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Sirian
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Pennsylvania, USA
Dec 2001
time: 00:16
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DaBear: I've looked over your saved game. Very interesting results. In game after game after game, I've run into one problem over and over: at some point, the AI will get greed into its blood and come after me, specifically after some city with a resource or luxury they don't have, and want very badly. Nothing can dissuade them once they have "made the decision". They are coming, coming hard, and coming NOW, and there's nothing for it but to buckle down, reinforce, and weather the war. Did that just not happen to you in this game? Your military at the end was nonexistant. How much did you have before you "spent" it in your failed late war? The AI seems to monitor military strength, and pounce on any sign of weakness. Sometimes not even a strong defense dissuades them. Trade, good relations, gifts, nothing seems to protect against "AI Acquisition of Resource City" attacks. I have even seen the Aztecs charge a horde of Jags against entrenched knights and musketmen in fortified hill towns. In light of this, I marvel at how astonishingly little military you have (even some normal warriors left guarding some cities, apparently from time immemorial).
The main difference in your early game from mine appears to be the way we settled apart from our original islands. I seized all the ground near the capital, then looked further. By the time I found the iron on the Indian continent (which was pretty quickly, I thought) they had already settled there. Obviously, them having iron allowed them to build swordsmen and pikemen, and rails, which made them a whole lot tougher in my game. What did you do to get that iron? I found curious, to say the least, that you managed to beeline right to the iron, passing up every other potential settlement site, for your first off-homeland city. Did you have some prior knowledge, from reading this thread or scouting and reloading? Did you make several scout ships and send them out in a big rush before you made settlers? How did you manage to pick the game-breaking resource location for your first new city? And how did you hold on to it? I would think the Indians would at some point have thrown everything they could at you to take it from you. Did that just not happen? Were they too weak? Did they not even try? Or what? I'd love to know more about that phase of your game.
I had no idea where the enemies were or what, so I just grabbed everything I could as I found it. Grassland on an island right across from my capital? Grab it! Wines nearby? Grab that. Incense? Grab. Dyes, grab. Gems, grab. Oh there's some iron, but the Indians already have that. Seeing how effective it was for you to grab the iron, obvously, if I went back to do it again, I'd do that, because it was such a game-making move. Getting the horses on the south island may have helped, too. I couldn't reach that far, just trying to hold on to what I had, but apparently having that iron and a solid hold on that continent helped you extend your reach. There was almost a Go-like jumping of territory, aggressively grabbing forward without concern for the holes you left, cleaning those up later. Fascinating, to say the least. I don't know whether to be impressed, or suspicious. The AI has shown no signs of allowing me to succeed at stretching my neck that far. I almost got it chopped, just establishing any presence at all on the Indian lands. But regardless of how you got to that iron, I'm most interested in how you held it. How soon did you get your FP built? How much defense did you stack there? How did you weather (or prevent) the Indian aggression?
I was curious about the 1804 launch, that's the main reason I looked it over. I could not have launched before about 1830, but then, I greedily held to my tech lead from the moment I got it, and made sure to supress the daylights of those backward civs as my tanks and armor rolled over their riflemen and cavalry. They barely managed to field a couple destroyers on the last few turns. I presume that if I traded more, I'd get the techs faster, as the AI's would come up with some for me, but that's OK, I don't mind waiting, when it means I'm in total military control of my own destiny, and the other civs have no opportunity to force my hand. I rather enjoy crushing them via warfare, and it's nice and comfy to do so with a vast tech lead and no chance for them to build spaceships, use nukes, or whatever. I guess I am just paranoid and controlling. My expansion was made with defense in mind, but I wonder now if I didn't expand TOO quickly, in the sense of grabbing every valuable plot of land the moment I found it. Seeing how much success you had passing up what I would think would be tempting settlement sites, to reach way WAY out and grab the best site first... was it luck? Foreknowledge? Aggressive scouting? Or what?
