1.29 vs 1.21

MyOlde · August 20, 2002, 11:22

How has the 1.29 patch affected your game strategy?

If that's too wide open a question: what is the single biggest change you've made in your gameplay since downloading 1.29?

Deathwalker · August 20, 2002, 11:31

THough my game play has not changed that much I find the game better under to 1.29 patch

Moonsinger · August 20, 2002, 11:33

All my game strategies work better with the latest patch.

Catt · August 20, 2002, 12:56

Quote:

Originally posted by MyOlde
If that's too wide open a question: what is the single biggest change you've made in your gameplay since downloading 1.29?

Playing on Emperor, mostly, I now do a lot more of my own research than I did under 1.21. I also try to build the Great Library now whereas before I would ignore it / look to capture it from a neighbor.

Catt

Thrawn05 · August 20, 2002, 13:27

The 1.29f patch was an editor patch. Not much was done in terms of fixing gameplay.

I mentioned this in another thread, so I'll keep it short here. The AI seems to break up my attack strageties better now then it did before.

Stuie · August 20, 2002, 14:27

1.29f allowed me to put the final touch on my mod: no cities allowed in tundra, deserts, jungles or forests.

So my strategy (an the AI's) now includes lots of colonies, and protecting those colonies. The AI appears quite adept at adapting to the change, by the way.

SpencerH · August 20, 2002, 15:08

Quote:

Originally posted by Thrawn05
The 1.29f patch was an editor patch. Not much was done in terms of fixing gameplay.

I mentioned this in another thread, so I'll keep it short here. The AI seems to break up my attack strageties better now then it did before.

Seems to be contrary points

I'm only playing my second game of 1.29 on regent. Again, I'm way way behind on techs despite having the GL. I havent got railroads yet and the lead AI civ has BUILT sufferage.

The slowdown may have been because of my 5000 year war with barbs and then the english. Despite having destroyed or captured 4 english cities they're still ahead of me. It sure doesnt seem like the "AI tech whoring" has been fixed, it seems worse to me. I'll have to play my next game with a favorite civ instead of random (zulu now) to see if that's the problem.

The barbs seem much more of a problem now. They were harder to kill and seemed to pop-up more frequently than before.

Sheik · August 20, 2002, 15:27

Quote:

1.29f allowed me to put the final touch on my mod: no cities allowed in tundra, deserts, jungles or forests.

So my strategy (an the AI's) now includes lots of colonies, and protecting those colonies. The AI appears quite adept at adapting to the change, by the way.

Does the AI treat colonies the same way it treats cities when it comes to defense?

statusperfect · August 20, 2002, 19:07

I get my ass beaten on emperor level... didn't happen before... the AI is much better now.

Coracle · August 20, 2002, 22:24

Quote:

Originally posted by statusperfect
I get my ass beaten on emperor level... didn't happen before... the AI is much better now.

I don't see how a patch could make a stupid AI smarter.

I do know it gave us new features.

Tuberski · August 20, 2002, 22:33

Quote:

Originally posted by Stuie
1.29f allowed me to put the final touch on my mod: no cities allowed in tundra, deserts, jungles or forests.

So my strategy (an the AI's) now includes lots of colonies, and protecting those colonies. The AI appears quite adept at adapting to the change, by the way.

That actually makes colonies useful. Does the AI protect them?

Plus, you can build a city in the jungle but now the spot has to be cleared before the city is made, instead of being cleared instantly.

Godd idea, if it works as well as you say.

Sea41571 · August 21, 2002, 04:18

to bad you couldnt pay the Barbarians to Harass the English.

That would've been a nice touch from Fraxis, just think of the possibilities there, Having them wage a secret war on someone else for you, Secret Alliances like in real life .

Heres a good idea pay(a heavy price or course or for resources you have ) the barbarians for alliances against others or just to play havoc on them, the possibilities are endless.

would've been a lot of fun

HEY FRAXIS SOMETHING FOR CIV.4 OR THE ADD-ONS

SpencerH · August 26, 2002, 09:09

OK same game. I'm now number two in power. I've thrown out the English and Greek minicities that hung around on the periphery of my empire. I thought they would flip since they were all much closer to my capital than theres and my happy-happy Democratic civ but never did despite my best efforts.

