We have enough on our hands

[sooooo]

Well, normally I'm anti-whining about CIV because I love the game, but I'm going to have a bit of a vent here. Well, maybe you could refer to it as a mild grumble.

We Have Enough On Our Hands (WHEOOH) is horrible.

When a civ that isn't at war says this, it has decided to go to war and there is nothing you can do to about it. You don't know who it has decided to attack, but you know it will happen and will do so once its first attacking stack has reached the borders. Most of the time you can have an educated guess about who the victim will be.

That's not the problem. The problem is, playing optimally, you should check every civ every turn to see if someone has enough on their hands. This is very time consuming. For every civ that isn't at war, a vassal or friendly, you have to click on their name, wait for the animated leaderhead to appear, click "we would like to trade", then scroll down to the "declare war on" section on the left, hover over a civ's name, see what they say and then press escape. That's pretty time consuming action to repeat every turn, especially when you have 17 opposition civs like in the current SGOTM.

Now no one actually does this - life is too short. The problem is that you get a massive benefit from doing so. Being able to predict wars before they happen is huge. Say if a neighbour declares on you. Do you send over all of your forces to defend that front, leaving (an)other front(s) with minimal garrison? If you do, you have a much better chance of fighting off the attack, but risk losing cities to attack from a different civ. With careful checking of WHEOOH, you can predict attacks before they happen and send troops back to defend cities near the WHEOOH civ's border instead of perhaps advancing in the other direction. I know a few players check WHEOOH occasionally, even often, but a few turns is massive and it's really only luck as to if you spot it soon after they have become WHEOOH. Even a single turn can mean the difference between getting enough troops back or having the city razed. It's not just declaring on you. If you know a civ will attack another, you can get troops in the area to possibly poach cities or culture-bomb cities in resistance.

Another factor is that if you think a civ is going to declare on you, giving into demands will not change their decision - so it is usually incorrect to do so. If you did not know they are WHEOOH, the correct decision may well be to give in to the demand.

I realise the reasons for WHEOOH being there, and I realise I am describing a problem without presenting a solution. But if this a big frustration to me then it just shows how good everything else about the game is. Happy new year.

[zakalwe]

Well, one "solution" would be to expose the WHEOOH information in a more accessible manner (i.e. as messages in the log or something). This shouldn't be that hard to do in a mod. Alternatively, remove the extra information: have the AI say WHEOOH every now and then without actually indending to declare war. The ideal solution might be to allow the AI to change its mind even after it has launched its attack stacks, although that might be exploitable as well.

[Atlas]

Well, normally I'm anti-whining about CIV because I love the game,

Agreed

When a civ that isn't at war says this, it has decided to go to war and there is nothing you can do to about it.

This would be my only complaint about it. I check this with the leaders who seem likely to be coming for me. This allows me to get into the proper civics and interrupt my build orders with the proper builds. However I really wish there was a way to get the WHEOOH message and then change that by switching religions, gifting, etc.

If there is an AI-AI war I don't need to be prepared on the first turn of it to take advantage so no worries there.

I would prefer a different diplo User Interface, the current one does sort of emphasize micro.

[Ruff_Hi]

There is a modified foreign advisor that includes an 'at a glance' panel (it gives the +/- pts for all civs v all other civs with color coding too). I think another panel called 'WHEOOH' with a TRUE or FALSE would be the way to go. There is an INFO panel that could be modded to include that.

Assuming that this info is exposed to python somewhere.

[Blake]

In Better AI I can easily make it so that "WHEOOH" is the excuse of last resort - in other words if the AI is not in a war they'll use excuses like "We just don't like you enough" first. This would definitely make it impossible to tell when your sworn enemies are coming to get you, while Allies would still give a meaningful excuse as to why they don't want to join a war.
Of course once the AI is actually in a war there's no reason not to use the WHEOOH excuse.

Is there any good reason why I shouldn't make this change?

