Nuclear Weapons should be More Expensive

That's exactly the kind of things I hate seeing used... I see no fun in guessing AI programmation in order to win a game... if one is smart enough to guess AI programmation, why doesn't one go program his own game instead of loosing time in mastering an existing game?

I don't think you ever did answer, because I asked you on a thread that was getting heated in other posts and that got shut down, what the difference is for you between this and multiplayer against people when you know their personalities ?

That is a behavior I am far to understand. The worst of all, is that Firaxis may listen to those "master players" when programming their new games, that could not be beaten without knowing every bit of it.

I cenrtainly hope so, because if the diplomatic manipulation did not matter at least as much as slogging it out in the field... I was going to say you might as well play Risk, but even in Risk, you gain a lot by knowing how the other players' minds work.
 
if one is smart enough to guess AI programmation, why doesn't one go program his own game instead of loosing time in mastering an existing game? That is a behavior I am far to understand.
:D the answer is no. they will not. the point being to write a game one must have a lot of spare time.
The worst of all, is that Firaxis may listen to those "master players" when programming their new games, that could not be beaten without knowing every bit of it.
that's the point of high difficulty levels. they are supposed to be hard, and nearly impossible, if the inner working of game mechanics are unknown to the player.
 
That's exactly the kind of things I hate seeing used... I see no fun in guessing AI programmation in order to win a game... if one is smart enough to guess AI programmation, why doesn't one go program his own game instead of loosing time in mastering an existing game? That is a behavior I am far to understand. The worst of all, is that Firaxis may listen to those "master players" when programming their new games, that could not be beaten without knowing every bit of it.

I saw your videos TheMeInTeam, and, although I tried, I'm far to understand how you manage to win a single Immortal game without building any unit.

They gave the AI more than double our production at the highest level to compensate for the ability to manipulate them diplomatically.

My 3rd youtube video did indeed feature no war, but that isn't always the case. If you watched my other two series (at monarch/emperor respectively), you'll notice war...to the order of completely wiping people out, for example. Also peeking into more recent immortal games suggests that the map, as well as me as the player, isn't always that kind ;).

But diplo always matters in games with more than 2 people, not just in civ. Who fights who when has a big impact on the outcome, just as much as skill. You can't get away from that in a free for all.

If you hate knowing the AI tendencies of course you will never understand how that game was won.
 
Your jokes are getting old...

If you're lucky enough to get 150 units clumped onto 1 tile on noble difficulty (highly unlikely that noble AIs get 150 units in a stack in typical situations...!), more power to you.

Or, how about this: You invest an equal hammer's worth of nukes into horse archers early in the game, and on noble? You probably just took out two civs. Win long before nukes are even relevant. If it's on 1 landmass, long before anyone even wins liberalism.

This is PRECISELY why we're saying your non-nuclear war skills are lacking. An uphill battle is being slightly behind in tech and somewhere between .5 to .75 your target's power, using conventional weaponry. Something like cannons or cavalry vs pre-renaissance units is a laughingstock walkover. Same deal with infantry/arty vs pre-industrial.

All you're saying is that you got nukes first and then the game was too easy. News flash: with a tech lead, all war is really easy.

By the way...those nukes? If the target fans out, it's hard to use them to kill an equal :hammers: investment worth of troops. The problem is not nukes, it's the AI. But then, the AI lacks in all aspects of warfare, you just don't notice because you also lack in some of these aspects....

Who is joking? Lol.

Yes, I was lucky enough to destroy 150 AI units clumped onto 1 tile on noble difficulty.
I wiped them all out with two nukes.

I could have lost this game without the nukes.

I got into early wars with couple of civs while the Germans managed to stay in peace with all civs up until the modern age.
They were the only civ that managed to stay out of war so they were way more advanced than all the other civs.

I was number two but still way behind them technologically.

The Germans then went to war against once civ at a time wiping out the other civs and getting stronger and stronger.

I then figured out that I am next because they were annoyed with me and friendly with the other 3 civs.

The Germans had a few nukes too but they haven’t used any yet.

So I decided to launch a preemptive strike against the Germans after I had 5 nukes.
I had a few cities that were able to build a nukes in 2-3 turns.

I was then lucky too see 150 German units in one of their nearest cities (close to my border).
Perhaps they were preparing for war against me.
I had maybe 100 units total while the Germans must have had 250+ units.

So I declared war on them and wiped out those 150 units with two nukes.
That was easy enough.

After that I kept building new nukes and continued to destroy other cities along with 20+ units in each one of them.
That was very cost effective.

