Open Borders - is it worth it or not ?
- Thread starter Camillo
- Start date
I can't fully interpret the code (but thanks for posting it), but from what I see in my late games something seems to interfere with the intended effect.
I'm in the very late phase of a King game (5 techs from Nanotech) . I'm actually going for a SV but I started trying for CV initially and I'm influential over 6 out of 11 civs (the other four have been fully conquered), and have 3x the tourism as anyone (200, raw. My closest rival I'm already influential over has 70). I won't win culturally because I avoid building NVC (I'm Venice, nearly all cultural stuff is in my capital...) and researching the Internet on purpose, and I've refused to renew the deal where I paid 1 gpt for OB and stopped sending my TR to the top cultural civ I'm now popular (61%) with, otherwise I will win culturally before I finish my spaceship and I want to send Venice in space this time. If all works out, I'll win a SV one civ away, and probably not by that many turns, from also winning culturally.
The higher tourism Civs keep coming to ask for OB and send TR to me perhaps in part for the tourism bonus, so that aspect works fine and better than pre-patch I would say. But the top 3 cultural civs, friendly to me, still agree to let me buy OB from them for 1-2 gpt or less (I just don't do it, and have let the deals lapse without renewal once popular with them) even though I will definitely win culturally if I accepted.
So that part is probably not working as well as likely intended. I'm very friendly and share ideology with all three, so maybe that outweigh too much their fear of my cultural victory? Edit: (actually they're not "friendly" they're all afraid of my nukes).
Or maybe it's only when I build (but I won't) the NVC or Internet they'd freak and refuse OB anymore but if that is so it would be too late to have any hope to stop me. Right now two Civs are going for domination, possibly, but they're many capitals short of winning. Another is going for a SV but is building Apollo when I'm rushing along the bottom of the tree to Nanotech, and I'm done. Only one civ maybe hopes for cultural victory, but he's influential with two and even though I'll leave him the opportunity to build CN tower for his wide civ, and Sydney Opera House, but I've run away with science now and he's many techs from there.
That's King (and I should really be playing Emperor or even Immortal when I play Venice at this point), but the only thing I've found the AI more competitive with since the patch is with its science and city placement. In my three last games I've run away by the Renaissance, then a few civs suddenly expanded (settling or conquest), put up universities pronto and caught up or so with me in Industrial/modern and it's by conquering a capital, puppetting 2 more 16 pop CS (I'm at my widest Venice ever, and by a long shot, with 8 puppets and 6 conquered cities), with GS, RA, getting RL in 14 cities earlier then them that I finally run away for good, around mid-Atomic or so, with another jump with Hubble with a saved GE. I'm at 87% of the tree, with the average now at 71%... When I reached Modern I was #2 at 2% behind the leader and 2 other civs were on par with me...
As for the AI making diplo win or cultural win more difficult by refusing OB and such, I don't feel the effects of the changes much. Not quite enough to my taste anyway.
I'm in the very late phase of a King game (5 techs from Nanotech) . I'm actually going for a SV but I started trying for CV initially and I'm influential over 6 out of 11 civs (the other four have been fully conquered), and have 3x the tourism as anyone (200, raw. My closest rival I'm already influential over has 70). I won't win culturally because I avoid building NVC (I'm Venice, nearly all cultural stuff is in my capital...) and researching the Internet on purpose, and I've refused to renew the deal where I paid 1 gpt for OB and stopped sending my TR to the top cultural civ I'm now popular (61%) with, otherwise I will win culturally before I finish my spaceship and I want to send Venice in space this time. If all works out, I'll win a SV one civ away, and probably not by that many turns, from also winning culturally.
The higher tourism Civs keep coming to ask for OB and send TR to me perhaps in part for the tourism bonus, so that aspect works fine and better than pre-patch I would say. But the top 3 cultural civs, friendly to me, still agree to let me buy OB from them for 1-2 gpt or less (I just don't do it, and have let the deals lapse without renewal once popular with them) even though I will definitely win culturally if I accepted.
