Conquests AI changes

[notyoueither]

I like the lux/resource distribution now. It gives later wars a real meaning, rather than just giving the army something to do while grabbing highly corrupt cities.

Also, with the AI being better with ships, there can be some interesting situations in grabbing and holding overseas colonies.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Dominae
Maybe one of these is in order:

List of things that make the game easier:

1. Free tech with Philosophy
2. Agricultural trait with Granaries
3. Seafaring trait and Curraghs
4. Curraghs in general
5. Double unit support costs for Republic
6. New Specialist citizens
7. New rules for bombardment of cities
8. Barb hunting with Javelin Throwers

Notice that these are all things the AI has trouble with. Number 5 I'm pretty sure hurts the AI more than the human player.


Dominae

Ok I see all of these except #5. I am not sure I understand how it makes the game easier. I am not saying it does or doesn't, I am just not sure how you are viewing it.

[dexters]

Republic now has city support, so you don't pay if your units fall within the supported range. It only costs you money if you go over. While this is effective in combating excessively large armies, players can still maintain sizable armies at relatively low cost. An idea would be to change this to a flatter structure. 1 free unit for cities and towns and 2 free units for metros. But I'm not sure if it fits well ideologically, since Republics have always prided itself in the citizen army, and the current set-up reflects this tendency of Republics to have land-owning warriors take up arms in its defense.

I also take issue with the new bombard rules being easier. At best, the community is split with that one.

I agree that Philosophy allows for early trades for humans. Philosophy + Free tech comes too easy after writing and human players can usually beeline for it. Perhaps philosophy should come after literature?

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by vmxa1


Ok I see all of these except #5. I am not sure I understand how it makes the game easier. I am not saying it does or doesn't, I am just not sure how you are viewing it.

I'm suspecting that Republic plus old habits of unit building are knackering the AI in many cases and allowing the human to pull away in tech during the Medieval period.

This could be tested/verified by playing a mod with the human having Intelligence agency and enough money to plant Spies everywhere right from the start (as soon as contact is made). Then the tester could watch the military sizes of the AI.

One could always play in debug mode, but then counting AI military units would be somewhat of a chore.

[dexters]

Or just place a debug game?

You can see all AI military units free under F3. no spies required.
--------------

IMO, I don't think Republic is what's causing the AI to fall behind. I've had conflicting games where I pull ahead in one game, but is a laggard until the industrial age in another.

I've played a PTW game with exactly the same set-up as my first three C3C games. STANDARD, MONARCH, PANGEA and to be quite honest, I found the C3C games harder, since the AI is much more of a threat in the industrial era with the large navies and lethal airforces. At least it's a nusience I didn't have to deal with in PTW.

From pure observation, AI seem to manage its finances rather well since even at Monarch, it can afford techs you refure to trade it, and the AI-AI trade bonus is only 140. No significant by any means.

Too early to judge right now would be a conclusion. I have a debug game that is in the industrial age. The AI has no issues with units. It has plenty of flak, air units and a modern navy. A welcome change.

Sulla's short C3C page, before some of his analysis went offline because they deal with beta games, did talk briefly about the amount of wonders in the ancient era diverting AI production. This may be a stronger reason why.

But I am 80% sure the AI do prebuilds now. In a limited capacity. I've seen the AI not have Navigation in one turn, and when it gets navigation, Magellan's built right away. Or perhaps it was hiding a SL somewhere.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by dexters
Or just place a debug game?

You can see all AI military units free under F3. no spies required.

I did not know that. I have only ever used debug once.

In the game I am playing, it is the period between Republic and Democracy that would be the concern. That is when the AI slowed to a crawl compared to me. It sounds like the same happened for Arrian.

This is assuming that no one of the AIs gets the benefit of the gpt bug all to itself, of course.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by dexters
But I am 80% sure the AI do prebuilds now. In a limited capacity. I've seen the AI not have Navigation in one turn, and when it gets navigation, Magellan's built right away. Or perhaps it was hiding a SL somewhere.

