TSG3 Game in Progress

Having mentioned how horrible I think the design of this game is, I actually want to sing some praises. Because...I am seriously falling in love with this AI!

I've read a number of the threads complaining about broken AI and I dunno...I think maybe it's just WAY WAY TRICKIER than we think. Case in point:

About 1750AD I'm through 2 social policies and close to a third (yea I know I suck, that's not the point. First time at this difficulty level mkay?) I've slapped Ramses down hard, because I thought I wanted Memphis (a port city which has been pretty useless actually - embarkation is...weird.) Running 4 cities and 4ish puppets. (I play a lot of succession games off-forum and take copious notes...It ticks me off that I can't alt-tab between Civ 5 and other programs anymore without crashing the game. I'm choosing to blame Steam for this, since I despise Steam anyways. And yes I can't remember the names or how many puppet cities I have. They are the drunk-dial girlfriends of cities in Civ 5.)

Anyways so of course I'm getting a big chunk of my culture-per-turn from city states, especially Florence (on our continent) and I'm also relatively dependent on maritime states (including Venice on our continent) for extra food to run specialists. I'm super-friendly with everyone in the world (Montie even gives me stuff for free because he's afraid of me) and I've been running trades left and right, especially Iron which I like to give away to whoever is fighting wars against the stronger AIs. (What ME aid and abet the enemy? Nuh uh!"

Anyways. What does my Good Buddy(TM?) Songhai do but attack Venice. I immediately ask him to stop, and he does - "Whoops sorry we didn't know they were your allies, sorry, sorry." 5 turns or so later what does he do but attack Florence. "Whoops sorry my bad, sorry, didn't know you were protecting them, I'll stop, sorry."

NOW sneaky bandit, what's he done? Totally ticked off all the city states that's what! So THEY declare all out war on Songhai. Every city state in the WORLD declares war on Songhai. Well what's he supposed to do except take over Venice (MY FOOD) and Florence (MY CULTURE)? They attacked HIM after all. He would be happy to stop fighting them since I ask, but they've declared all-out war on him and there is no mechanic for the player to ask city states to stop warring.

This is like, so totally awesome, I want to hug somebody. This was EXACTLY what the AI needed to do to stop my culture advance. And he played it exactly like a human player might - "What me? I didn't declare war, I just signed 3 pacts of secrecy, gifted units to their mortal enemy, and demanded 300 gold for nothing, I mean really, I don't understand why [insert civ] want to go to war with me?" SO COOL!

Now, admittedly I have rifles and artillery and Songhai has pikemen, and Hiawatha is jumping at the gate to get in on the smackdown action. So it doesn't take long for me to decimate Songhai (yea thanks Hiawatha you snooze you lose) and liberate my citystate buddies. Still, this was EXACTLY what I feared (why I made a point to build some military capability) and was IMO the best choice the AI could make to stymie my plans at this stage. Had Siam (my real rival, on the other continent) joined in I would have been done for...still, that would have smacked of cheating since I've really managed to keep Siam and Songhai apart from each other and there is really no reason for them to ally (Siam, of course, is allies with a number of city states as well.)

Anyways, I just want to say, unlike everybody else I've read on this forum I think the Civ 5 AI is awesome! While playing I still wish I had the designers sitting next to me so I could punch them in the face repeatedly for all the insultingly stupid design flub-ups they've made, but the AIs actions go a long, long ways towards making this game actually fun for me. I am really loving it.

I also expect to lose this game, as Siam is running away and I think I am going to have to nuke him. I could easily win the game but the point was to achieve a cultural victory and I think if I nuke Siam that's going out the window. Still, with what seemed like some extremely smart play on the AIs part in this game, it's actually been a ton of fun despite all my complaining about the interface and design (none of which I retract). I DO think this game is fixable, I'm just still pissed that I paid $50 for what was essentially a beta test version. Dear Firaxis: next time I will spend $10 for a used copy of your game, and you will get no money from me, because I don't trust you to release a workable first version. Congratulations!

metalmadt said:

Not at all. You can still have a huge puppet empire and benefit from the France bonus without raising your SP increment.



Hum... do I really have to work on my english or is he insulting our moderator team. Can we ban that guy??

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France gets +2 bonus for puppet cities as well? See, this is where a halfway decent 'pedia would help.

