Conquests AI changes - Page 3

vmxa1 · November 11, 2003, 14:46

Quote:

Originally posted by The diplomat

I think the Barbs are made to be smarter now. They use to just storm against a city eventhough it was hopeless. Now, they will wait and pick off isolated units, workers, settlers and pillage, if they can't attack a city.

They had stop that stuff back in PTW.

vmxa1 · November 11, 2003, 14:49

So how do like those Ancient Calv in any army? I made one with 3 elites (already created GL's). 18 HP's, man and then got Pentagon and added a 4th vet, so it was 23 HP's. This was before Rifles had shown up, so they were just a terror. Knights and Muskets were all that they faced.

PogueMahone · November 11, 2003, 15:12

That's the Knights Templar, not the Mausolleum (which just gives 3 happy faces in one city... I built it, but it's really nothing special).

The Crusader unit is nice, but not the monster that the Ancient Cav is. 5/3/1 represents a +25% attack and +50% defense from the primary slowmover attack unit of its era.

The Ancient Cav gets +50% attack, +100% defense, +1hp from the primary fastmover attack unit of its era.

-Arrian
.................................................. .................................

Yeah but you also have to factor in the ability the crusaders have to build fortresses. They build them in 6 turns on flat land, 11 on hills. Then bring in some workers to put up some barricades and you have a pretty good defensive wall going.

Arrian · November 11, 2003, 15:25

Quote:

Originally posted by vmxa1
So how do like those Ancient Calv in any army? I made one with 3 elites (already created GL's). 18 HP's, man and then got Pentagon and added a 4th vet, so it was 23 HP's. This was before Rifles had shown up, so they were just a terror. Knights and Muskets were all that they faced.

/me salivates

I have yet to generate a Leader (mil or sci) in Conquests.

Why not add a Knight or Cavalry as the 4th unit, though? Purity?

-Arrian

Arrian · November 11, 2003, 15:26

Quote:

Yeah but you also have to factor in the ability the crusaders have to build fortresses. They build them in 6 turns on flat land, 11 on hills. Then bring in some workers to put up some barricades and you have a pretty good defensive wall going.

I totally forgot about that. That is a nice little boost (one that the legionary should have as well). But I doubt I will often find this useful.

-Arrian

RobC · November 11, 2003, 15:47

Quote:

[SIZE=1] Originally posted by PogueMahone
Yeah but you also have to factor in the ability the crusaders have to build fortresses. They build them in 6 turns on flat land, 11 on hills. Then bring in some workers to put up some barricades and you have a pretty good defensive wall going.

I think if you allow them to build forts, you might as well allow them to build barricades too. Then again, in my mod I just gave them enslavement (gaining 'converts' at the point of a sword)

PogueMahone · November 11, 2003, 16:16

Yeah, I agree. If they can make one, why not the other? Actually, I very rarely used fortresses before getting Conquests, but now with the added features of the barricade I've been utilizing them alot more.

Plus, being able to build fortresses with a unit that otherwise would just be fortified and doing nothing is pretty cool. There's no real reason NOT to build them.

notyoueither · November 11, 2003, 16:28

My game on Monarch is going a lot like Arrian's tech wise. I had a massive lead by late in the Medieval age. That gap has narrowed now, but I'm still well ahead early in the Industrial age (I have Steam, Industrialization, and Electricity that no one else does).

Now if only I had started closer to luxuries...

Arrian · November 11, 2003, 16:51

What civ/settings, NYE? Trying out a new civ, or going with the old standby, Roma?

Check out Alexman's corruption thread, btw.

-Arrian

dexters · November 11, 2003, 17:20

Quote:

Originally posted by Arrian
[disclaimer: sample size of 1, YMMV]

Something's a bit off. I played well, but not great. I did make some mistakes. My start spot itself was nice, but the surrounding land was so-so. My luck has been so-so as well. No catastrophes, but no leaders either. And yet I'm winning by so much... yeah, I feel like something's off.

-Arrian

p.s. Ancient Cav do not upgrade, it seems. Interesting. For some reason I assumed they would.

It's highly dependent on which Civ is drawn as your rival. I had played a Monarch PTW game (pangea) as a kind of welcome party for myself in anticipation for C3C since I had been out of the Civ3 loop for a few months. I had an easy time there. I took control of the tech tree in the ealry Industrial/late middle ages and never reliquished it. It was just the luck that the Persians and the Celts, the two biggest civ in that game went to war fairly early on and I tagged along with the Persians and grabbed cities. The war also slowed the research pace, allowing me to catch up. I'm assuming that there may have been several early wars in your games that slowed the AI down?

When I switched to C3C, my first couple of monarch games were just disasters. I played like I did before but fell behind the tech tree considerably. The AI civs would have these giant swings where they'd go from 3 techs behind me to 4 techs ahead. And It seems to me like the AI has improved arbitrage trading abilities. If it gets a tech several civs don't have, but not necessarily a monopoly, it will trade that tech around and grab several techs in return.

You seem to have been extremely lucky to grab the new wonders. I usually have trouble grabbing those, but perhaps I just didn't put enough priority getting them. Certainly ancient Cavs make a huge difference. I've seen, in my debug game, the AI use the Cav to great effect by essentially wiping out the Ottoman presence on a continent, leaving them to OCC in an island somewhere.