The AI always did this. It sets aside a city for Wonder construction, accumulating Shields on a desirable Wonder until a more desirable Wonder becomes available, at which point it switches production to that one. This is more or less what we call "prebuild", although it does not do it with the Palace as us smart humans do.




Dominae

[mimi]

Good thing I'm not male or my ego would be hurt. I have always played monarch but with conquests I can't win an epic game (heck I can't survive the stupid incas) on monarch! The scenarios are pretty easy on monarch but the regular game? No way... can't do it without getting too frustrated. The AI attacks me before I get going and then I have to put energy into kicking butt and they get temple of artemis and zeus thingy and I'm, well, in trouble...

Of course, I don't "choose" the landmass to match my skills - usually random but I set the age and temp 'cause I hate mountainous tundra. And I don't even play with barbs! I must suck...

I wanna win as the Mayans but I'm so upset with them that I don't think I can play them ever again!

[vmxa1]

I suspect the gpt bug is making it harder. The AI can do more researching now as it has more money to speed up improvements. It could also be doing a few thing better than before. But it is harder now to get a tech lead and hold it and still made your empire grow. You will probably have to do more warmongering.

[Dominae]

Could someone post screenshots of the gpt bug?

[Catt]

Originally posted by Dominae
Could someone post screenshots of the gpt bug?

I reloaded to a random point in the game and traded a tech for 300 gpt to the top dog civ.

The screenie below is hastily thrown together (so forgive the lack of any polish whatsoever). The top images are the map info box and economics box from F1. The bottom image are the same items, shown on the next turn. Hey! My treasurer learned how to mint money! My treaury grew by about 300 gold from turn to turn, and will continue to do so for 20 turns!

Catt

[Arrian]

You went Demo, eh? With a pretty big army, too (194gpt, though I've no idea how many of those are workers). What do you think about the switch? Was it worth it? Or do you think republic was better (or did you not use republic)?

-Arrian

[Thoth]

*cough* Look again Arrian, the 194 gpt is his building maint. His army cost is only 80 gpt

[Catt]

Originally posted by Arrian
You went Demo, eh? With a pretty big army, too (194gpt, though I've no idea how many of those are workers). What do you think about the switch? Was it worth it? Or do you think republic was better (or did you not use republic)?

This was more of an "experimentation" game than a real game -- I gave most of the governments a whirl (and suffered through a bunch of anarchies) from Despotism to Monarchy to Feudalism to Republic to Democracry to Fascism and then back to Republic (never got around to communism to try the new SPHQ but I porbably would have been disapointed by the corruption problems ).

My unit costs are actually 80 (the 194 is building maintenance) and probably consisted of border guards -- I have a long winding border and kept my neighbors technologically even with me.

Republic would have been better than democracy once a sufficient number of cities became Cities of size 7 or more. In this particular game, I would have struggled with an early switch to Republic since I had only one sole luxury, and no iron or horses, menaing I had to build a sizeable force of Jav Throwers to take on Roman Legions (the Crusaders from Knights Templar helped ).

Catt

[Arrian]

*SMACK*

Gotcha. What did you think of Feudalism and Facism?

-Arrian

[Dominae]

Catt, the only thing that I see wrong with your screenshots is that the gpt you're getting from the AI is added directly into your Treasury instead of your total Commerce. This is a disadvantage, no? You get the Gold, sure, but you cannot convert it into Beakers.

Edit, of course, you can transfer the Gold into Beakers by running a deficit, and that AI does not do that. Is that the bug?

There's something I'm not getting here, I'm sure.


Dominae

[Stuie]

His TOTAL Income, including the gpt from other Civs, is 1430. Hit Expenses are 1403. His treasury should increase from 1468 to 1495 on the next turn.

Instead the 300 has been added in AGAIN and results in a treasury of 1795.

[Catt]

Originally posted by Dominae
Catt, the only thing that I see wrong with your screenshots is that the gpt you're getting from the AI is added directly into your Treasury instead of your total Commerce. This is a disadvantage, no? You get the Gold, sure, but you cannot convert it into Beakers.

