Brain Dead AI Nations

[iceboy]

In almost every game I play EA Arcos just sits there and conquers almost no provinces! Is this AI broken?

Any other examples of useless AI nations out there? Can this be fixed?

[MaxWilson]

It depends greatly upon the pretender and scales chosen by the AI in that particular game; I have not noticed EA Arco being unusually weak in my games. Gandalf Parker has run all-AI games to collect statistics on "good" AI nations, but I don't have a link to his results. I believe Mictlan has a reputation for dom-killing itself early on.

You can fix it by using map or mod commands to give AI nations better starting armies and/or pretenders. I presume you're playing on Impossible difficulty; if not, turn it up and see if that fixes it. Also, try using Edi's BI mod. A final idea: play on crowded maps. The AIs which happen to be weak because of poor pretender choices will get eaten by those which are strong, and a "best opponent" should emerge naturally.

-Max

[iceboy]

Originally Posted by MaxWilson

It depends greatly upon the pretender and scales chosen by the AI in that particular game; I have not noticed EA Arco being unusually weak in my games. Gandalf Parker has run all-AI games to collect statistics on "good" AI nations, but I don't have a link to his results. I believe Mictlan has a reputation for dom-killing itself early on.

You can fix it by using map or mod commands to give AI nations better starting armies and/or pretenders. I presume you're playing on Impossible difficulty; if not, turn it up and see if that fixes it. Also, try using Edi's BI mod. A final idea: play on crowded maps. The AIs which happen to be weak because of poor pretender choices will get eaten by those which are strong, and a "best opponent" should emerge naturally.

-Max

Thanks for the suggestions! Because of the reasons you stated I only play modded nations with modded pretenders. But this only lets you play with a normal ai. This also only lets you play with random ai personality types. I balance all pretenders and scales. I play on a large map that gives them plenty of room for expansion. The problem is certain AI nations never expand. Maybe this is because the random AI personality is on defensive but usually its always the same nations no matter what that suck. Ive tried the BI mod but the AI armies seem to be more quality but much smaller and less competitive. Anyone have any other ideas?

[Gandalf Parker]

Actually the Arcos AI works great. Finally after much tweaking most of the nations work well. They play with their strengths. Pangaea uses stealth, Marignon uses dominion strength, Ctis uses poison, and Mictlan finally manages to keep up some dominion and not starve itself early in the game.

Arcos as a nation is geared around magic. Its a strong researcher.

In test games I have often found some nations to be strong early expanders, then others are strong mid-game, and yet others are a late game powerhouse. So whether or not an AI is "broken" often has more to do with the way the games are played. On smaller maps with many opponents certain nations will always seem to be powerful. But on larger maps with more wilderness they will do terrible. Those larger maps (larger than the game creates, such as 1000-1500 provinces) which go into late-game and powerful spells is where Arcos does very well. Also setting the independents really strong tend to play into Arcos favor.

However, if you wish to "fix" the AIs for the types of games you are playing then look at the SemiRand program. With it you can have the AIs setup from pre-done files. A player-created better choice of god and scales can insure a better game.

Gandalf Parker

[Sombre]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

Actually the Arcos AI works great. Finally after much tweaking most of the nations work well. They play with their strengths. Pangaea uses stealth, Marignon uses dominion strength, Ctis uses poison, and Mictlan finally manages to keep up some dominion and not starve itself early in the game.

I may be wrong, but to me this entire paragraph comes across as a total fabrication.

I have never seen the AI exhibit any of the behaviour you're describing. Other than Mictlan randomly surviving past the first few turns.

I also think claiming that the arco AI is 'very good' in late game is misleading. It sucks in late game. They all do. The AI has no idea what to do with late game magic, doesn't build thugs/SCs, doesn't script mages,...

I don't usually have a problem with your posts gandalf but this just seems like deliberate misinformation.

[iceboy]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

Actually the Arcos AI works great. Finally after much tweaking most of the nations work well. They play with their strengths. Pangaea uses stealth, Marignon uses dominion strength, Ctis uses poison, and Mictlan finally manages to keep up some dominion and not starve itself early in the game.

Arcos as a nation is geared around magic. Its a strong researcher.

In test games I have often found some nations to be strong early expanders, then others are strong mid-game, and yet others are a late game powerhouse. So whether or not an AI is "broken" often has more to do with the way the games are played. On smaller maps with many opponents certain nations will always seem to be powerful. But on larger maps with more wilderness they will do terrible. Those larger maps (larger than the game creates, such as 1000-1500 provinces) which go into late-game and powerful spells is where Arcos does very well. Also setting the independents really strong tend to play into Arcos favor.

However, if you wish to "fix" the AIs for the types of games you are playing then look at the SemiRand program. With it you can have the AIs setup from pre-done files. A player-created better choice of god and scales can insure a better game.

Gandalf Parker

Thanks for the info. I am only referring to EA Arcos as the other Arcos ages seem to work fine. Every game that I play EA Arcos looks like this: EA Arcos is always dead last in expansion. This is always on a large map with plenty of room and time for expansion and has nothing to do with early or late in the game. They never get to late game because they never expanded at all... Independents are always set to 9.

[iceboy]

Here is the map I always play on: I set all the starting provinces very evenly and even when I move EA Arcos around they still are dead last in expansion...

[lch]

Originally Posted by iceboy

Independents are always set to 9.

And that's the reason for the AI faring badly. I intended to ask about this, now you pointed it out yourself. Read up on other threads how to improve the situation for enemy AIs. Play at normal or lower indie settings.

[Zeldor]

iceboy:

MAke sure there is EA Arco in the game. There is quite rare bug with EA Arco appearing in HoF but not being in the game. There is also even more rare bug of nation appearing in the game and controling provs even when it is not present in the gmae

[Gandalf Parker]

Yes Sombre. We all know that you can kick the games tail.
I admit that the AI is not a great AI vs expert players, and I am sure that you remember many games where you excelled.

But running a hundred games on repeated hosting tends to show patterns. The score sheets tend to show early leads by nations such as Ermor, mid leads by nations such as Oceania, and late leads by nations such as Arcos. The patterns are even more pronounced if you remove the randominity of the AIs early setup giving it pre-created gods and scales. But then of course removing those variables tends to also remove some great surprises.

Examining the debug logs shows definite differences in the way they handle their daily affairs. Much improvment has come in the last dozen or so patches over the old linear single-minded AI code I used to complain about which had them all making the same decisions. As a modder you might also have noticed the many commands added for telling a nation to act in certain ways (such as, to act as a blood-sacrifice needing nation).