In one or two cases, I had more military in a SINGLE CITY than you had empire-wide. I presume you had more, before your failed war, but it just amazes me that the AI's left you alone as much as they appear to have. As many times as I've seen the AI flank the daylights out of me to attack some backline city with minimal defense, I also marvel at warriors left guarding cities in 1800, and even plenty of cities with no defending units at all. No stack of reserved tanks, no artillery, no navy. Am I doing something to piss off the AI, that they keep attacking me so viciously? I have not had a game yet not marked by the AI (especially the Indians, in game after game) coming after me aggressively, in a way that requires gobs of military to fight them off. Is this AI aggression not happening to other players? Is there some secret to disarming their greed that I don't know about? I've given up believing I can appease them, and just buckle down now and prepare to kick butt when they come. In fact, it's often a grand chance to get some great leaders (I've not yet had any game with less than two such leaders appearing) and counterpunch after the storm is weathered, to take some ground or at least raze a city or two, or perhaps grab a resource city of theirs. They are Furious with me from then on, but hey, they made the first move, right? !@#$$%! bastids. 
I moved to complete my win as quickly as possible. No milking the turns, the points... Corruption is such an UNFUN thing to deal with, in all the 1-shield 1-commerce cities beyond range of the government, as to make acquisition of new territory tedious past a certain point. I may end up forgoing domination wins and switching to conquest, as that doesn't require control of the land, but I'm worried that the settler-happy AI's will just fill the holes in behind me and drag it out that way. Now that we can't lumberjack to help those captured cities build faster (only gold or poprush can help them now), I imagine it will be even more tedious. I was so bored the last few turns, I named my last city "Desperate to Get It Ovr" (not enough letters allowed for the E in over) build on a sad hill in the middle of the Indian continent to fill in four more squares, and I even attacked my allies, the French and Japanese, to grab some of their land, because it was taking too long to wait for temples. It sure would be NICE if the game offered you a measurement of how much of the world's land you control -- so you could know how close you are to a domination win when you're going for one. I thought I should have had it about five turns before I got it, but I just didn't know, so those final turns were a real chore. I can't IMAGINE having the patience to milk a game like that for years and years, to improve the final score. No thank thee.  I may even give up on the military game altogether, and just launch to get it over with, if the loss of lumberjacking turns out to make capturing enemy lands just too much drudgery. 
Anyway, congrats on the very early launch. I'm curious to see how your trading ways work out for you in the new patch.
- Sirian
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Sirian
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Pennsylvania, USA
Dec 2001
time: 00:16
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So this question about DaBear's game has been on my mind. I wanted to go in and learn from his early launch, to figure out what he did so well, but that extremely early settlement at the iron location just felt wrong to me. I decided to check back on my own saved games, found one close enough to the time period in question to run a little test. How soon could I possibly settle a city in the location he chose? It turns out that having a settler and warrior ready and waiting for the first boat to come out of the shipyard, after beelining 32 turns apiece for mapmaking, then hauling the units directly through the darkness to the site he settled, I can get there one turn ahead of when he did. I guess that's because I made the ship one turn sooner, as I had something building in anticipation of getting mapmaking. That was bad enough, but guess what I find when I get there? Nothing. No iron there. Why not? Because even beelining for Iron working at max science, I don't have it yet. So how could he have known to settle THERE? To go straight there with his first boat to grab that choice location? I can't even imagine foreknowledge about the general area of the iron from other posts could have gotten him there that quickly. He would have needed precise information. 
Now reloading after moving a unit to the wrong place, or to undo a civil disorder, that would be one thing. Even redoing battles -- something I've done in figuring out the nature of the combat system, or out of frustration in some game in which I'm mostly just goofing off, yeah, OK. But what about this kind of deal when someone goes back with knowledge of the land, to know exactly where to go to gain early advantage? You can't hide your city founding locations -- just as with the fellow who reloaded over and over to get a settler out of a hut, what, in the last contest? If you pop out a city prior to 3500BC, everyone will know it came from a hut. Sending out a settler that requires a boat, if he took a random chance in a random direction looking for iron specifically, he still couldn't have pulled off because he could not see the iron yet... I've done brief scout-then-reload myself, in other games, at times -- albeit never enough to find iron and start over to grab it immediately. I experiment. But I didn't do it here. I took the challenge in the spirit in which it was posted.