[Kylearan]

Hi,

In Better AI I can easily make it so that "WHEOOH" is the excuse of last resort [...]
Is there any good reason why I shouldn't make this change?

That sounds good! Since hiding its true intentions makes the AI more intelligent, it would fit the Better AI mod well.


A loosely related question: Does anybody know if there's another patch planned for Warlords, and whether some of the Better AI changes will make it into the patch? I don't follow the Warlords forum except for skimming over the Better AI thread, and I'm still waiting for an official patch before buying Warlords...

-Kylearan

[Atlas]

I agree with Kylearan that the AI hiding its intentions is good, but I don't think the solution is to replace the "We have enough on our hands" with the more more ubiquitous "We just don't like you enough" . I would prefer to have the ability to alter that WHEOOH. To be able to capitulate for peace. Right now, once that message comes up it is written in stone and there is no turning around- that is a bigger problem- the AI is inflexible once it goes into WHEOOH mode. The AI would better be served by flexibility in its diplomacy. The AI telegraphing its intentions through WHEOOH is a minor issue (IMHO). It is the cumbersome display of that type of Diplo info that is problematic (and easily solved (more or less) through a mod) and the inability to reverse that AI decision by becoming its lapdog.

Does anybody know if there's another patch planned for Warlords, and whether some of the Better AI changes will make it into the patch? I don't follow the Warlords forum except for skimming over the Better AI thread, and I'm still waiting for an official patch before buying Warlords...

I have not heard a peep about a patch, but no doubt others are better informed than I am.

I was recently toying around with the "BetterAI 07-01-01" and I doubt that will make it into a patch. For the simple reason that it would need a total restructuring of the advantages the AI gets and a rebalancing. That is a lot of work and a lot of tinkering. The latest versions of the "BetterAI" are very serious, with the AI managing its cities like a (Vanilla) Monarch level human player. It is just so much better that it starting to unbalance other game aspects.

[Kylearan]

Hi,

I was recently toying around with the "BetterAI 07-01-01" and I doubt that will make it into a patch. For the simple reason that it would need a total restructuring of the advantages the AI gets and a rebalancing.

Thanks Atlas for the info. I've skimmed over the discussion about that, and I'm not sure I like the situation this has become. The game probably needs some rebalancing now that the AI is more intelligent, but if this prevents the changes from being incorporated into the next patch (in a tested and thoughtful way!), this might prevent me from buying Warlords after all. I won't buy it for the single player experience, only for RB events, but I wouldn't like playing a half-baked version when I know that there's a mod out there that would improve the AI a lot more.

Simply using the mod for RB events is also something I would not like. First, I don't like that the mod also makes changes to non-AI aspects of the game (starting point, city governor, ...), and second, I would prefer an experienced company like Firaxis to assess the overall balance of the game afterwards. (I would trust Sirian's judgement as well, but I doubt that he has the time or energy or even the will to test the mod extensively for game balance!)


I hold some grudges with Firaxis for how they handled Civ IV post-release. If they actually do another patch including the Better AI mod (or some aspects of it) in a tested, balanced way, a lot of faith into them will be restored with me, and I will buy Warlords.

-Kylearan

[sooooo]

Saying the 2.08 AI is half-baked is a very glass-half-empty way of putting it. Now there are other problems in warlords (2 pointless traits, vassals), but the AI is very good if you are used to, and enjoy vanilla 1.61 AI.

[Kylearan]

Hi,

Saying the 2.08 AI is half-baked is a very glass-half-empty way of putting it. Now there are other problems in warlords (2 pointless traits, vassals), but the AI is very good if you are used to, and enjoy vanilla 1.61 AI.

Maybe it is very good compared to the 1.61 AI, but after reading the Better AI discussion thread and the commit logs of the mod, I suspect it will be hard not to perceive the glass half-empty when playing the 2.08 AI. This is especially true if memory serves me right and some of the changes to the AI's mid-/long-term strategy I would like the most to play, like cultural victory or employing the dagger strategy, came post-2.08.

-Kylearan