I don't mean to insult moderators at all, and I don't think I am insulting the developers - just telling it like it is. I remain EXTREMELY PISSED that I was sold what is apparently a beta-test version of this game. I signed up for this forum specifically to post about problems I see in Civ 5, because I believe in the franchise and I believe Firaxis does want to make decent products. I don't especially enjoy writing about all the problems in the release, which comes across in my writing.

As for the modders, I think you guys are awesome. Thing is, you should be modding a game that works, in order to make it better, not modding a broken release to make it workable. IMO Firaxis should be paying all the modders a fee. IMO Firaxis should be paying ME a fee for beta-testing their game for them! Certainly previous versions of Civ were not perfect, but I do not remember anything being even remotely this unfinished (and I've been playing since Civ I came out when I was in junior high school.)

Ban me, whatever, I don't care. Having had the opportunity to express how absolutely disgusted I am with the way in which Firaxis have treated their customers with this release, I don't think there's a whole lot more for me to say. I honestly believe Firaxis want to do the right thing and will patch this game to make it work. I guess we'll see. Unfortunately when/if Civ 6 comes around, I will remember this travesty and will wait at least a year before buying.

I just played a French King Cultural game, so for the heck of it I'm going to play this one with one city only, and maybe puppet the other AIs on the continent for additional cities. My plan is to tech first with GL to get Civil Service, go down the Patronage tree and get some CS friends to give me food and culture and units, rather than saving up my policies. Conquest later (no horseman rush).

Early status report: I just used the Great Library to slingshot ... Trapping.

You do know that you can at least delay having to pick the free tech till your currently researched tech is finished by pressing shift-enter for the next turn? But getting trapping is hard...

CharonJr

CharonJr said:

You do know that you can at least delay having to pick the free tech till your currently researched tech is finished by pressing shift-enter for the next turn? But getting trapping is hard...

CharonJr

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Didn't know that, that's useful information.

CharonJr said:

You do know that you can at least delay having to pick the free tech till your currently researched tech is finished by pressing shift-enter for the next turn? But getting trapping is hard...

CharonJr

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Oh, cool - very good to know.

In this case I was unaware that Civil Service had a Trapping pre-requisite, and I was blissfully teching Bronze Working at the time ...

Having sung the praises of the Civ 5 AI in this one instance...I should point out that in the after-action report I explain that it still ended up making extremely stupid mistakes. Siam had something in excess of 30,000 gold and built the UN...yet was unable to buy up enough city state allies to win. (Whereas I was barely making enough to buy enough votes to block him...) Dumb, da dumb dumb.

ChevalierdeJstn said:

Having sung the praises of the Civ 5 AI in this one instance...I should point out that in the after-action report I explain that it still ended up making extremely stupid mistakes. Siam had something in excess of 30,000 gold and built the UN...yet was unable to buy up enough city state allies to win. (Whereas I was barely making enough to buy enough votes to block him...) Dumb, da dumb dumb.

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As they say... even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Actually only broken clock show absolutely right time twice the day, you only do not know when.

Well working clock in never right.

1420AD. Have puppeted my entire continent with longswordsmen, knights, and a trebuchet, leaving Askia and Ramesses one crap city each. I was reluctant to take their massive peace deals offering all their remaining non-capital cities, because I wanted to stick to my one city plan.

(When you receive a city in a peace deal, do you have the option of puppeting/razing it?)

Edit: yes, you do

Oda and Wu just declared on me but they're on the other continent - they're mainly a threat to my allied city states, and I'll probably be forced to embark some musketmen over there to deal with them.

I only have one French city, Paris, but my puppeted cities are a huge happiness problem and I was forced to build Forbidden Palace to compensate.

Despite not beelining for Cristo Redentor or Sistine Chapel, or even run any artist specialists or generated any GAs, the SPs are rolling in smoothly ...

OK... Siam has ben at war with me since like 1100AD (its now 1924AD). His power is way higher than mine, as is his tech rate. Tons of infantry and I have a few rifles that were musketeers not so long ago. The only thing I have that he lacks is...

a coastal city! (And here I thought the embarkation feature made coastal settling unecessary or even folly).

ROTFLOL! I can withstand the might of the vastly superior forces on the other continent with a single friggin trireme. Too bad I don't get XP for sinking mech inf.

Just chugging along getting culture with my 3 founded cities and maybe a dozen puppets (have only gone to war when attacked).

