PTW - New Stuff, Mysteries, and Thoughts

[vmxa1]

Well no more counting on the hordes to go for the town, where you can cope. Better have some units to handle them out on the range now.

[ducki]

Also, in my first attempt at a Monarch game, the AI actually sent out a pair of spearmen to pillage my roads and improvements during a war. Completely ignoring the forces that were 2 tiles away and approaching a town.

That's new for me, at least the pairing of two spearmen by the AI. I lost 4 swordsmen to those two. And they were regulars against my vets! Damnable RNG.

[Soren Johnson]

Originally posted by Dominae
I have to mention that Jeff wasn't "entirely sure" what changes were made (not his responsibility), he just knew no major changes were on the agenda. Perhaps Soren did some nice tweaking for his own amusement (and ours!).


Dominae

well, no major changes, but plenty of little ones, which make 1.04 Ptw AI somewhat different from 1.29 AI. Probably the biggest change actually came with the 1.04 patch. I finally solved the problem of city governors always over-emphasizing food, which means they will switch to super production mode once they hit pre-acqueduct size 6.

[FrustratedPoet]

Originally posted by Soren Johnson Firaxis
I finally solved the problem of city governors always over-emphasizing food, which means they will switch to super production mode once they hit pre-acqueduct size 6.

Very glad to hear that.

Alexman in particular will love this.

[ducki]

No wonder I'm losing out on a lot more Wonders lately.

[alexman]

Glad to hear Soren is still around!

However, I think the AI needs to go into super-production mode, building happiness improvements, when it starts using entertainers, not when it can't grow any more. See here for more info.

Actually, this AI problem comes from its refusal to use the luxury slider.

[Soren Johnson]

Originally posted by alexman
Glad to hear Soren is still around!

However, I think the AI needs to go into super-production mode, building happiness improvements, when it starts using entertainers, not when it can't grow any more. See here for more info.

Actually, this AI problem comes from its refusal to use the luxury slider.

the situation you outlined in that thread is something of an outlier. The AI's priority is to build riflemen to help defend the city because it is a capital. Otherwise, I would expect to see it build a temple pretty soon. Under normal game circumstances, the city would probably have a luxury or two, could use its defense for military police, etc, etc... I guess what I am saying is that if the AI is in that position so late in the game, it has already lost.

[Soren Johnson]

Originally posted by alexman
Glad to hear Soren is still around!

However, I think the AI needs to go into super-production mode, building happiness improvements, when it starts using entertainers, not when it can't grow any more. See here for more info.

Actually, this AI problem comes from its refusal to use the luxury slider.

hmmm... after looking at it again, the only thing that worries me is that the AI chose wealth. I almost never see it do that in my test games, so I'm not sure what is going on, to be honest. The AI is very different when it only has a few cities, so I am not surprised that starting it on a one city island caused it to fly off the rails.

[alexman]

Thanks for the reply. That makes sense.

Do you agree that the AI would benefit from using the luxury slider (like human players do) instead of entertainers? It would make it irrigate less and have more productive cities until it can build those happiness improvements.

[Soren Johnson]

Originally posted by alexman
Thanks for the reply. That makes sense.

Do you agree that the AI would benefit from using the luxury slider (like human players do) instead of entertainers? It would make it irrigate less and have more productive cities until it can build those happiness improvements.

the luxury slider is very, very tricky. the AI basically only uses it to balance out war weariness, and there is a maximum level it will never go over. the danger was that the AI could get used to the luxury slider and deemphasize acquiring luxury goods and building happiness improvements, allowing a good portion of the treasury to disappear.

[Dominae]

Thanks for your input Soren. A couple of quick questions: what do you mean by "super-production mode"? Will the AI start mining everything once a city reaches size 6, and will it destroy existing improvements in doing this? Will it revert back to "super-food mode" after Construction (or, once the city builds an Aqueduct)?


Dominae

[vmxa1]

Thanks for the info, the changes to 104 explains some of the things I have seen. I would expec that any unusal situation could create havoc with the AI.

[nbarclay]

Here's a new one: in my first PtW game, the first overseas AI to find me (or one of the first) seems to have actually sold OTHER AIs (with one exception) contact with ME! In the past, I've always been denied contact until I was the one to pay for it. Assuming what I think I saw represents a pattern, this is a giant leap toward the AIs not treating the human differently from each other in their negotiations!

Nathan

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Soren Johnson Firaxis

the luxury slider is very, very tricky. the AI basically only uses it to balance out war weariness, and there is a maximum level it will never go over. the danger was that the AI could get used to the luxury slider and deemphasize acquiring luxury goods and building happiness improvements, allowing a good portion of the treasury to disappear.