So that part is probably not working as well as likely intended. I'm very friendly and share ideology with all three, so maybe that outweigh too much their fear of my cultural victory? Edit: (actually they're not "friendly" they're all afraid of my nukes).
Or maybe it's only when I build (but I won't) the NVC or Internet they'd freak and refuse OB anymore but if that is so it would be too late to have any hope to stop me. Right now two Civs are going for domination, possibly, but they're many capitals short of winning. Another is going for a SV but is building Apollo when I'm rushing along the bottom of the tree to Nanotech, and I'm done. Only one civ maybe hopes for cultural victory, but he's influential with two and even though I'll leave him the opportunity to build CN tower for his wide civ, and Sydney Opera House, but I've run away with science now and he's many techs from there.
That's King (and I should really be playing Emperor or even Immortal when I play Venice at this point), but the only thing I've found the AI more competitive with since the patch is with its science and city placement. In my three last games I've run away by the Renaissance, then a few civs suddenly expanded (settling or conquest), put up universities pronto and caught up or so with me in Industrial/modern and it's by conquering a capital, puppetting 2 more 16 pop CS (I'm at my widest Venice ever, and by a long shot, with 8 puppets and 6 conquered cities), with GS, RA, getting RL in 14 cities earlier then them that I finally run away for good, around mid-Atomic or so, with another jump with Hubble with a saved GE. I'm at 87% of the tree, with the average now at 71%... When I reached Modern I was #2 at 2% behind the leader and 2 other civs were on par with me...
As for the AI making diplo win or cultural win more difficult by refusing OB and such, I don't feel the effects of the changes much. Not quite enough to my taste anyway.
This is situation. As another poster has described, it can become aggressive if it can't reach another opponent because you are in the way.
There's another way refusal of OB can cause AI aggression, when your borders have one of their units trapped... this happened in one game I was playing, the AI was exploring and used a narrow gap between two of my cities into an area with no exits. My borders expanded next turn trapping the unit. It sat there for a few turns but couldn't get out. The AI asked for OB, I refused. A short while later they asked for OB again, I refused (was being really antisocial this particular game, shortly after G&K came out because the DoF one-way Gimmefreestuffevenwhenmyempireisstronger mechanic had annoyed me to hell and back previous game). Finally they DoW and their unit ran through my borders back the way it had come (didn't attack anything, just a wandering scout). The AI hadn't prepped for war so it took quite some time for units to even bother showing up, this wasn't a sneak attack so much as an act of frustration/desperation in my opinion.
Cicerosaurus
Emperor
They can always scout your territory with a Great Prophet.
Aristos
Lightseeker
If you look at the posted code, you will see that the Diplo AI checks for the grand strategy, not for how close or not you are to win. That can only make us conclude one of two things: either the function that tries to "guess" the grand strategy of the rival is flawed, or the function is not guessing that your strategy is CV but something else in your scenario. From what I read of your description, I would say it is the latter. You are not giving signs of going clearly for cultural, but for science (and you even describe that). I would say that is pretty interesting, because if it is correct, that means we can "fool" the AI guessing with some nasty maneuvering around some grand strategy.
Bottom line, I don't think the function is broken. It may need adjustment, in any case, but I have seen it working.
1. Nope, but they might keep asking you if you refuse. Just buy theirs but don't give them yours. Having open boarders to AI also helps you with cultural influences, so always try to get OB from AI while not giving them yours.
2. Nope. Not that I noticed, except they keep asking your for it (unless you do trade in example 1)
3. Yes. Again, by theirs.
4. Yes, but DP aren't that great. You could end up in a war that you don't want, possibly with some civ that gives you huge income from trade routes... but if you're the strongest nation and want to keep your friend safe (let's say you have good TR with them, they give you good trade deals and research arrangements) you might do it.... or if you think some AI will declare war on your friend, and you want to take their land, sure.
5. Yes.
6. You get buff to your cultural push (25%). If going cultural, it will make sure you get that extra influence over other AIs. If not (you're tech\warmonger) it will help you out defending cultural AIs push.
ldvhl
ніщо
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True - but it's much easier for them to do it with regular units.