Siam sometimes makes me peace offers, too.. like "Give me all your cities, your luxuries, cash, and gold per turn, for peace." No thanks. Get a boat or get lost, dude.

My strategy is ICS for
1. Culture boost
2. Tech boost

I've saved social policies until freedom for free speech. When ICS started I've also unlocked Liberty for meritocracy and representation. Then saved for Christo Redentor. I am not sure, but I think I'll need about 27.000 Culture points for unlocking Utopia Project (after selling cities).

Beelined to Aristocracy and unfortunately lost the race to Oracle!! Hope this won't be a huge hit to culture victory.

Conquered my side and had 18 cities by turn 158. It was hard to settle more cities due to happiness malus.
Got allied with all maritime and cultural CS (without unlocking patronage). That way all cities could grow to about 5 pop with a massive tech and culture output (build order was library, monument, temple).

The AI aggressiveness is pretty crazy in this game. Japan, China, Sian all declared war on me on turn 169. I am only in peace with Monti and hope, that this will remain until I'll be able to give him some cities.

I come into this game hoping to play as peacefully as possible, and focus very heavily on culture. I’m not going to try anything super-tricky like massive expansion followed by eliminating cities. In fact I’m planning to keep my empire small and be peaceful if possible. But I do intend to beeline to Acoustics as best I can so I can quickly unlock Piety and Freedom policies. I didn’t think to pay attention to turns/dates early on so I’m hazy on exactly when most of what I’m describing occurs.

I sent my Warrior southish to scout, saw nothing too great. But fog-gazing led me to believe there was a coastline due east. So I moved my Settler across the river in hopes of being on the shore, no such luck. All of the coastal locations turn out to be either far from the resources or the river, so I reluctantly settle 1E of start.

I build a Scout to start. In hindsight, a bad choice. Made even worse when my initial Warrior gets killed. After I complete my first Worker I’m forced to build another Warrior before I can settle in on my real goal of early wonders. I’m a bit torn between the Great Library and Stonehenge, I settle on the GL and with the help of a purchased Library, finish researching Philosophy just before completing it. This allows me Theology as my free tech and enter the Medieval Era. I choose the now-unlocked Piety, Organized Religion, and Mandate of Heaven as my first three policies.

While the GL is under construction Ramses and Hiawatha are expanding. The juicy spot with all the sugar to the NW goes quickly, and Iroquois cities are pushing east down the river. I purchase a settler and send it north to the mouth of the next river up, with access to Wine. I have to settle it next to a Barbarian Encampment and use its bombardment and my lone Warrior to fight those off. After finishing the GL, I spend 5-6 turns building another Settler, which goes west and settles on the river with Wheat Horses and Cattle access. Paris then begins the Oracle. Early on Orleans and Lyons both concentrate on building Spearmen and Archers so I won’t look like a total pushover to the AI.

Some things never change. The Oracle is constructed in a faraway land in 825 BC, with 1 turn of construction left to go in Paris. By now I am seriously questioning not picking up Tradition and its wonder-boosting Aristocracy policy instead of the Piety stuff. Mandate of Heaven isn’t that much extra culture. Ah well.

With the Oracle gone, I have Paris concentrate on producing a Great Scientist to bulb Education on Turn 95. Paris began building the Porcelain Tower shortly thereafter, with an eye toward producing another Great Scientist to get me Acoustics. This goes off without a hitch, and on Turn 122 I enter the Renaissance and activate Freedom and Constitution. Free Speech has to wait another 15 turns or so. I’ve been so focused on tech beelining, wonders, and making a credible military that I haven’t built that many culture buildings yet so my rate is ho hum. I’d really like to get wonders in Lyon and Orleans though, to benefit from the 100% boost from Constitution. I decide to build Notre Dame in Lyon and the Hagia Sophia in Orleans, mainly because I’m fairly confident no one else has the techs to build them yet. I complete them both within a few turns of each other, in turn 172.

While this is going on, Paris works on buildings and military, while also trying to produce another Great Scientist. My strategy is losing focus now that I’ve achieved my semi-beeline to Freedom. I have the idea that I’m better off using my native research to get secondary techs like Currency, and bulb my way through the expensive stuff along the top of the tech tree to get to Archaeology. This is rather dubious, since it’s going to take a long time to generate that many scientists. Plus it will limit my production of Great Arists that contribute more directly to culture when all is said and done. I think I’m biased by how much worse they seem compared to Civ 4. But I generate the Great Scientist as planned and then make a massive blunder by using him immediately to bulb Astronomy… which isn’t available yet since I haven’t researched Compass. Chagrined, I select the most expensive tech I can get: Machinery.

