FIRAXIS: A list of EASY fixes for the next C3C patch - Page 7

alexman · November 16, 2003, 19:18

Quote:

Originally posted by Catt
Make AIs value Ivory more than other luxuries until the Statue of Zeus is completed

I believe this is already the case. In fact, (as Nor Me often likes to point out

), the fact that you need iron to build the Iron Works is responsible for a big chunk of the AI trade value of iron.

dexters · November 16, 2003, 19:29

Well, you also need iron to build RRs and a ton of neat little units in the game.

With the new resource distribution, I get to see a lot more of the underlying mechanisms behind AI resource valuation. I've noticed for example coal and saltpeter tend to be devalued over time.

Inverse Icarus · November 16, 2003, 19:32

... iron works requires it in the city radius.

Catt · November 16, 2003, 19:38

Quote:

Originally posted by alexman

I believe this is already the case. In fact, (as Nor Me often likes to point out

), the fact that you need iron to build the Iron Works is responsible for a big chunk of the AI trade value of iron.

In my current game, I could acquire either ivory or gems from the Japanese for the same price (lux and gpt, so I know I am not inadvertantly vastly overpaying for even a more expensive ivory with a valuable tech) -- and that has cost Tokugawa his rightful Statue of Zeus

And BTW, I always thought Nor Me's relaible point was that the Iron Works actually contributed to the high cost / high AI interest in Iron Working, rather than iron.

Edit: Did a search, and you're right that Nor Me's comment is about the value of iron -- which just goes to show that you're not repeating it enough if I cant remeber it properly, Nor Me

End Edit

dexters - I can see allowing "bribed futile wars" where the AI gets something out of an MA, but I'd be interested in an even more limited fix to address truly futile (w/o bribe) declarations. In my game, because every civ (except 2 civs) is isolated on its own landmass, I have built a sum total of 2 warriors (and now the Statue of Zeus) and focused on science and commerce, and my extreme military weakness versus all the other AIs has induced war declarations when I do not give in to AI tech extortion attempts; the thing is that the AIs making the declarations were completely isolated and could not have been induced by an alliance -- they simply compared relative power and declared. Not only is it a real help with happiness in the ancient age, but it will also provide additional long-term benefits since most civs will become "traditional enemies" and therefore ensure future happiness boosts even when I declare war later in the game.

Catt

dexters · November 16, 2003, 19:51

I've noticed the AI are more opportunistic. I've played a couple of continents/pangea games where the AI civ will unilateraly declare war on another Civ already in a war to grab land. Like what you'd expect a human to do.

This actually works.

BTW, mind explaining to me how traditional enemy status is caculated by the AI? I'm not too sure.

Catt · November 16, 2003, 19:56

Quote:

Originally posted by dexters
BTW, mind explaining to me how traditional enemy status is caculated by the AI? I'm not too sure.

Don't know exactly, but I know that if a civ attains "traditional enemy" status, your war happiness is increased at the start of new wars in the future. As far as I know, aving one prior war with a civ is enough to grant "traditional enemy" status. I have no idea whether the AI takes this into account wrt war decisions.

Catt

vmxa1 · November 16, 2003, 20:24

Quote:

Originally posted by alexman

I believe this is already the case. In fact, (as Nor Me often likes to point out

), the fact that you need iron to build the Iron Works is responsible for a big chunk of the AI trade value of iron.

Huh? Trading for Iron will do nothing for making the IronWorks small wonder. You must have coal and Iron in the same city, don't you?

Kuciwalker · November 16, 2003, 20:24

Yes, but the AI doesn't know that

statusperfect · November 16, 2003, 20:40

By that time you will need the iron for railroads anyways.. so it isn't that much of a bug

Catt · November 16, 2003, 20:47

Nor Me's famous point speaks to the quirky, and counter-intuitive, AI valuation methods -- the AI increases the trade value of iron, even in the ancient age, because iron enables the Iron Works. The ridiculous aspect of that particular valuation method is of course that traded iron does abslutely nothing related to the iron works, since it can be built only with iron and coal within the same city radius.

Catt

alexman · November 17, 2003, 01:38

Alfonso, your list of Spanish cities and leaders is very welcome, but it's probably best if we leave historical accuracy suggestions out of this list.

