Civ Illustrated #1 (Know Your Enemy)

WastinTime said:

Probably because you have a vassal. Ragnar will combine his feelings for you and the vassal civ.

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Yes, I tend to agreed though the -1 for having a vassal has already been deducted from my Diplomacy with Ragnar. How is the combined Diplomacy computed? Simple average or is the vassal weighted 1/2 to the player's weight of 1? Ragnar has -7 Diplomacy with my vassal, so I need to lose that vassal to get a Defensive Pact.

Sun Tzu Wu

Sun Tzu Wu said:

Yes, I tend to agreed though the -1 for having a vassal has already been deducted from my Diplomacy with Ragnar. How is the combined Diplomacy computed? Simple average or is the vassal weighted 1/2 to the player's weight of 1? Ragnar has -7 Diplomacy with my vassal, so I need to lose that vassal to get a Defensive Pact.

Sun Tzu Wu

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6) ...
The second way to continue trading with a civ after WFYABTA is reached besides both of you having terrible scores is to reach Friendly with the target civ. Friendly civs will always trade techs to you . This can become a problem later if you pick up a vassal. Other civs consider their status with you to be the combined diplo rating of you and your vassal. So if you are Friendly with Brennus but Brennus is Annoyed with your vassal, then Brennus will most likely secretly be (Friendly+Annoyed)= Pleased with you and will show you the WFYABTA message even though you think you are Friendly with him.

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From how I understand it, it's half and half. I'm not certain though, so I said "combined"

Maybe Tachywaxon knows for sure.

the UI lies to you.

The stand between you and Ragnar is influenced by the situation between your vassal and Ragnar.

It's one of things TmIt likes to rumble about when criticizing CIV.

Just wanted to say, that I use this guide, of which I myself wrote quite a lot, quite often, as AI behaviour is so much, that if one wanted to know this all, one would have to study CIV.

Kaitzilla, all the other Civ Illustrated Members and at last me wrote this, so playing Deity without having to study CIV is possible, but also to help everyone else.

It's gotten really well, a big thanks and :gj: to everyone again!

I use it now and then too. Recently I was exploring Peace Vassals and this came in handy.

Seraiel said:

Just wanted to say, that I use this guide, of which I myself wrote quite a lot, quite often, as AI behaviour is so much, that if one wanted to know this all, one would have to study CIV.

Kaitzilla, all the other Civ Illustrated Members and at last me wrote this, so playing Deity without having to study CIV is possible, but also to help everyone else.

It's gotten really well, a big thanks and :gj: to everyone again!

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Now I feel bad for not mentioning you and the guide in my acknowledgements after winning my first deity game. I think the guide has been very important for me to be able to reach to that level and you have my sincere gratitude.

Folket said:

Now I feel bad for not mentioning you and the guide in my acknowledgements after winning my first deity game. I think the guide has been very important for me to be able to reach to that level and you have my sincere gratitude.

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You're welcome.

I think it was Kaitzilla who said, that this guide would create new Deity players, which would be the ones to bring new life to high lvl play in these forums.

I'm glad to actually see this happen, and think all of the team feel joy about this.

Giving credits btw. is something important, where & when doesn't matter that much, important is that one does give back, as not doing so can be cause to certain illnesses.

Be careful,

Seraiel

I've played better, but I'm still nowhere near deity. Glad to see you back, Seraiel.

Got something for you happyturtle

Sneak preview of whats probably gonna get Replay #8:

Haha! I remember when I got my very first Great General in Civ, I didn't know what I was doing and accidentally attached it to a catapult.

Minor flaw:

Will trade techs that don't unlock units or buildings to human when 30% of the other AIs also know the tech

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Shouldn't it be "techs that do unlock units or buildings", since AI ignores that "monopoly condition" regarding techs that don't (Monarchy, Printing Press etc).

Lone Wolf said:

Minor flaw:

Will trade techs that don't unlock units or buildings to human when 30% of the other AIs also know the tech

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Shouldn't it be "techs that do unlock units or buildings", since AI ignores that "monopoly condition" regarding techs that don't (Monarchy, Printing Press etc).

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I actually wanted to cut the phrase out entirely and write "Will trade techs to human when 30% of the other AIs also know the tech", but this game mechanic wasn't completely understood by the Civ Illustrated team at the time.
I could have written "that don't unlock lots of units or buildings" or "that do unlock only a few units or buildings" and feel justified saying either.


But!
Thanks to the entirely underappreciated researcher Tachywaxon's extreme efforts, it might now be possible to predict with 100% accuracy when an AI will trade a non-monopoly tech to you.
This information has been in the public domain long enough (1 year + 2 days) to no longer be a secret weapon for SGOTM teams.
I will link it here from its original SGOTM16 Kakumeika thread post:


So, "We don't want to start trading away this technology just yet" appears to have been definitely solved if you don't mind using a spreadsheet



**Edit**
Now that I look, I see I'll have to explain the health bar trick. Give me a day.

If the spreadsheet could be tested a bit more by people during actual games (windowed mode? or maybe a lot of alt+tabbing? more than 1 monitor $_$), I will rewrite the "We don't want to start trading away this technology just yet" section on the front page to feature it.