Edit, of course, you can transfer the Gold into Beakers by running a deficit, and that AI does not do that. Is that the bug?

There's something I'm not getting here, I'm sure.

No - the 300 gold is properly being included in my income, bringing my total income up to 1430 (1130 from cities, 300 from trading partner). I then allocate that 1430 among various accounts (science, maintenance, units, corruption, etc.) leaving me with a net income of 24 gold per turn. All of this is perfectly appropriate and exactly how the game has already worked.

The problem is apparent on the next turn. How in the heck did my treasury grow by approximately 300 gold? My total income was +/-1430 and my total expenses were +/-1400 -- at most, my treasury should have grown by +/- 30 gold.

Catt

[Catt]

Originally posted by Arrian
*SMACK*

Gotcha. What did you think of Feudalism and Facism?

Not enough experience to say -- Feudalism was a great option for me in this game since I had smallish cities and needed a very large force to acquire some room and needed resources. In other games will Fedualism be common? I don't know -- it would be very painful to wait to get out of the ancient age before a switch from Despotism, and I'm not sure a switch from one gov to Feudalism, followed by an almost-certainly required switch to a better government will make sense for non-religious civs. Fascism was pretty cool, though the pop hit upon a switch would seem to make frequent switching painful and the "no cultural expansions" feature makes it hard not to want to move back to another gov. Definitely a great governemnt for domination or conquest rushes in the late game.

Catt

[dexters]

A concern I have now, with regards to the AI is that the industrial/modern era war government it used to like, communism, is no longer being used, inspite of the fact that it's been strengthened with a second FP.

Fascism appears to be AI's new favorite Mostly, I assume because of the large number of units it is able to support, fast workers and no War Weariness. But the pop hit, and no culture until majority assimilation will seem to hurt AI in doing any amount of conquest since it can't properly secure its new holdings especially if human players simply take advantage of the reduced cultural borders and plant a couple of cities on either side of the capture city to induce a flip.

like the lux/resource distribution now. It gives later wars a real meaning, rather than just giving the army something to do while grabbing highly corrupt cities.

I've noticed this. In most games, you will have usually only 1 surplus of a resource, and usually, a shortage of several luxuries (ie: 4 ivory for a 6 civ game)

So there will now be clearly winners and losers. And BTW, if you get lots of horses and iron in the early era, expect to be short on oil , rubber, or aluminum later on. The resources are now further apart so it is rare for players to get 1 of each resource to fall within their empire.

[Stuie]

Originally posted by dexters
The resources are now further apart so it is rare for players to get 1 of each resource to fall within their empire.

I really love this change. I always thought there was an over-abundance of resources, to the point that they were almost meaningless. Now I find that I'm forced to trade/conquer to obtain vital resources on a regular basis. In my current game, I'm trading for Horses for the first time EVER in two years of playing Civ3.

This also make the seafaring trait more powerful. If I'm one of the first to make contact with all the other Civs, I'm in a better position to be the first to make a deal for a resource, and then keep renewing that deal throughout the game. Good stuff - much fun!!

[Cookie Monster]

Yeah I'm really digging the resource shortages as it does present a new challenge to the game. Early conquests are so important now IMHO because the more land you have sooner the better chances you'll get a juicy resource.

[Arrian]

Now if only the Map Generator would place some of those scarce luxury resources on uninhabited islands, so that civs (seafaring, mmm) that actively explored the seas could get tangible advantage from it. As of now, I've seen strategic resources on those islands, , but not luxuries.

-Arrian

[DrSpike]

Yes, a neat way to compensate for the overall weakness of naval units. More importantly, it shouldn't be that hard to make the AI respond correctly.

[Arrian]

I would expect the AI to beeline for those luxury supplies, yeah.

