Realism Invictus

[Ahnarras]

My last game, lasted only 3 hours:
Starting as egyptian on the huge world map. All is peaceful for a few time, i'm developping slowly my empire.
Suddently, Ethiopan come and want me to fight Nubia. Why not, i needed room to expand. I send my army there... and BAM! A stack of doom from the Judean! Something like 10-15 guys (and it was the turn 100-110...), axeman, militan and stuff like that.
By the time my army came back, my capital is his. I ponder if it's not better to just give it up on this one, but i'm gonna try a few more turn to see.

I manage to take my city back, rebuild more or less, and he send a second stack. No surprise. I send my army and... nubia is here! Ethiopan made peace, and i have a second stack waiting south.

Could it be worse? Of course yes. Netherland (yes, NETHERLAND) sent a stack of riders on me. They traveled half the world just for me, how nice of them. And i was neutral with them, so no reason to come here.

I really have a hard time understanding how the diplomatie works with this mod...
"Hey, can you help me in the war versus X? Yes? Cool! Now i will sign peace with him, good luck and suck it".
"Man, i'm already in war with a big and powerful empire, what sould i do? Guess i will go pwnd the human player. If i'm out, he will fall with me!"
"Well, i have half of Europe, where should i go next? England? Spania? Roma? Nah, that, i'm traveling 20 turns but i'm gonna kick that ugly human i met only 3 turns earlier".

... boring.

 

[teks]

My last game, lasted only 3 hours:
Starting as egyptian on the huge world map. All is peaceful for a few time, i'm developping slowly my empire.
Suddently, Ethiopan come and want me to fight Nubia. Why not, i needed room to expand. I send my army there... and BAM! A stack of doom from the Judean! Something like 10-15 guys (and it was the turn 100-110...), axeman, militan and stuff like that.
By the time my army came back, my capital is his. I ponder if it's not better to just give it up on this one, but i'm gonna try a few more turn to see.

I manage to take my city back, rebuild more or less, and he send a second stack. No surprise. I send my army and... nubia is here! Ethiopan made peace, and i have a second stack waiting south.

Could it be worse? Of course yes. Netherland (yes, NETHERLAND) sent a stack of riders on me. They traveled half the world just for me, how nice of them. And i was neutral with them, so no reason to come here.

I really have a hard time understanding how the diplomatie works with this mod...
"Hey, can you help me in the war versus X? Yes? Cool! Now i will sign peace with him, good luck and suck it".
"Man, i'm already in war with a big and powerful empire, what sould i do? Guess i will go pwnd the human player. If i'm out, he will fall with me!"
"Well, i have half of Europe, where should i go next? England? Spania? Roma? Nah, that, i'm traveling 20 turns but i'm gonna kick that ugly human i met only 3 turns earlier".

... boring.

Yeah, it seems that the moment you send your army away your bound to get back-stabbed by the guy in the opposite direction. The AI is pretty keen on knowing when your vulnerable. No doubt that judea put themselves in the same position to pull off that attack, and Jerusalem is an awesome city.
I have a couple strats I've used to defend against backstabbers while I send my army out.
1. Re-prioritize the value of spys and scouts. Light cavalry or light infantry trained up for +sight range provide a greater chance you'll see the enemy army assemble. Later on forts provide an additional sight range too. Spies are better at recon, but they can't aid in defense (though they might be an interesting aid to a counter attack.) Now that you know the AI's behavior you'll likely be able to recognize when the AI is getting ready to strike.
2. Have a mobile defense. Typically the barb hunters. Ensure they can respond to a threat quickly with road networks.
3. Build walls.
4. Try to build roads behind your main stack so they can return faster if they need to.
5. While the army starts to head off have your cities queue up units for a rapid defense. Don't finish the unit unless you are backstabbed. instead leave it in the queue with 1 turn left to avoid unnecessary maintenance cost. I did this with shortswords to take advantage of food production that was going to waste.
6. Consider using your away forces to launch a counterattack rather then a defense. If they can't make it to defend take advantage of the likely chance that their land is vulnerable. This really messes the AI up.