As for the Conquistador, I agree that it might need a boost, but 50-shields and 3-defense is way too much, if you ask me, especially in C3C with Astronomy the required tech. However, I think Firaxis had a chance to rebelance the UUs in this expansion and they decided that the Conquistador is fine as it is. I don't think we can change their minds here, after all the beta testing they have done.

alva · November 17, 2003, 04:18

I actually would like to see some kind of early (beginning of middleage?) berzerk/marine. Wouldn't need to be much of a unit, just be able to attack a city from a boat.
This would benefit the AI too IMO as he will defend every city anyway, while humans only defend (read occupy) the tiles next to it(to prevent the AI from landing next to your city and buy time to get organised), and you would have to leave some units behind in what otherwise would be 'safe country' instead of using them to either defend fringe cities or in some kind of attack..
That would change if there was an actual threat of the AI being able to take a city (directly), you would otherwise consider to be safe.
Not to mention that it would be a great addition for MP/Pbem.

mental note: need to look up a couple of synonyms for 'would'

dexters · November 17, 2003, 06:30

Alva, the problem is, until Galleons and Frigates hit, the AI simply do not have the transport capacity to mount a substantial naval invasion. It just doesn't build enough galleys, or caravels.

Actually Alexman, if you read tihs, can you please add this as a request? To fix early game AI shipbuilding? They need to build more ships, even on continents/pangea maps. The idea with these largely landbased maps is to have the capacity to surprise an oppenent from the sea, and this is what I think Alva is speaking to partially.

I suspect this is because the new AI code applies mostly to the case where you have a transport + escort. Before Frigates, all ships double as a transport and a warship. Perhaps this can be fixed in the next patch, and if it is fixed, then your idea will work, I think.

alva · November 17, 2003, 06:46

Quote:

Alva, the problem is, until Galleons and Frigates hit, the AI simply do not have the transport capacity to mount a substantial naval invasion. It just doesn't build enough galleys, or caravels.

No problem as that is not the issue, the AI will drop of some lone warrior at the back of your empire anyway. However, since you can't see what it is carrying, it could be a unit that can go straight into one of your undefended core cities.

dexters · November 17, 2003, 07:06

I see what you're saying. So amphib assault unit for all civs?
Would this diminish the UU?

Doc Tsiolkovski · November 17, 2003, 07:22

In the German version, Feudalism still requires no maintenance costs.

Easy to fix, sure, but I suspect there are many more bugs of that kind in the localised .bix files...

dexters · November 17, 2003, 08:08

no maint costs for what? units or buildings?

If its units, feudalism has revesed free unit maintenance. The smaller your settlements are the more units they can support. Whereas in monarchy, larger settlements can support more free units.

Panag · November 17, 2003, 10:06

Quote:

Originally posted by Doc Tsiolkovski
In the German version, Feudalism still requires no maintenance costs.

Easy to fix, sure, but I suspect there are many more bugs of that kind in the localised .bix files...

hi ,

a german ConQuests version , .....

have a nice day

alexman · November 17, 2003, 10:56

Alva, I think your idea of adding an amphibious unit for all civs is brilliant. I doubt that Firaxis will implement it in a patch, but it doesn't hurt to mention is (if it doesn't happen, that's what the AU mod is for

).

Dexters, I don't think just telling the AI to build more ships is the solution. Even with more ships, the AI needs to gather them all together and launch a coordinated attack. If you have the AI build more ships, they will get built in all cities, and I doubt they will be brought all together to attack. Also, I'm not convinced that the threat of a naval invasion, which the AI still doesn't perform as well as the human, is worth the resources taken away from land units and infrastructure.

alexman · November 17, 2003, 11:42

Any ideas for the suggestion for an easy fix for an amphibious unit? Adding a whole new unit is not going to happen in a patch, because of the artwork. Making medieval infantry (or longbowmen) amphibious would probably rip off the Vikings (40 shields versus 70).

How about adding the amphibious attack ability to Med. Infantry, and increasing its cost to 50?

Doc Tsiolkovski · November 17, 2003, 11:54

Quote:

a german ConQuests version

The German version of the Euro C3C, what's so confusing about that?

And I know how Feudalism is supposed to work, lots of free units for Towns, but the German .bix still also has no maintenance costs for improvements, while this was dropped for the US version, and according to the developers, it should be that way... so it is clearly a bug in the localized version.