So make your own conclusions if you want, but for me these nukes were like a cheat code.
Maybe it is an AI issue, but more expensive nukes will certainly fix this problem.
 
I don't think you ever did answer, because I asked you on a thread that was getting heated in other posts and that got shut down, what the difference is for you between this and multiplayer against people when you know their personalities ?

That's only good theorical words. When in multiplayer, you really do not care about the other players personnality, but on the "nodes" the game creates by its rules. In a game, I was building libraries instead of catapults, and on about the same time i got construction, one of my opponent had it also. But him, built catapults and invaded me. He killed me. As you see, there's no any personnality factor coming into that, only game schemes due to its rules.

Personnality is a factor far less important than "adaptated behaviour". You have to adapt the RIGHT way. Personnality can be considered on the type of unit built, for example if a player likes to build huge stacks of horse archers, you can expect to see see one knocking at your door, so you build a lot of spears. But it is a far less important factor than "adaptated behavior".

I certainly hope so, because if the diplomatic manipulation did not matter at least as much as slogging it out in the field... I was going to say you might as well play Risk, but even in Risk, you gain a lot by knowing how the other players' minds work.

AI behaviors are not tended to rationality. They are stubborn schemes, that always act the same, and are not directed in the direction of victory. For those reasons, I think that playing with them is an exploit.
I will never play with them, because there are so many AIs! Plus, I have absolutely no idea of how they work, and what kind of factor they modify.
That is more about reverse-engineering than anything else.

Additionnally, AIs do not act like humans. It is not like if I could come from nowhere (where I live ;) ) and start a game and use my knowledge of the real world. Because AIs aren't logical, aren't human (and do not have a human behavior), and i can't fight them in the highest difficulty levels without being involved with programming or help in forums like this one. That's a good example of a broken interface. The interface must annihilate the frontier between the computer and the human, who ever can then play agaisnt AI, on the go, without knowing anything else. That is not the case with Civ4. You must add particular and -the less I can say- uninteresting knowledge in order to do so, the most uninteresting when it can't serve you in other domains. (or at least can't serve me in other domains, as I am not a programmer)
 
That's only good theorical words. When in multiplayer, you really do not care about the other players personality,

Really ?

If you know that within the range of ways it's possible to win the game, Player Fred tends to prefer risky early attacks, and Player George prefers to build for longer and then attack with a larger force, does that not inform your strategy in a game with both those people ?

but on the "nodes" the game creates by its rules. In a game, I was building libraries instead of catapults, and on about the same time i got construction, one of my opponent had it also. But him, built catapults and invaded me. He killed me. As you see, there's no any personnality factor coming into that, only game schemes due to its rules.

A player making strategic selections based on judgement and an AI making strategic selections based on ruels are different only in how good the rules are.

Personnality is a factor far less important than "adaptated behaviour". You have to adapt the RIGHT way.

If you want a game with only onw winning strategy, yes. That would bore me,

AI behaviors are not tended to rationality. They are stubborn schemes, that always act the same, and are not directed in the direction of victory. For those reasons, I think that playing with them is an exploit.

That seems to me a critique of bad AI rather than of diplomacy as a way of playing per se.

The interface must annihilate the frontier between the computer and the human, who ever can then play agaisnt AI, on the go, without knowing anything else. That is not the case with Civ4. You must add particular and -the less I can say- uninteresting knowledge in order to do so, the most uninteresting when it can't serve you in other domains.

You count learning about an given AI player's preferences and strengths and weaknesses as uninteresting ? Information you find on these forums to help you is information someone found out from actually playing the game at some point, no ?
 
Really ?

If you know that within the range of ways it's possible to win the game, Player Fred tends to prefer risky early attacks, and Player George prefers to build for longer and then attack with a larger force, does that not inform your strategy in a game with both those people ?

Most of the time in multiplayer you do not know your opponent. That's a first.

And if you know him, you will make the necessary in order to his strategy to fail. But he will know you do this. So he will adapt and try to find a compromise, by attacking another opponent or attack you later. Etc. etc...

As you see there's little room for player's personnality, and the more little room for expoiting a player personnality. Now that I put it into words, that even sounds pretty ridiculous. You can exploit only AI personnalities, not player', because this last one adapts.

A player making strategic selections based on judgement and an AI making strategic selections based on ruels are different only in how good the rules are.

The rules aren't good or bad. They are.

The fact that we get catapults and elephants after X beakers is not good nor bad, it just is. We have to adapt to it.

The point is that this adaptation is much more heavy in the balance that mere player's personnality.

