Game 1
I found my city, turn taxes to oppressive, garrison my sovereign, and watch the AIs.
Turn 7:
Interesting! All you can really say to that if correct it looks like there are some quick wins to be made on the AI. Like, consider all empty Essence slots, and if there's nothing better to do add a zero cost one like Meditation; always be building something; don't waste movement points; and check at the end of each turn whether a settler unit has reached its goal and can build, in which case it should build. In an ideal world it would also use Essence slots and start building something in the new town before ending the turn.
Not using all movement points may be related to what sweatyboatman observed, that the AI stacks only seem to be able to do one thing at once. I assume what happens is that the AI stack achieves its goal (e.g. a goodie hut) and then stops, because it has achieved its goal, and it won't be given a new goal before the start of the next turn.
On the specific issue of taxation, I personally worry about getting too far behind the AI in research, and gold doesn't seem that important at the start, at least until you can rush things. So in other words I leave it on as low a setting as I can for as long as I can. I'll leave it on no taxation if feasible. I haven't really experimented much with the higher settings, there probably are better ways to mini-max it. A default setting of Low has worked fine for me so far. (I'm currently winning on Ridiculous but I've never tried Insane.)
Intresting... I'm doing a lot of modding at the moment, and have spend quite a bit of time watching the AI in early stages to see if they have been constructing my custom improvements, using my new spells etc. They seem to start out reasonably ok... they always seem to get into building something fairly quickly.
So i'm rather suprised to see this. I tend to run on Challenging AI is about the only signficant difference I can see. I'll do a similar test run to yours in the next couple of days and post it.
I swapped to Challenging / Challenging, the first turn, all 3 AI sovereigns enchanted themselves but didn't move or found a city. The second turn 2 of the AIs continued enchanting themselves and didn't do anything else, one founded a city. In this case, the city did start building a merchant the turn after the city was founded. The rest followed similarly.
I went back to Hard / Hard, and, again, no production until turn 10.
Challenging World / Hard AI, no production until turn 9
Normal World / Hard AI, no production until turn 10
Expert / Expert, no production until turn 9
Expert / Ridiculous, no production until turn 10
Normal / Normal, started producing the turn after founding the city
It appears to only be a problem on Hard AI and higher
How bizarre. Certainly sounds like a bug, and one which would presumably have quite a big effect on the difficulty of the game, bearing in mind how important the first ten turns are.
OK i've done a test, and unfortunately I have to say that I had similar results... not quite as bad but definitely highlighted some issues. Pretty much same thing as you... the AI sometimes takes ages to get construction going.
For my test I used Challenging AI and these world settings:
Markin - Started on a 3-4 with a 4-3-2 and multiple 4-3-1 nearby
Ceresa - Started on a 3-3 with a 4-3-1 one tile away that would make the best start
Karavox - Started on a 4-3-1 with a 5-3-1 one tile away that would make the best start
Turn 1
Markin - Casts Stoneskin, doesn't move
Ceresa - Casts Summon Shadow Warg, doesn't move
Karavox - Casts Burning Blade, doesn't move
Turn 2
Markin - Casts Regeneration, moves 1 square to another 3-4 location
Ceresa - Moves to the 4-3-1 which is the best start location in the area
Karavox - Moves to the 5-3-1 which is the best start location in the area
Turn 3
Markin - Moves to the 4-3-2 location
Ceresa - Settles the 4-3-1 and moves the stack 1 square away, but doesn't cast a city enhancement or build anything
Karavox - Settles the 5-3-1 and moves the stack 1 square away, but doesn't cast a city enhancement or build anything
Markin - Settles the 4-3-2 and moves the stack 1 square away, but doesn't cast a city enhancement or build anything
Ceresa - Moves through the stack through the city to explore the opposite direction, casts Meditation and starts building a Workshop
Karavox - Moves 1 tile to (I think) pick up a goodie hut, casts Insipration, no construction
Turn 5
Markin - Moves the stack towards a Quest location, casts Meditation (still has one free city enhancement slot though) and starts building a Monument
Ceresa - Picked up a goodie hut (scores a Hate stone)
Karavox - Heads towards a Mite lair (ends turn next to the lair), still no construction
Turn 6
Markin - Doesn't move onto the quest location, changes direction instead
Ceresa - Explores further
Karavox - The Mites attacked Karavoxs army - Karavox wins, no construction still
Turn 7
Markin - Explores
Karavox - Clears the Mite Lair, still no construction
That's as far as I went but at this stage, poor old Karavox still has not started building anything in his city. He settled back on turn 3.
