I hope part of the patch fixes the way you're treated by civilizations you've revived (i.e. liberated one of their cities after they'd been wiped out). Based on the huge influence boost you get from doing this with city-states, and the fact that revived civilizations automatically vote for you in the UN, I'm pretty sure they're supposed to think you're the best country ever after you've done this, instead of acting just as pissy as usual.
Really, I just want it to be possible to have actual non city-state allies. Diplomacy feels meaningless when you know everyone will stab you in the back as soon as they think it's profitable.
The code tells the ai how to treat each other. An aggressive ai in the middle of less aggressive ai will force them to go to war, will keep demanding thing. Once the aggressive ai gets war, either you or another civ, it clicks off a few flags, on higher levels. Those flags allow the ai to really cheat, run a huge debt, build x units per turn without shields or gold. This was suppose to happen against you, but the other ai's in the game do not get the flag turned, leaving them defense less. The reason the ai's do not get the same bonus is faulty coding. They do not actually know, code wise, they are at war. They are actually being attacked one city at a time, with out the rest of the empire knowing what to do. So they do not actually start to fight back. That is why you are stuck with one super nation against you. It is still not unbeatable.
Is this just on Prince that there's no cheating on these things? I'd like to say I was right about the AI actually only doing Research Agreements if they can afford to, but I'm not so sure now.
On higher levels the AI gets bonuses to the production and generation of things like units, buildings, etc. and discounts to costs like maintenance, but it can never "snap its fingers" and make anything appear under any circumstances. How closely it has to obey the game rules does not change based on difficulty level. If an AI signed a RA agreement with someone, it meant they had the requisite gold (for at least one turn) - it may have gotten it from another player, from a goody hut, from disbanding something or even from losing out on a wonder (which they like to build). But it's always legit.
However, I'm not buying this. The AI often runs outrageous gold deficits which are visible on the trade screen; yet its countless units never seem to get disbanded, as they would for a human player. And those sprawling AI empires surely push its unhappiness into the deep red, especially with a lack of buildings/wonders to compensate; yet the AI never seems to get the unhappiness combat penalty that human players would get.
Well, when the game core SDK is released you can take a look and let me know where I added these bonuses on accident.
The AI does lose units to disbanding, but it's a slow process (just as it is for a human). I think psychology plays in here. If a human loses one unit, he notices immediately and tends to correct the problem quickly. The AI just bleeds over time until things get better (or not). The least advanced unit is also the one disbanded, which means the strong AI units on the front line won't be the ones disappearing. If the AI has a lot of units and is losing money, it tends to have a LOT of units, which means its going to take some time before ALL of the extra units are disbanded.
The most fleshed-out part of the AI is probably how it approaches Happiness. It is obsessed with staying above the Happiness limit. It bee-lines for luxuries, trades them quickly if it has excess (and likes another player that also has excess), constructs Colosseums, nearly always picks policies that help with Happiness, etc. As soon as the AI hits "Unhappy" (before "Really Unhappy") it stops expanding, preventing the situation from deteriorating further. Because the AI civs are rarely unhappy, they rarely have to suffer the combat penalty.
Even with all of this though, the AI tends to lag behind the human with regards to total population. It's not able to micromanage the numbers in the same way a person can, and also can't build up the REALLY large food surpluses humans like to. The lack of population tends to catch up to the AI in the later part of the game, where it tends to lacks technology and cities with really high production.
Well then I'll take Shafers words over those of a random dude on the forums, but that doesn't really explain how it's possible for one AI to become a huge blob when left alone.
Too bad there's no automatic play feature so people can watch what happens.
Ferrus on
I would like to pause for a moment, to talk about my penis.
My penis is like a toddler. A toddler—who is a perfectly normal size for his age—on a long road trip to what he thinks is Disney World. My penis is excited because he hasn’t been to Disney World in a long, long time, but remembers a time when he used to go every day. So now the penis toddler is constantly fidgeting, whining “Are we there yet? Are we there yet? How about now? Now? How about... now?”