For me as greece, hungary sent around 10 guys into my territory when I left for germany. Complete with siege weapons, and tons of chariots. It was rough, and I barely survived it. I got really lucky on a couple rolls. I think I managed to scrounge up 4 units to defend the city(1 city defender, 2 barb hunters, 1 shortsword in queue), and another 3 from nearby cities to launch a counter-offensive(1 city defender, 1 shortsword, 1 barb hunter). One city was temporarily left defenseless.
I met their army on the grassland beside modern istanbul. Suicided against their stack until the chariot were vulnerable, then I had the defenders attack the vulnerable chariots. From there my main stack went straight to hungary and set the torch to the landscape. Took another 20-30 turns before I was recovered and ready to take their city. Fortunately I didn't have to meet with another enemy stack from germany, probably because my ally didn't wuss out, and my army was still between germany and my homeland. Germany was also in pretty rough shape anyway. GJ rome AI.

I don't go for archers, but instead go for militia. Militia units upgrade to spearmen and greek spears have a defense bonus against melee and mounted. Also, greek archers kinda of suck. I upgraded my militia to spearmen and they ended up being the perfect counter to the enemy stack. Egyptian archers are actually pretty awesome, but they are still poor at launching counter attacks, so I don't know if they make the best end-all defenders. Defending against the AI seems to happen more frequently outside of cities now, and sometimes good attackers make for a good defense.

 

[Cruel]

Kind of hard to have answers over here.

Actually there is already a more modern mechanism inserted in two other mods: C2C and Romand. In Romand is revison 669 of their SVN.

The Graphics Paging under BUG options is a new approach to memory reduction largely removing the need to use viewports. In short, while default Civ loads every detail on the map, no matter where you're looking on the map, this new code allows the game to load only necessary graphical info about the zone of the map you're currently looking at. When you look at another point on the map (for example clicking on the minimap), graphical details of that part of the map are loaded while the view shifts to the new position. Most of the dll work of this component has been done by Koshling in C2C. It's the kind advancement we like to have in the mod. But I don't know say a date for implementing: all work here is collaborative.

 

[Ahnarras]

Thanks for the answer, will try to comment it despite my poor english:

1) It was the really beginning of the game. I was far from the tech giving light cavalry or even spy. The real question is: HOW did the AI know that i was vulnerable? It can't have spy, as he was too far in the bronze/iron way of the tech tree, and i didn't allow him the right to come on my land. Maybe just with the war declaration and going without knowing more...

2) Always have a stack of cavalry/hunter, yes. But the best i could have build was scout. I was training my very first chariot when they came -,-

3) Too soon, and i'm really not sure of the impact of a wall. Most of the time, a S3 bowmen will be kill by a S4 swordman, even with all the bonus. Either i'm really unlucky, or the difference in strengh is way too big, even when only one point (and looking at stack of warrior killing themself on a single militia, i'm guessing the second).

4) Good idea, but my workers were busy building mines and cottages :/

5) If you have to abuse the game in that kind of way, it means something is wrong. Question: why should my economy be paralized with that army, when the AI could have twice that amount and still have a good science rate?

6) Had only a single city left, and his army roaming around. Didn't have the time to go take his.

I'm gonna try again tonigh, hopefully ethiopan/nubia and arabe/jew will keep each other busy and i will have time to be big enough to manage the two-front war if (when...) necessary :/

 

[Manco Capac]

when the AI could have twice that amount and still have a good science rate?

On Noble? How is that possible? K-mod or not (and I shall reiterate RI has nothing to do with the psycho AI, it's K-mod), the human should normally be able to outproduce the AI quite fast on noble.


Looks like we have a new member in my special club: Tachywaxon likes to whine.

Me too, I had a superbly hard game on Tectonics recently. Yeppers, I rolled that Raging Barbs start with the Hindi and luckily I had all my resources to the south (next to a couple of mountains and hills easily fogbusted) and my capital, on a hill, was absorbing the barb waves until the critical point I had a GG and made my strongest warrior into a superman archer. And I think I have found the strategy to make the barbs (and AI) attack my city without too much chance of losing my OCC empire (which lasted until like 100 AD!!! and then started to have new cities through conquest). If I remember well what I read in K-mod forums, the AI stacks consider the relative strength of units stack without considering much the promotions. Meaning if the barbs attack 1 vs 1 or more, it's always gonna attack, without pillaging everything. And the superman archer won't die that easily with the huge amount of defense modifiers.
Of course, it went well until China sent its stack of 7 units against my well-defended super archer plus 2* 4 warriors (the one that consumes food). And it won because of some BS that the first attacker weakened the archer at some abusive lucky RNG way. And I looked and it was like their ~5 strength attacker against my 12 strength archer.

