Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhh. How to keep ai from building wonders?

wvfoos · October 1, 2002, 02:32

I used some powerbar editor to edit the game. Yeah, I cheated. I'm trying to figure some stuff out.

Anyway, I had been researching the great library. Only 3 turns from getting it. Anyway, egyptians beat me to it. Sooooooo, i used the powerbar editor thing and went back a couple of turns and ruined all their production, but they continue to complete it anyway, as if the production was never ruined.

Is this some sort of ai cheat? Does the ai not have to "build" wonders, they just get them based on some sort of equation? I think it was that way in civ1, iirc. In my case, there were actually THREE wonders built by the ai, all on the same turn. The GL, the HG, and GW. I don't care about the other two, but the GL kinda ticked me off. Especially if its because the ai doesn't have to "build" them. Is that the case?

Ethelred · October 1, 2002, 03:42

You might want to try learning how to play the game instead of how to cheat. If the AI is beating you to Wonders either you started them to late or you haven't developed your cities.

Or you could just be trying to play on too high a level for your present skills. Of course if you feel the need to cheat then you definitely are on too high a difficulty setting.

Start a new game. Go down one level at least and then learn how to develop your civ in the early game.

vulture · October 1, 2002, 04:43

Quote:

Originally posted by wvfoos
I used some powerbar editor to edit the game. Yeah, I cheated. I'm trying to figure some stuff out.

Anyway, I had been researching the great library. Only 3 turns from getting it. Anyway, egyptians beat me to it. Sooooooo, i used the powerbar editor thing and went back a couple of turns and ruined all their production, but they continue to complete it anyway, as if the production was never ruined.

Is this some sort of ai cheat? Does the ai not have to "build" wonders, they just get them based on some sort of equation? I think it was that way in civ1, iirc. In my case, there were actually THREE wonders built by the ai, all on the same turn. The GL, the HG, and GW. I don't care about the other two, but the GL kinda ticked me off. Especially if its because the ai doesn't have to "build" them. Is that the case?

How sure are you that Egypt doesn't finish the production by using a great leader? The AI are allowed to have them too, y'know... The HG and GW are probably built by wonder cascade - they switch from building the GL (which they are close to finishing) to a wonder with a lower shield cost (HG, GW) and finish it immediately.

BTW have you looked at the possibility that the cheat editor you are using may not work, rather than it being the fault of the game?

Todd Hawks · October 1, 2002, 07:35

The AI has to build wonders normally.
I often managed to e.g. sabotage them.

I guess your cheat program is just not working correctly.

What is a powerbar editor anyway?

TheStinger · October 1, 2002, 07:58

Build then first, or whack the city thats building it.

Tiberius · October 1, 2002, 08:14

Reload an older saved game and try to maximize your city's production (don't let the governor to do it for you, at least not until the wonder is built). 3 turns should be a recoverable handicap.

WarpStorm · October 1, 2002, 08:24

I usually use the diplomats to scout the cities building the Wonders to see if the race is a foregone conclusion. Sometimes the race can't be won. In additon, like Tiberius said don't use the governor in critical situations like this. I can usually squeeze 25% more shields out of a city over the governor (even when they are set to emphasize productivity).

Tiberius · October 1, 2002, 08:34

Yes, the governor is so annoying sometimes. When the city is size 6 or 12, he still emphasizes food, despite the fact that the city has no aqueduct or hospital and you are building a wonder (with the aqueduct/hospital being the next in the building queue) !

I think it shouldn't be very hard for Firaxis to tweak the governor for such situations.

miccofl · October 1, 2002, 08:46

If you want to keep the AI from building wonders open the map you are playing in the editor and edit the civs you are not playing to build no wonders. It's not cheating if you are trying to make a do-it-yourself tutorial.

SpencerH · October 1, 2002, 08:48

Quote:

Originally posted by Tiberius
Reload an older saved game and try to maximize your city's production (don't let the governor to do it for you, at least not until the wonder is built). 3 turns should be a recoverable handicap.

I tried that cheat with a 1.17 game after being beaten to an early wonder by 1 turn. It was once too often so I went back 20 (boring) turns and upped my production. I should have built the wonder 3 turns before the AI but it STILL beat me by 1 turn. It spawned a few of my more irate threads. BTW I havent noticed the same 1 turn before the human crap with 1.21 or 1.29 so the AI seems to be on the same playing field wrt wonder building now (or else I've mellowed out

).

wvfoos · October 1, 2002, 10:01

Is it just me, or is ethelred a jackass?

Tiberius · October 1, 2002, 10:14

No, he's not. He's just probably annoyed that you are trying to cheat instead of learning to play properly.