Could 100% science dedicated to writing have gotten him the tech sooner? Is there any POSSIBLE explanation for this besides reloading? Like scouting? Doesn't look like it to me, after running that test. What he did from there is still quite strong, but I don't know what to think about it.
I suppose most of all, I was disappointed to spend time figuring out why he did so well, to conclude that this was the key. Arrgh. Learned nothing useful from that.
- Sirian
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Sirian
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Pennsylvania, USA
Dec 2001
time: 00:16
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Philler: yeah, but what else am I to do while awaiting the next tourney game? I've got to take time out for an NFL game here shortly (huge fan) but I've been working on the report for my Civ III site, so I have had this tourney game much on my mind today.
Should I spam the address of my site in my forum sig here? I never used to do that, but eventually, so many people in Diablo II were requesting a link to my site for that game, and didn't seem able to find it on their own, that I eventually did spam there in some forums, to provide people the convenience of an omnipresent link. Well, I'll forego that here for now. Going to be logging off soon. Guess I'll start on the tourney game tomorrow, and try to finish my report on this English game before then. 
- Sirian
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gus_smedstad
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Los Angeles, California
Nov 2001
time: 05:16
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Sirian, he probably did restart. Imagine if you completely lost the game the first time you played, but did learn of the presence of Iron on the Indian island. Would you have tried playing again, or simply decided not to enter, since you lost? And if you played again, would you have the strength of character to ignore your knowledge of the Iron's location?
Personally, I don't remember what my military was like at the end of this game, but I never needed one. As I said when I posted my result, I had only one war, and I arranged for all the other civs to fight it for me. Further, I did accidently provoke that war, by trying to plant a spy.
I do think that the AI players base their behavior on yours. If, for example, you trade with them constantly, give in to any extortionate demands they make, never doing anything objectionable (like planting a spy), and never declare war yourself, you may never fight a war.
On the other hand, when I'm playing more bloody-handedly, i.e. I've declared war a couple of times for no other reason than I want the other civ's land, I've had civs declare unprovoked war on me, with no negotiating before hand.
Sometimes, of course, you must. I'm currently working on an Egyptian Deity game where the AI gave me room for only 3 cities at the start of the game. I felt that conquering the Aztecs was absolutely required. Later, the Greeks (the other World Power) tried to do unto me as I'd done to the Aztecs. Probably because my conquest of the Aztecs, Germans, and Babylonians made me look like an untrustworthy meglomaniac.
- Gus
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Sirian
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Pennsylvania, USA
Dec 2001
time: 00:16
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quote:
I do think that the AI players base their behavior on yours. If, for example, you trade with them constantly, give in to any extortionate demands they make, never doing anything objectionable (like planting a spy), and never declare war yourself, you may never fight a war. |
Gus: no doubt, but unless they consider penny pinching in negotiations to be inflammatory, then I've been attacked over and over without provocation. The main cause is clear and consistent: the AI hungers for cities with resources. They are especially hungry if they detect a weak military in such a city, and that may in fact be the trigger, but I've seen them go ape over such a city in my back lines, and I've seen them send Jags out against knights and muskets. In this game, I had two such cities, somewhat isolated, on the east of the Indian continent and fought some vicious wars as they threw DOZENS of units at me each time. This game as a whole was well in hand, and I could have lost those cities and still won handily -- but defending those against such hard invasion pressed me to my limits. I came too close to losing on both occasions.
Perhaps keeping a neverendingly strong garrison in such cities can prevent this aggression, but I'm skeptical. If you have a resource city on a border with an AI who lacks that resource, it just seems inevitable that the AI will attack.
DaBear pointed out something I was overlooking: the Indians had plenty more iron. THAT was the key I was looking for, in seeking to find out why he wasn't ruthlessly attacked and overrun. The gems didn't happen to BE within his city radius, even though they were within his cultural border, so that answers that. And the dyes... the Indians had snuck around him to the other dye deposit, so they weren't hungry for those. I bet that in my game, it wasn't the dyes at all, but SOLELY the gems, that drew their ire, and they just attacked the dye city sometimes for unknown reasons: perhaps as target of opportunity. So his salvation from Indian aggression was perhaps more due to the location of his gem city, away from the deposits, than anything to do with the iron city. I have no doubt the AI is programmed to target the !@#$ out of cities with key resources in their radius.