Markin settled on turn 4. Cast buffs on turn 1 and 2 without doing anything else, like moving. Could have settled then cast the buffs if nothing else.
Ceresa settled on turn 3 and then had Meditation and a Workshop underway the next turn so not a bad effort there.
They all chose pretty much the best spot in the area to settle, but it just took a bit longer than it should. They all could have settled the spot they chose on the first turn. Seemed to get the same thing where on the first turn they cast a buff spell then that's all they do that turn.
Will try on Easy settings later.
Good post Poko8, hopefully Frogboy can get something from this.
Screen grab of Karavox on Turn 8:
To play devil's advocate here for a second, how do you actually know that the cities are not constructing anything? Are you basing it on what it says on the worldview? I've not played around without Fog of War; is it possible to open up the city screen and see what has been built? Another thread has reported that while it looks like the AI isn't building anything from the worldview, in practice it's building something very quickly (the screen flickers). I think the suggestion was that it builds something in one turn and you get the flicker but then the city shows "No construction". If it's rushing, do you see anything happen to the amount of gold it has?
I can however personally confirm that the AI does leave its armies doing nothing sometimes, for no very obvious reason. In my current game I got the event (Blood Season?) which puts everyone at war with everyone, right when my best stack had just started a war and was on expedition. This was particularly tricky because there was a AI large stack, that previously had been neutral, wandering around on my borders. Blood season is declared, and now it's two tiles from an undefended city. It's only three tiles from my almost undefended capital, and I've used Freeze recently. Eeek. I sacrificed pretty much the entire population of the vulnerable city so I could cast Cloudwalk, but I'd miscalculated, and my best stack was in the city it had just taken, without any movement points left. So I was assuming I'd have to retake my city next turn.
Except... the AI stack did nothing. Now, I think it was two tiles away through forest, so I don't think it could have taken the city in one move. But even so, it didn't know I was going to cast Cloudwalk, and that city had absolutely zero defenders. It was a decent AI stack as well, there was no way the standard garrison was going to stop it. So it should have moved next to the city to attack the turn after. Or alternatively I could understand it going straight for my capital; or I could understand it sending the stack back to its own borders to defend itself against all the other nations it's suddenly at war with. But not to move at all...? Very strange.
If you use the cheats to turn off the fog of war you can open the AI city and see if they have built anything. They can't build anything in 1 turn in any case at that early stage of the game.
Strange thing is, i've just re-enabled mods and done a few more tests while i've been working on various things... and in the few occassions I checked what the AI was up to... they always starting building something straight away (although in some cases it still took a few turns to settle). So the "issue" seems to be a bit inconsistant in terms of when it appears. Or maybe it has something to do with the faction... because when I have mods on the tests were with custom Sov's. Will do some more tests.
Thanks abob, I'm glad I'm not crazy
Merlinme, that's a good question, but, with no fog, I'd be able to see any new buildings or units that appear. When they do start building you immediately see one of those construction sites pop up.
Fair enough, just checking. Certainly looks like a bug, if you can pin down under what circumstances it happens and what circumstances it doesn't happen, I'm sure it would be a great help to Frogboy and the team.
Bump, since Frogboy said he'll be looking at Nick-Danger's AI thread today. Hoping he sees this one too.
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