A player could never change the number of beakers it is required for reaching construction, even with an all particular personnality.

If you want a game with only onw winning strategy, yes. That would bore me,

Then multiplayer is definitely not for you. ;)

In multiplayer you must: A) Build the more units you can. B) Have the better score you can. C) Secure a non-military victory. (in case a military status quo installs)

That seems to me a critique of bad AI rather than of diplomacy as a way of playing per se.

That could be a critique of bad AI, but it's not, because of the simple fact that AIs will never be able to concur with human players, unless in a far future (maybe).

So it does not even play in this court.

Knowing an AI, being it always the same or different from civ to civ, is only a matter of programmation skills, not playing attitude.

You count learning about an given AI player's preferences and strengths and weaknesses as uninteresting ? Information you find on these forums to help you is information someone found out from actually playing the game at some point, no ?

No, they find them by reverse-engineering the game. This, does not interest me, even if i don't have to reverse-engineer the game myself. the outcome simply does not interest me.
 
In multiplayer you must: A) Build the more units you can. B) Have the better score you can. C) Secure a non-military victory. (in case a military status quo installs)
MP is not just that, unless you top with some guys/gals that want a quick fix and move on,especially if the game gives time to negotiations between the players. Being the 1st in anything will only lead to the rest trying to take you down most of the cases....
 
As you see there's little room for player's personnality, and the more little room for expoiting a player personnality. Now that I put it into words, that even sounds pretty ridiculous. You can exploit only AI personnalities, not player', because this last one adapts.
i must disappoint you:
a personality can also be coded in and rolled for every ai civ in a game.

The rules aren't good or bad. They are.
:D


That could be a critique of bad AI, but it's not, because of the simple fact that AIs will never be able to concur with human players, unless in a far future (maybe).

Knowing an AI, being it always the same or different from civ to civ, is only a matter of programmation skills, not playing attitude.
an ai can only get as good as the person(people) who wrote it. so in a way, when you are playing an ai, you are playing the people who wrote it.
 
Nukes are probably my one and only complaint about Civ IV BTS. They were never too bad in Civ vanilla, with SDI. But now, with tactical nukes, AI just lob nukes at each other left and right without regard for global warming. Plus, if you invade an AI, they just nuke your units on their territory. Tactical nukes are much harder to shoot down, making them very strong. I have less of an issue with human use, rather than the AI just spamming nukes at each other left and right.

I mostly use them when the game is done for domination or conquest wins. Nukes become more balanced in a future start if everybody is far away from each other, such as hemispheres, or islands.

I usually play on large maps with 8 opponents and I manage to stay at the top 4 up until the modern age.

You might be being too peaceful then. in the later years, more land is power (or, in any era, but especially future where you can control maintenance better). Nukes aren't a problem if you control most of the uranium. Don't trade it to anybody.
 
Most of the time in multiplayer you do not know your opponent. That's a first.

You're telling me you learn nothing about an opponent's personality and strategic judgement from the experience of playing them ove the course of a game ?

As you see there's little room for player's personnality, and the more little room for expoiting a player personnality. Now that I put it into words, that even sounds pretty ridiculous. You can exploit only AI personnalities, not player', because this last one adapts.

Nothing to prevent a good AI from adapting; and I have yet to meet a human who did not have some preferences.

A player could never change the number of beakers it is required for reaching construction, even with an all particular personnality.

That doesn't mean they couldn;t change whether they made reaching construction a priority or not.

Then multiplayer is definitely not for you. ;)

I figured this out a long time ago.
 
an ai can only get as good as the person(people) who wrote it.

I don't believe this; I work in a field where writing programs that learn how to solve problems better than you can and ten figuring out what on earth they are actually doing is a goodly part of the research, and I see no reason not to think a Civ AI could not be developed in that way.
 
I don't believe this; I work in a field where writing programs that learn how to solve problems better than you can and ten figuring out what on earth they are actually doing is a goodly part of the research, and I see no reason not to think a Civ AI could not be developed in that way.
better is faster? or is better "inventing new and original ways to solve problems"? and second: you should have full knowledge of what the program should be doing, otherwise it will not work as desired. if can write up an ai generic algorithm, that once in while will be deduced [by the ai] to paradroping units behind enemy lines, without explicitly coding it in, then my respect.:D as a writer expresses his feeling into words, pages, chapters: a programmer codes an abstract generic algorithm into a form a cpu will understand.i sure do not see may good writers around.

in short: any program is as good as it's creator.

P.S. that i cannot multiply 5-digit integers by fraction of a second: does that make me dumber than a Core2Duo cpu?
 