Also, in my last Monarch game, which I won by space race, I had the Iroquious in the game and a tough early half. Their agricultural + commercial trait made them increadibly dominant both in population and research. They had Size 33 well before mine reached Size 20. Think about that. Their core cities were 33, 25, 26 pop sizes, which made them extremely productive even under Fascism. Iroquious are profilic REXers in C3C, and their commercial trait allows them to rake in the dough from distant colonies.

The only way I survived was I pulled a Machiavellian trick out my bag and simply never made war with them and made them my strategic partner. Doing that however meant I had to face the Hittites, which had the largest land, largest pop and were #1 in the middle ages. It cost me my 20 turn GA cranking out Samurais just so I wouldn't be overwhelmed. If I hadn't had that Ga there, that was probably when I was crushed.

Arrian · November 11, 2003, 17:28

Quote:

I'm assuming that there may have been several early wars in your games that slowed the AI down?

Not really... the civs I met early were: India, Inca, Russia, Spain. To my knowledge, the only wars that went on involved me.

The Indians were cut off from the others (by me) and didn't make contact until about two turns before I wiped them out. They could have made contact easily with a curragh.

The Russians, Incans & Spanish all knew each other. But now I've knocked Russia to 1 city and am chewing on the Spanish.

I was ahead on the Republic path, but behind on some techs until I traded Republic around (Construction, Polytheism, HBR).

So basically, you had two groups of 3 AI civs in contact with one another (Inca/Russia/Spain, Iroquois/Celts/I forget), one of which knew me too, and then one civ that only knew me. That surely slowed tech down some.

-Arrian

dexters · November 11, 2003, 17:34

Quote:

Originally posted by Arrian

Not really... the civs I met early were: India, Inca, Russia, Spain. To my knowledge, the only wars that went on involved me.

The Indians were cut off from the others (by me) and didn't make contact until about two turns before I wiped them out. They could have made contact easily with a curragh.

The Russians, Incans & Spanish all knew each other. But now I've knocked Russia to 1 city and am chewing on the Spanish.

I was ahead on the Republic path, but behind on some techs until I traded Republic around (Construction, Polytheism, HBR).

So basically, you had two groups of 3 AI civs in contact with one another (Inca/Russia/Spain, Iroquois/Celts/I forget), one of which knew me too, and then one civ that only knew me. That surely slowed tech down some.

-Arrian

Ok. I just checked your report again and it's a continents game, so the dynamics is probably a little different. All my games so far were Pangea/Standard. I haven't had my C3C continents game yet. Maybe this weekend.

How early did you make contact with the other continent? I know in larger continents games, contact won't be made until the middle ages and that sort of leads into separate worlds almost where each continent were on their own branch of the tech tree and there would be wars unseen and unheard of.

Arrian · November 11, 2003, 17:38

I made contact right after researching Navigation. I tried three suicide runs (1 curragh, 2 galley) which failed. So my first contact was with a caravel. I don't remember the year.

I'm well ahead of them.

-Arrian

asleepathewheel · November 11, 2003, 17:45

I just realized that I don't have to pay upkeep for captured artillery.

shows up along with the captured workers on the f3 screen

And I'm loving Zeus. Its like having an extra war machine city, really powerful.

Theseus · November 11, 2003, 17:50

Quote:

Originally posted by Arrian
Why not add a Knight or Cavalry as the 4th unit, though? Purity?

-Arrian

That's my kinda warmonger!

Arrian · November 11, 2003, 17:52

Quote:

Originally posted by asleepathewheel
I just realized that I don't have to pay upkeep for captured artillery.

shows up along with the captured workers on the f3 screen

And I'm loving Zeus. Its like having an extra war machine city, really powerful.

Interesting about captured arty. Not sure if that's good.

Zeus is just awesome. Probably too awesome. I think it may need a cost increase (to 300 shields), a reduction in the unit (remove the hp bonus?), or both.

-Arrian

dexters · November 11, 2003, 18:04

I'd go with both reductions in hp bonus and increase cost.

asleepathewheel · November 11, 2003, 18:29

Quote:

Originally posted by Arrian

Interesting about captured arty. Not sure if that's good.

yeah I don't know. I wonder what happens when they are upgraded, if they can be. That would limit the exploits a bit I would think. It would be fun to see the manufacturer's stamp during MP, don't you think?

Quote:

Originally posted by Arrian
Zeus is just awesome. Probably too awesome. I think it may need a cost increase (to 300 shields), a reduction in the unit (remove the hp bonus?), or both.

-Arrian

I agree, its really some wonder, perhaps my favorite of the ancient world now. Now its reload until find ivory

RobC · November 11, 2003, 20:10

Note that the power of the ToZ is affected by the difficulty level you play on and if you have accelerated production on (higher levels with accel production will likely mean you will have fewer turns before the ToZ becomes obsolete, and therefore produce fewer ancient cav units)

asleepathewheel · November 11, 2003, 20:35

I just realized that the ancient cavs can't be ugraded

that would make it even more powerful.

notyoueither · November 11, 2003, 21:51

The artillery bit sucks, big time. Can you say massive MP exploit between allies?