And Disney World is nowhere in sight.
I won my last game as Songhai with a time victory. New game, bigger map, different map type, higher difficulty, random civ (and restart if I've tried that civ before). I got Ghandi.
So I think I'm gonna go for the Bollywood achievement (cultural victory as India with 3 or less cities).
Any tips for pulling this off? City placement/resources/growth, policies, wonders...
And does it count as 3 cities if you have 3 cities and raze others?
I don't understand the confusion about one AI overrunning the others? If you put an aggressive AI on the same continent as a couple of slow-expanding builder types, it's going to end up with like 4 times the military strength, and it'll gobble them up. As Shafer says, the AI is obsessed with happiness, and it typically puppets rather than annexes, so it's able to manage a large number of cities without a serious penalty.
I think the main problem here, and the reason we see one AI steamrolling others, is that the AI is terrible at combat so it generally comes down to which one has the most units. Builder types have a lot of force multipliers at their disposal, from Oligarchy and other social policies to Himeji Castle, but they're too stupid to take good advantage of them. They'll wander out of their territory, fight in scattered groups rather than tight formations, and send their ranged units up to the front lines where no amount of bonuses will save them. If they'd just park in a sensible formation in front of whatever city is under attack, they'd have a much better chance of fighting off those aggressive invaders.
I won my last game as Songhai with a time victory. New game, bigger map, different map type, higher difficulty, random civ (and restart if I've tried that civ before). I got Ghandi.
So I think I'm gonna go for the Bollywood achievement (cultural victory as India with 3 or less cities).
Any tips for pulling this off? City placement/resources/growth, policies, wonders...
And does it count as 3 cities if you have 3 cities and raze others?
If you want to cheese it just play on an island map.
Other than that it depends on your neighbors. Some AIs love small cultured civs and won't touch you and some will try to bumrush you. You'll want one production city for the Utopia Project and wonders and one gold city to pay for upkeep/city state bribes. After you've reached the Renaissance era there isn't that much that boosts your culture output except the broadcast tower and maybe Christo Redentor.
Buy only the important policies at the beginning and wait until you unlock Freedom for the one that makes every other policy cheaper.
Get Stonehenge asap.
Ferrus on
I would like to pause for a moment, to talk about my penis.
My penis is like a toddler. A toddler—who is a perfectly normal size for his age—on a long road trip to what he thinks is Disney World. My penis is excited because he hasn’t been to Disney World in a long, long time, but remembers a time when he used to go every day. So now the penis toddler is constantly fidgeting, whining “Are we there yet? Are we there yet? How about now? Now? How about... now?”
And Disney World is nowhere in sight.
I won my last game as Songhai with a time victory. New game, bigger map, different map type, higher difficulty, random civ (and restart if I've tried that civ before). I got Ghandi.
So I think I'm gonna go for the Bollywood achievement (cultural victory as India with 3 or less cities).
Any tips for pulling this off? City placement/resources/growth, policies, wonders...
And does it count as 3 cities if you have 3 cities and raze others?
I just did the Bollywood achievement, and it was fairly challenging. One thing I will suggest is that you not get too reliant on city-states. I tried to buddy up to a bunch of them in my game, but I was playing against Persia and the Aztecs, and they kept treating my allies as delicious snacks. When you only have 3 cities with which to build and support units with you can't expect to wage a successful offensive war, so it's really hard to protect city-states. As a side effect of my struggle to keep some alive, I did discover that you can liberate a city-state without disqualifying yourself for the achievement. I suspect that razing cities will count against you, though, as the city is technically treated as annexed for the duration of the razing process.
I should mention at this point that I played on a Pangaea map to intentionally make it harder. AIs are less apt to grab city-states on other map types, and it's easier to defend yourself on an island, so keep that in mind when you're choosing your map.
