15-04-2004 05:47									#1
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It seems possible that C3C 1.22 has changed the AI research priorities and nerfed the GL Gambit on Sid level standard maps with default settings and random opponents. In the last four or five games I’ve started I’ve found that Alphabet and Writing are discovered much earlier than was usual in 1.15b and that the AI Great Library build starts much earlier as well. The sample size is small but the results are consistent and in these few games the AI starts the GL so early that it becomes much less likely that we can get to literature in time to build it ourselves. I also noted in one game on a large map that the GL was obtainable but that I almost lost the race for it. That’s unusual for large maps and while it could be an aberration it could also be the result of changed AI research priorities. If any of you are observing this trend perhaps you could post your findings so that we can increase the sample size and get a clearer idea if AI research changes have actually occurred.

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	15-04-2004 17:34									#2
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Hmm, I hope you are correct.

	15-04-2004 17:57									#3
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I played around with the English a lot (starting with Alphabet) and set my beeline on Writing and Philosophy, both on a 50 turn pace. Out of about ten ancient ages I tried, I only once missed on getting Writing and Philosophy first of all.

	15-04-2004 18:09									#4
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On what level? 50 turn philo is sloooowwww.

	15-04-2004 18:14									#5
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Emperor and Demigod. I could've easily raised the pace, but I tried to save some cash and set it to 1 beaker by purpose. What I forgot to mention is, that most games were archipelagos. This may explain it a bit. Still I can't confirm, that the AI values Literature any more. It was mostly one of the last techs researched in the Ancient Age.

	15-04-2004 18:55									#6
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quote: Originally posted by Sir Ralph Emperor and Demigod. I could've easily raised the pace, but I tried to save some cash and set it to 1 beaker by purpose. What I forgot to mention is, that most games were archipelagos. This may explain it a bit. Still I can't confirm, that the AI values Literature any more. It was mostly one of the last techs researched in the Ancient Age.

It may be that the change is only apparent at Sid level since the AI is able to research so much faster on that difficulty level.

	15-04-2004 18:57									#7
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quote: Originally posted by DrSpike Hmm, I hope you are correct.

Yeah...I know what you mean. The Great Library is just so unbalancing on Sid the the poor AI doesn't stand a chance.

	15-04-2004 19:10									#8
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Hehe I just meant the AI undervalues literacy on all levels.

	15-04-2004 19:10									#9
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quote: Originally posted by Drachen It may be that the change is only apparent at Sid level since the AI is able to research so much faster on that difficulty level.

True, but does it have different research priorities?

	15-04-2004 19:21									#10
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quote: Originally posted by DrSpike Hehe I just meant the AI undervalues literacy on all levels.

I agree Dr Spike. It’s been the cornerstone of the Glib Gambit.

	15-04-2004 19:32									#11
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quote: Originally posted by Sir Ralph True, but does it have different research priorities?

That’s exactly the question I’m trying to answer. My sample size is too small to determine if research priorities have changed or I just had a bad run of luck with the RNG. I will note that I went back to 1.15b and promptly built the GL in my first attempt. You might want to try a couple of Sid level runs at the GL on a standard map with default settings. It only takes an hour or so and it doesn’t really matter if you're running 1.15b or 1.22 since either can add to the database. As for me, I’m going to continue my present game and see what my brand new Conquistadors can do.

P.S. If you’ve got the link handy I’d really like to take a look at some of the work you did on city placement for large maps. It’s an area I really need to work on in my games.

	16-04-2004 01:15									#12
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quote: Originally posted by Drachen P.S. If you’ve got the link handy I’d really like to take a look at some of the work you did on city placement for large maps. It’s an area I really need to work on in my games.

I don't remember to have written about this.

	16-04-2004 01:28									#13
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Maybe he's refering to Ralphing.

	16-04-2004 01:40									#14
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What's your problem Drachen?

	16-04-2004 01:50									#15
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Even though this is completely off topic here...

On large maps, I tend to build areas with variable density. Some areas, preferably with a good mix of hills, mountains and grassland and not too corruption ridden, I build loose, so that the cities have the potential to work 18-20 tiles in the end. The same I do in plains areas, which aren't irrigatable before Electricity, because they can't get a good production early on anyway (because they're unable to feed many citizens), but can kick butt later. Those are my production and wonder bases after hospitals. Other areas I build more dense, so that each city has only 10-12 tiles to work. They are my production bases pre hospitals. On some occasions I use Ralphing, which I don't deserve to give it my name (it should rather be called Aesoning), i.e. building camps around an OCP build and dissolving them later.

	16-04-2004 05:42									#16
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quote: Originally posted by alva Maybe he's refering to Ralphing.

That would be it!

