One thing I find very CHEESY and incredibly annoying about this game

Leonid · November 11, 2001, 20:52

.......is the trading of techs by AI for absolutely no rational reason other than to make it harder for you.

I was bordered by england who was still in the stone age. She had no money. 0 coin. She had like all the ancient advances and no medievels yet. I declare war on her (i needed a salt peter deposit she had. Next turn she is comming at me with longbowmen and pikemen in waves. All she had previously were archers. The russian must have given her like 5 techs (engineering, fudalism, invention, and a coupe other since i show no techs in the diplomacy now so she is equal to me in tech sin one turn..) NOW that is ludicrous and very cheesy stuff. Id that how they make the AI harder? By giving them cheesy freebies?

SHe had nothing to trade. No money and no tech. Russia just handed her a bunch of tech right after I declare war. It really makes it impossible now for me to take over her cities. Since 5 longbowmen lose to one pikeman and she hads tons of them counterattacking now...but I wont get into that.

I just think it is cheesy. Sure from now on I guess Ill get every country to declare war. Thats an easy way to defeat that so they wont trade techs. Ill just bribe them all. But I just found this out...real lame stuff.

yin26 · November 11, 2001, 21:00

Well, I just traded the resource for gunpowder (what is that thing again? 'salt' something) to the Persians to help then fight against England, who is otherwise ahead of them. Since they are fighting on a continent far from me, I'm not worried.

Perhaps in your game, Russia wanted to make you waste resources fighting England? So I assume they are friends with each other? Makes sense.

In fact, a similar thing happened in my early game against Japan. Cities protected by 3 or 4 spearmen when I didn't think that was possible. So I made 8 catapults and just leveled the cities! Since it's nearly impossible to beat a spearmen, on fortify, behind city walls when he's at full power, you really, really have to bombard the cities like crazy or be much higher in tech.

Now, I'm not saying something fishy isn't going on, but so far I don't think that kind of trading is cheesy if Russia sees an opportunity to keep you busy.

WhiteElephants · November 11, 2001, 21:07

Sounds like some diplomatic savvy to me, not cheesy. Hell, the U.S. of A. sells arms to would be stone age third world countries all the time like those stinger missles we shiped over to Afghanistan in the 80's to help the Mujadeen combat the Russian's air superiority.

I like it!

Peterk · November 11, 2001, 21:35

I like it too kinda.
Before any war, I always try to see if I can cut off my target's trade (via diplomacy or moving a unit) so they can't get the stuff to build the good units with. Always check the advisor screen before attacking to see how many trade routes and potential trading partners a target has.

mathgoulet · November 11, 2001, 21:44

Have you checked English luxuries?

yeesh · November 11, 2001, 23:41

Number one, I don't think the AI needs any excuse to pass techs back and forth; they just do it. I'd wager the reason those techs were passed right when you went to war was more Murphy's Law and less a piece of code.

Number two, to those of you who think it's a nice strat on the part of the AI, I ask: how often do you see a war has broken out between two AIs, and decide to bring your favorite one up to full tech parity with your own civ? Likely seldomly. Being that a) you know that in about two turns, thanks to the passing around of the techs, the other side will have parity with you as well, in addition to all the neutrals, and b) there are no friends in CivIII. Just enemies and patsies. There can be only one.

yin26 · November 11, 2001, 23:46

Quote:

how often do you see a war has broken out between two AIs, and decide to bring your favorite one up to full tech parity with your own civ?

As I note above, giving away a crucial tech to an underdog civ that is being eaten up by a stronger one can be good strategy. At least in priciple. If that civ then goes and gives away that tech to its enemies, then I will no longer use that ploy. But it's a hard thing to verify.

mathgoulet · November 11, 2001, 23:52

yeah, it happens often. It's very frustrating.

On the top of that, when you're under mutual protection pact with 2 countries, they are always going into war, and it's always the one with the more resources you choose to fight. We should have the choice between the 2 instead of letting the AI choose.