Thanks for the info. It's really great that you're willing to post here! And I like what I've seen so far of what you've done with the AI for PtW.

Would it be possible to counter such a tendency by having the AI (1) base its luxury aquisitions and happiness improvement building on what the situation would be without the luxury slider and (2) then re-optimize the luxury slider setting as it acquires luxuries and completes happiness improvements? That would keep its main behavior essentially the same as if it weren't using the luxury slider but still benefit from the slider in some situations. (In connection with that, in some situations, it might need to preemptively convert some people to specialists in order to avoid, or at least slow down, growing to a point where it couldn't feed everyone without happiness problems.)

Nathan

[alexman]

Good idea Nathan. Effective use of the luxury slider would go a long way towards improving the AI.

Since we are talking about the AI, here's another area that could use some help: don't build settlers when their estimated completion comes before the estimated city growth to size 3 (settler pop cost + 1).

The following screenshot is from a standard emperor game in debug mode, and ALL 7 AIs did exactly the same thing: they immediately started building a settler in 4000 B.C. because they had enough units already (the free ones). The result is that the AI wastes several turns of production waiting for the city to grow to size 3. Why not build a temple or granary instead?

This tendency of the AI is exploitable even on lower difficulty levels. You attack a ancient UU civ during their expansion phase, making sure you trigger their Golden Age, prompty sue for peace, and you waste their Golden Age because they try to build settlers, not realizing that their boosted production completes them before their cities are large enough. (Credit goes to Sir Ralph for pointing out this dirty trick).

[ducki]

Originally posted by nbarclay
Here's a new one: in my first PtW game, the first overseas AI to find me (or one of the first) seems to have actually sold OTHER AIs (with one exception) contact with ME! In the past, I've always been denied contact until I was the one to pay for it. Assuming what I think I saw represents a pattern, this is a giant leap toward the AIs not treating the human differently from each other in their negotiations!

Nathan

I've noticed this also.
I've also noticed the AIs being a lot more proactive about contacting me for trades during their turn than before PtW. Of course, I rarely trade during the AI turn, but it's nice to see them being more apt to initiate trades as well as to trade Contact With XXXX amongst themselves and me.

[Catt]

Originally posted by Catt
As to tech advancement, I also got way behind very quickly (on Emperor) -- I attributed it to goody huts since both my continent-mates were expansionist, but given the other early reports, I wouldn't be surprised to learn of some tweak which affects AI tech acquisition.

I am currently in the early stages of my third PTW game (and getting my butt kicked), this one on a standard map after two shorter games on tiny maps. All three games on Emperor. I got a bad start in this game, and a poorer-than-average start in games 1 & 2. But even after factoring in the relatively unattractive starts, something has happened with early tech acquisition. Under stock Civ 3, I never got too far behind in tech -- in all three of my PTW games I've found myself way behind early -- feels more like a Deity game. My current game (as the Scandanavians) almost reminds me of Son of SVC in terms of backwards-ness. A couple of civs are building Magellan's Voyage, and I'm working hard to discover Invention and get my Berserks.

Can others confirm a change in early AI tech advances? I can chime in with confirmation of AIs selling contact to other AIs (and therefore relieving the human of paying for contact in every instance).

Catt

[vmxa1]

I can't help as I am doing Monarch right now, but the effects of the size 6 super production change will be seen in better infrastructure and lead to improvements in research. At least I would expect that if the AI boost production, it would help with science. I have notice they have a much reduced military. It could be due to other factors, but less money on units means more for research. I got way ahead in tech, but they closed the gap fast. Their army was still bigger than I would have have, but not by the amount I was use to seeing.

[Sunstone]

I have to squeeze in here just to say, that THIS is a great thread, now I definetively know, why firaxis reads the STRATEGY-Section of this forum.
It is totally exciting to actually still see REAL improvement in the AI-sector. props to soren. Do you know another game, where they really (!) continue to improve the AI, after release ?!

[Pyrodrew]

Do you know another game, where they really (!) continue to improve the AI, after release ?!

I've played games where other developers honestly, by accident through bugs, made the AI worse in patches... and never cared to fixed it.
So Civ3 is very refreshing.

[vmxa1]

That is what cracks me up about the cry for the MP fix. They want it yesterday, but if they got it then, it may be worse. The QA bunch can not test for all conditions as they do not have unlimited time nor all of the unique hardware. So it is esy to fix something and test it and finds out later it opened new issues up.

[Master Marcus]

Civ III's AI is the best and strongest so far, compared to any TBS-RTS. Sometimes we hear about a fan complaining that it can't do that, can't do this, and wants to see the AI fixed to do a settler produced exactly the same turn when the city reaches size 3 for example, or accumulating shields w the Palace in order to switch to a GW, etc.......that's the AI we'll see in the next few years. Let's play what's available for now.