Despite these warfare victories I'm still behind on tech with 3 of the other 4 civs by 1970 or so (although I'm catching up fast to the English and Greeks who're on their way out). This situation is very strange and had never occured with earlier patches on anything less than emperor.

A thought just occured to me. My pop is still fairly low in some major producing cities which indicates to me that I may not have had the best start position (theres a lot of plains).

SpencerH · August 26, 2002, 09:15

Is it just me, or is the AI building less units than before?

The americans built a carrier (first time I've seen that) but I'm not sure if it was used effectively.

Atahualpa · August 26, 2002, 10:00

The question is: Is there ANY way a carrier can be used effectively.

Once I built 3 carriers with std. game. Loaded them up with 2 bombers and 2 fighters each. But apart from softening up his cities and trying to destroy his infrastructure I achieved nothing. It was especially frustrating to clean his infrastructure, because he had so many workers and they simply would not die no matter how many bombing runs I did. So every turn the whole infrastructure was rebuilt. This was really annoying!!

WORKERS MUST BE VULNERABLE TO BOMBARDING!!

Next problem that dissapointed me much was that out of his cities came one battleship, bombarded mine and disappeared back into the port. Great, I could do NOTHING against it. My battleship just would not want to fire back.

I DEMAND BOMBARD BACK FIRING IF THE UNIT HAD NOT BOMBARDED IN HIS TURN AND HAD AT LEAST 1 MP LEFT.

Solver · August 26, 2002, 10:32

It seems to me that the AI now attacks with attacking units! I saw the AI use Tanks and Modern Armor on attack now, not Infantry and Mech Inf like it would in previous patch. It does a better job at these units.

Gastric ReFlux · August 26, 2002, 10:47

Yeah, there's been a definite decrease in the defensive units' Stacks of Doom that proliferated in 1.21.

Arrian · August 26, 2002, 11:16

The major gameplay changes, as I see them:

1) Tech race. Instead of giving the AI super-speed research on Monarch and above, the AI is now normal-speed and the human is slowed down. This has two outcomes: a) the pace slows a bit; and b) once the human really gets going, a large tech lead is again possible.

2) AI unit preferences: Ding-dong! The 1-move stack of doom is dead!

3) AI tech path: I haven't seen the AI ignoring literature anymore. Same with chivalry. I assume this is the case for all of the "dead-end" techs.

4) "Commercial" civ trait boosted: Commercial civs got a nice boost with 1.29, although not really enough to change my ranking of the traits. I have played a couple of games with commercial civs (Rome, France) and can confirm a noticeable difference. France and India are now solid choices for builders. As a warmonger, I would rather have militaristic + a better trait (religious or industrious).

5) AI leader usage (NOTE: I am by no means sure of this): The one time I witnessed the AI generate a great leader, it disappeared into a nearby city and immediately I got the popup message: "The Iroquois have built JS Bachs in [that city]." So I'm 99% sure the leader was used on a wonder. In the past, I always saw AI armies. Given that this is one isolated observation, it's best to take this with a grain of salt.

I haven't changed my strategy much, except that I've learned the awesome power of buying the AI's workers (which requires diplomatic contact every single turn with every single civ, and is therefore tedious, but worth it). I do more early research, though, since I now deem it worthwhile (Monarchy beeline mostly).

-Arrian

vmxa1 · August 26, 2002, 11:29

Quote:

Originally posted by SpencerH

I'm only playing my second game of 1.29 on regent. Again, I'm way way behind on techs despite having the GL. I havent got railroads yet and the lead AI civ has BUILT sufferage.

The GL has become obsolete if they have gotten all the way to sufferage. Same thing happened to me, once Education is discovered no more GL boost. I needed to get out Monarchto increase research.

Solver · August 26, 2002, 11:31

If Arrian's 5 is right, I'm kinda happy...

SpencerH · August 26, 2002, 11:58

Quote:

Originally posted by vmxa1

The GL has become obsolete if they have gotten all the way to sufferage. Same thing happened to me, once Education is discovered no more GL boost. I needed to get out Monarchto increase research.

