AI in Future Era Start scenario

Ok, so I decided to try the Future Era Start scenario and picked the Aztecs just so I could get some early mobility...

Turns out, it's like shooting fish in a barrel, Dong.

The AI builds roads, then uses its only worker to put a stupid radar tower next to its capital city.

Why is it stupid?

BECAUSE THE FIRST THREE CITIES MY JAG WARRIORS RAN UP AGAINST HAD NO UNITS IN IT!!

Only Carthage (num. merc), the Greeks (hoplite) and Babs (bowmen) had any units in their capitals by 2500 bc, but by then I had several cities and such a huge productivity advantage that conquering the rest of the world was e-z. I had a conquest victory by 150 AD and it really could have come much sooner...

Is this the goal of this scenario? Did I play it wrong?

Oh, and as a side note - this was on a standard map. I tried it on a small map - same thing - except there was no aluminum in the entire world! I had my marines going around on galleons beating other cities but that was the extent of things... without alumninum, it got real old real quick.

Did you notice what KINDS of units you encountered? UUs all the way - and no others.

The reason: If a Civ hasn't had a Golden Age yet, the UU stays buildable no matter if it is obsolete or not (as you had the JW available, too). Mechanized Infantry is way more expansive (in shields) than the Ancient Age UUS - and the AI picks a cheap unit to build if it can and doesn't have a defender. So those who had a cheap defensive UU chose that, the others are probably trying to build a Mech Inf.


Dumb!

Good analysis Killer. Because of the AI's stupidity I don't play single player any more in civ3 (but I might in civ2 or SMAC).

Just play with the default rules where the AI knows what to do. Civ3 AI is so much better than Civ2 or SMAC.

I think this will go into the FAQ - anyone else have something to add to the chapter:

what to avoid when setting up Single Player games

?????

Things about setting up single player games:

Make sure Civ-specific abilities are turned ON. Otherwise, you won't be able to build your UU, or get any special abilities for your civ (like cheap temples if religious, or fast workers if industrious).

Mass regicide, capture the princess, victory point locations, etc. are not very good in single player mode, because the AI spends so much time building defensive units, that getting more cities than them is too easy.

Turn 'AI respawn' OFF. So you don't have to keep chasing down the AI after you captured their 'last' city.

'Allow culture conversions' you can turn on or off (in PTW), so this preference will depend whether or not you like culture flips and whether or not you build lots of culture.

If you don't have 'allow diplomatic victory' enabled, you can't build the UN.
If you don't have 'allow spaceship victory' enabled, you can't build any spaceship parts.

In the preferences, do not have BOTH 'always build previously built unit' AND 'ask for build orders after unit construction' selected. They will cancel each other out.

You can set map size to random. Click just below where it says 'Huge'. It doesn't look like anything is there, but there is. You should hear a sound when clicking there, just like when you select other options, and none of the other map sizes will be shown as selected. You can figure out which map size you got by seeing how many opponents you have in the next screen.

If you change the optimal # of cities for corruption purposes in the editor, this will also change how many cities are needed for you to be able to build the forbidden palace (50% of optimal # of cities). So if you set the optimal # to 500, you'll need to build 250 cities before getting a chance to build the Forbidden Palace!

Bamspeedy: thanx! I didn't want anyone to bother typing all the 'normal' stuff, I was perfectly willing to do it myself Now you saved me a lot of hassle

I use ask for build orders and build previous unit. That way if I assign a city to all military I don't have to select a different build order every time it builds a unit.

Killer - thanks for the tip, I didn't realize that was true about the UU's, but it certainly ruins that scenario for me.

Even though all the PTW alternate-victory conditions seem OK, once you've actually played them, they do make for a different (and sometimes maddening) single-player game. Too bad I'm never going to be playing MP.

Now I guess I can just start concentrating on trying to win at Monarch.

tcjsavannah: just disable civ-specific abilites - gone are the UUs (and civ-specific attributes).