You're telling me you learn nothing about an opponent's personality and strategic judgement from the experience of playing them ove the course of a game ?

You seem to pretty overestimate the importance of players' personnality, to a point that it becomes funny. Words are only words, and you seem to pretty fall for them, entitled to your initial opinion.

I can't learn from a player since i never played with him. I may have some elements once I played him, but at this time the game is over. I am pretty surprised that you do not submit to this view, that seems pretty clear to me.

You may learn that one is a rusher, one is a warmonger, one is a builder, but really there are so many players that you do not bother about defining who is who, you just attempt to prepare yourself to all kind of threats. The skill and adaptativeness decide then of who wins.

Nothing to prevent a good AI from adapting; and I have yet to meet a human who did not have some preferences.

And what should an AI deduce from the fact that a player rushed it in a game? First, it should have a memory from game to game, and for each civ. Second, it should be able to adapt to the circumtances: no need to build spears early if it is on another continent from the player, unless there are other rushing civs in its continent. And yet, it should elaborate a thought that allows it to preemptive striking the player, making all the necessary to its civ in order to streamline it to that goal. That is simply impossible to an AI to do that. It should be equiped with the same tools than the human player, it is to say a brain. And artificial brains are just being testing, yet they are far inferior to a human ones.
Unless you implement all the cases possible of strategy. That would mean a lot of play testing and there would be lacks, invariably. But, I admit it, that could be interesting, although focusing on "player's personnality" would not be a good thing (loss of time and power). Focusing on adapatativeness would be more clever.

That doesn't mean they couldn;t change whether they made reaching construction a priority or not.

The fact is that Construction IS a priority in every multiplayer game, such as Bronze Working or Animal Husbandry. I said it to you, I built libraries in a multiplayer game instead of catapults, few turns later i was attacked and killed.
And that has NOTHING to do with player's personnaility, it was just a strategical mistake. (as there is a lot of in Civ4 multiplayer, which make it fun :D )
 
Who is joking? Lol.

This time, me.

I could have lost this game without the nukes.

I could have lost this game without the arty.

I got into early wars with couple of civs while the Germans managed to stay in peace with all civs up until the modern age.
They were the only civ that managed to stay out of war so they were way more advanced than all the other civs.

I got into early wars with couple of civs while the Persians managed to stay in peace with all civs up until the modern age.
They were the only civ that managed to stay out of war so they were way more advanced than all the other civs.

I was number two but still way behind them technologically.

I was number two but still way behind them technologically.
So I decided to launch a preemptive strike against the Germans after I had 5 nukes.
I had a few cities that were able to build a nukes in 2-3 turns.

So I decided to launch a preemptive strike against the Persians after I had a stack of infantry and artillery.
I had a few cities that were able to rush buy forces quickly.
I was then lucky too see 150 German units in one of their nearest cities (close to my border).
Perhaps they were preparing for war against me.
I had maybe 100 units total while the Germans must have had 250+ units.

Show me a noble game where an AI gets 150 units.

So I declared war on them and wiped out those 150 units with two nukes.
That was easy enough.

So I declared war on them and wiped out those 150 units with infantry and artillery. That was easy enough.
After that I kept building new nukes and continued to destroy other cities along with 20+ units in each one of them.
That was very cost effective.

After that I kept building new infantry/arty and continued to destroy other cities along with 20+ units in each one of them.
That was very cost effective.
So make your own conclusions if you want, but for me these nukes were like a cheat code.
Maybe it is an AI issue, but more expensive nukes will certainly fix this problem.

So make your own conclusions if you want, but for me these arty were like a cheat code.
Maybe it is an AI issue, but more expensive arty will certainly fix this problem.

OK. Do you get it now? How absolutely ridiculous what you're saying is? Maybe not just yet? I actually have pictures, too, which I'll spoil to keep post length slightly down.

Spoiler :








Yes, my target ALSO had a vassal.









Whoops. Look like artillery is too expensive and should be nerfed to hell because it makes the game too easy. Let's do it to cannons, trebs, and cats just to be safe also. And all the mounted line. Make everything more expensive. Or not.

Using an isolated game analogy as a case against nukes (or anything for balance) is useless. Not helpful at all. Not even a tiny bit.
 
Maybe he was on a huge map?

Maybe something like earth 18 civs invading monty. But if you're using nukes for that...:rolleyes:.

You'd need to be on marathon, with a warmonger AI that never declared for some reason. But the issue here isn't the 150 units, but that they were supposedly on one tile as a stack. I'm not sure I've seen many immortal stacks that size. And bismark has a unitprob of 30...slightly above average but hardly spamtacular.

