Game Options Discussion

[greenOak]

Just want to say that I strongly disagree with this "getting rid of cheating options" attitude. First of all, for me, any level below Monarch is basically cheating (despite this, I play a fair number of Prince games), and I'm sure better players think Emperor or Immortal is "cheating" practically cheating too. Who cares if people make the game easier.

A couple of things: How the heck is playing without nukes considered cheating, considering that nukes give a massive advanatage to the player since the AI doesn't know how to use them at all.

Moreover, I can attest that AND plays harder with the no city limits option on (at least on Prince/Monarch). All the city option seems to do is prevent the AI from expanding early, while you can just grab Monarchy early (Despotism sucks, and the AI doesn't seem to go for Masonry anyways) and get have like a 10-5 city advantage over the AI for a large portion of the early era. This would probably be fixed if the AI valued Monarchy more (imho it's by far the best early era tech), but until it does, the 5 city limit mostly just allows for greater exploitation of the AI.

 

[Afforess]

Just want to say that I strongly disagree with this "getting rid of cheating options" attitude. First of all, for me, any level below Monarch is basically cheating (despite this, I play a fair number of Prince games), and I'm sure better players think Emperor or Immortal is "cheating" practically cheating too. Who cares if people make the game easier.

I think you stand alone in this assessment.

A couple of things: How the heck is playing without nukes considered cheating, considering that nukes give a massive advantage to the player since the AI doesn't know how to use them at all.

In nearly every discussion about nukes, I've heard that the AI is, if anything, too-nuke happy, not that it doesn't understand them. If you disagree with this, you will have to be more clear about what you mean.

Moreover, I can attest that AND plays harder with the no city limits option on (at least on Prince/Monarch). All the city option seems to do is prevent the AI from expanding early, while you can just grab Monarchy early (Despotism sucks, and the AI doesn't seem to go for Masonry anyways) and get have like a 10-5 city advantage over the AI for a large portion of the early era. This would probably be fixed if the AI valued Monarchy more (imho it's by far the best early era tech), but until it does, the 5 city limit mostly just allows for greater exploitation of the AI.

I don't know if you have played RAND in the last month, because Despotism is a good civic these days.

 

[greenOak]

Quote:
Originally Posted by greenOak View Post
Just want to say that I strongly disagree with this "getting rid of cheating options" attitude. First of all, for me, any level below Monarch is basically cheating (despite this, I play a fair number of Prince games), and I'm sure better players think Emperor or Immortal is "cheating" practically cheating too. Who cares if people make the game easier.
I think you stand alone in this assessment

.

Irrelevant. Both are just options that make the game easier. Also, difficulty levels are much more akin to cheating than options which apply equally to both the user and the AI.

In nearly every discussion about nukes, I've heard that the AI is, if anything, too-nuke happy, not that it doesn't understand them. If you disagree with this, you will have to be more clear about what you me

Huh? I thought there was a pretty clear consensus at least on the main civ4 subforums that nukes give a huge advantage to the player because of AI incompetence. Not sure if the AI logic around nukes was changed for AND, but it seems more or less the same in my games. The problem is that:

The AI only nukes cities and often (usually) does not back up their nuclear attacks with proper military support to easily capture heavily nuked cities. Furthermore, the AI doesn't use nukes in combination with submarines very well, which is really where they shine.

Nuking a stack of doom is almost always preferable to nuking a city, and this is something the AI never does. The AI also doesn't target strategic resources (especially uranium), which allows for ridiculous abuse. You can also pull stuff off like trigger nuclear war ---> leave world in complete wasteland ---> win with your corporation economy. Although corps are quite a bit different in AND, I don't see why this strategy wouldn't work in AND. Corps are still very powerful, and I've never seen the AI target resource networks with their nukes.

Granted, the AI is more trigger happy than real life leaders would be, but compared to an optimal Civ strategy, they don't use them nearly enough.

Quote:
Originally Posted by greenOak View Post
Moreover, I can attest that AND plays harder with the no city limits option on (at least on Prince/Monarch). All the city option seems to do is prevent the AI from expanding early, while you can just grab Monarchy early (Despotism sucks, and the AI doesn't seem to go for Masonry anyways) and get have like a 10-5 city advantage over the AI for a large portion of the early era. This would probably be fixed if the AI valued Monarchy more (imho it's by far the best early era tech), but until it does, the 5 city limit mostly just allows for greater exploitation of the AI.
I don't know if you have played RAND in the last month, because Despotism is a good civic these days.

Okay, calling it terrible is wrong, although I'll often completely skip it in my games, and yes I have played AND recently. Nevertheless, I find that I need Monarchy to support 6+ cities in the early stages, so getting off the 5 city limit from Despotism I don't find to be all that important. The military bonus is much much better imo. However, I still stand behind the fact that the 5 city limit slows the AI down much more than it does the user (and hence makes it easier), and that this is primarily due to the AI undervaluing Monarchy.