It’s now 1120 AD, and I need to reassess my situation. The three cities I have are all I’m going to get without a fight, there’s no decent land left. Ramses is quite large and close, his lack of interest in a treaty of Cooperation is worrisome. So is the fact that Hiawatha just canceled our Cooperation treaty , but he looks weak enough that I think I can take him. I’m still hoping it won’t come to that though. As best I can understand the AI’s thinking, both Ramses and Hiawatha admire leaders with lots of happiness and culture.

I decide to build up my economy and research rate so I can tech properly, and focus on making Great Artists instead of Great Scientists. I also plan to get into the Patronage tree in a big way and start buying city state assistance.

Hit a fairly nasty bug here. It seems that there is a certain chance that if you get cities from a peace agreement the computer no longer takes the city tile itself into account for calculating food/hammers/gold.

Essentially I had one city which barely produced anything and grew by 1 food despite maritime CS providing 8 IIRC and the other did not grew at all and did not even produce anything since the addition tile it worked only produced 2 food and 2 gold.

Oh well, back from turn 150 to 90 for me, the last autosave before peace with the AI.

Seems to be a fairly new/unknown bug as well, at least the mod in the bug section didnt know about it.

So keep looking for cities you got from peace agreements which dont grow as fast or produce as fast as they shoudl. If you see a city coming out of "revolt" and not producing anything it is the best clue, but very high production times are a good clue, too. Just dont waste 60 turns like I did

CharonJr

CharonJr said:

Hit a fairly nasty bug here. It seems that there is a certain chance that if you get cities from a peace agreement the computer no longer takes the city tile itself into account for calculating food/hammers/gold.

Essentially I had one city which barely produced anything and grew by 1 food despite maritime CS providing 8 IIRC and the other did not grew at all and did not even produce anything since the addition tile it worked only produced 2 food and 2 gold.

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Was your civ happy enough?

Perhaps you should post the save by attaching it, if you still have it, so we can have a look?

Attached a save in the bug-forum, but feel free to take a look there. Since I played 51 turns with those cities I am very certain that is is not a happiness issue, the other cities were growing nicely

CharonJr

I resisted the temptation to jump into this game and played a game with France on the same settings. It definitely helped; I'm doing much better in this game.

I settled on the marble. With Aristocracy and marble, the wonders fell in my lap. The Oracle, the the GL, from which I received CS, and then the Pyramids.

I built the Orleans three squares of Paris and then Lyon, three squares west of that, by the horses. And that was the end of the city building. Blah, blah, blah, at turn 200 I had eliminated the other three civ's on the west, all their cities are now puppets, and the CS are allies. Two branches down, but a long way to go. I hope I can finish by Tuesday.

Well, this is turning into a very interesting, and challenging game, for me at least.

One thing I've decided I don't care for so much is the fast combat. I'd rather see how my units are taking a beating rather than getting the notifications at the beginning of the turn. But that's a minor point.

On to the game. Hiawatha took a disliking to me early in the game, so I had to puppet a couple of his cities to show him his place. I have 2 cities, Paris and Orleans, and neither is coastal. Since I failed to settle on the coast, I was forced to Annex Almity for a coastal city in order to explore the eastern continent.

I was building peacefully for awhile, when Ramsees decided to get all uppity on me and decided to attack my musketeers and cavalry with rifles and cannons. At first things didn't go too well, but by fighting defensively and forcing him to attack me on terrain where I had an advantage, I held him off. And just before the screenshot below, I took Sidon away from him.

Culture-wise, I have 2 full trees and about 5 other SPs taken, so I am not sure if I will finish, but it will be a good and instructive game for me no matter how it ends.

This game is crashing on me, and everytime I load up the autosave it happens again. I think its because Copenhagen just declared civil war....

@John-SJ and some others - a coastal city is actually not required to explore the other continent. Research Optics (which is on the main path to Archaeology anyway) and your land units can embark. Granted, it is a little risky if there are barbarian galleys around, but on the whole I find it a much easier method than purposely building a coastal city.

A coastal city has other perks however. Being coastal is a requirement to build the Sydney Opera House (free SP) for example. And if you have sea resources like pearls or whales then you'll need one to build work boats.