Better AI balanced?

[Chacal]

I've heard it said here (by Sulla, I think) that Blake's Better AI mod is a great idea in principle, but ultimately leaves the game unbalanced. I've just seen someone on CivFanatics referring to a Better Handicaps mod which is intended to be used with Better AI and scales back the AI bonuses. Has anyone used this? If so, does it address the balance problems associated with using Better AI?

[darrelljs]

I pretty much exlusively play better AI, 2/09 version. The 2/12 version is the latest but the AI is too passive. Unfortunately the 2/09 version is a bit, um, aggressive. There was some bug that gives like a 10X increase in war declaration odds, and the AI tends to build a lot more military. I can only assume from the BTS announcement and the lack of Blake's participation that sometime around 2/12 he started working for Firaxis. Better AI, while much improved over 2.08, is not a finished work. Hopefully during BTS development they will address most of the issues. For now, the fact that I don't have to raze and replace citiese alone is worth using it .

I would not recommend using the handicaps. I tried them out and the game seemed to easy. I think Blake took a stab at what he thought a good adjustment was, but he didn't have time (nor the testing critical mass) to refine them before moving on. You can find out more information in the Better AI sub-forum.

Darrell

P.S. I think Sulla was more worried about calibration, his point was that the AI was playing 1-2 levels higher than 2.08/1.61 but nothing was done to ensure the difficulty levels had the same meaning.

[Sullla]

P.S. I think Sulla was more worried about calibration, his point was that the AI was playing 1-2 levels higher than 2.08/1.61 but nothing was done to ensure the difficulty levels had the same meaning.

Darrell more or less summed up my feelings above. Blake's AI plays vastly better than the default AI, but since it was simply added on to the pre-existing AI code, there are some problems with the difficulty modifiers. In other words, "Monarch" difficulty was balanced with regards to the default AI, and some of the modifiers definitely need to be adjusted if the AI suddenly becomes vastly smarter at doing everything. It's not just "the game plays 1-2 difficulty levels higher" either; the Better AI will aggressively whip and draft units to defend itself, even on relatively low difficulty levels. That kind of feature probably shouldn't be in the game at all on, say, Noble difficulty.

Blake is certainly still working on this at present behind the scenes, so it will be interesting to see how the final product turns out. We'll address the question of whether to move RBCiv events over to Better AI on a permanent or occasional basis at that time.

[T-hawk]

In other words, the Civ AI has at long last become smart enough that there's actually something to dumb down on lower levels. That's actually a really good feeling for Blake, I'm sure.

So in what form do we see this final product? Just in BTS? Will rumors of the final vanilla and Warlords patch finally materialize? An unofficial official mod from Firaxis?

[sylvanllewelyn]

I bought Command & Conquer 3 a week ago (still couldn't play online though. Gamespy bucks salls.)

Against the AI though, they had two options: % penalty and AI difficulty. I believe it should not be too hard for a Civ game mod to set bonuses/handicaps to things like city upkeep or hapiness costs. That, and you can choose from a variety of AI's, or simply the "best" one, usually labelled "balanced" by programmers. Would this be a good solution?

[Sarek]

So in what form do we see this final product? Just in BTS? Will rumors of the final vanilla and Warlords patch finally materialize? An unofficial official mod from Firaxis?

I don't want to open a "can of spam/worms", given units and buildings, etc. evolve from expansion to expanision which is totally fine, but a patch to bring the AI in line within each version of the game (and correct some minor additional stuff, like the Qin/Khan heads in vanilla maybe, would be totally thumbs up!

Fingers crossed.

[Gogf]

That kind of feature probably shouldn't be in the game at all on, say, Noble difficulty.

I agree: Ideally, the AI's playing ability would scale with difficulty level.