The All Leaders Challenge Game Bullpen

What I'd like to do is try out some sort of religious strategy in the next game with Isabella. Since that will be very different from what I usually do, I think I'd prefer to keep the other settings the same.

Now if I totally dominate that game even playing with an unfamiliar strategy, then I agree that that's a sign that I should do something to make the games more challenging. The custom settings sound like a mixed bag--I tried Aggressive AI off-line and didn't find the game that much more challenging, honestly. The main thing I noticed was a few more units and a higher price if I wanted to negotiate peace. Well, if I'm killing the AI, I usually kill them dead, so my price for peace is pretty high too.

Tech brokering also sounds like a mixed bag, like it makes some AIs stronger but several of them weaker. Frankly, I'm convinced that Gandhi traded for Military Science in the Peter game after I DoW'd, because according to espionage he wasn't researching it.

So it's sounding more and more like a move up to Emperor level will likely happen after the Isabella game. Frankly, it was always my goal to use these games to help me move up the difficulty levels anyway. I've held back on Monarch perhaps a little longer than I should have out of a concern that higher levels restrict one's strategies and therefore the opportunities to try anything innovative. But a series of cakewalks is not what this series is supposed to be about.

Also please remember that I experienced my only 2 losses in this series very recently. I don't always pwn.
 
Another thought: apparently the latest patch doesn't include Solver's as-yet-unofficial tweaks which look like they make the AI more competent and challenging.

Since I'm aiming to stick with Monarch and no custom settings for the Isabella game (which is next), what about using Solver's unofficial patch? That would give us an opportunity to measure his modifications' effectiveness in presenting a challenge without things like a higher difficulty level or custom settings throwing us off.

This is not, to my mind, much different than playing with Blake's Better AI mod for Warlords. It doesn't change the core game (much), it mainly makes the AI behave smarter, and that's something I've always wanted in Civ, since version 1 for DOS.
 
I agree with cabert on this one. Stick with monarch for the ALC's, and start doing Emperor off-line until you fell comfortable with all the new things to play with in BtS. I would also advocate the unofficial patch; it seems ood enough and a majority of players have already adopted it along with BtS 3.03.
another thing to think about is the game settings, specifically the map. Will you stay with big-and-small? or will you check out hemispheres? taht's something else to think about, especially as the peter ALC is winding down.
 
Isabella's next... too bad you're playing with her on BTS, she got nerfed badly...

+5XP to Seige from UB but... Siege can't kill anymore :S

Sure you can get a level 4 Treb with Barracks + Citadel + Civic (Spiritual), but what's the point of a CR3 Treb if It can't kill :S.... well I guess there are other promotions... but still.

UU has been pushed back to Military Tradition and also requires gunpowder, sure they can't be countered by Pikes but by that point in the game more units are being upgraded to gunpowder, that melee bonus is near useless :S

They have a VERY short lifespan even if you beeline... unless you build a stack of mounted units then upgrade.

I'd like to see you win a early religious victory with her, she's pretty much made for it, although only Gandhi and Ramesse have better synergy.
 
I don't think you should use an unofficial patch, that not everyone is using.

I do think however, you should give hemispheres a chance. I've played on some really nice maps recently with it, using these settings:

Continent size: Varied
Islands Size: Random
Number of continents: 2

And of course, temperate climate, and medium sealevels.
One of my maps actually looked a lot like a real world, very realistic. Reminded me of Planet, from Alpha Centauri.. Those were the days.. :)
 
Why would you not use the 'unofficial' patch?? It's created by people contracted to work for Firaxis, it fixes numerous bugs such as the military academy one and many many others, and it will up the ante a little ...

I can't think of one reason not to use it.

Regardless, if you're going to play Monarch, then I wouldn't use a 'pre-approved' map, since that will at least force you to think out of the box a little. That last starting position with Peter was almost far too perfect for a player of your ability.

