Spoiler Thread for AU 203 - Page 4

joncnunn · January 8, 2003, 18:24

I haven't played the Germans yet, but I've seen the German AI kick other AIs butt in one of my games with Panzers in my first Civ III game.

In a more recently though, the Russian AI whooped up on the German AI in the early middle ages while Germany still hadn't finished REXing. (About 60% of that landmass was closer to Berlin than Moscow. Catherine ended up building her FP in Berlin, a pretty good location.)

laissez-faire · January 8, 2003, 18:38

Great job on the mod. A much more realistic game with a much more competitive AI! However, when editing airlift flags, were settlers deliberately or accidentally left out? Would be nice for them to travel by air so as to reduce micromanagement.

Nor Me · January 8, 2003, 18:41

Thanks for the support, everyone. No advice though.

I was doing quite well against the Babylonians with infantry+arty vs MI and MA but in the end China did the sensible thing despite an MPP and being gracious.

Nor Me · January 8, 2003, 18:42

If that minimap shows the Babylonians doing well:

Nor Me · January 8, 2003, 18:51

I'm tempted to resit this with trickey for revenge but I've wasted far too much time on this one (I may have left it on for a few hours once but that still doesn't explain 15 hours. Where did I get the time?)

China used nukes first against me. I've seen this happen with a much weaker civ I'm about to destroy but never with a stronger one.

um. DOES ANYONE KNOW WHY THE AI RESEARCHED CHEMISTRY BEFOR BANKING? I don't.

Dominae · January 8, 2003, 18:56

Quote:

Originally posted by Nor Me
um. DOES ANYONE KNOW WHY THE AI RESEARCHED CHEMISTRY BEFOR BANKING? I don't.

Are you asking for the real reason, or just wondering why the AI was coded this way in the first place? I'll assume the latter. My answer is: why not? Sometimes it just pays to beeline for Military Tradition. Chemistry is also a gateway to 4 of the era's final techs, making it pretty important.

Dominae

Thoth · January 8, 2003, 19:07

Quote:

Originally posted by Nor Me

They do. I've seen it. In my game China has 8 armies of course.

These may not all be from leaders. I have seen the AI build the Military Acadamy. I don't know for sure if it will then build armies as I didn't finish off that game. (UP is what I aim for, but it gets a bit dull once you get there

)

Nor Me · January 8, 2003, 19:14

Quote:

Originally posted by Dominae

Are you asking for the real reason, or just wondering why the AI was coded this way in the first place? I'll assume the latter. My answer is: why not? Sometimes it just pays to beeline for Military Tradition. Chemistry is also a gateway to 4 of the era's final techs, making it pretty important.

Dominae

I'm not saying it wasn't a sensible move on the part of China. The result speaks for itself. The leading AI should do it more often.
It's just that I've never seen it before and it definitely contradicts earlier research done by alexman on this subject. I want to know why. China behaved more sensibly than I've grown used to. Well, at least to begin with.

Dominae · January 8, 2003, 19:18

Did any other civs already have Banking at the time? I'm thinking that maybe the AI prioritizes techs based on who has them or not, in addition to all the factors alexman discovered.

alexman, did you test for this?

Dominae

ducki · January 8, 2003, 20:38

So, my war with China only gained me the one leader that went into an Army and won a battle.

Rome and Russia made peace about 8 turns early(yay!) as did England(double yay!) freeing me to make peace and at least not waste all of my GA on Knights(triple yay!)

However, China won Nottingham, London, and one other city whose name I can't read right now.

When Persia declared war on China a while later, though, this time I let them pass, though without an RoP, as they are too greedy.

Persia took Nottingham, opening up a (very) small piece of land between Nottingham and China's nearest ex-English town. I just happened to have a settler left over from my Chinese War, so off he went, to claim territory.
Originally, there was only a 1-tile-wide "T" of land that included the tile where New Berlin sits, the tiles West, SouthWest, and South of N.B. and the tile NorthEast of N.B.

This was where my treasury of about 1800 gold came in - Brandenburg and N.B. both rushed Temples and Libraries before starting their Barracks, resulting in a wonderful border expansion to a full 9-tile town! N.B. expands again in 1 turn, hopefully to claim that mountain with Iron.

Persia's culture is pretty high, but I'm hoping the distance factor will bring Nottingham under my wing soon.

I have another 2 settlers in production, hopefully to claim the rest of the unbordered lands between England and China.

21 turns to Bach's, debating whether to sell MTheory or not.