It's just hard to envision.

But let's pretend it existed. What kind of losses would 40ish arty and some cleanup as shown above take against 150 noble garbage units in the relevant time frame? I doubt you'd lose more than 1-3 arty before inflicting so much collateral the stack couldn't attack back after you killed half of it.
 
Maybe something like earth 18 civs invading monty. But if you're using nukes for that...:rolleyes:.

You'd need to be on marathon, with a warmonger AI that never declared for some reason. But the issue here isn't the 150 units, but that they were supposedly on one tile as a stack. I'm not sure I've seen many immortal stacks that size. And bismark has a unitprob of 30...slightly above average but hardly spamtacular.

It's just hard to envision.

Well, your games are streamlined and you never do a thing which is not necessary. By consequent, you have short, fast pace games that does not allow you to see too much things. I mean, you end them early.

As I understood it, Moshelevi is not the kind of guy who streamline his games.

I guess that his games stretch so much that he always end up in modern era with plenty units, particularly on the AI side. He may also uncheck the time victory, what would make this state of facts more true yet.
 
Well, your games are streamlined and you never do a thing which is not necessary. By consequent, you have short, fast pace games that does not allow you to see too much things. I mean, you end them early.

As I understood it, Moshelevi is not the kind of guy who streamline his games.

I guess that his games stretch so much that he always end up in modern era with plenty units, particularly on the AI side. He may also uncheck the time victory, what would make this state of facts more true yet.

I think you misunderstand the kind of player I am :lol:. I WISH it were true that I never did anything unnecessary...if any player can make such a claim for civ IV and not lie, they're the best player in the world. Sadly, that's not me :(.

I play quickly, but the range of dates on the finishes I see are quite varied (example: LHC genghis khan ended in 1948 AD for me, also at immortal but very late...as late as that difficulty can go really. I won UN 6 turns before an AI ship landed). There were...a LOT of units in that game, and some AIs that are on the higher end of unitprobs (two that have unitprobs identical to that of Bismark, who I'm assuming moshlevi meant because it's even less plausible with freddy). Even there, no 150 unit stack on a very late finish. A couple AIs had 50 unit stacks though. On the flip side, I played out a monarch game this past week where I won a continents conquest ~ 1675 AD. Very mixed bag of experience...and a LOT of games played! That's why I'm somewhat confident in what I'm saying here.

I can see a high difficulty marathon game with a trapped warmonger throwing 150 unit stacks around. I guess if you don't do anything and disable time victories and nobody manages a win, you might see some big stacks in the 2000's+, so while it is possible it just isn't PLAUSIBLE that some noble AI was just sitting pretty with 150 units in one city. But even if all that were true to the letter, it doesn't change my point.

There are lots of easy ways to shred 150 units with a tech lead, and once you factor in WW and diplo it's not clear that nukes are better in the role than arty, cannons, bombers, etc. Early war prevents even seeing 150 units, too.

Also, playing streamlined vs not is a very real consideration. There is an opportunity cost for delaying the game, and that opportunity might be winning or achieving a winning position sooner. If a player does choose to pass that window up, he has no business arguing that nukes (or any one unit) were his only way out. By the time he used them, that was probably so, but that's only due to his previous choices forcing it that way.

A good barometer can be seen from the aggregate community though. *some* players use nukes. Mirthradir is a deity player and he will use them to win. He used them in the same game I spoilered here, on the same difficulty and speed AND victory condition, and he did beat my finish about 10-20 turns faster. But my estimate is that most of those 10-20 turns is explained by the fact that he is a DEITY player, not by his unit choice ;).

If nukes were really so overpowering, we'd see more of them in standard forum games, especially from players who are struggling to win any kind of victory they can scrape after they move up. However, as the host of several series I can say that I have rarely, if ever, seen nukes used in that context. If anything, the #1 most common difficulty-jump unit is either the cannon or some tool of an early rush from what I've seen. Aside from mirth I've not seen a high level player (other than myself a few times) use a nuke in a long time (though obsolete used to fire them off in forum games a ton too, and maybe he did recently, not sure). Not in the deity challenges, not in immortal university, not in monarch student, not in nobles club, not in lonely hearts club, etc. The most convincing wins in the recent deity domination challenge (which I lost) were either infantry or cavalry. I don't think a single player, win or lose, even fired a nuke there.

There's just no body of evidence suggesting they're as strong as moshlevi lets on here. There's a ton behind what I'm saying -----> other options are not only viable, but *usually* stronger as well.
 
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