With Isabella I'd pursue a religious victory. That was actually the first victory condition I won playing BtS (Prince), although it wasn't my intention at the start of that game.
 
kniteowl said:
Isabella's next... too bad you're playing with her on BTS, she got nerfed badly...

+5XP to Seige from UB but... Siege can't kill anymore :S

Sure you can get a level 4 Treb with Barracks + Citadel + Civic (Spiritual), but what's the point of a CR3 Treb if It can't kill :S.... well I guess there are other promotions... but still.
Click to expand...

I agree the UU was nerfed badly, but I think the change to siege units has improved the citadel. Any other civ needs two battles and withdrawls to get a siege unit to level 3. If Spain has a Citadel and is in Theocracy, a siege unit starts at level 4. Yes, you have to consider them suicide units with support to take a city now, but that just changes the promotions IMO. I think barrage has taken a higher priority than CR now, as you want to damage as many units as much as possible before dying. Then again, a treb with CR3 is less likely to die than most other siege units.

I agree that a religious victory appears to be the best option, plus it will allow people to see how you can control the world via the Apostolic Palace.
 
kniteowl said:
Isabella's next... too bad you're playing with her on BTS, she got nerfed badly...

+5XP to Seige from UB but... Siege can't kill anymore :S

Sure you can get a level 4 Treb with Barracks + Citadel + Civic (Spiritual), but what's the point of a CR3 Treb if It can't kill :S.... well I guess there are other promotions... but still.

UU has been pushed back to Military Tradition and also requires gunpowder, sure they can't be countered by Pikes but by that point in the game more units are being upgraded to gunpowder, that melee bonus is near useless :S

They have a VERY short lifespan even if you beeline... unless you build a stack of mounted units then upgrade.

I'd like to see you win a early religious victory with her, she's pretty much made for it, although only Gandhi and Ramesse have better synergy.
Click to expand...
A couple of thoughts--first off, Isabella's UU replaces the Knight, not Cavalry, so I think it could have a long lifespan if I get Guilds early enough.

Second, with the way siege weapons have been nerfed, I would say that Isabella's UB just got more powerful. Siege weapons are still necessary, but it's now devilishly hard for them to earn XPs, which enhance their survival rate. So having them get a +2 XP boost from the UB could be invaluable.
DrJambo said:
Why would you not use the 'unofficial' patch?? It's created by people contracted to work for Firaxis, it fixes numerous bugs such as the military academy one and many many others, and it will up the ante a little ...

I can't think of one reason not to use it.

Regardless, if you're going to play Monarch, then I wouldn't use a 'pre-approved' map, since that will at least force you to think out of the box a little. That last starting position with Peter was almost far too perfect for a player of your ability.

With Isabella I'd pursue a religious victory. That was actually the first victory condition I won playing BtS (Prince), although it wasn't my intention at the start of that game.
Click to expand...
I probably will start playing with Solver's patch in the next game. It just sounds too good to pass up.

I have actually only had a map "pre-approved" once, for Cyrus. Neither Peter map was checked ahead of time, and I think both games are indications of how important the starting position and the surrounding terrain can be, and also how very random that can be.

That being said, I feel entirely justified in getting a map pre-approved by a third party (in this case, the very gracious Welnic). This is the on-line game equivalent of restarting, which, come on, everyone does sometimes.

The point of the ALC games is to get the most out of each leader, and if they have an early UU, it makes for a disappointing game if they lack the necessary resource and/or they're isolated. Having the map pre-checked for those leaders avoids having to restart, which would be unwieldy for these very active threads and, frankly, what I would do in an off-line game. If I'm playing as either of the Caesars, it's so I can conquer my neighbours with a Praet rush. If I have no iron and Rome is isolated, yes, that might be challenging, but to my mind it's no fun, since I miss out on the whole point of playing as that civ. Now, if I'm isolated and playing as Roosevelt, that's a whole other story; turtling and playing builder with the Industrious trait until Navy SEALS are available is perfectly viable there.