Unfortunately, as usual, the early game is always gambley and streak of bad luck can make a nightmare of a game. Of course, I reloaded because I'm tired of BS every game and surprise, after a change of RNG, the new shot went superbly well, showing how stupid the RNG can be.

Now, by 300AD, I'm the one starting to crunch into China lands with my excessively trained soldiers (like 30-50XP).
More I think about it, I'm surprised I was able to keep with the huge other AI's on Titan with a simple wonderwhoring because one city without a single cottage sucks.

And one thing that should be changed immediately because it's broken is the unhappiness spy missions. Cost too low and literally famish a city down to size 1. It's too overpowered, trust me!

 

[teks]

might have been too early to get in a war then too. city states start the game strong, and have a tech bonus above and beyond what the normal AI gets. They can be really scary early game. They do make amazing guys to share open borders with. It'll often give you 50% tech bonus on all ancient techs. get babylon and you got another 25% bonus.

 

[Manco Capac]

might have been too early to get in a war then too. city states start the game strong, and have a tech bonus above and beyond what the normal AI gets. They can be really scary early game. They do make amazing guys to share open borders with. It'll often give you 50% tech bonus on all ancient techs. get babylon and you got another 25% bonus.

Judeans are a city-state?

And if played on noble, why not warrior rush the AI? IIRC, the noble AI just start like the player, unless this was edited for World Map. One should really consider the power of stunting AI either by pillages or worker stealing.

 

[teks]

On Noble? How is that possible? K-mod or not (and I shall reiterate RI has nothing to do with the psycho AI, it's K-mod), the human should normally be able to outproduce the AI quite fast on noble.


Looks like we have a new member in my special club: Tachywaxon likes to whine.

Me too, I had a superbly hard game on Tectonics recently. Yeppers, I rolled that Raging Barbs start with the Hindi and luckily I had all my resources to the south (next to a couple of mountains and hills easily fogbusted) and my capital, on a hill, was absorbing the barb waves until the critical point I had a GG and made my strongest warrior into a superman archer. And I think I have found the strategy to make the barbs (and AI) attack my city without too much chance of losing my OCC empire (which lasted until like 100 AD!!! and then started to have new cities through conquest). If I remember well what I read in K-mod forums, the AI stacks consider the relative strength of units stack without considering much the promotions. Meaning if the barbs attack 1 vs 1 or more, it's always gonna attack, without pillaging everything. And the superman archer won't die that easily with the huge amount of defense modifiers.
Of course, it went well until China sent its stack of 7 units against my well-defended super archer plus 2* 4 warriors (the one that consumes food). And it won because of some BS that the first attacker weakened the archer at some abusive lucky RNG way. And I looked and it was like their ~5 strength attacker against my 12 strength archer.

Unfortunately, as usual, the early game is always gambley and streak of bad luck can make a nightmare of a game. Of course, I reloaded because I'm tired of BS every game and surprise, after a change of RNG, the new shot went superbly well, showing how stupid the RNG can be.

Now, by 300AD, I'm the one starting to crunch into China lands with my excessively trained soldiers (like 30-50XP).
More I think about it, I'm surprised I was able to keep with the huge other AI's on Titan with a simple wonderwhoring because one city without a single cottage sucks.

And one thing that should be changed immediately because it's broken is the unhappiness spy missions. Cost too low and literally famish a city down to size 1. It's too overpowered, trust me!

OMG I would have reloaded that too. Freaking combat odds. Its like no matter how strong your unit is the odds of him surviving any two enemy units is always dicey, even if he has a 99% chance to win. Now that I think about it, he might have had a decent first strike advantage from aid depending on his stack. + first strikes, and immunity to first strikes are amazing stuff!

 

[Manco Capac]

Actually there is already a more modern mechanism inserted in two other mods: C2C and Romand. In Romand is revison 669 of their SVN.

