Marginalizing AI advantages

Marginalizing AI advantages using Aztecs (Agri, Mil).

I have never tried Most Aggressive or Raging Barbs, but it seems like combining these two settings may be useful. Since the AI gets much of their techs from favorable trading, would the Aggressive setting slow down AI trading at a faster pace than it would slow my trading down (due to increased AI-AI warring)? I don't trade a lot of techs (unless I can get a 2-fer or better), after the Ancient age because I want to keep the AI away from techs that increase their Defensive value. Wouldn't this setting also lessen the amount of lux-lux trading, thus forcing the AI to use specialists, thus slowing down production? Since the AI is known for breaking deals, wouldn't this setting also hasten the loss of AI reputation, and leave a lot of AIs UNABLE to make trades?

I see the Raging setting slowing down Expansionists AIs. If barbs can kill off scouts, this would slow down the AI's tech pace and leave me in a better position for getting a monopoly tech. Also, it would force the AI to rebuild scouts.

Granted, I would have to play a much more defensive game, but I plan on being in Monarchy anyways.

Any thoughts on combining these two settings?

I have not really noticed a big impact from the aggression setting, but it is hard to tell unless you play the game in debug mode to see. Even then it is only going to be a limited sampled.

Raging barbs should not bother the expansion civs, for some time as they will not pop any barbs from huts and none wil be on the map at he start. Once barb camps show up, it will depend on the level of the game.

Lower levels, could do a bit of damage, but not a lot. I would expect the AI's to go after them and they know a camp is on a tile, we don't. The huge bonus Vs barbs will make killing them easy.

Move up to high levels and it will be harder for the player and easier for the AI. This is because the bonus drops as low as 25, from 800, and the human will not be able to kill them easy.

The AI on say Sid will just smoke them as they have so many starting units. I have played part way into a Sid game with debug and you should see the AI go out hunting down barbs. Me I have to avoid them or risk losing my precious units.

vmxa said:

I have not really noticed a big impact from the aggression setting, but it is hard to tell unless you play the game in debug mode to see. Even then it is only going to be a limited sampled.

Raging barbs should not bother the expansion civs, for some time as they will not pop any barbs from huts and none wil be on the map at he start. Once barb camps show up, it will depend on the level of the game.

Lower levels, could do a bit of damage, but not a lot. I would expect the AI's to go after them and they know a camp is on a tile, we don't. The huge bonus Vs barbs will make killing them easy.

Move up to high levels and it will be harder for the player and easier for the AI. This is because the bonus drops as low as 25, from 800, and the human will not be able to kill them easy.

The AI on say Sid will just smoke them as they have so many starting units. I have played part way into a Sid game with debug and you should see the AI go out hunting down barbs. Me I have to avoid them or risk losing my precious units.

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That is very interesting, Vmxa. Was the AI winning because of using multiple units, or was it winning in 1 on 1 fights as well? Basically, did it appear that the AI still had bonuses against barbarians, while the human player does not at the level?

From what I know of Sid level, the AI starts with 4 offensive and 4 defensive units, and can build a unit every turn. They don't need bonuses to kick barb butt. My one Deity game, the AI's sent steady streams of units at barb camps. At higher levels, raging barbs are the biggest threat to a human player toward expansion, and even at medium levels, are a righteous pain in the butt! AI aggression set on high means that the militaristic tribes especially, will march on your capital and declare war immediately, and all AI's will pick on the weak. In most games, the human player is weaker, so guess who gets targeted? I think marginalizing AI advantages takes skill, but it can be done. War slows tech down, so you can slow the tech pace by fomenting wars among the AI's. Speeding up tech might involve gifting up Scientific tribes, trading luxes, and spreading tech around for free. Other things I've seen are gifting Metallurgy to the Civ with the Great Wall(makes the wonder obsolete), or Education to the tribe with the Great Library(or the temple of Athena), Steam Power obsoletes Hanging Gardens and Knights Templar, etc., etc. In SGFN04, we made sure Sumeria didn't get Saltpeter and Rome didn't get Iron to keep them at peace. Lots of things are possible, you just need to be Machiavellan.

timerover51 said:

That is very interesting, Vmxa. Was the AI winning because of using multiple units, or was it winning in 1 on 1 fights as well? Basically, did it appear that the AI still had bonuses against barbarians, while the human player does not at the level?

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I'd assume its the AI's wealth of offensive units. At Diety attack bonus on Barb is 0 for 'any' player (human AI). <- I took this straight from the C3CEditor notes.

I think you seriously need to learn what War Academy articles say about the game Overseer.

"From what I know of Sid level, the AI starts with 4 offensive and 4 defensive units, and can build a unit every turn."

Not true. They get 12 defensive units, 6 offensive units, 4 workers, 2 extra settlers, and more (citation: http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=3885925&t=2384#post3885925).