And if you like this app, please check out Tachywaxon's personal thread on game mechanics. Full of good info and theories.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=464503

I see. Perhaps a "value modified by the units and buildings the tech unlocks" might be better?

Lone Wolf said:

I see. Perhaps a "value modified by the units and buildings the tech unlocks" might be better?

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Hmm, perhaps this wording?:



Trying to keep it as short and simple as possible


@WastinTime below
Ya, tried to leave the long explanations at the start of the guide.

I just can't for the life of my devise a short and accurate way to phrase it by myself
Updated again for what I think you mean as suggestion and I thank you for it




Also, I now agree that the number of turns before an AI will talk peace with 0 war success can be included if it is accurate info. Will test it.
The longer explanation and math to perform calculations with negative or positive war success and threatening cities using Aggressive AI setting can be put at the start of the guide.

Also, can probably include border tensions and the diplomatic threshold for demanding vassal resources without possibility of war and loss of vassal.

maybe this notation:

30%*
* depending on...

Demanding things from vassals would be great to know.

Here is the health bar trick so you can estimate the strongest unit in the game to accurately use Tachywaxon's tech trading tool.


First, open up your game options using the escape button and in the graphics tab select "Show Health Bars"




Zoom in as close as you can onto your strongest unit in your real game and take a screenshot.

Next, open a test game up and use worldbuilder to add units until your unit has about the same health bar as your real game unit.



Once the real game unit's health bar matches the test game unit's health bar when comparing screenshots, the strongest unit in the real game has the same strength as the strongest unit in your test game


If someone doesn't know how to take or access civ 4 screenshots, I can talk them through it in this thread.

Pro tip: If you have 500 screenshots, don't delete screenshot number 100 through 300.
If you do that and take more screenshots, Civ 4 will save them as Screenshot 100, Screenshot 101, Screenshots 102 etc in the middle of your screenshot folder and you will drive yourself insane wondering why the game doesn't seem to be putting new screenshots into your folder. You will have to take 200 screenshots before you start seeing 501, 502, etc.

Awesome guide great, great job. Thanks Kaitzilla and other to favs

Been using this a fair bit, but have question regarding when the AI stops plotting war.

Basically say Wang starts plotting (against me). I get him up to pleased, but he will still declare after a couple of turns. I can beg 1gpt to get a 10 turn peace treaty, but is there a certain mechanic that directs when he will stop plotting?

Basically, he can't plot at pleased, but can remain plotting at pleased if he's already started. Is there anything I can do to stop him plotting? (assuming he can't be bribed onto someone else)

Jelloholic said:

Been using this a fair bit, but have question regarding when the AI stops plotting war.

Basically say Wang starts plotting (against me). I get him up to pleased, but he will still declare after a couple of turns. I can beg 1gpt to get a 10 turn peace treaty, but is there a certain mechanic that directs when he will stop plotting?

Basically, he can't plot at pleased, but can remain plotting at pleased if he's already started. Is there anything I can do to stop him plotting? (assuming he can't be bribed onto someone else)

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Discouraging the AI to pursue their war plannings is generally not possible. Begging to received an enforced peace treaty will solely delay the inevitable. Indeed, if he started plotting at CAUTIOUS, whatever the attitude of the present time, he will commit his petty war.

Still, I am sure some have seen those rare and strange behaviours where the AI gives up and gets out of plotting. It's mostly an independent choice related to the AI development. Basically, in the very definition of war planifications, the AI has to crank up a decent flow of units with specific scripts (mainly UNITAI_ATTACK, UNITAI_CITY_ATTACK, etc) relatively to its empire development. If the empire grows too fast relatively to the military investment according to a certain threshold, then the AI gives up any war planning. Most probably it's coded that way to express an AI with a weak production capacity or the lack of need started a war for expansion because the empire's strong growth is indicator of the large unclaimed lands just acquired (expansion phase). So basically, everything that helps in their growth may help in abandoning their war plans. Of course, giving cities/settlers would be more absurd than giving in to the war. But sharing more health/happy resources may raise their happy/health cap, thus allowing you to gamble a little on that.

Otherwise, remains the cases of tribute refusals. Those war plans are decided when you refuse a tribute and are special in how to dismantle them: the enforced treaty suffices to dispel their intentions.

At last, the most common way to divert their attention is bribing someone onto them, but beware, that won't work on a sneak attack (tribute refusal) or the bribe takes the form of an AP resolution.