Once they decide to come, they will cheat via any ongoing right of passage, and nothing will dissuade them. Nothing. That they seem to suffer so little penalty for blatantly violating right of passage, while the gamemakers chide players against such cheap betrayals and will penalize you semi-harshly for doing it, certainly bothers me. I like that the AI's are greedy, but once you know what they are doing, you OUGHT to be able cancel the right of passage without penalty, since they are in fact violating it with extreme prejudice and you KNOW it. Ah well. I'll deal, I guess.
I bet in your deity game, it was resources that drew the AI's greedy attention. I presume you have SOME resources, yes? That is all it takes. That, or just an attractive city with way too little defense may also get them started. If the AI's are getting each other to dislike you, they will declare war more openly, not sneak units into position and announce war BY attacking you secretly.
DaBear: I had to build my FP the long way, too. Once I did, the jump in productivity was immense. You had the Iron Works at that city, though. That's a big deal. No corruption at your FP, iron works, tons of shields. You weren't cranking military as I did, but the production had to have helped. Just avoiding conflict with the Indians (perhaps by luck, see my comments above about the gems) probably saved you half a dozen turns over what I had, as I spent gold as well as lots of units on a rough defense there. Denying coal to the Indians by grabbing it that way, with a direct preknowledge beeline, I am sure had more impact than you seem to realize. Did the Indians ever build rail in your game? In my game, only the Indians and French had rail, and that was a huge deal in the AI's never catching up to me.
Since the patch, the trading IS quite different, that's why I asked. I actually think something is broken, as there is WAY too much of a reduction in both gold cost and research cost once several other civs have acquired the tech. It seems like a forced parity issue way beyond that of pro sports leagues. There always was a bias against the tech leader and for the laggers and backward civs, but that is now so extreme as to seem to be aimed at always having all civs in a tech clump, no matter what, and I'm not too keen about that. The AI now has bone fide CHEATS going on with trading, as it now does some trading right under your nose on YOUR turn, trading away techs you trade to them, to prevent you from selling the same tech to every civ. Now COME ON, is the AI so poor as to need to fall back on that kind of cheat? That has to be my only serious disappointment with the patch so far: the changes to tech trading. Not all bad, but some parts of the changes look like a step backward, no matter how well intentioned they may be. The last thing I ever again want to see from a Civ AI is the blatant teamwork of Civ2 AI's, in researching different techs back and forth and constantly trading, thus effectively tripling the science rate of ALL the AI's. That just sucked. That's not smart gaming, it's a cheap shortcut. This "AI's trading on your turn" feels like that, too, as it's something the player clearly CANNOT ever do, initiate trades on someone else's turn. Blah, I say.
What's totally nuts is to start researching a tech, then in the middle of that research (say, taking 10 turns), the AI's hit critical mass on the tech and BANG, you have enough to get the tech, too. Instantly. Like suddently the cost just drops. Instead of taking ten turns, it now takes only four, or five, and you already have that much or more. You can go to zero science and one scientist, and get the tech on the next turn. Now what is the point of this? Why are techs SO CHEAP for the latter civs to get them, and sooooo costly to be the first? That principle seemed well balanced in the original version. Now it seems broken.
I thought at first that the AI's wouldn't trade or sell tech, but no, it's only the cutting edge "I'm the only civ who has this tech" techs that are immensely costly. I got such a tech with a scientific civ in the middle age, which nobody had. I traded it for FIVE techs, a luxury, a huge pile of gold, and a large sum of gold per turn. I sold it to a second civ for lesser but still high price, and then BANG, all other civs in the game immediately had it. Frankly, the game now completely OVERvalues techs owned by only one or two civs, and completely undervalues techs owned by most civs. That's nice for Deity, if you are struggling to keep up, but it kind of renders the tech race itself pointless and stupid. You can research three times as much as a competitor, and as soon as one enemy civ gets the tech, the cost drops and another gets it or trades for it, then the cost PLUMMETS and they ALL get it on the extreme cheap immediately. That is messed up. They tinkered too much with this. The bias is against holding on to a tech lead, as the chance to sell your tech while its still valuable is short, and you might as well, since the moment someone else gets it, they will all have it right away (unless some are dead broke).
