a note on AI and national units

[Pocus]

After several test I think the a big part of the problem with AI not building enough national units, and too much place holders (aka junk) milicia, etc. is that the AI put too much emphasize on temples (one in each province roughly) and nearly never build castles (0-1 built for most nations, during the course of 40 turns, on several games).

Just fixing this priority would change radically the composition of AI armies. I wonder if this is not just a bug (doms I AI built castles).

an additional note on map scripts : could it be possible to have a no population type as pop type? If we want to disallow building in a province, except national units (so need a castle)? It makes sense in scenario where some nations are supposed to hold for centuries long some provinces.

[ November 06, 2003, 13:10: Message edited by: Pocus ]

[Jasper]

This could be a side effect of the AI having less money to play with due to the reduced gold economy. Castles are alot more expensive now!

I definitely agree however, that the AIs need to build at least one more castle than they do.

[Pocus]

Honnestly, I dont think so. In my current game, I have Ulm with 20 provinces, all have a temple (4000 gp), whereas he has only 2 castles, so he put 450 gp or so in it. The problem lie either in a bad priority, or in a buggy value in some of dom2 formula.
Thats the kind of fix which can be done fast, so hopefully the first patch will see a big increase in AI value.

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally posted by Pocus:
Honnestly, I dont think so. In my current game, I have Ulm with 20 provinces, all have a temple (4000 gp), whereas he has only 2 castles, so he put 450 gp or so in it. The problem lie either in a bad priority, or in a buggy value in some of dom2 formula.
Thats the kind of fix which can be done fast, so hopefully the first patch will see a big increase in AI value.

I thought Ulm was a race that needed to push strong dominion ahead of itself and defend strongly against the dominions of others?

Even if we dont agree on that there are definetly races where temples are more important than castles so are you saying that this is a fix that all races should get or just Ulm?

As for provinces with no independent troops possible I think the closest I got was assigning tritons to a land province and barbarians to a water one. The AI might try to get troops there anyway though which would waste money so Im not sure if it will fill your need. Yes a zero native race might be useful.

[Mortifer]

Originally posted by Pocus:
Honnestly, I dont think so. In my current game, I have Ulm with 20 provinces, all have a temple (4000 gp), whereas he has only 2 castles, so he put 450 gp or so in it. The problem lie either in a bad priority, or in a buggy value in some of dom2 formula.
Thats the kind of fix which can be done fast, so hopefully the first patch will see a big increase in AI value.

Ulm is an AI or is that your nation?
The AI has built 2 castles and nothing else meanwhile?

[Pocus]

Gandalf : I think that a more balanced layout should be done by the AI. With only 2 castles for Ulm, I faced big armies, but composed at 90% of 'independants' units, most of them behind shortbows, milicias and light infantries. Perhaps for some nations temples are most important than to others, but in the case of Ulm, castles too are importants (because their units ask for much resources). If I had faced an army of 100 Ulm infantries, and not one of 400 milicias (which were starving), I would have lost a major battle.

For the poptype swapping (sea type on land, and the reverse), I think it works, without the AI wasting money, but who knows beside Illinter?

Mortifer : they had 2 castles, but perhaps a total of 1500 troops in their empire (most were rabble of poor to zero value against Abysian HI).