JetJaguar72

Join Date 04/2006

Same Aggression level for Nearly Every Race?

When I look at the AI personality tab, it shows the aggression for each particular race. Surprisingly, every single race has a "50" in aggression, except for the Drengin (70) & the Thalians (80). Even the Korath Clan has a 50 aggreession! -would have expected near 100 for them.

I'm shocked to see that the more peaceful races like the Terrans, Altarains, Iconians & Torians don't have below 50 aggression. It's also strange that all but two of the races have the exact same aggression level. Why would the Korath Clan and The Altarians be equally aggressive?

I know I can easily mod these aggression level to be something other than the same 50 for almost all the races, but before I do, I'd like to know if I should. I notice that these aggression levels are the same for both vanilla & APT 1.3. So the designer of APT didn't alter these. Before I mod this, I'd want to know why APT didn't change these.

Thanks in advance

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Gaunathor

Join Date 04/2006

+170

I don't know MabusAltarn's reasons, but I can provide you my own.

First of all, some of the AI personalities are already quite aggressive. This is primarily the case with AIP 8 (Drath, Krynn, Terrans, and Thalan) and, to some extent, the AIP 11 variant of the Arceans.

Secondly, the more aggressive a race is, the more it focuses on warfare. This is at the expense of everything else. The infrastructure of a highly aggressive race will be much weaker than that of a less aggressive one.

You can easily verify this by taking a look at the Yor and the Drengin. Both races use the same AI personality (7) as a base, but the Drengin are much more aggressive. In the game, the Yor will almost always have a better infrastructure, even if the Drengin have a better starting position.

If you are playing on a very high difficulty (like Masochistic, for example), then this won't be much of an issue. The bonuses, the AI receives, will offset most of the problems. However, it is noticeable on lower difficulties (like Tough and below).

In my mod, I'm currently using these values:

Drengin 70

Altarians 0

Arceans 60

Thalan 60

Korath 100

However, I'm considering to change them, because some of those races are still underperforming. The only exception are the Altarians. Their performance is pretty good, but, even with a aggression of 0, they still have very high tendencies to go on Holy Crusades, if there is evil afoot.

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Quoting Gaunathor,

reply 1

I don't know MabusAltarn's reasons, but I can provide you my own.

First of all, some of the AI personalities are already quite aggressive. This is primarily the case with AIP 8 (Drath, Krynn, Terrans, and Thalan) and, to some extent, the AIP 11 variant of the Arceans.

Secondly, the more aggressive a race is, the more it focuses on warfare. This is at the expense of everything else. The infrastructure of a highly aggressive race will be much weaker than that of a less aggressive one.

You can easily verify this by taking a look at the Yor and the Drengin. Both races use the same AI personality (7) as a base, but the Drengin are much more aggressive. In the game, the Yor will almost always have a better infrastructure, even if the Drengin have a better starting position.

If you are playing on a very high difficulty (like Masochistic, for example), then this won't be much of an issue. The bonuses, the AI receives, will offset most of the problems. However, it is noticeable on lower difficulties (like Tough and below).

In my mod, I'm currently using these values:

Drengin 70

Altarians 0

Arceans 60

Thalan 60

Korath 100

However, I'm considering to change them, because some of those races are still underperforming. The only exception are the Altarians. Their performance is pretty good, but, even with a aggression of 0, they still have very high tendencies to go on Holy Crusades, if there is evil afoot.

Thanks. I'm definately going to try your mod soon. I chose APT 1.3 first because I read that it's the most like vanilla (while still fixing the AIs that weren't working).

I'm about to begin my first campaign (my first since 2007) and I'm going to change the aggression ratings to give some variety. Does the aggression rating effect at all how willing the AIs are to make peace after a war has gone on for a while? or does it just effect it's preperation for war and it's willingness to declare war?

I'm still very surprised to see The Thalans with a default aggression rating of 80. Do you find that they perform better at 60?

One last question before I began my campaign: What are "Natural Abilities?" I see this on the same screen as I see the aggression rating. It also seems as if I can choose where to spend the extra 10 points for each of the AIs. Do you recommend doing so? or do you prefer just to have the AIs do it for themselve? I've even considered removing the extra points and just modding the RaceConf file for each civ (both mine and the other 9 AIs). Any suggestions? Thanks in advance

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Gaunathor

Join Date 04/2006

+170

Quoting MechaGodzill,

reply 2

Does the aggression rating effect at all how willing the AIs are to make peace after a war has gone on for a while?

I'm not entirely sure. It sometimes seems to be the case, but that could also be my preconceptions (they are more aggressive, therefore less likely to make peace).

Quoting MechaGodzill,

reply 2

I'm still very surprised to see The Thalans with a default aggression rating of 80. Do you find that they perform better at 60?

Definitely. Their performance increased quite a lot, after I reduced their aggression. However, they still aren't where I want them to be. The biggest problem is their AI. It's... quite erratic when it comes to research. More so even than the Drengin.

Quoting MechaGodzill,

reply 2

What are "Natural Abilities?"

AI algorithms. The higher the value, the better the algorithms the AI uses.

Quoting MechaGodzill,

reply 2

It also seems as if I can choose where to spend the extra 10 points for each of the AIs. Do you recommend doing so? or do you prefer just to have the AIs do it for themselve?

I prefer to choose the abilities myself, because the AI makes weird choices sometimes. However, either way works fine. The difficulty of the AI is usually more important.

Quoting MechaGodzill,

reply 2

I've even considered removing the extra points and just modding the RaceConf file for each civ (both mine and the other 9 AIs). Any suggestions?

That's easy to do. Just set the CustomizationPoints tag to zero for all major races, and modify their abilities how you see fit. However, I'm not very fond of the idea. It's too restrictive for my tastes. I prefer the way it is now.

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