Other advice - just the obvious stuff. Build as many wonders as you can, especially the culturally-focused ones. In particular, make sure you get Stonehenge, preferably before founding a second city; it will buy you two or three policies in short order. Try for lots of golden ages via high happiness (which should be easy to maintain) and lots of great people, which you should get thanks to your high population. Speaking of population, obviously you want to maximize growth, so farm everything next to a river at a minimum. You'll also need lots of production to build all those wonders, so rivers and hills are your friends. You can't totally neglect gold, of course, so put some trading posts up and take time to build the financial buildings. If you have extra resources, consider selling them for gold.
As for policy choices, Tradition is actually pretty damn good for this strategy. Oligarchy can be a lifesaver, obviously Aristocracy is incredible, and since your capital is 1/3rd of your cities the stuff that's capital-specific isn't so bad. Piety is a must of course. Freedom is the other mandatory branch, and make sure you build at least one world wonder (national ones don't count) in each city to take advantage of the 100% culture boost there. The last two branches are up to personal taste and the needs of your specific game. Patronage can be great if you think you can reliably keep enough city-states alive and allied. Commerce if you're critically short on cash, but otherwise it's not so hot. Order is a good one, but obviously it comes pretty late in the game. Honor is an option if you're getting pounded on militarily.
Speaking of military, make sure you keep enough around to deter opportunists. 6 or so units is plenty. Building the barracks/armory/military academy in at least one city isn't a bad idea. India gets a great defensive structure, the Mughal Fort, which is stronger than a castle and will pay for itself and the prerequisite walls after you research Flight (at which point it provides 3 gold per turn). And that's about it; obviously you aren't going to go adventuring so you just want the bare minimum you need to defend yourself and maybe an adjacent city-state or two.
Honestly, although it was challenging, I didn't find doing the three-city challenge to be terribly fun. You're hobbled and hamstrung in a war, since you can't field many units and can't capture cities in any event, and peacetime consists largely of whacking End Turn since you stop expanding so early in the game. But it's an interesting change of pace from the typical game I guess.
Oh, one more thing: Remember that you don't have to take a policy when prompted. Right-click on the Choose a Policy button to dismiss it so you can end your turn. Personally I opted to take policies in Tradition right away so it wasn't an issue for me, but depending on what strategy you choose you might want to save your culture until you unlock Piety or Patronage (or Freedom, as Ferrus suggests).
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MrMonroepassed outon the floor nowRegistered Userregular
edited October 2010
I really want to earn the "give peace a chance" achievement by murdering every living thing on the fucking planet
nuke every horse resource
a fishing establishment on every whale resource
and giant death robots blasting "Imagine" at 500 decibels as they march across the scorched earth
Started a game as England, Oval Pangea. King difficulty. By about 1200AD, Arabia zergrushes me with hundreds of trebutchets and knights.
Restart. Small islands map. By 1200AD, Japan zergrushes me with samurai and riflemen.
Why? Because they managed to form a fucking blob. I'm getting tired of this. EUIII had similar problems but at least there were some cheesy ways to break the blobs up again.
Ferrus on
I would like to pause for a moment, to talk about my penis.
My penis is like a toddler. A toddler—who is a perfectly normal size for his age—on a long road trip to what he thinks is Disney World. My penis is excited because he hasn’t been to Disney World in a long, long time, but remembers a time when he used to go every day. So now the penis toddler is constantly fidgeting, whining “Are we there yet? Are we there yet? How about now? Now? How about... now?”
And Disney World is nowhere in sight.
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HunterChemist with a heart of AuRegistered Userregular
Started a game as England, Oval Pangea. King difficulty. By about 1200AD, Arabia zergrushes me with hundreds of trebutchets and knights.
Restart. Small islands map. By 1200AD, Japan zergrushes me with samurai and riflemen.
Why? Because they managed to form a fucking blob. I'm getting tired of this. EUIII had similar problems but at least there were some cheesy ways to break the blobs up again.