Nor Me · January 8, 2003, 21:38

Quote:

Originally posted by Dominae
Did any other civs already have Banking at the time?

No.

laissez-faire · January 8, 2003, 21:45

Nice work, ducki. I can almost speak from experience in saying that New Berlin will play such a key role in your upcoming industrial age wars.

jshelr · January 9, 2003, 19:35

Well, I've been to patient and built a good civ retaining all the original cities. We managed to snag an oil resource. However, the damn AI have all gone to democracy. they are researching / trading at a pace faster than one tech per five turns. Very unusual. I can buy tech at about one per five, but I'm not catching up.

Over the weekend, I'll try to get the military pot boiling again, but I can see this one is going to end up in nuke territory. Ugh. I wonder if my buddy Mao would like to join in a little blitz of Persia.........

trickey · January 9, 2003, 21:40

My second game is going much better than my first. Once again, I am playing on monarch. Early on, I foucused much more on developping my cities rather than just build as much cites as quick as I can.

I managed to get the Great Library, which let me run 0% science for a fair little while.

I have just discovered democracy, and Mao and I are starting to leave everyone (including Persia) in the dust tech-wise.

Chemical Ollie · January 10, 2003, 08:10

This is my first CIV3 game in 2 months, so I have done some stupid strategic mistakes and fallen behind half an age or so. Playing on monarch, I forgot to use more than one warrior to explore, forgot to cut off the chokepoints, built too much early culture instead of REXing, forgot to micromanage the research slider, did not have a fixed plan for my research path and did not do any proactive diplomacy.

Kamerad Karl Marx of the Arbeiters settled on the river where he emerged. The next 3 cities were build to the southwest to cut off the Romans who had settled by the gem mountains (perhaps Ceasar found a settler in a hut). Then the Arbeiters settled the south east leg, starting in the luxury garden and moving south until Russia and Persia were in the way. 2 cities were put around the Roman outpost to make it flip, but without success. Instead, an English city flipped despite that my closest city had no culture at all.

The luck did not last long, as 10 riders emerged from nowhere and rolled over the poor spearmen in the 4 cities the Arbeiters had on the southeast leg before Chairman Mao, the great leader of the people, would finally talk to his tutor Marx and make peace. The Arbiters had lost all their horsemen and swordsmen in the fight. Revenge will come... Karl Marx finally settled the cold land in the north and built fishing harbors to feed the people there.

Xerxes decided Russia was not worth to live and razed half of it while conquering the rest. This gave the Arbeiters an opportunity to squeeze in culture bombs on the whole stretch of the southeast leg, including the fur farm. Karl Marx quickly rushed libraries in the new cities to spread the word of "Das Kapital" to the uneducated Persians. It is too early to know if they will understand.

It is now 1350 AD and the newly built banks is the hot topic in the Arbeiter cities. There must be capitalism before there can be communism, as Karl Marx has written. China and Persia are strong powers who will discover the paradise of communism any time now. Will the Arbeiters get revenge for the misdeeds done by China in the past? Will they utilize the power of Panzers to unite the workers of the world? Time will tell...

Chemical Ollie · January 10, 2003, 17:16

Stupid me. How could I even think of Persia letting me keep the southeast leg? Just some turns after I went back to the game, they attacked without declaring war. My pikemen did not stand a chance against their hordes of cavallery and my 10 knights just disappeared before they even got a chance to counterattack. The stupid Xerxes still refuse to talk after razing 4 of my cities and conquering one. If I'm fast enough, I might be able to resettle some of the land, but this was a hard blow. And it isn't over yet - I have to make a humiliating peace first!

Chemical Ollie · January 10, 2003, 17:41

Well, its getting worse...

Is communism good for OCC?

Chemical Ollie · January 10, 2003, 17:51

Aaarggghhh! I have to replay this! After all, it was my first game in 2 months.

Dominae · January 10, 2003, 18:02

I feel your pain Olaf. Good luck on the second try (hint: fortify the chokepoints early).

By the way, were you using the AU mod?

Dominae

Konquest02 · January 10, 2003, 18:18

The game got pretty interresting today.

1) While being really late through all of the medieval times and not building a single wonder (except the HGardens), I managed to gain a tech lead, mostly because of ToE and a well timed pre-build. I also got Hoover 5 turns later.

2) China and Persia were at war for at least 200 years non-stop. There were steady streams of knights/cavalry/riflemen/infantry fighting on my territory. It was a tie during most of the time and nobody ever entered the enemy's territory. This really helped me to catch up. Babylon (3rd world power) joined in on China's side for a little fight with Persia.