Quote:

Originally posted by Arrian
What civ/settings, NYE? Trying out a new civ, or going with the old standby, Roma?

Check out Alexman's corruption thread, btw.

-Arrian

There is only one, true, civilisation. SPQR

I am playing just about the same as you. Large, normal continents, raging barbs, wet, warm, 4 billion. 12 civs, more aggressive.

The FP-corruption thing could explain some, but I observed the AI improving greatly after getting Democracy. This lends credence to my thinking that unit support cost under Republic could be nackering the AI for a long stretch of the game.

Thoth · November 12, 2003, 10:24

Quote:

Originally posted by Arrian

The Indians were cut off from the others (by me) and didn't make contact until about two turns before I wiped them out. They could have made contact easily with a curragh.

-Arrian

I don't think the AI ever builds curraghs. I haven't seen one yet, and it's way too easy to gain control over the tech tree as a Seafaring power on an archipeligo map.

So far (in four games as a Seafaring civ) I've researched Writing-->Philosophy (free tech: Literature)-->Code of Laws at maximum research. By building 1 curragh early (after the 1st or second warrior) and a second once I've got another city down, I've been able to make contact with at least 4, usually 6 or more, other civs by the time I research Writing. I'll be behind in tech at this point, but the AI doesn't prioritize Writing and a bit of careful trading nets me a tech lead and most of the available AI cash. The AI will not make contact with civs off continent until it gets Map Making and builds a galley or two. This gives the human a huge edge in the research race and an ok shot at an early SGL. (First to Writing, Philosophy, Literature and given the AI love for Map Making once it gets Writing you can count on getting Code of Laws first as well. That's 4 rolls for a leader, plus a guarantee of being first to Republic if you keep the beeline going. Even if you don't get a GL, being first to 4 juicy techs combined with a contact advantage is an ironclad guarantee of an Ancient Era tech lead.

This may be curable through editor changes to the AI build preferances (more naval units), and some AU style tweaks to the tech tree to increase the AI value of Writing. I'm not sure if it's possible, but giving all Seafaring Civs a free curragh at the start of the game would give the AI Seafaring civs a bit of an early boost.

Dominae · November 12, 2003, 10:43

There is a major problem with the AI if it does not build Curraghs.

Dominae

Stuie · November 12, 2003, 11:05

Quote:

Originally posted by Dominae
There is a major problem with the AI if it does not build Curraghs.

Then there is a major problem. I've started five games with all the Seafaring Civs included, played each well past the Ancient Era, and never saw another Curragh besides my own (I'm playing the Byzantines, and stangely addicted to them for some reason) despite having explored all the available coast lines.

Cookie Monster · November 12, 2003, 11:17

Add this problem to the list of possible fixes in a future patch.

alexman · November 12, 2003, 11:18

Hmmm, why am I not suprised?
Perhaps because the expansionist AI don't build scouts?

Is it still true that seafaring AI civs get a reduced chance of sinking? I don't suppose seafaring AI take advantage of that either, do they?

Stuie · November 12, 2003, 11:24

Quote:

Originally posted by alexman
Is it still true that seafaring AI civs get a reduced chance of sinking? I don't suppose seafaring AI take advantage of that either, do they?

Yes to the first one, and not that I have observed to the second. The only AI Civ that ventures off the coast is the one with the GL.

It's too bad that the AI doesn't properly employ Seafaring. It's a very strong trait, up there with Expansionist for my money. The early contact is great for trading techs and keeping up in the tech race early.

Thoth · November 12, 2003, 11:29

Quote:

Originally posted by alexman
Hmmm, why am I not suprised?
Perhaps because the expansionist AI don't build scouts?

Is it still true that seafaring AI civs get a reduced chance of sinking? I don't suppose seafaring AI take advantage of that either, do they?

I'm not sure about the AI's getting an extra bonus, but the human player seems to. I've had fairly low sinkage rates with my curraghs in 4 partial games as a seafaring civ. (BTW: Seafaring + Great Lighthouse do stack. Movement 5 galley rock

)

Best guess based on limited AI observation during games is that the AI still doesn't gamble on "suicide" runs.

Dominae · November 12, 2003, 12:27

Quote:

Originally posted by alexman
Is it still true that seafaring AI civs get a reduced chance of sinking? I don't suppose seafaring AI take advantage of that either, do they?

Part of what makes Seafaring a powerful trait is the "Suicide Curragh" strategy, which the AI does not employ (it does not build Curraghs, and would not send them out to Sea even if it did). Picking a Seafaring civ versus the AI feels to me like cheating.

Dominae

alva · November 12, 2003, 12:32

Quote:

Another AI change I've noticed.... when attacking with a superior strength unit, the AI seems much more willing to risk an attack with a damaged attacker. I have seen Cavalry and even Longbowmen that are already down to one hitpoint attacking full strength units with a defense of 1 or 2. They used to run and hide if they had any damage.

Happened pre C3C too. You can often see the AI blows lots of tanks trying to blitz with one HP left.