	16-04-2004 05:46									#17
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quote: Originally posted by DrSpike What's your problem Drachen?

He doe not have a problem, he has a question.

He wants to know if others have applied 1.22 and played at Sid. If they have are they beelining for Glib and do they now have trouble getting it?

It was a given prior to 1.22 and he has not gotten. Since the number of games any one person plays is too small to be valid, he is asking for feedback.

Drac, I have not tried it with 1.22. I have been side track the last week, so I can not give you any answer.

	16-04-2004 05:46									#18
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quote: Originally posted by DrSpike What's your problem Drachen?

If you mean what problems am I having with city placement then it's nothing specific Dr Spike. I just find that playing Sid is forcing me to tighten my game play and learn new skills. It seems to be the general consensus that "Ralphing" is the best model for city placement and I've not read the applicable threads.

	16-04-2004 06:00									#19
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quote: Originally posted by Sir Ralph Even though this is completely off topic here... On large maps, I tend to build areas with variable density. Some areas, preferably with a good mix of hills, mountains and grassland and not too corruption ridden, I build loose, so that the cities have the potential to work 18-20 tiles in the end. The same I do in plains areas, which aren't irrigatable before Electricity, because they can't get a good production early on anyway (because they're unable to feed many citizens), but can kick butt later. Those are my production and wonder bases after hospitals. Other areas I build more dense, so that each city has only 10-12 tiles to work. They are my production bases pre hospitals. On some occasions I use Ralphing, which I don't deserve to give it my name (it should rather be called Aesoning), i.e. building camps around an OCP build and dissolving them later.

Whoa. I was just hoping to get a link and instead I ended up hijacking my own thread. Thanks for your response and now back to our regularly scheduled topic…

	16-04-2004 06:24									#20
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quote: Originally posted by vmxa1 Drac, I have not tried it with 1.22. I have been side track the last week, so I can not give you any answer.

I'm looking forward to your input Vmxa1. Thanks.

	16-04-2004 13:25									#21
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quote: Originally posted by Sir Ralph Even though this is completely off topic here... . . .... On some occasions I use Ralphing, which I don't deserve to give it my name (it should rather be called Aesoning), i.e. building camps around an OCP build and dissolving them later.

I have read many of those threads and I admire your work. What are the latest development on city placement?

I am trying to adopt this to my own playstyle. In single player I couldn't care less, I just whack the AI around with agressive exploring/diplomacy/warfare. On monarch(my preferred level), a loose OCP-pattern is more than good enough to win any game.

Multi-player is a different story.....I use RCP with 13-tiles available for all core cities in an ongoing PTW-PBEM, with great success. But this scheme are only optimal up to sanitation. About 2/3 of my cites are at size 12 now, and have no room for further expansion. This was a strategic decision I made very early in the game so I cannot pretend to be surprised

'Ralphing' is basically OCP with camps, one size 6 camp for each size12 city. Could you get equal results if you had 3 size12 cities share the same space 2 size12 cities+2 size6 camps do in ralphing? You would of course have to disband one of the size 12 cities when you discover sanitation, the same way camps are disbanded in ralphing. The advantage is less rank-corruption, the disadvantage is that a size12 camp needs more infrastructure than 2 size6 camps. Has this been tested?

	16-04-2004 14:34									#22
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quote: Originally posted by Drachen If you mean what problems am I having with city placement then it's nothing specific Dr Spike. I just find that playing Sid is forcing me to tighten my game play and learn new skills. It seems to be the general consensus that "Ralphing" is the best model for city placement and I've not read the applicable threads.

Many of the old spacing threads are written with RCP in mind, which is not longer an issue. Also whilst they are good in theory to get the point across to inexperienced players (which you don't seem to be) the application in practice is often different anyway. Probably more use to you is to post a save and elicit comments. In practice terrain, victory condition, land available to you, tactical considerations and many others are paramount.

It's mainly just about efficient use of land, and not wasting squares in the early game. Picking where to pack em in and picking where to space em out.

	17-04-2004 08:47									#23
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Still OT, but my 2c worth......Ralphing is the "ultimate" placement, and probably becomes more attractive as difficulty levels increase, since your OCN gets hit pretty badly at the higher levels. But as the good doctor said, the key issue is efficient use of land. This leads more to a Borging approach for me (particularly since terrain fators usually push you away from "pure" Ralphing anyway), with several worker camps setup for later abandonment, and only a limited need for a few hositals in those cities that you want to become the mega-producers in the late-industrial and modern ages.

	23-04-2004 11:31									#24
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Drachen, I was able to get the GL on 1.22 Sid with no real strain. The civs were not real isolated either.