Have I complained enough about the new tech trading yet? I thought that trading gold for tech was dead, but it's not. It's more alive than ever. What's dead is trading gold for a leading tech. You can still catch up that way, but you aren't going to approach the lead unless you pay through the nose, and even then, all you really get is ripped off. That's good, in stopping the player from exploiting tech-for-gold, but it's bad for the overall game balance, IMO. Got to be a better way to do that.
You may have kept the Indians gracious. I didn't have that luxury, as they went hell-bent war on me EARLY, and even though I did nothing but fend them off, they were never again less than furious, even though they had been polite. It was all I could do to line up a couple allies, once they started buying other civs into military alliances against me. I couldn't afford to let them turn the whole world against me, so I bought the Germans and Japanese to my side (only ones left) and that alignment held right up to the moment when I'd wiped out the Indians, Iroquois and Russians and set on the Germans, near the very end of the game.
- Sirian
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Achnor
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Trondheim
Jul 2000
time: 05:16
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I dl'd the savegame too and I must say I'm impressed. Gotta practise more...
Achnor
Last edited by Achnor on 17-12-2001 at 10:54
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Ozymandous
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Atlanta, GA
Aug 2001
time: 00:16
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Actually I have found that you don't need to be in the Middle Ages to have the AI swap big money and other goodies for a tech they really want.
Example:
My last game I was playing as the Bab's. I was expanding as quickly as I could and had at least two defensive units per city but hadn't spent much time on a standing army.
I went straight for Literature in an attempt to get the GL (I missed building it), and then made a bee-line for Monarchy. Why Monarchy when I was Babs? Well I didn't think my empire had enough population to get the extra commerce worth while, less worked squares in each city (due to building a lot of settlers) meant less income, less income meant the unit cost just for the defenders would be worse than now, I'd lose money.
In any event, I finally discovered Monarchy and switched to it, however, during the AI's turn the English (north-west neighbors) demanded Monarchy or war. I refused and they declared war on me. I fought for about 5 turns and realized that I had no chance vs. their massed swordsmen and cavalry.
So... I reloaded from before the English declared war (luckily I had saved shortly before getting Monarchy). I finished researching the tech, and this time, to avert another war, I traded Monarchy to everyone.
Now before I traded Monarchy I was in 4th-5th place and still had to research the following tech's to leave the Ancient Age:
Construction
Mathematics
Philosophy
Iron Working
Map Making
Code of Laws
Horseback Riding
My gold was pitiful, roughly 40 gold and had a negative income (due to cranking science as much as possible). Science was set to roughly 40%.
After I offered Monarchy for sale I ended up with all of the tech's mentioned above (only Ancient Age tech I didn't have was republic), plus about 350-400 gold per turn and over 3,000 gold in the bank.
Needless to say I was then the first Civ into the Middle Ages, and auto-discovered Monotheism. I cranked science up to 100% and was still making over 200 gold per turn.
This was the turning point in the game because I took the science lead then and never looked back. Later in the game I did the same with the other 4 Civ's that were on the seperate continent and was making over 800 gold per turn from selling tech's.
Anywho, just wanted to point out that the player doesn't need to be any further than the Ancient Age to be able to get a tech that every other CDiv wants and then gain a HUGE lead for it.
One thing I was worried about was the possibility of the AI swapping a tech during my turn a had been reported here. Glad to say I never saw that happen, not even once, and I sold many a tech to get huge gold and luxury boost's for my empire.
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kapapj
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the netherlands
Jan 2002
time: 06:16
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Herewith late my retirement defaeat in 2050 with 1618 points.
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16-12-2001 16:21
I think that this type of map best suits the Trader style of play.
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