By the way, in my current game, the Dutch 5-move galleys (seafaring + G.Light) are kinda scary. Even scarier is the massive 2 vs. 2 AI war on the other continent, plus my current war, which also involves every civ on my continent (it was 2 v. 1, but the 1 was winning and I wanted to take a bite out of them, so I joined in to make it 3 on one). Anyway, I have an exploring galley over there watching and every turn there are sea battles taking place. I can't see what's going on inside, so to speak, but I imagine it's a bloodbath (knowing how the AI tends to fight).

-Arrian

[Traelin]

Originally posted by Arrian
I would expect the AI to beeline for those luxury supplies, yeah.

By the way, in my current game, the Dutch 5-move galleys (seafaring + G.Light) are kinda scary. Even scarier is the massive 2 vs. 2 AI war on the other continent, plus my current war, which also involves every civ on my continent (it was 2 v. 1, but the 1 was winning and I wanted to take a bite out of them, so I joined in to make it 3 on one). Anyway, I have an exploring galley over there watching and every turn there are sea battles taking place. I can't see what's going on inside, so to speak, but I imagine it's a bloodbath (knowing how the AI tends to fight).

-Arrian

LMAO Arrian, you may just be as big a warmongerer as me! I tend to go to war if the AI sneezes the wrong way.

[dexters]

Originally posted by Arrian
I would expect the AI to beeline for those luxury supplies, yeah.

By the way, in my current game, the Dutch 5-move galleys (seafaring + G.Light) are kinda scary. Even scarier is the massive 2 vs. 2 AI war on the other continent, plus my current war, which also involves every civ on my continent (it was 2 v. 1, but the 1 was winning and I wanted to take a bite out of them, so I joined in to make it 3 on one). Anyway, I have an exploring galley over there watching and every turn there are sea battles taking place. I can't see what's going on inside, so to speak, but I imagine it's a bloodbath (knowing how the AI tends to fight).

-Arrian

Arrian, if you watch a debug game, even on tiny maps, sea battles are quite something to watch. Just stacks of ship blowing each other apart. Transports getting sunk and ships getting bombed (if AI has flight)

As noted in the bug/fixes thread, my only qualm with the AI navy now is its bombard priorities.

Something worth noting though is that AI navies don't really get going until they have escort-transport pairs. Which means you won't really sea substantial offensive navies until Frigates come around.

This means in the early game, AI tends to have the same old problem of having one galley ferrying 2 units to invade your continent, even if it has caravels and could probably mount a more effective invasion with 5 of these units.

And did you see them build those early sea units? Curraughs?(sp?)

[Panag]

Originally posted by Catt


Not enough experience to say -- Feudalism was a great option for me in this game since I had smallish cities and needed a very large force to acquire some room and needed resources. In other games will Fedualism be common? I don't know -- it would be very painful to wait to get out of the ancient age before a switch from Despotism, and I'm not sure a switch from one gov to Feudalism, followed by an almost-certainly required switch to a better government will make sense for non-religious civs. Fascism was pretty cool, though the pop hit upon a switch would seem to make frequent switching painful and the "no cultural expansions" feature makes it hard not to want to move back to another gov. Definitely a great governemnt for domination or conquest rushes in the late game.

Catt

hi ,

, what about a save , that would help big time , ......

and send a save to Firaxis also (!)

have a nice day

[Catt]

Originally posted by panag


hi ,

, what about a save , that would help big time , ......

and send a save to Firaxis also (!)

have a nice day

Did you mean to quote my post or another? I was only expressing an opinion, not reporting a problem with a game, so I'm not sure what a save (or which save) would help with.

Also, Firaxis' bug-reporting mechanism specifically asks that saves not be sent in, only descriptions of the problem. If they want a save, they'll request one.

Have a nice day

Catt

[Panag]

Originally posted by Catt


Did you mean to quote my post or another? I was only expressing an opinion, not reporting a problem with a game, so I'm not sure what a save (or which save) would help with.

Also, Firaxis' bug-reporting mechanism specifically asks that saves not be sent in, only descriptions of the problem. If they want a save, they'll request one.

Have a nice day

Catt

hi ,

wrong thread

panag curses browser

so completely ignore it

have a nice day