Or maybe he's just upset from some unknown reason

wvfoos · October 1, 2002, 10:36

Well, seeing as how I WASN'T cheating (until i saw the WOW go up 3 turns before mine finished), I still think he's a jackass.

I only used the editor to go BACK before that, and disrupt their production. Then discovered the disruptions essentially no effect. That was the gist of my question, as to how the AI builds wonders. Never thought about the great leader rush build though, that could be it. I just fell back on the old civ1 deal where the ai didn't build wonders as much as get "awarded" them.

BTW, the powerbar editor thingy is here.......

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showth...threadid=12501

cracker · October 1, 2002, 10:42

I don't think Ethelred was being a Jackass since you began this topic with the cheat bar discussion. You actual do more harm to yourself than you realize because it does not help you learn the game in any sort of functional way.

The fact that you ar using the powerbar may indicate that you have not patched the game up to the current release version of V1.29f and that means you have all sorts of build in bugs and anomolies that need to be fixed.

Learn to play the game and all this discussion will be trivial.

If you are playing on the Warlord or Cheiftain level you should almost never be loosing a wonder race to any of the AI players (they get a cost mutlipier penalty of 120% or 200% that makes them just be victims of your choices).

On these two lower difficulty levels the primary reason to build the Great Library might be to keep one of your enemies from getting it because usually it will yield little tech value since your enemies should be behind you on the tech research tree.

There are numerous strategy articles on building your empire and building wonders. Every one of these articles will reveal something new and informative to you.

The first article you should read is:

Imrpoving Your Opening Play Sequences

becasue everything you do or decide to do depends on how well you play the first 80 to 100 turns (up to the 1000 BC time frame.)

Cidifer · October 1, 2002, 11:08

Cracker people don't just use cheats to win games, and they don't just use it because they are new or not very good. Certain cheats can HELP you learn things about the game you never knew, for example if you always play a certain way and because of that strategy you never build any early wonders you may want to know if it wuold help you more to build certain wonders instead of say building massive armies. In which case why should you have to play an entire game when you just want to find out how something works?

Especially later in games, say you want to see what it would take to get a space race victory, or domination and you decide to use a cheat to do it quickly instead of playing the game over the course of days or weeks. Also some people have very little free time especially now that school is back in full swing, so maybe they want to learn which of the units in the modern era are the best for their style and only have a weekend to do it, why not cheat? not everyone can play the game 7 days a week, and if they ever hope to compete in MP they really should learn some alternative ways to play.

Apolex · October 1, 2002, 11:24

You guys chill out, dang. The guy can play the game however he wants! This is not "Civ College", or some training facility to make everyone a civ genius. The guy paid his good $$ for the game so has the right to play it in ANY MANNER HE CHOOSES. It's not hurting you at all... and it's not hurting him if his goal is to just have fun and not get a Civ Ph.D. This sanctimonius BS I hear with you all telling him he should be just like you is clearly being a jackass.

His question was :

Does the ai not have to "build" wonders, they just get them based on some sort of equation?

Either answer that question constructively or quit being jackasses and go to the Civ Strat discussion with your 'my way of doing things is better' stuff.

Arrian · October 1, 2002, 11:24

Cheating doesn't really help you learn a game. Trial and error does. So does coming to places like this and discussing strategy. I suggest playing the ancient era over and over until you feel you have got the hang of things. If you make a strategic decision and things go badly, go back to an old save and try a different course of action. Reloading for the purposes of testing strategy and just generally learning the game is far, far more likely to teach you something than using a cheat program. There was a thread set up by Theseus with a listing of threads that newer players would find useful... I forget the name of it. I'll dig it up and post a link. Check out some of those threads, because they may help you out.

Oh, and definitely patch the game to version 1.29.

-Arrian

Arrian · October 1, 2002, 11:30

Quote:

His question was :

Does the ai not have to "build" wonders, they just get them based on some sort of equation?

Either answer that question constructively or quit being jackasses and go to the Civ Strat discussion with your 'my way of doing things is better' stuff.

This has been answered already by Todd Hawks:

Quote:

The AI has to build wonders normally.

That is the correct answer. Unlike Civ I and CivII, the AI actually has to build wonders in CivIII. They put a high priority on wonder building, and thus often succeed. One thing that is often frustrating is the "wonder cascade" which occurs when a wonder is completed, and the tech is available for other wonders (for example, the Pyramids are completed, and literature is out there.. resulting in a mass switch to the Great Library).

How to prevent them from building wonders? It depends on what level you play on and some other factors, but my response (on Monarch) is to beat the snot out of them and rely on great leaders for many of my wonders.