TheArsenal · November 17, 2003, 12:05

I am currently in an epic game as the Maya (Large Map, Monarch) where I used Barb Harvesting as a strategy. Because the RNG does not guarantee you that you pop one slave worker for every three tries – just on average - and because of the time and effort used to patrol and find the barbs, it is not as nearly unbalancing as it is being made out to be. At least in this particular game.

Panag · November 17, 2003, 12:15

Quote:

Originally posted by Doc Tsiolkovski

The German version of the Euro C3C, what's so confusing about that?

And I know how Feudalism is supposed to work, lots of free units for Towns, but the German .bix still also has no maintenance costs for improvements, while this was dropped for the US version, and according to the developers, it should be that way... so it is clearly a bug in the localized version.

hi ,

well this is somthing completely new since there are only supposed to be two versions , one US english , and one for the rest of the world , ........

have a nice day

Doc Tsiolkovski · November 17, 2003, 12:48

Yes, and for the ROW version you can choose the language, and the *.bix files (containing the unit names, city lists etc) are language-specific. Other than that, only the .txt files are different, AFAIK.

Edit: And the package, of course

.

Panag · November 17, 2003, 12:56

Quote:

Originally posted by Doc Tsiolkovski
Yes, and for the ROW version you can choose the language, and the *.bix files (containing the unit names, city lists etc) are language-specific. Other than that, only the .txt files are different, AFAIK.

Edit: And the package, of course

.

hi ,

, for a minute there the belief was an all new german only game , ...... after the stunts that infogrames pulled with PTW , .....

and the package , what is different about it , .....

is it in german the txt , .....

have a nice day

alexman · November 17, 2003, 13:16

panag, this is not really the thread for your german version worries.

lockstep · November 17, 2003, 13:54

Two observations/suggestions so far:

- The barbarian AI is broken, at least compared to PtW. Barbarians often won't try to destroy a worker that is in two-turn-reach, a 'massive barbarian uprising' often won't attack the next city even if it is defended by a single spearman, and - worst of all - two barbarian units in a camp didn't even bother to move when I founded a city one tile away (guarded by a spearman) and hereby destroyed the camp. They just sat within the new city border, waiting to be killed. Suggested easy fix: Restore the barbarian AI to the level found in PtW.

- Republic's maintenance of 2 gold per unit seems to be at least offset by the no. of free units (1/3/4), making this government actually more suitable for war-mongering. In my second completed epic game (Celts, Monarch), when I managed to clear 'my' continent by the early industrial age (i.e. almost no cities > size 12), I was generally paying less for support then I would have in vanilla Civ/PtW and fought my last major war without any support costs. I did rely on a bunch of captured workers, and building more workers would have induced some costs, but still much less as usual. Suggested easy fix: Lower the no. of free units under Republic, especially for city level 2 (size 7-12).

alexman · November 17, 2003, 14:03

I'm afraid that there is no such thing as a barb AI. The barbs share the same AI as the rest of the civs. I remember Soren saying that the barbs in PTW are more annoying because of a side-effect from a tweak he made to reduce the size of SODs for the AI. So I'm not sure if it's an easy fix to just restore the PTW barb AI, but I'll put it in the list anyway.

As for your second point, this is the first time I hear the complaint that Republic favors warmongering. So far people have been saying that the unit maintenance cripples the Republic now, although this is probably only true for the ancient and early medieval ages when there are usually not many cities above size 6.

DrSpike · November 17, 2003, 14:06

I have to say I don't get the Republic change though........why buff an already effective govt? Representative govts should always have no free support.

Thoth · November 17, 2003, 14:20

Early switches to Republic are much tougher, but by the time you reach the mid-to-late Middle Ages, they can support an impressive military for low/no maint cost. By the time Democracy rolls around, there is even less point in switching now than there was in PTW. Your unit support costs with a decent sized empire will be far lower under a Republic than a Democracy.

By the mid industrial, it's a fairly straighforward matter to have 15-20 metros (more on larger than standard maps). As a Republic this means 60-80 free units. In order for a Democracy to pull ahead in support costs, you'll need to have more than twice that number of units. Factor in Demo's increased war weariness, and the 6-8 turns of anarchy just for faster workers (and often higher unit costs) just isn't worth it.