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I don't know Civ4's AI routines, but it might be such that after a certain year passes, it decides that the only way to stop the human player is total war. Befo

I don't know Civ4's AI routines, but it might be such that after a certain year passes, it decides that the only way to stop the human player is total war. Before that it can be less aggressive. I have a game of Civ1 somewhere where it takes about a half-hour to get through each turn because each city demands attention. I'd love to modify the ROM to skip the animations.

jonnathanson 14y ago
"I don't know Civ4's AI routines, but it might be such that after a certain year passes, it decides that the only way to stop the human player is total war. Before that it can be less aggressive." What seems more likely, at least in my experience, is that the AI is always trying to pursue a single goal: beating everyone else. It will select whatever means it deems possible at any point in time. It will make calculations, each turn, about the relative strength of its military versus the strength of its intended target, or else the combined strength of its allies' militaries against the strength of an opposing alliance's militaries. That's about it. It's always looking for an excuse to attack somebody. The only thing that holds it back is any sort of power imbalance sufficiently not in its favor. There are some AI "personalities" and leader traits in the game that will favor more aggressive styles than others. But generally speaking, a more aggressive AI personality is simply an AI personality that has a lower threshold for declaring war. It will go to war with slightly riskier odds than a less aggressive personality will. But they'll all go to total war if the odds are sufficiently stacked in their favor. The "aggressive" trait is really just a sliding scale of risk tolerance.
- ralfd 14y ago
  Gandhi and some other like Abraham Lincoln wont ever declare war if they are pleased. For all other leaders you have to go to the "friendly" relationship status. The exception is Catherine the Great of Russia. That bitch is the only one who can be bribed into war even if she is friendly with the victim.
  - danielweber 14y ago
    There is lore that Gandhi's nuke-trigger-happy code was fat-fingered from 1 to 12. And so he will always nuke if he can. It started as error, grew into joke, became accepted as tradition, and became expected in all the sequels.
Evbn 14y ago
There is an option to turn off animations.
NickPollard 14y ago
Fun fact: The original Civilization actually had it hardcoded into the AI that if the player was in the lead when the year 1900 was reached, all the AI would declare war on her. It's slightly less obvious in the later games, but there are definitely still diplomatic penalties for the human player such that the AI are less likely to make deals with them and more likely to declare war. Anyone interested should read Soren Johnson's blog (http://www.designer-notes.com/ http://www.designer-notes.com/). Soren was lead game designer and AI programmer on Civilization IV, and he actually designed the ruleset and the AI hand-in-hand, so that they would have a game the AI could actually play well.

jonnathanson 14y ago

"I don't know Civ4's AI routines, but it might be such that after a certain year passes, it decides that the only way to stop the human player is total war. Before that it can be less aggressive." What seems more likely, at least in my experience, is that the AI is always trying to pursue a single goal: beating everyone else. It will select whatever means it deems possible at any point in time. It will make calculations, each turn, about the relative strength of its military versus the strength of its intended target, or else the combined strength of its allies' militaries against the strength of an opposing alliance's militaries. That's about it. It's always looking for an excuse to attack somebody. The only thing that holds it back is any sort of power imbalance sufficiently not in its favor. There are some AI "personalities" and leader traits in the game that will favor more aggressive styles than others. But generally speaking, a more aggressive AI personality is simply an AI personality that has a lower threshold for declaring war. It will go to war with slightly riskier odds than a less aggressive personality will. But they'll all go to total war if the odds are sufficiently stacked in their favor. The "aggressive" trait is really just a sliding scale of risk tolerance.

ralfd 14y ago
Gandhi and some other like Abraham Lincoln wont ever declare war if they are pleased. For all other leaders you have to go to the "friendly" relationship status. The exception is Catherine the Great of Russia. That bitch is the only one who can be bribed into war even if she is friendly with the victim.
- danielweber 14y ago
  There is lore that Gandhi's nuke-trigger-happy code was fat-fingered from 1 to 12. And so he will always nuke if he can. It started as error, grew into joke, became accepted as tradition, and became expected in all the sequels.

Evbn 14y ago

There is an option to turn off animations.

NickPollard 14y ago

Fun fact: The original Civilization actually had it hardcoded into the AI that if the player was in the lead when the year 1900 was reached, all the AI would declare war on her. It's slightly less obvious in the later games, but there are definitely still diplomatic penalties for the human player such that the AI are less likely to make deals with them and more likely to declare war. Anyone interested should read Soren Johnson's blog (http://www.designer-notes.com/ http://www.designer-notes.com/). Soren was lead game designer and AI programmer on Civilization IV, and he actually designed the ruleset and the AI hand-in-hand, so that they would have a game the AI could actually play well.