Now, I don't see a reason to have a map pre-approved unless, like Cyrus, there's an early UU that requires certain conditions to get the most out of it--specifically, availability of the required strategic resource and victims--er, neighbours. If you recall, Welnic's choice of map for Cyrus didn't make things easy for me. Horses were not in the capital's BFC, and I had an Aggressive neighbour and a Financial one.

As for Isabella, I won't be getting that game's map pre-approved either since she doesn't meet those criteria. Who does? Of the remaining ALC leaders, definitely Gilgamesh, Shaka, Boudica, Brennus, Pericles, Sitting Bull, Julius Caesar, Augustus Caesar, Ramesses, Pacal, and Darius; maybe Suryavarman, Wang Kon, and Genghis Khan, though I think I'll take my chances with them.
 
Actually, with spies in the game now, you need a lot less siege units, possibly none at all like in my last game, well, I had some, but they never saw action. Just select yer closest neighbor to receive all of your EP and then push for a city revolt just before you attack, be sure to have more than one spy unless yer a gamblin man ;)

Why wait 2 or 3 rounds of destroying a cities defences, then suicide units into a city when they cant even kill something, when you can just incite revolt, inciiiiiite revoooolt.
 
Sorry, double posted read below :crazyeye:
 
If you haven't tried the Aggressive AI it's suppose to be highly recommended with BTS, I guess it was totally changed to be more opportunistic and they took away the negative modifiers towards humans so the pacifists will still be friendly but the aggressive AI's will go on a rampage, if they see a weakspot they just go for it.

Heres a link to one of Solvers posts about what Blake (who's responsible for the new AI) says on the new Aggressive AI settings. http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?threadid=168663

This is what Blakes posted about the changes.

Blake said:
I'm 100% responsible for the AI in BTS.

Making the normal AI wussier was MY decision, granted it was a decision made partially on the basis of impassioned pleas (pfft, whines) for less unit spam, I am by nature every bit as cruel as Sirian when it comes to making life difficult for players, and yet that cruel tendancy ends up getting moderated, probably by compassion.

Basically there was:
Things I had time to do
and
Things I didn't have time to do

I can't think of anything I implemented which was not included.

Have you seen the list of changes in BTS? The number of new systems? To say as little as possible, there was not nearly enough time to perfect things, most time was spent making sure as little as possible was broken.

If I had spent the time to make an impassioned argument for replacing Aggressive AI with Peaceful AI then I'm fairly certain it would have happened - in spite of the obvious backlash about "Pointlessly changing things around" (trust me, however pointful something is, there will always be some who find it pointless...).
But other things got my attention (requiring impassioned arguments ), when there are things which are broken, those things take precedent over things which aren't perfect. Perfection is unattainable anyway, while not broken is attainable.

This is not a criticism of the BTS development, it can be called corporate reality if you want. Was BTS too ambitious? Maybe... probably... but I think it's still better than not being ambitious enough.


To further explain AI military behavior.

A naturally militaristic AI like Alexander or Monty will still make a respectable military effort under normal settings, in AI vs AI wars, it's all relative anyway. Some AI's have to be bad at defense, so others can invade them. In BTS the AI are far less "samey" in their strategy - in short they can pursue goals, but obviously in min-maxing their metagame they sometimes make themselves extra vulnerable to be invaded, it's the price of not being samey/predictable.

Aggressive AI no longer causes the AI to have a relationship penalty with humans. Basically it can be said that the AI expects things to get aggressive. The pacifist AI's aren't actually that much more likely to declare war, they just keep larger armies on hand as to not be easy victims. The naturally militaristic AI's go crazy. In any case if you neglect your army, any AI will notice and with it's larger power will be more likely to declare war and come for you. It is more likely you'll get declared upon, especially if you don't change your playstyle...


The default AI is a bit of a sandbox, you can employ the strategy you want and the AI may interfere with your plans... but on Aggressive AI, the AI can DICTATE your strategy! If Alexander is going to invade you, then you damn well prepare an army or you're going to taken out of the game! Even with the best prepeardedness if you fail to avoid a dogpile you're probably a goner.