I'm not sure I understand your complaint. Are you just saying that you got overwhelmed by the sheer number of enemy units?
A blobbed AI will always outproduce and outtech you. And since it always has more units than the player, it won't stop attacking. It just isn't fun that way. In CivIV you could at least try to form power blocks and gang up on one Civ but not so here.
Continent games are only winable due to the fact that conquering the capital is an instant win and the AI doesn't do naval invasions. Which seems wrong.
Ferrus on
I would like to pause for a moment, to talk about my penis.
My penis is like a toddler. A toddler—who is a perfectly normal size for his age—on a long road trip to what he thinks is Disney World. My penis is excited because he hasn’t been to Disney World in a long, long time, but remembers a time when he used to go every day. So now the penis toddler is constantly fidgeting, whining “Are we there yet? Are we there yet? How about now? Now? How about... now?”
And Disney World is nowhere in sight.
I played CiV once with friend (my computer won't run it, so it was more like he plays on his computer while I shout vague directions at him), and we started on Emperor as a semi-joke. I am not an Emperor player in Civ4 and this was our first time playing the game (we couldn't even figure out how the damn roads worked at first). The game was won <200AD, which is absolutely ridiculous.
If you're having trouble, there's always the animal husbandry, settle pasture, horseman x 3 build, which will conquer at least half the continent Before Christ. By 1200AD it's hardly a "rush" anymore. =P
A blobbed AI will always outproduce and outtech you. And since it always has more units than the player, it won't stop attacking. It just isn't fun that way. In CivIV you could at least try to form power blocks and gang up on one Civ but not so here.
So by "blobbed" you mean one of the runaway aggressive AIs that overruns all the neighbors and ends up with a huge empire, right? I dunno, maybe it's less feasible on higher difficulty levels, but I don't have much trouble with fending off a stronger enemy. The AI is bad enough at combat that it needs a major edge in both production and tech to beat you. And you can definitely get other civs to ally with you in a war.
You said you were playing on King difficulty. If you're having trouble, why not drop back down to Prince?
Usually I'm doing fine on King. I won my diplo victory on King and I'm capable enough to do some warring too.
And it isn't really a matter of difficulty; there always seems to be one AI that squishes everyone around them and becomes a "blob". I mean okay, it's problematic to fight Japan during the middle ages what with their Samurai but I had Longbowmen, a chokepoint with a citadel and knights/pikemen to back me up, yet I was simply overwhelmed. Shitty combat AI doesn't really matter when your opponent can field twice as many units.
(I still love the game and will continue to pour my free time into it but it can be so goddamn infuriating at times... argh)
Ferrus on
I would like to pause for a moment, to talk about my penis.
My penis is like a toddler. A toddler—who is a perfectly normal size for his age—on a long road trip to what he thinks is Disney World. My penis is excited because he hasn’t been to Disney World in a long, long time, but remembers a time when he used to go every day. So now the penis toddler is constantly fidgeting, whining “Are we there yet? Are we there yet? How about now? Now? How about... now?”
And Disney World is nowhere in sight.
My Bollywood game is going well, but now the game keeps crashing after one specific turn. I've tried both the DX10 and DX9 versions, same problem in both. This is around turn 330 or so. I hope the patch comes soon...
Plus it kicks in AFTER you discover the wheel, not right at the start.
Ferrus on
I would like to pause for a moment, to talk about my penis.
My penis is like a toddler. A toddler—who is a perfectly normal size for his age—on a long road trip to what he thinks is Disney World. My penis is excited because he hasn’t been to Disney World in a long, long time, but remembers a time when he used to go every day. So now the penis toddler is constantly fidgeting, whining “Are we there yet? Are we there yet? How about now? Now? How about... now?”
And Disney World is nowhere in sight.
Posts
Really, I just want it to be possible to have actual non city-state allies. Diplomacy feels meaningless when you know everyone will stab you in the back as soon as they think it's profitable.
