanding per turn money with my resources, or a world map for a map plus an advance (as if!

); so I've seen it fair, and I've seen it biased against me... I'll have to play more before I can judge anything, but the fairness shouldn't have anything to do w/ the fact that I'm on chieftan, since we've been told the AI acts the same for all levels.

What I most wish for is that we could know what factors affect how the civs decide to trade, and how weighted they are. (not to mention the weighted factors of damned near every other aspect of the game!

)

David Weldon · November 6, 2001, 19:53

One thing to note is that not all techs are equal, even if they have the same number of pre-requesite techs. For example: Alphabet is worth "5", while Bronze working is worth "3", and Ceremonial Burial is worth "2". This means that if the other civ is trading fair I can get a one-for-two deal here. This is based on the time it takes to actually learn the tech. (note that all of my example techs are the first available techs in the ancient era, and I have actually made this trade). The luxuries are the also weighted, even though they give the same number of happy faces, they are rated according to how much extra trade they provide in their square. I just wanted to let you all know that things which might seem "equal" are not necessarily so. I think that's the right way to handle the techs, but I wonder about the luxuries...

The only time I was ever able to gain a city was during peace negotiations with a nation I was hammering. They were willing to give away all their tech, money, workers, luxuries, and cities(3) just to keep their capital! he he he he ...

Pyrodrew · November 6, 2001, 20:38

Quote:

One thing to note is that not all techs are equal, even if they have the same number of pre-requesite techs. For example: Alphabet is worth "5", while Bronze working is worth "3",

In Civ2 this went a step further & adjusted these values to how attractive that tech was to an aggressive/militaristic civilization (-1) compared to a peaceful/scientific civilization(+1) & neutral (0). So if Alphabet was given +2 modifier an aggressive/military civilization would value the Alphabet at a 3 (5 + (+2*-1)) where as a peaceful/scientific civilization would value the Alphabet at a 7 (5 + (2*1)). Unfortunately, I do not see this Modifier in the Civ3 Editor & hope they just left it out due to time constraints. I would hate to think all civs value all techs exactly the same now.

But regardless, the trades the AI made for those crappy cities was just stupid.

TheDarkside · November 6, 2001, 21:03

Quote:

Originally posted by David Weldon
One thing to note is that not all techs are equal, even if they have the same number of pre-requesite techs. For example: Alphabet is worth "5", while Bronze working is worth "3", and Ceremonial Burial is worth "2". This means that if the other civ is trading fair I can get a one-for-two deal here.

I know about this and it has no bearing on my particular game. I would have to provide a civ with industrialization AND medicine for his Free Artistry!

kimmygibler · November 6, 2001, 21:14

It all depends whether you want a realistic game or a challenging game.

Should the ai play to win the game, like in chess? If so, the ai should take out a civ if they get the chance.

Or, should the ai react as realistic world leaders do? If so, the ai should be nice, sometimes, be a bastard sometimes, act crazy sometimes ect.

My personal preference would be that on deity level at least, the ai simply plays to win the game by any means possible. In other words, if they see you are working on the spaceship, they should attack you to prevent the victory. No civ should just sit back while you win the game.
Same goes for UN voting. I still don't understand why any ai civ would vote for a different civ. If they are all trying to win, they should always either vote for themselves, or abstain. At least on deity, the ai should have victory in the game (not realism) as the forst priority.

Framnk · November 6, 2001, 21:24

I get offered a proposal to trade the AI's territory map for my territory map + 7 gold.

When I counter and remove the 7 gold from the bargain my advisor says they'd be insulted!!!!

WTF?

Peterk · November 6, 2001, 21:30

...if he's bigger than you, the AI figured that it's map has more interesting stuff on it and that you should pay a little extra for it.
No big deal.

kimmygibler · November 6, 2001, 21:41

Another dumb thing.

If you try to trade for a luxery when the ai has "0 extra" beside the name, (that is they are using their only grapes to boost their own happiness) the ai will never do it. I tried trading spices, ivory, horses, all my gold(55), my world map, and *all my cities* for the romans grapes. It said they would never consider such a deal! Man, they must really like those grapes...