On the normal setting, you just play, it's casual.
On aggressive AI, you adapt, it's hardcore.

Note that the vast majority of people who buy the game are not hardcore. Even those that are (proclaim to be) often prefer more of a sandbox style, one of the most common complaints was along the lines of "I don't want the AI forcing me to adopt a play style", in other words the player has to be choose a strategy, and the AI must accommodate them to a degree by not being too aggressive. While Aggressive AI, will be as aggressive as it darn well pleases.

Note that Aggressive AI, due to spending more on units, techs significantly slower than the default AI, if you can somehow stay out of the crosshairs it's actually easier to win peacefully - the default AI can be a speed demon when it comes to research.

What do I mean by difficulty?

Take this as an example: I played a game on emperor level and got a good start, I wiped out my neighbor, then another neighbor. But during that time an AI "tech whore partnership" of Elizabeth and Roosevelt had teched to the end of the tech tree while I was really nowhere near it, the warmongering, despite being successful, had slowed me down. That's part of the new balance of BTS - the AI's can under good circumstances tech very rapidly - in Warlords the AI - even at emperor - was easily capable of not getting to the end of the tech tree before 2050, meaning the player could take all damn game long consolidating a large conquest into an economic powerhouse, in BTS players don't have as much slack, so even if conquering your neighbors isn't harder it can be harder to actually win the game. That's something you get with default AI - you dick around invading people while some AI's refuse to fight and tech off into space. It doesn't happen predictably and I'll put it like this:
If you play at a difficulty which is exactly at your skill level, with 10 players:
10% of the games you should have an easy time, because you got a "top 10%" start point.
10% of the games you should have a very uphill struggle, because you got a "bottom 10%" start point.

Some easy games are to be expected.
(Note: Most players play far below their "equal skill level", in that they expect to win 100% of games, rather than 1/N games where N is the number of players used, this paradoxically is true of multiplayer too - the players just feel like they suck when they only win 1/N games)
Click to expand...

I've been playing my games on it (just moved up to monarch thanks in large part to you :goodjob: ) and I have to say it's amazing and so much fun, the AI's play like Humans, they tech a little slower at the start b/c they are building units but it's offset by the fact in BTS automated workers got a major overhaul and will spam cottages after farms build up the cities health.

Hatty in my game didn't declare war the entire length of it, while I kept most of the aggressive AI's off my back with a my military standing anytime I showed a weakspot they capitalized on it and around mid-game they started to pass me in techs so all in all it was by far the most challenging, fun, realistic game I've ever played.

They also had no problem attacking eachother, anytime a weaker AI showed a slump a aggressive one like Shaka would be all over them, it was actually a problem b/c it started creating a super civ Justinian had catipulated three civs on my continent one of um was my next target so when it went down there was a world war between everyone, i had never seen anything like it in my regular games.

Justinian had catipulated (sp?) Holy Rome/Shaka, Saladin had catipulated Wang and Darius vassalized to him for protection then I signed a defensive pact with Saladin and khmer had catipulated to me in addition I used kmers old territory to colonies and create lincon... lol complicated I know

Justinian had declared war on me, and I believe bribed Mao to declare on Darius, so the entire world broke out into a 2-3 way war.

I've never seen anything like it, and b/c of the aggressive settings I had wave after wave after wave of holy roman and justinian smashing into my territory and the cities i took from rome, I eventually fell but it was the most amazing game I ever played.
 
ShredZ said:
Actually, with spies in the game now, you need a lot less siege units, possibly none at all like in my last game, well, I had some, but they never saw action. Just select yer closest neighbor to receive all of your EP and then push for a city revolt just before you attack, be sure to have more than one spy unless yer a gamblin man ;)

Why wait 2 or 3 rounds of destroying a cities defences, then suicide units into a city when they cant even kill something, when you can just incite revolt, inciiiiiite revoooolt.
Click to expand...