The Graphics Paging under BUG options is a new approach to memory reduction largely removing the need to use viewports. In short, while default Civ loads every detail on the map, no matter where you're looking on the map, this new code allows the game to load only necessary graphical info about the zone of the map you're currently looking at. When you look at another point on the map (for example clicking on the minimap), graphical details of that part of the map are loaded while the view shifts to the new position. Most of the dll work of this component has been done by Koshling in C2C. It's the kind advancement we like to have in the mod. But I don't know say a date for implementing: all work here is collaborative.

Yes, I have heard ViewPort was retired for Graphics Paging.
Anyways, it's not that important, but I am pretty sure there is a huge amount of hidden fans like me having problems starting large scale maps and higher. And, I haven't tried farther than late industrial era, but nothing ensures me the game won't start to bug at that point even on standard size. That might look a small aspect, but I think the consequence of working on this might make more people pleased than most of the recent suggestions (except the AI bombarding, which is a strong asset to be taught to the AI).

 

[teks]

Judeans are a city-state?

And if played on noble, why not warrior rush the AI? IIRC, the noble AI just start like the player, unless this was edited for World Map. One should really consider the power of stunting AI either by pillages or worker stealing.

If hes playing the world map the city states have special bonuses and restrictions. They get a big research bonus, and they can't settle new cities until some tech is discovered (by then there wont be room). On the world map in the ancient era city states are typically stronger then the average AI because of their tech lead. Their one city is normally pretty stacked too.

 

[Ahnarras]

On Noble? How is that possible? K-mod or not (and I shall reiterate RI has nothing to do with the psycho AI, it's K-mod), the human should normally be able to outproduce the AI quite fast on noble.


Looks like we have a new member in my special club: Tachywaxon likes to whine.

Can't tell if you are being rude or just mindless, but it's hard to stay calm with you.

So yes, as others told, the main purpose of my post was to know if the AI has an advantage, and it seems that it is the case, and even more that i tough. That could also explain why Jerusalem have axeman and light cavalry without having iron or horse... I might just stop trying to play the world map, not enough balance for my taste.

Teks: i often wonder if the malus from logistic is big enough to be a real malus. Spamming the aid buff on a huge stack may be more interesting :/

 

[Shuikkanen]

And one thing that should be changed immediately because it's broken is the unhappiness spy missions. Cost too low and literally famish a city down to size 1. It's too overpowered, trust me!

I second this. Brought my capital down from size 10 to size 4 and there was nothing I could do but watch. When every single citizen refused to work because they'd been "told of my villainy" for a few turns, the food gets eaten quickly. Cities tend to be at happy cap most of the time, so, say -12 unhappiness suddenly is a bit harsh. (Can't remember what the actual number was.) And it was a pangaea map so there were plenty of potential culprits, sending spies to do counterespionage against every potential enemy was not feasible. (Not to mention with the timer, those missions are a pain to micromanage.)

 

[Ahnarras]

It's -8, but i agree, it's annoying. And the "poison water" seems a bit useless, as you starve your opponent more with unhapiness. The poison water is only usefull if you really hate someone and want to send 2 spy to have the both effect in the same time.

The counterespionnage is indeed a pain to manage. Maybe adding some time of timer/bar so we can keep tracking it? Extend is duration? Find another way (the spy establish himself in your ennemi main city and grant the effect for ever / for a reaaaaally long time - the malus is you loose your spy and it would have a lesser chance of success) ?

Shuikkanen: in the vanilla civ, i think you can help to defend your city against spy if one of your spy is in there. But i'm not sure it work in RI.... or if it even worked in the vanilla game >,<

 

[xondrax]

My last game, lasted only 3 hours:
Starting as egyptian on the huge world map. All is peaceful for a few time, i'm developping slowly my empire.
Suddently, Ethiopan come and want me to fight Nubia. Why not, i needed room to expand. I send my army there... and BAM! A stack of doom from the Judean! Something like 10-15 guys (and it was the turn 100-110...), axeman, militan and stuff like that.
By the time my army came back, my capital is his. I ponder if it's not better to just give it up on this one, but i'm gonna try a few more turn to see.