This is running pretty much counter to to what Jon Shafer has said:
So, unless he's outright lying...
Too bad there's no automatic play feature so people can watch what happens.
And Disney World is nowhere in sight.
So I think I'm gonna go for the Bollywood achievement (cultural victory as India with 3 or less cities).
Any tips for pulling this off? City placement/resources/growth, policies, wonders...
And does it count as 3 cities if you have 3 cities and raze others?
I think the main problem here, and the reason we see one AI steamrolling others, is that the AI is terrible at combat so it generally comes down to which one has the most units. Builder types have a lot of force multipliers at their disposal, from Oligarchy and other social policies to Himeji Castle, but they're too stupid to take good advantage of them. They'll wander out of their territory, fight in scattered groups rather than tight formations, and send their ranged units up to the front lines where no amount of bonuses will save them. If they'd just park in a sensible formation in front of whatever city is under attack, they'd have a much better chance of fighting off those aggressive invaders.
If you want to cheese it just play on an island map.
Other than that it depends on your neighbors. Some AIs love small cultured civs and won't touch you and some will try to bumrush you. You'll want one production city for the Utopia Project and wonders and one gold city to pay for upkeep/city state bribes. After you've reached the Renaissance era there isn't that much that boosts your culture output except the broadcast tower and maybe Christo Redentor.
Buy only the important policies at the beginning and wait until you unlock Freedom for the one that makes every other policy cheaper.
Get Stonehenge asap.
And Disney World is nowhere in sight.
I just did the Bollywood achievement, and it was fairly challenging. One thing I will suggest is that you not get too reliant on city-states. I tried to buddy up to a bunch of them in my game, but I was playing against Persia and the Aztecs, and they kept treating my allies as delicious snacks. When you only have 3 cities with which to build and support units with you can't expect to wage a successful offensive war, so it's really hard to protect city-states. As a side effect of my struggle to keep some alive, I did discover that you can liberate a city-state without disqualifying yourself for the achievement. I suspect that razing cities will count against you, though, as the city is technically treated as annexed for the duration of the razing process.
I should mention at this point that I played on a Pangaea map to intentionally make it harder. AIs are less apt to grab city-states on other map types, and it's easier to defend yourself on an island, so keep that in mind when you're choosing your map.
Other advice - just the obvious stuff. Build as many wonders as you can, especially the culturally-focused ones. In particular, make sure you get Stonehenge, preferably before founding a second city; it will buy you two or three policies in short order. Try for lots of golden ages via high happiness (which should be easy to maintain) and lots of great people, which you should get thanks to your high population. Speaking of population, obviously you want to maximize growth, so farm everything next to a river at a minimum. You'll also need lots of production to build all those wonders, so rivers and hills are your friends. You can't totally neglect gold, of course, so put some trading posts up and take time to build the financial buildings. If you have extra resources, consider selling them for gold.
As for policy choices, Tradition is actually pretty damn good for this strategy. Oligarchy can be a lifesaver, obviously Aristocracy is incredible, and since your capital is 1/3rd of your cities the stuff that's capital-specific isn't so bad. Piety is a must of course. Freedom is the other mandatory branch, and make sure you build at least one world wonder (national ones don't count) in each city to take advantage of the 100% culture boost there. The last two branches are up to personal taste and the needs of your specific game. Patronage can be great if you think you can reliably keep enough city-states alive and allied. Commerce if you're critically short on cash, but otherwise it's not so hot. Order is a good one, but obviously it comes pretty late in the game. Honor is an option if you're getting pounded on militarily.
Speaking of military, make sure you keep enough around to deter opportunists. 6 or so units is plenty. Building the barracks/armory/military academy in at least one city isn't a bad idea. India gets a great defensive structure, the Mughal Fort, which is stronger than a castle and will pay for itself and the prerequisite walls after you research Flight (at which point it provides 3 gold per turn). And that's about it; obviously you aren't going to go adventuring so you just want the bare minimum you need to defend yourself and maybe an adjacent city-state or two.