[Alex]

Well, at least I have to agree with one thing: the Civ3 AI is indeed the best ever. Kudos to Soren.

[nbarclay]

I just finished my first PTW game (Emperor level), and it was a real doozie. My luck in the set-up and early game was mixed. The worst was being on the wrong side of a 5/3 continent split, which meant it was impossible to have more than three luxuries until Navigation. The best was that although my starting position was only middle-of-the-road (a river, a few shielded grasslands, and a game tile), I got a very early settler out of a hut in a much nicer area (no river, but a cattle and two wheat nearby), letting me expand enough that early warfare was unnecessary.

Rome was to my southeast, but I was fortunate in that they never had iron available. India was farther south. As for me, I was Sultan Osman of the Ottomans.

With the boost of the free settler and my usual early-game tricks, I was able to more or less keep up with the other civs on my continent in tech even in the ancient era. Toward the end of the ancient era, I pulled ahead, although trading tech for luxuries kept me from really pulling away. But the civs on the other continent grabbed most of the good wonders out from under me; I got the Colossus, Leonardo's, and Newton's, and that was it through the medieval era. Something tells me warmongering for great leaders if you want to build wonders may be more important in PtW.

I caught up with the other continent in tech buying Education a couple turns away from researching it myself, and soon got on a 4-turn tech pace. That dictated the timing for my first attacks: I would no longer be able to hold my research pace without a GA when the industrial era opened, so I had a small but presumably adequate force of Sipahi (several upgraded from chariots) ready to go. Rome was my intended target.

But just as I was getting ready to pull the trigger, war elephants showed up in my far southwest. I asked them to leave and repositioned most of my forces to back up my request, but that horrible warmonger Ghandi insisted on pressing the attack. A war elephant failed in its assault on a sipahi, and my golden age began half a turn early.

So instead of attacking Rome, I bribed Rome into allying with me against India. Building factories interrupted my war production a few turns into the war, leading to some uncomfortably closely fought contests. That was complicated by India's having entered its own golden age and upgraded its war elephants to cavalry. And by the time the war ended, India had riflemen, although not in huge numbers.

But sipahi carried the day, and by the time the peaceniks pushed my democracy into ending the war, India was down to three cities on a peninsula protected by mountains. The peace treaty left them with one.

Two turns later, I pulled my old plans for dealing with Rome out of mothballs and updated them. Rome was much smaller than India and lacked such modern forces, and twenty sipahi were able to deal with them in a single turn. I definitely love that UU!

In the meantime, the Ottoman Empire (as we now called ourselves) had built up fabulous wealth (over 10,000 gold) in part through trades for luxuries and gold with the overseas nations. That while maintaining a four-turn tech pace! Once peace was established, I did a lot of rush buying in conquered areas to help build them up, eventually depleting my gold surplus.

Once my golden age ended, I was at a point where research took five turns more often than four (especially since I headed straight up the corporate branch of the tech tree after detouring for replaceable parts and let the AIs do the rest of the research for me). I wasn't worried about Theory of Evolution because I had a leader from the Roman conquest on standby. But the AIs stayed fairly close in research in spite of all the gold I was raking in from various deals. I decided to sit back and wait for the late industrial or modern era before attempting any overseas adventures.

My game plan hit a bit of a snag when the dastardly Arabs decided to attack. The attack itself was a joke - a single Ansar Warrior unit too stupid to listen to a polite request to leave from the infantry that quickly surrounded it - but the resulting conflict cut off the world's only source of silks and one of my revenue streams. I rode out the technical state of war, with a few occasional naval battles, for a few turns, and then Babylon decided to attack too (with two knights and two warriors, easily dispatched by my sipahi). I decided that I had had enough.

That started the World War. I engaged Persia and Germany as allies against both my foes, with Spain only willing to fight Babylon because they had a MPP with the Arabs. That MPP quickly led to an interesting state of affairs, with one of my allies in the war against Babylon at war with the other two! But in any case, it was a good distraction for my foes.

A few turns later, I got motorized transportation and started building up an invasion force. A mixed 40-unit force containing tanks, infantry, and sipahi landed on two beachheads on the Babylonian coast, and Hammurabi started to regret his dishonest and aggressive ways. The sipahi did better when they were called into action against infantry than I was afraid they would, and I even used sipahi exclusively to take some towns of size six or less that would have taken longer had I used tanks. Shortly after the invasion started, I got Computers and started upgrading infantry to mech infs, and Babylon's fate was sealed. (The land masses were close enough that I never built a single airport; no powerful naval force showed up, so my transports could run a shuttle service that was neither faster nor slower than airlifting would have been.) I finished Babylon off just as war weariness was starting to reach highly problematical levels.