[AI aggression set on high means that the militaristic tribes especially, will march on your capital and declare war immediately, and all AI's will pick on the weak.]

No, it doesn't. In a deity game with the Celts I had the Mongols and the Zulu as my neighbors, and they didn't march to Entremont. In a current deity game with the Iroquois, I have Ragnar Lodbrok and his long hair to the north... he hasn't marched onto Salamanca several turns after the save here http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=277691&page=3.

[In most games, the human player is weaker, so guess who gets targeted? ]

The ones without RoPs signed... meaning warmongers, Overseer.

Concerning barbarians:

I think Monarch and below raging barbies might slow the AI. However, I don't see this as likely on Emperor, and certainly not on Demi-God and above. Sure, maybe a barbie kills some of their extra units... but they can afford it, while your early armies basically can't, so the advantage stays with the AI.

Maximum aggression can slow down the AI tech pace, and you might speak correctly in that it hurts AI-AI trading in certain ways. This might indicate partially why strategies like the one here http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=122419 can work.

Everything that the AI gets at the various difficulty levels is given in the Difficulty Levels menu of the game editor, while the exact level of aggressiveness is shown in the Civilizations menu of the editor. That also gives the building biases for each civilization, and which type of government that they are likely to head for. Quite a bit of information in the editor if you look for it. Aztecs have a pretty high level of aggressiveness, if you are looking for a civilization to start a war with, or get involved in a war with another AI. I need to find the time to go through stuff like that in the editor and make up a chart for use by everyone, including me.

timerover51 said:

Everything that the AI gets at the various difficulty levels is given in the Difficulty Levels menu of the game editor, while the exact level of aggressiveness is shown in the Civilizations menu of the editor. That also gives the building biases for each civilization, and which type of government that they are likely to head for. Quite a bit of information in the editor if you look for it. Aztecs have a pretty high level of aggressiveness, if you are looking for a civilization to start a war with, or get involved in a war with another AI. I need to find the time to go through stuff like that in the editor and make up a chart for use by everyone, including me.

Click to expand...

That would be fantastic.

Fair warning though, some of the check boxes in the editor are a little obtuse. Zulus only have build offensive units checked off. But that doesn't mean they never build defensive units.

In fact, i'm not clear on the exact correlation on how the 'build x' works.

I don't memorize everything in in the war academy, especially about a level I don't intend to play. I know that the AI has a tremendous advantage at Sid. And on the one maximized aggression game I played, the Mongols went straight for my capital and wiped me out before I got a single settler built. Not a pleasant experience. That may not always happen, but it means you need to strongly defend every city with those settings to prevent that. Signing ROPs is not always possible, if the hyper aggressive AI decides you are a tasty treat, you are toast before it is even possible. Risky strategies might work sometimes for some people, but I wouldn't try it myself.

nvm

"Signing ROPs is not always possible, if the hyper aggressive AI decides you are a tasty treat, you are toast before it is even possible."

But, if that happens it doesn't come as all that far into the game, so you can just start another one.

"That may not always happen, but it means you need to strongly defend every city with those settings to prevent that."

Laughs... seriously... I'll get you a free screenshots here and a save. One consits of my entire empire at the beginning of the industrial age in my current Deity-Iroquois game. Another consists of a close-up of territory near Salamanca to see what's going on. Another consists of my military status.

In the close-up screenshot you can see I have Spanish, Greek, Persian, Celtic, Egyptian, Hittite, Sumerian, Arabian, and English units all in my territory. I have Ragnar Lodbork as my northern neighbor (at least for now... Sumeria has started in on his cities), and had Shaka as a partial neighbor of sorts until I needed a Golden Age and decided I may as well take those cities for myself. I've *only* had the war with the Zulu, and if you check my towns you'll see almost all of them protected by warriors. I have 3 pikes in my military (mostly built for the Zulu GA-trigger war... although I didn't end up needing them), 11 knights, an archer, and 36 warriors in my military... oh... and 7 king units. It's a Deity game... and as you can tell... a pangea one at that. I have max aggressiveness on. The AIs *could have* rather easily wiped me out centuries ago.

Check the save and you'll see that *only* the scientific tribes have a one tech lead on me. I traded the Sumerians tech to land myself in the Industrial age and they got their free tech that way. The other two scientific tribes I gifted into the industrial age. It's 360 C. E.

Only one question:
What would happen if you'd say 'Remove your forces or declare!'?

"What would happen if you'd say 'Remove your forces or declare!'?"

I don't think I have that option with RoPs signed. They can all walk on my territory... they get to beat on Scandinavia faster that way (who started the dang thing by first declaring on the Celts, and then declaring on someone else... I think the Egyptians.. a while later... yes... the Vikings basically *wanted* a war and passed my empire right up).