Honestly, although it was challenging, I didn't find doing the three-city challenge to be terribly fun. You're hobbled and hamstrung in a war, since you can't field many units and can't capture cities in any event, and peacetime consists largely of whacking End Turn since you stop expanding so early in the game. But it's an interesting change of pace from the typical game I guess.
Oh, one more thing: Remember that you don't have to take a policy when prompted. Right-click on the Choose a Policy button to dismiss it so you can end your turn. Personally I opted to take policies in Tradition right away so it wasn't an issue for me, but depending on what strategy you choose you might want to save your culture until you unlock Piety or Patronage (or Freedom, as Ferrus suggests).
nuke every horse resource
a fishing establishment on every whale resource
and giant death robots blasting "Imagine" at 500 decibels as they march across the scorched earth
wish I could delete this
Started a game as England, Oval Pangea. King difficulty. By about 1200AD, Arabia zergrushes me with hundreds of trebutchets and knights.
Restart. Small islands map. By 1200AD, Japan zergrushes me with samurai and riflemen.
Why? Because they managed to form a fucking blob. I'm getting tired of this. EUIII had similar problems but at least there were some cheesy ways to break the blobs up again.
And Disney World is nowhere in sight.
The only reason I built the space shuttle was to conquer the galaxy too.
Secret Satan 2013 Wishlist
I'm not sure I understand your complaint. Are you just saying that you got overwhelmed by the sheer number of enemy units?
A blobbed AI will always outproduce and outtech you. And since it always has more units than the player, it won't stop attacking. It just isn't fun that way. In CivIV you could at least try to form power blocks and gang up on one Civ but not so here.
Continent games are only winable due to the fact that conquering the capital is an instant win and the AI doesn't do naval invasions. Which seems wrong.
And Disney World is nowhere in sight.
If you're having trouble, there's always the animal husbandry, settle pasture, horseman x 3 build, which will conquer at least half the continent Before Christ. By 1200AD it's hardly a "rush" anymore. =P
So by "blobbed" you mean one of the runaway aggressive AIs that overruns all the neighbors and ends up with a huge empire, right? I dunno, maybe it's less feasible on higher difficulty levels, but I don't have much trouble with fending off a stronger enemy. The AI is bad enough at combat that it needs a major edge in both production and tech to beat you. And you can definitely get other civs to ally with you in a war.
You said you were playing on King difficulty. If you're having trouble, why not drop back down to Prince?
And it isn't really a matter of difficulty; there always seems to be one AI that squishes everyone around them and becomes a "blob". I mean okay, it's problematic to fight Japan during the middle ages what with their Samurai but I had Longbowmen, a chokepoint with a citadel and knights/pikemen to back me up, yet I was simply overwhelmed. Shitty combat AI doesn't really matter when your opponent can field twice as many units.
(I still love the game and will continue to pour my free time into it but it can be so goddamn infuriating at times... argh)
And Disney World is nowhere in sight.
It took until 2022 though
He hates you for misspelling his name.
kpop appreciation station i also like to tweet some
That's no excuse for wiping out the Iroquois
I want to get a diplomatic or scientific victory (but have no babylonians)
I'm tempted by Darius I because it's not too hard to chain the crap outta golden ages
kpop appreciation station i also like to tweet some
And Disney World is nowhere in sight.
That's why you make all your cities with borders that already connect! You really don't need 36 workable tiles anyway.
Well that doesn't make a lot of sense.
Secret Satan 2013 Wishlist
The US should have the ability to buy land already owned by the iroquois for 25% normal cost.
Secret Satan 2013 Wishlist
Secret Satan 2013 Wishlist
The Iroquois stuff?
I sure hope so.
AMERICA...FUCK YEAH!
Secret Satan 2013 Wishlist