Sounds like a cool tactic which I have not yet tried, but will have to.
 
ShredZ said:
Actually, with spies in the game now, you need a lot less siege units, possibly none at all like in my last game, well, I had some, but they never saw action. Just select yer closest neighbor to receive all of your EP and then push for a city revolt just before you attack, be sure to have more than one spy unless yer a gamblin man ;)

Why wait 2 or 3 rounds of destroying a cities defences, then suicide units into a city when they cant even kill something, when you can just incite revolt, inciiiiiite revoooolt.
Click to expand...

I don't think you should be routinely elimimating siege from your war plans. Using spies to incite revolts has some serious flaws relative to siege:

1. Spy incited city revolts eliminate city defenses for one turn, but do not cause any damage to the defending units (unlike a culture induced city revolt). So you'll still need siege to "soften up" the defenders unless you have a large tech advantage.

2. As you've mentioned spies are not guaranteed to be successful causing the revolt. When I've used them for that purpose I've seen about a 75% - 85% chance of success, so it is still possible that one or even multiple spies will fail. Siege bombard damage is one of the few warfare related events that is not affected by the RNG. It always happens, so if you have enough siege you are guaranteed to take down the city defenses. Pre-castles or post-Cannons it doesn't require all that many Accuracy promoted siege units to eliminate city defenses in one turn.

3. Using spies to incite revolts is not cheap. You won't be able to afford to do it many times using just the EPs you gain from buildings. Any spy specialists or use of the espionage slider effectively reduces your research rate. Also by using up EPs to incite city revolts you'll lose some benefits of passive espionage. I routinely see the AIs that I'm at war with spend all its EPs against me carrying out various sabotage missions. This results in my gaining visibility into their cities and sometimes even the ability to investigate their cities. This is a big advantage in war, and it will be lost if a lot of EPs are spent on incite revolt missions.

On the hammer side relying on spies will also be more costly. Spies will die as the revolt of mission failures or even just from being discovered while they're in enemy territory. Siege units using solely for bombard duty (which is all that spy revolts do) will never die as long as you can protect them from flank attacks.


While I don't see spy incited riots as a universal siege replacement, I do think there are times where you want to use it:

1. If your opponent has lots of mounted units your siege units are likely to die to flank attacks. Using spies for revolts early in a war until the enemy's mounted force is eliminated makes sense. Then the siege stack can be brought in to finish up the war.

2. Pre-cannon siege are very ineffective at bombarding defenses of cities with castles. In these cases the cost of the spy induced city revolts is well worth it IMO.
 
Florian said:
There may be another map factor contributing to ease of victory. It's not just the nice resources, land types, and opponent set. I suspect the AI doesn't play as well on a map with this many islands. I'm playing a Big and Small map right now too, and I really like the map itself, but I'm not sure the comps know what to do with it. I hear the AI knows how to launch amphibious invasions now, but does it know how to expand and flourish if it ends up on a medium-sized landmass surrounded by islands?
Click to expand...

I agree with this point that Florian made in the Peter ALC thread. While Big-and-Small may give you a more interesting map, it won't give you a better game if the AI does poorly. In addition to the expansion issues that Florian mentions I think Big-and-Small maps are much more likely to give you that desirable semi-isolation where you can trade with AIs but are relatively safe from invasion. This is a very big advantage against the BtS AI which tends to build larger armies.

I would think a Hemispheres map would likely give you a better game. I've found that if I use the Custom game screen to increase the number of civs by a couple it also tends to decrease the chances of AI over-expansion which seems to be one of the flaws of the BtS AI. It also leads to more war declarations without needing to resort to the Aggressive AI option.
 
I'm playing Agg AI on my current Monarch game. Ironically I've not been in a war yet and I'm at Gunpowder! Still there's been plenty of AI to AI wars, some dogpiling and some vassalising of AI civs! Two of them in particular have now grown into monstrous sized civs as a result. All in all pretty unpredictable really, which is the best thing about Agg AI. :)
 
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