Thanks for the interpretation. It all makes sense. I suspected it might be that. I didn't intend to fool the AI, but I might well have. It turned into an overpowered game. Beside Culture I might still win by default I won't win by diplomacy because I'm just a few delegates short by design. In short, I handicap myself in this game. It's not a surprise if the AI is confused about the victory type I'm after.
I guess describing the situation to devs could be useful, even if it's the result of being one or two difficulty levels too low with that Civ I've learned to play well.
If the AI was more aggressive/successful in the late game with tactics to hinder you, that would indeed be a very cool aspect if you could eventually fool it.
I was never a big fan of the version of Civ in which everyone declared war and went for your capital when it was clear you'd win, so I don't miss that...
I guess what's a bit too unbalanced right now is how long the game can last after the player reached a point by which victory is unstoppable, and alas that point is very easy to spot for minimally experienced players, making that last stretch tedious. But if we don't want sheer luck/randomness to come hinder you at the end, it's a bit unavoidable... playing an excellent game but an Ai having 20% odds of sabotaging your spaceship and ruin your game. .that would suck much more.
That's good to know. I'm eager to see how it goes in a game where I won't be so overpowered, with another civ or up a level or two. It's not that usual I still have full choice for three types so late in the game.
Aristos
Lightseeker
I would say you are ready for Emperor. You may well find what you are looking for right there...
Coded ganging up (guaranteed) was one of the most hated "features" of civ 1, I still remember... it rendered diplomacy utterly useless, because the code itself was something like "if human is winning, declare war on him".
Coded ganging up (guaranteed) was one of the most hated "features" of civ 1, I still remember... it rendered diplomacy utterly useless, because the code itself was something like "if human is winning, declare war on him".
Sturmgewher88mm
Kaiser
I'm pretty sure it's coded that way in Civ Rev too... Near the end of a game you're at war with EVERYONE
Aristos
Lightseeker
I'm pretty sure it's coded that way in Civ Rev too... Near the end of a game you're at war with EVERYONE
CivRev has no consideration whatsoever in my book, so I will not comment on that aberration...
I would say you are ready for Emperor. You may well find what you are looking for right there...
Coded ganging up (guaranteed) was one of the most hated "features" of civ 1, I still remember... it rendered diplomacy utterly useless, because the code itself was something like "if human is winning, declare war on him".
That really sucked.
I've played a few games on Emperor and won one or two, on G&K. For BNW I went back to King to learn the mechanics and to learn to play Venice well as I had never done OCC or "super tall" (like many I was also under the impression it would be an harder Civ, not one of the easiest. It turns out it a Civ for which you need to understand the game well, but when you do it's a very powerful, easier than most Civ). I stayed on King after having an awesome game, the one in which I installed the patch mid-game. I had let Casimir go very wide (30+ cities) unhindered, as pre-patch I dominated him in science and militarily he couldn't really harm me. Surprise, surprise... after the patch Casimir suddenly built universities in all those cities and before long he caught up to me, then left me more and more techs behind. He blocked my cultural victory with the Great Wall, SV wasn't an option and to win diplo under the patch's new rules I had get Globalization, go to war in the last 15 turns to liberate a city, beating Casimir to it by a turn (his units were about to land) but before I could say "good job", with gunboat diplomacy, Casimir took over 2 of my CS allies and as a worker blocked passage I wouldn't be able to get my MoV into Sydney in time to get the money to buy those back before the vote (bye, bye Dido's delegates). I had to declare war on Casimir 5 turns before the session, saw the Carthaginian city I had just liberated be taken by Casimir and razed. But I managed to take from him a small English city just in time to resurrect Elizabeth, and I won. Epic finish.
That game gave me the impression the patch had done wonders and King was now awesome for me, but I adapted really fast to the better teching and tweaks and it's obvious my various Venice strategies are too fine tuned by now to have much fun on King after all (that SV of the other day was in the end a resounding one...), so now I'm moving back to Emperor or maybe Immortal if I stick to playing Venice for a while. I've never survived long on Immortal pre-BNW.
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