Shortly after that, I got Synthetic Fibers and upgraded all but the elites from my tank force to MAs. Persia fell in two turns, Germany in three, Spain's mainland holdings in one, and all but two Arab cities in the first turn of that war. The AIs were on the verge of getting motorized Transportation, Flight, and Radio themselves, but never quite made it. Domination victory, 1430 AD. By the way, I broke a ROP agreement in my attack on the Arabs, but I did so at least more or less honorably, declaring war with none of my troops in their territory. (That's better than they'd done to me earlier, promising to withdraw and then attacking instead, so I figured they deserved it.)

This proved to be one of the types of games I enjoy most: the AIs stayed close enough to keep things interesting, but I still got my MA romp in the end. Sipahi have definitely joined the ranks of my favorite UUs: it's fun being able to throw leftover cavalry-class units against wounded infantry or use them to take small outlying towns (although casualty rates aren't exactly low).

The AIs had truly amazing amounts of gold to buy my techs with, and I was favorably impressed with how quickly they researched. Had I not used my GA to get a big jump on them building stock exchanges, the tech race could have been a lot closer. As it was, I considered myself fortunate that the AIs never got a chance to bolster their defenses with the new goodies that come with Radio!

And keep in mind that I did what I did with a free settler early. Without that advantage, I would probably have been forced to take on Rome early for more territory, which would have put me a lot farther behind the other continent in research (since I couldn't have driven the tech pace on my own continent to keep us up). All in all, at least in my first impression, I regard my PtW bucks as well spent.

One last thing: I had feared that with PtW, the AIs might be more aggressive in taking advantage of a human opponent who focuses so much on REXing early that he largely ignores his military. But it looks like size still counts a great deal in persuading AIs that an early war would probably cost more than it's worth. (Just keep in mind that a sample size of one is not exactly the stuff that pleases statistics professors. )

Nathan

[Theseus]

And how was your furniture?

Seriously, I've had less time for PTW than I'd like, but I again want to say that it *feels* way different, and much more challenging.

Played as Arabs tonight... the Ansar is great, and cheap, but did not overwhelm me. Ottomans next.

[Jawa Jocky]

After losing a few Emperor level starts, I tucked my tail between my legs and started a game on Monarchy. This was probably the easiest game I ever remember playing.

It was a standard PTW game with everything random. I was the Carthag. which was good since the barbs would have killed me (I think they were raging) had I not had that 3 defensive power. I had science on 10% and I was the tech leader with extorting! I won by domination in 1745.

Here are 2 things I took away from my 1st full game:

1) Adam Smith Wonder is an even more important wonder now. (add free stock exchanges and commerical ports) to marketplaces, banks, harbors and airports and you can save a lot of Gold.

2) You don't really need to go out of your way to contact other AIs. They will seek you out. (of course this observation is from one game, and I was the most important civ)

I haven't played enough to really make a firm judgement. But the Monarchy to Emperor problem seems like it got worse in PTW (Monarchy is way too easy and Emperor is a little too hard). I should probably just shut-up and go back to practicing on Emperor until I master that level and can start gripping about Diety.

[vmxa1]

I have seen the same thing. They now want to make contact and I did not even get a galley out before I knew all the players.
I always like Adam Smith, but as you say it just got better. The only thing is that it so late that it is just icing.

[statusperfect]

Nice, interesting thread! I enjoyed every post.

[Theseus]

Played some more Arab... the Ansar's just don;t survive.

Saw some cool stuff though, including an AI's GL get slaughtered by another AI. Attacks are definitely much better: Ottomans went after the final Viking (or is that Scandinavian?) city with 3 wolfpacks of 4 Knights each.

The Berserker is a very cool unit... 6 attack that early is just brutal. I lost a town for the first time in a whiiiile.

The AI's seem to be building better too, with Marketplaces and Courthouses... capturing towns / cities just got more enticing.

Also, what's up with research? In the early game, meaning well past despotism, it seems IMPOSSIBLE to research quickly... no point in going above 10%.

Anybody thing the combat / promotion / GL odds have been changed? (ducks from the many salmon thrown at my head ) It just seems waaaay harder.

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by Theseus
...
Anybody think the combat / promotion / GL odds have been changed? (ducks from the many salmon thrown at my head ) It just seems waaaay harder.

I agree that it DOES seem so, though I am now playing non-militaristic in PTW, compared to being Zulu in my last couple of 1.29 games.