-Arrian

Soren Johnson · October 1, 2002, 11:32

Quote:

Originally posted by Apolex

His question was :

Does the ai not have to "build" wonders, they just get them based on some sort of equation?

The AI has to build wonders just like the human in Civ3. (this is apparently different from previous versions of Civ in which the AI got wonder for free...) If you see the AI get a wonder quicker than you expected, it probably was because of cascading (changing production because another wonder was just finished) or a Great Leader.

wvfoos · October 1, 2002, 12:00

I had a big post typed up, and my power went out.

Yes, i've patched to 1.29f (duh). Not everyone who is a newb to civ3, is a complete newb to pc games.

Second, i ONLY used the powerbar thing to go back and SEE if I could disrupt the WOW, in furtherance of my exploration about how the ai builds the wonders. Am I supposed to just go blindly about, and not worry about how the AI does things? I see lots of threads here about how the ai acts/reacts, especially in diplomacy. I guess we should not try and figure out how they work on diplomacy, because that would be cheating too? Figuring out how the AI works, imo, can make a difference in how I approach the game.

I swear, some of you people see the word "cheat" and automatically assume "oh, he's just giving himself 10000' s of gold, and jacking his production and all sorts of similar things." Do you honestly think, if I was just giving myself gold and and jacking my production and god knows what else, I would even care about a stupid assed wonder? Hell, I could just ramp my tech through the roof to get education (i think thats the tech that ends the GL) and kill the wonder. C'mon, use your head.

To those two or three individuals who understood this in this thread, I appreciate the response, and the ability to understand the original question. The "he doesn't have all day to sit an play civ3" theory is dead on. I get about 2 hours a night, maybe three if I'm lucky. About 3 days a week. I don't have the time to start umpteen million games, and see which starting position is the best after 100 turns. Or play 100 turns just to see if my new peace strategy works. As I stated earlier, I see that a great leader may be used by the ai to accomplish what I was concerned about, and now understand that the ai doesn't just "get" wonders as it did in civ1 (and maybe civ2, i forget).

One_Brow · October 1, 2002, 12:15

Quote:

Originally posted by Arrian
That is the correct answer. Unlike Civ I and CivII, the AI actually has to build wonders in CivIII.

Actually, that would be "unlike Civ I and like Civ II", since in Civ II wonders actually needed to be built by the AI.

SpencerH · October 1, 2002, 15:02

In a follow-up to my post and others.

I think that the AI uses leaders quite a bit now to generate wonders (it never used camels for wonders in civ2) and it may even start or join in wars in order to generate GL->wonders (just like we do).

In a recent game, another civ who was behind me in tech and whos wonder was 20-30 turns behind mine suddenly joined in a war against a weak civ that I was demolishing. The AI generated a GL, marched him across my territory, and built the wonder 1 or two turns before me

.

Having seen it directly, there was nothing to ***** about........................... except why cant GL be generated through peaceful means?

Arrian · October 1, 2002, 15:20

One Brow,

I stand corrected. I haven't played CivII since CivIII came out, and it appears my memory is starting to get fuzzy.

Soren, thanks for chiming in! I guess you still check out the forums occasionally, huh?

SpencerH,

Yeah, I watched the Iroquois do that to me once - generate a leader and rush Bach. I would have easily beaten them to it otherwise. Annoying, but fair.

-Arrian

mattcj · October 1, 2002, 15:53

Quote:

Originally posted by wvfoos
The "he doesn't have all day to sit an play civ3" theory is dead on. I get about 2 hours a night, maybe three if I'm lucky. About 3 days a week. I don't have the time to start umpteen million games, and see which starting position is the best after 100 turns. Or play 100 turns just to see if my new peace strategy works.

Here Here

While it would be nice to be able to start lots of games and just play ancient eras over and over again, it's just not reality for most people (I'd wager).

Not that I cheat or anything

Theseus · October 1, 2002, 17:48

Let the guy play however he wants. I never used the powerbar thing, but when I was starting I certainly re-loaded from 10 or 20 turns before to understand what I needed to do to build a GW.

That said, the best way to learn is to play, and to learn from other players. Why re-invent the wheel? (Oh, we do that...

)

Here's the thread Arrian mentioned:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=59216

SpencerH · October 2, 2002, 08:48

Quote:

Originally posted by Arrian
One Brow,
SpencerH,

Yeah, I watched the Iroquois do that to me once - generate a leader and rush Bach. I would have easily beaten them to it otherwise. Annoying, but fair.

-Arrian

Yeah its one thing to believe it happens and to use the idea to explain how the AI gets an "unexplained" wonder and another to actually see it happen before your eyes. Its rather enlightening!