LaRusso · November 12, 2001, 03:29

Quote:

Originally posted by yin26

As I note above, giving away a crucial tech to an underdog civ that is being eaten up by a stronger one can be good strategy. At least in priciple. If that civ then goes and gives away that tech to its enemies, then I will no longer use that ploy. But it's a hard thing to verify.

yeah, war by proxy is my favourite war

Yoleus · November 12, 2001, 04:42

[deleted]

Venger · November 12, 2001, 09:36

Quote:

Originally posted by yeesh
Number one, I don't think the AI needs any excuse to pass techs back and forth; they just do it. I'd wager the reason those techs were passed right when you went to war was more Murphy's Law and less a piece of code.

Number two, to those of you who think it's a nice strat on the part of the AI, I ask: how often do you see a war has broken out between two AIs, and decide to bring your favorite one up to full tech parity with your own civ? Likely seldomly. Being that a) you know that in about two turns, thanks to the passing around of the techs, the other side will have parity with you as well, in addition to all the neutrals, and b) there are no friends in CivIII. Just enemies and patsies. There can be only one.

EXTREMELY well said. This has been a huge bi+ch of mine for all of the Civ games. There is too much tech trading - they leave it in because they cannot find another way to keep the AI Civs competitive. If they make the Civs do more research, they cannot build up and have an army, which means you'll roll them...basically it amounts to tech research pooling among the AI.

Technology should not be traded near as freely as it is allowed. In fact, maybe having a technology only tradeable by the AI if more than one has it should be the rule - which slows down the tech whoring.

You know, I wonder about the AI programming goal. Is the AI designed to think of itself against all Civs, and act in it's own best interest, or is it designed to think about the human player, and how to combat him. If well done I'd prefer the former, it sures seems like the rules and how things work point to the latter...

Venger

WhiteElephants · November 12, 2001, 16:51

I've gotta take Firaxis's side on this one. People asked for a tougher AI, Firaxis gives them a tougher AI, people still aren't satisfied. In a situation like this I have so compasion for the Firaxis folks as they are damned if they do, and damned if they don't.

Barchan · November 12, 2001, 16:53

I think they're less like tech whores and more like tech junkies. As others have pointed out, this can be extremely lucrative for you as well. If you can get even a slight edge in tech, of manage to have enough money to buy a good tech from the leader, you can broker it out to the other AI players for *serious* coin. On several occasions I had the AI paying me 50 gold PER TURN for a single tech. 1000 clams! That's just for one country, mind you. You can make similar deals on the same turn before they all get to trading it to one another.

Mind you, such exorbitant pricing made me none to popular in the world. But, hey, I've got the supply. And the demand is insatiable....

smellymummy · November 12, 2001, 17:44

you can get crazy deals like that (50 gold/turn) however sometimes the AI will easily break the deal by going to war or agreeing to such a crazy deal *only* if they have a protection pact with another civ whom you're at war with. I assume they do this betting that they will be forced to declare war on you.

For example, in one game I sold a tech to the zulus whom barely had any money, yet agreed to give me something like 42 gold per turn. They refused though beforehand at other deals or just offered little or no money (my world map for your fission anyone?

).

This time though they did agree because, I'm wagering, of their mutual protection pact with the babylonians and indians who I was at war with. I was invading the indians while the babylonians tried to invade me... I stoped short my invasion of india, and allowed the babylonians to enter my territory before attacking them therefore the zulus would not declare war on me and my treasury would get some well needed cash.

At another time though I was screwed out of lots of money per turn because of a situation like this... the AI civs where agreeing to insane deals, yet they (the AI) knew very well the deal would be canceled two or three turns later, giving them good techs at cheap prices.

And whats wrong with tech trading? It gives you a good advantage if you know your enemy and the path of research they will take. I mostly start researching for monarchy. By the time I discover polytheism, all other civs give me nearly anything I want short of their grandmothers.

d_dudy · November 12, 2001, 17:55

nice to see you're an emporer, yin

he's right by the way, you've never given tech to a third party to keep an ai from overexpanding? maybe it's becuase i'm peaceful, but i've done it plenty in past games