3) Rome is really active, being at war regularly, despite the handicap of having only one city... They were really behind everyone else...

--Kon--

joncnunn · January 10, 2003, 18:19

Why does it look llike your Foreign Advisor is a mole for the Persian AI?

Konquest02 · January 10, 2003, 18:24

4) When I got ToE and Hoover, I traded away Atomic Theory.
From China, I got Ivory, Replacable Parts, Communism, 27 gpt, 800g (all their tresaury) and World map. From Persia, I got 25 gpt and all their gold (77g). From the Babs, I got the two lux I was missing (Silks and Wine). This really got me back in the game.

5) Because of that trade, China got instantly gracious. Then this...
As soon as I will get to MT, I will switch to Commie-dom and invade Rome for Oil. Then, the world is gonna learn a new name: Panzer...!

--Kon--

BigDork · January 10, 2003, 18:46

In all my games, I've never seen the AI turn down a culture flip. Is this a super rare exception or was there a reason?

BigD

Konquest02 · January 10, 2003, 23:46

I too was really surprised when I saw this. I think the reason is that China was gracious with me because of the big trade a mad with them regarding Atomic Theory. This is the first time I experience this or ever see a screenshot on the forums.

--Kon--

BRC · January 10, 2003, 23:48

It might have something to do with the OCN also, although I have no experience with this really.

Konquest02 · January 10, 2003, 23:50

Quote:

Originally posted by Dominae
I feel your pain Olaf. Good luck on the second try (hint: fortify the chokepoints early).
Dominae

Try not to block the chokepoints for too long though, as China, Russia, Aztecs and Rome (yes OCC-Rome!!) declared war on me out of the blue, probably because I was hindering their expansion too much. I had to beg for peace on both (if not more) knees in order to survive.

Am I the only one who went through this? I'm playing 1.29f.
--Kon--

Chemical Ollie · January 11, 2003, 08:04

I'm playing 1.29. Is there still an AU version for that? PTW will not be released in Sweden until January 30th, and I doubt that I will buy it. Firaxis does not deserve it.

The second game went better but I'm still having trouble with the Chinese riders. And the Russians sailed past my choke point blockers. I built GL, so I am able to keep up better in tech. Fighting the riders with muskets and knights is a better than spears and horsies. Made Russia and Persia join my side against China. But it's a frustration not being allowed to invade the Chinese territory once I turn the tide. Leonardo's workshop triggered my GA, so I am hoping to be able to stop the rider hordes soon.

Konquest02 · January 11, 2003, 11:15

Quote:

Originally posted by BRC
It might have something to do with the OCN also, although I have no experience with this really.

I think you're right BRC. China declared war on me later in the game (yesterday night...) and razed 3 out of 4 cities they took me, including New Leipzig. I also have this revealing screenshot of China not settling in the empty ex-Aztec territory. The date of this screenshot is 1355 AD, but they have not founded any cities yet (in 1775AD). Babylon and Persia slipped a couple of cities there....

--Kon--

jshelr · January 11, 2003, 15:29

Another unusual happening, but not as rare as the refusal to accept a flipped city: On buying radio, Germany entered the modern era and was given ecology. That allowed trades for both fission and rocketry and that, in turn, let me put syn fibers on one scientist and look to buy my way along the soutern tech branches. Instantly, back in the game due to nothing but good luck.

My guess is that, if you are still in one piece at this stage, then the human player will probably win during the modern era. Military tactics are much more complicated at this stage. (Give us a dozen settlers and 50 three-move panzers or MAs, along with some arty, and the AI is going to lose a lot of cities on one turn.)

Dominae · January 11, 2003, 15:41

Quote:

Originally posted by Konquest02
Try not to block the chokepoints for too long though, as China, Russia, Aztecs and Rome (yes OCC-Rome!!) declared war on me out of the blue, probably because I was hindering their expansion too much. I had to beg for peace on both (if not more) knees in order to survive.

Am I the only one who went through this? I'm playing 1.29f.

The key to not getting attacked too often is to divert the AI's aggressiveness to other civs instead of you. In my game, the Persians were all too happy to destroy me ('Annoyed' or 'Furious) up until around 1000AD. I did have to repel them at least twice. But when their forces were getting too large for me, some quick negotiations saw them attack the Chinese instead. Since Persia was "occupied" with China, I was no longer a target.

So the key idea here is: try to orchestrate all wars between all civs, not only the ones in which you take an active part.

Dominae