I manage to take my city back, rebuild more or less, and he send a second stack. No surprise. I send my army and... nubia is here! Ethiopan made peace, and i have a second stack waiting south.
... boring.

You have been outsmarted by AI. He is better in diplomacy than you. Involving you in war, then his enemy can agree on peace, cos war with 2 enemy can be dangerous.

 

[Manco Capac]

You have been outsmarted by AI. He is better in diplomacy than you. Involving you in war, then his enemy can agree on peace, cos war with 2 enemy can be dangerous.

I highly suspect the AI is as cunning as you might imagine.

 

[teks]

If he was playing world map he probably just didn't know how powerful Jerusalem was in the beginning of the game. That right next door to him lie one of the most powerful civilizations in the ancient era. The term 'lesser civ' can be deceiving!

In my game culture is making me want to throw stuff. I guess barbarian cities on water trade goods, and gain culture from it, and even with the majority culture in their city I can't seem to overthrow them. I've had culture on them for roughly 50 turns, meanwhile my second city hits another barb with its culture and it shifts to my control in 5 turns.
Culture mechanics were strange enough before K-mod, and, while I like that they changed it, I do wish they explained the mechanics behind the changes a bit better. Maybe I'm just unlucky on the 10% overthrow per turn check. that's definitely a possibility.

EDIT: Turns out several barbarian buildings actually produce a pretty significant amount of culture.

 

[Ahnarras]

You may be right on this, both of you.

Same player, try again: always huge world map, egyptian, yadayada.
This time, Judean is busy in a war with Persia. Attila step in with David, and ask me to come. Too far, but i can give my moral support. The whole area is really busy.

South, Taharca want me to go on the Ethiopan with him. As i prefer his lands, i refuse. Zarah ask for my help, i accept, send a few guy.
There where it become sneacky. A few turn later, Zarah sign peace. I'm still in war with Taharca. He send me a big stack, but as all is calm in the north, i was able to research woodworking and the wheel. I crush him beneath my chariot.
His army is defeat, and the exact same turn, Zarah declare war again! He zerk the two little city of Nubia as i keep his army busy near the capital.

It's amazing to see that from the AI... and being on the winning side, i can appreciate it without going crazy x}

 

[Manco Capac]

Personally, although conjunctions of events lead to think the AI is intelligent, better read that piece of article regarding AI logic on wars before believe assumptions.

Many AI decisions are purely RNG based, not really that much opportunistic. Just had a look regarding K-mod changes and it kept many parts of the original code intact.

I can't tell if you are being rude or just mindless, but it's hard to stay calm with you.

I guess I am always wrong and an annoyance to you I see.

I'm okay if you think I'm a mindless little personage. Everyone is entitled to have its own opinion.
Don't mind me, I'll wane sooner or later, so I won't pollute this thread anymore with my heresy and mindless stuff.

 

[Yannie95]

Hi there, I'm really enjoying this mod, it is a great improvement of the game without touching to core gameplay too much. I would, however, like to see some of the 'non-playable' civs to be playable, particularly I would very much appreciate a playable Israel, also modeled after the modern state of Israel (leaders could be fx Ben-Gurion, Menachen Begin or Shimon Peres), perhaps in RI 3.3?

Also, I would like to know if its possible to add an option to choose which era you want to end in (fx, you would be able to choose not to advance further than the classical or the industrial era)

Thank you

 

[Manco Capac]

Hi there, I'm really enjoying this mod, it is a great improvement of the game without touching to core gameplay too much. I would, however, like to see some of the 'non-playable' civs to be playable, particularly I would very much appreciate a playable Israel, also modeled after the modern state of Israel (leaders could be fx Ben-Gurion, Menachen Begin or Shimon Peres), perhaps in RI 3.3?

Also, I would like to know if its possible to add an option to choose which era you want to end in (fx, you would be able to choose not to advance further than the classical or the industrial era)

Thank you

They aren't playable in a random map, but you can play Israel in the World Map. Here's the trick:

1) Find your CivilizationIV.ini file in your Documents/Games/BTS
2) Search for : "Cheatmode" and make its value to Cheatmode = chipotle. It's weird, but that's how it was made.
3) Play your World Map and then do ALT+Z as many times as it takes to swap players until getting Israel.