AI Fog of War?

from Elemental Forums

What are your thoughts on how removing fog or war helps the AI? (<AIFOWCheat>1</AIFOWCheat>)

I'm creating my own custom difficulty setting and I'm torn between using it/not using it.

also: does the AI now consider hit points for power rating? I'm trying to decide how much of a bonus to hit points I should give them.

Thanks in advance.

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Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Primal_Savage, reply 1

I'm fairly convinced that turning off the Fog of War (FoW) will put the AI at a disadvantage. The less the AI has to think the more likely it is to succeed and having to think about scouting might make matters worse. Also, the AI will NOT cast Ineluctable Vision, so contrary to players, it will never have a full view of the map without the FoW Cheat. On the other hand, there's always the possibility that without FoW Cheat it won't send armies of Pioneers around the map...

Since you are trying to design new Difficult Levels, you may want to have a look at the additional Difficulty Levels from XtraDeconstruct (Can be used as a standalone Mod). Look for XD_XtraSavageDifficulty (It's one of the last file) from the Canon page.

HP are part of what make determines the strength of a unit so it's taken into account for the Power Rating of said units, which in turn is taken into account for the Faction's Power Rating.

 

 

 

_________________________

LH Mods by Primal

XtraDeconstruct

XtraDeconstruct Canons

In that case I'll definitely turn off FoW for the AI. Is there any other possible way to stop the AI from sending armies of Pioneers around the map?

I saw in the notes for XtraSavageDifficulty that AI Intelligence is set to ten. I've read some old posts suggesting that when AI Intelligence is set above three, it may give the AI huge research bonuses; making the one set for AIEconomicRatio inaccurate. Has this ever been proven?  

Thanks in advance.     

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Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Primal_Savage, reply 3

Quoting JetJaguar72,
reply 2
In that case I'll definitely turn off FoW for the AI. Is there any other possible way to stop the AI from sending armies of Pioneers around the map?



 

Yeah, you need to let them cheat a bit if you want competition... As to the Pioneer Armies, would have to undo LH 1.7:

 



 

More seriously, would probably have to reduce the three Expansion AIPriorities (Early/Mid/Late)

<AIPriority InternalName="Expansion">

 

I increased them a while ago (5, 4, 3 instead of 5, 3, 1), but since LH 1.7 it's been a bit too intense. If you do download XD_AI from the Canon files, try to change it back to 5, 3, and 1 and see how that turns out.

 

The other way would probably be to increase the Pioneer Wages and see if that reduces the AI urge to build a Pioneer Army.

 

Quoting JetJaguar72,
reply 2
...I've read some old posts suggesting that when AI Intelligence is set above three, it may give the AI huge research bonuses; making the one set for AIEconomicRatio inaccurate. Has this ever been proven?



Most XtraSavage Difficulties are above Insane. Meaning their AIEconomicRatio is higher than the one set on Insane. Since Insane is set to AIIntelligenceFactor = 10, I can't really set it lower for those XSavage Difficulties. Where I'm getting at is I didn't need to verify the information to create the XSavage Difficulties.

The other thing is once you get to Ridiculous, you will not be competing, at all, with the AI for Research. They will get 2+ Discoveries every time you get one, so it doesn't matter much really. At this point you know you'll be fighting Chain/Plate armor troops with clubs and spears...

 

 

_________________________

LH Mods by Primal

XtraDeconstruct

XtraDeconstruct Canons

Just played my first game with the AI fow cheat and the pioneer spam is much more than I expected. I found it almost impossible to prevent the AI from at least building an outpost in the middle of my territory.

I was wondering: Is it possible to give the AI the ability to scout additional tiles (like the scout ability, but more than just +1 sight) as an alternative to giving the AI the fow cheat? Is this possible to mod in? I believe the scout can see three tiles; maybe let the AI see 4 or 5 tiles?

Thanks in advance.

 

 

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting JetJaguar72, reply 4

I was wondering: Is it possible to give the AI the ability to scout additional tiles (like the scout ability, but more than just +1 sight) as an alternative to giving the AI the fow cheat? Is this possible to mod in?

You could add the scouting ability to AIAbilities.xml so that all trained units get the ability.

Not sure if a second copy of that file is correctly read from the mods folder (worth a try). You might have to simply copy and paste the Scout ability into:

/English/AIAbilities.xml

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting davrovana, reply 5

Quoting JetJaguar72,
reply 4


I was wondering: Is it possible to give the AI the ability to scout additional tiles (like the scout ability, but more than just +1 sight) as an alternative to giving the AI the fow cheat? Is this possible to mod in?



You could add the scouting ability to AIAbilities.xml so that all trained units get the ability.

Not sure if a second copy of that file is correctly read from the mods folder (worth a try). You might have to simply copy and paste the Scout ability into:

/English/AIAbilities.xml

Thanks. I'll give it a try.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

I saw in Galciv3 forums that one of the devs was thinking that turning off the Fog of War cheat might actually help AI focus it's armies better. They're probably busy testing that in galciv3 atm.