It should have read "despite having had the GL"

vmxa1 · August 26, 2002, 14:01

Ok, then I would not had wondered if you thought it was still kicking on advances. They are smart enough to get to ED asap once you have the GL, it seems. Normally I do not have it, but I had a leader and that was the only thing worth making at the time. It is too short lived to suit me for the price.

SpencerH · August 26, 2002, 20:06

I got the GL with a leader because I was so far behind in tech (possibly from the constant warfare, but maybe not). I got quite a few techs out of it. At this point I'm just trying to bring to light differences between 1.21 and 1.29. Prior to 1.29 I only played regent i order to test out a mod. Now its either much tougher or its just bad luck. One point that sticks out in these games is that its been harder for me to trade with the AI for techs so that'll take some re-appraisal.

vmxa1 · August 26, 2002, 22:27

Post your findings as I played all of the patches up to the one before 129f at all levels, but I just came back to Civ3 so I can not remember for sure what the behaviors were. I have been at war nearly the this whole game and was thinking of trying to stay all the way in Monarch for a test, but I was getting so far behind in tech and could not trade, I had to go to Demo. I am at one end of a giant land mass, one of about three. 3 or four Civs have be bottled up. I am starting to push them back very slowly.

SpencerH · August 27, 2002, 10:09

Well I gave up that game. A city that was close to the Brit civ that had been mine since 1800, pop half Brit half zulu, with every culture-happiness building, in a democracy, in WLTK, flips to the Brits who are "impressed" with my culture. WHAT CRAP! Especially when you consider that I couldnt get their cities to flip to me earlier despite that they were virtual islands within my civ. It doesnt make sense.

It was 2007 I was in 2nd place and only had about 1100 points and 47K culture. With earlier versions on regent I would have easily won by space race by 1950 with 2500 points playing with a similar style (if not with the zulu's). So its quite a change.

I looked at the replay.

The early AI expanded at double my speed up to about 10 AI cities so terrain may have been a big factor in that. Three of the civs were expansionist so that might also have been a factor.

My constant battles with the much improved barbs slowed down my expansion more than some of the AI's. The AI civs were able to civilize their continents more quickly so didnt face the barbs for as long. I think that was a big factor in their ability to focus on research.

I found it very hard to trade for techs with the AI. Despite my average tech discovery every 6 turns through industrial I remained in 4th place tech wise for most of the game and couldnt catch up to the tech of the Brits who or Greeks were not even close in terms of production capabilities. My interpretation is that the AI had to have traded more frequently with itself than with me. I dont know why that occurred though.

So far I'd have to say that 1.29 is a much tougher game!

Arrian · August 27, 2002, 10:41

Interesting, Spencer, since my impression is the opposite - I think 1.29 is actually a bit easier. You may have just gotten a tough game... reload and have a look at the AI start locations. Sometimes they get nice starts and can be tough because of it. Terrain is a major factor.

As for the culture flip... well, you are playing a civ that has culture issues, and half the city was English. I will not comment further, because it's pointless.

-Arrian

vmxa1 · August 27, 2002, 11:17

I raze cities unless I bomb them down 2 or 3 so I do not have a flip. It is safer and just as easy to raze and build new.So far I have found tech trading to be very expensive after the first age.

Arrian · August 27, 2002, 11:22

Tech trading is more expensive, due to the changes made in 1.29. This helps if you're ahead, and hurts if you're behind. Playing catchup is harder, but holding or extending a lead is easier. It now makes more sense to do your own research than to set the slider to 100% tax and buy your way through the tech tree (something I couldn't bring myself to do anyway). I like that.

-Arrian

SpencerH · August 27, 2002, 11:55

Resource trading did seem more equitable though. There seemed to be less demands for 2 for 1.

SpencerH · August 27, 2002, 12:00

Quote:

Originally posted by vmxa1
I raze cities unless I bomb them down 2 or 3 so I do not have a flip. It is safer and just as easy to raze and build new.So far I have found tech trading to be very expensive after the first age.

I think the flip was caused by the large Brit city very close by. If I was in anarchy or the city was in disorder it would have made sense, but while in WLTK?

Often I just starve em down, but in this case I wanted a productive city right away.