Anyway I researched Masonary for a palace prebuild, but it was a waste as I did not use it. The city I used was not very good at shields either. No bonus grassland at all or 1 (IIRC). I did writing and then Phil and took Lit for free. I switched my granary build in that city to the GL and started adding in workers. I did only one thing, I had workers mine all tiles it would use and ready to join the city at that point.

I added in 7 workers and grew the last one and beat the Aztecs to the GL. They started after I did and I doubt they had a full city.

	23-04-2004 15:11									#25
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quote: Originally posted by vmxa1 Drachen, I was able to get the GL on 1.22 Sid with no real strain. The civs were not real isolated either. Anyway I researched Masonary for a palace prebuild, but it was a waste as I did not use it. The city I used was not very good at shields either. No bonus grassland at all or 1 (IIRC). I did writing and then Phil and took Lit for free. I switched my granary build in that city to the GL and started adding in workers. I did only one thing, I had workers mine all tiles it would use and ready to join the city at that point. I added in 7 workers and grew the last one and beat the Aztecs to the GL. They started after I did and I doubt they had a full city.

Could you give us the map conditions, size, and year of completion please? You'll note that in my opening screenshot the GL was started in 1400 BC. Were you able to build it that early or did your game develop differently.

	23-04-2004 21:57									#26
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I don't have the game up right now, but the city was doing 14 shields with size 12. So you can see that it was not very strong. I completed it around 270BC.

I seem to recall that it listed as something like 77 turns when I switched. This was before adding in all the workers. Once I had it to size 12, I think it needed 22 turns to finish. Around this time I got the msg that the Aztecs are building it. So it must have been very close.

It was obvious I could have done much better. I could have used a prebuild or better yet not researched Masonary at all. The would have saved me at least 12 turns.

Of course a better land would have made it easier, just a few BG tiles. I did not even have all that long of a head start on the granary.

Anyway the map was Large, Archipelago, but had only 9 civs. The lower number of civs is from Sirplebs idea on HoF games and tends to retard research.

contacts were sooner than in some of the other maps of this size. From the map that I had exposed, it looked like it had a string of medium size island running all across the thing. This is probably what allowed contacts sooner. The Lighthouse had been built.

I had made contact with 4 civs and could see a 5th ones borders. All had ask to trade for either Writing or Lit. The Aztecs were my first and must have gotten both well before the 300bc time frame.

	24-04-2004 02:53									#27
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Het Vmxa;

Thanks for getting back with the info. Your experience isn't too far from mine in that getting the GL on large maps is doable although 270BC is late enough to be a gamble. It's standard maps with default rules and normal number of civs randomly generated that I found to be a problem. Seafaring occurs quite commonly and that spreads Alphabet pretty quickly. Good luck with your game. You know you're due for a win.

	24-04-2004 03:36									#28
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I have ran two more runs using contients and I am now inclined to say it has become harder in 1.22.

I made it once with a straight beeline and missed it the second an that was due to not being first to Philosophy. I can't be sure, but I must have just missed it. I could have researched a bit faster, but I could not hook up one of the lux without using a colony and hence had to at one point pay 40% lux.

Both were std maps at conients. The second one only had 5 civs, but they were mostly close enough to make early contact. I suspect that it would have been better for me if there were more civs, but not so close to each other.

So in short I am thinking that the maps will be critical to your chances now. Before 1.22 you could pretty much count on it.

I am not convinced that you have to have the GL, but in most cases it will be needed. Otherwise you get too far behind in early tech and could get run over with say Knights, while you have spears.

	26-04-2004 05:16									#29
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quote: Originally posted by vmxa1 Drachen, I was able to get the GL on 1.22 Sid with no real strain. The civs were not real isolated either. Anyway I researched Masonary for a palace prebuild, but it was a waste as I did not use it. The city I used was not very good at shields either. No bonus grassland at all or 1 (IIRC). I did writing and then Phil and took Lit for free. I switched my granary build in that city to the GL and started adding in workers. I did only one thing, I had workers mine all tiles it would use and ready to join the city at that point. I added in 7 workers and grew the last one and beat the Aztecs to the GL. They started after I did and I doubt they had a full city.

I think that last paragraph has something worth pointing out... in addition to research priorities, prebuilds, etc., not enough players do this.

Have a lot of Workers. LOTS. Improve the terrain of the GW city for 12 pop. Join the Workers.

It's so powerful that it is almost an exploit. But it's not!

	26-04-2004 05:18									#30
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quote: Originally posted by vmxa1 Anyway the map was Large, Archipelago, but had only 9 civs. The lower number of civs is from Sirplebs idea on HoF games and tends to retard research.

I'm not familiar with the reference you make... on CFC, perhaps?

While the lower number of civs retards research, do you also find it helps generate KAIs?