 

[Afforess]

Irrelevant.

Nonsense, it's highly relevant. Cheating only has negative connotations due to the social implications of cheating (cheaters are shunned). If the vast majority of the population (civ4 gamers) don't agree that "X" is cheating, then it's not.

Both are just options that make the game easier. Also, difficulty levels are much more akin to cheating than options which apply equally to both the user and the AI.

I suppose you think when a professor grades an exam on a curve, that is cheating too. I completely disagree with you.

Huh? I thought there was a pretty clear consensus at least on the main civ4 subforums that nukes give a huge advantage to the player because of AI incompetence. Not sure if the AI logic around nukes was changed for AND, but it seems more or less the same in my games. The problem is that:

The AI only nukes cities and often (usually) does not back up their nuclear attacks with proper military support to easily capture heavily nuked cities. Furthermore, the AI doesn't use nukes in combination with submarines very well, which is really where they shine.

RAND nuke AI is slightly improved from BTS, but not significantly. I don't believe the SoD nuke issue has ever been addressed. I know BBAI did attempt to improve the AI with submarine nukes.

Nuking a stack of doom is almost always preferable to nuking a city, and this is something the AI never does. The AI also doesn't target strategic improvements (uranium deposits), which can allow for ridiculous abuse like trigger nuclear war ---> leave world in complete wasteland ---> win with your corporation economy. Although corps are quite a bit different in AND, I don't see why this strategy wouldn't work in AND. Corps are still very powerful, and I've never seen the AI target resource networks with their nukes.

Granted, the AI is more trigger happy than real life leaders would be, but compared to an optimal Civ strategy, they don't use them nearly enough.

Considering the much improved diplomacy AI in RAND, this sort of strategy is likely to wind up with the human player locked in a permanent war with all other AI's. They'd find it easy to bribe war allies. I'd like to see someone try it.

Okay, calling it terrible is wrong, although I'll often completely skip it in my games, and yes I have played AND recently. Nevertheless, I find that I need Monarchy to support 6+ cities in the early stages, so getting off the 5 city limit from Despotism I don't find to be all that important. The military bonus is much much better imo. However, I still stand behind the fact that the 5 city limit slows the AI down much more than it does the user (and hence makes it easier).

I think you may be confusing Chiefdom and Despotism. Only Chiefdom, the starting government civic has a city limit. Despotism has no city limit and is a fine civic to use.

 

[greenOak]

Nonsense, it's highly relevant. Cheating only has negative connotations due to the social implications of cheating (cheaters are shunned). If the vast majority of the population (civ4 gamers) don't agree that "X" is cheating, then it's not.

Look I don't want to get into a pissing contest over what is cheating and what isn't, I'll just say that to me personally there's not much difference in me saying "I want an easy game so I'm going to play on Prince" as opposed to "I want an easy game so I'm going to play with barbarians off" or something along those lines.

I suppose you think when a professor grades an exam on a curve, that is cheating too. I completely disagree with you.

Ludicrous analogy. Playing on a lower difficulty level than what is competitive for you is more like writing your upper level math exam against first years instead of fourth years.

RAND nuke AI is slightly improved from BTS, but not significantly. I don't believe the SoD nuke issue has ever been addressed. I know BBAI did attempt to improve the AI with submarine nukes.

Okay, good to hear.

Considering the much improved diplomacy AI in RAND, this sort of strategy is likely to wind up with the human player locked in a permanent war with all other AI's. They'd find it easy to bribe war allies. I'd like to see someone try it.

I'd like to see this too. Unfortunately, all the RAND games I've played have been for the most part won or lost before nukes really come into play, so my experience with nukes has basically been letting the AI build up nukes, and then just playing around with them.


The problem the AI would have though is being able to sustain an army, with such terrible production, no resources, and their original army decimated by nuke after nuke.

I think you may be confusing Chiefdom and Despotism. Only Chiefdom, the starting government civic has a city limit. Despotism has no city limit and is a fine civic to use.

No, I think I just explained it poorly. My point was that, imo, despotism isn't really capable of sustaining 6+ city empires early in the game due to city maintenance coupled by not being able to work very many tiles/specialists. Early in the game, if I was running despotism, I probably wouldn't want to expand past 5 cities anyways. Obviously, I would at some point, but there's no way beelining despotism followed by a quick expansion is feasible. However, I definitely want to expand past 5 cities if I'm running monarchy - mostly because my cities are well enough developed by the time I tech monarchy, that I can actually support further expansion. The 50% maintenance reduction and relative ease of increasing the happiness cap is icing on the cake.

However, in my experience with RAND, the AI seems to delay both Masonry and Monarchy for quite a while. In my recent game on Prince (giant, fractal, city limit on, something like 8-10 civs started on my continent plus a couple of barb civs that spawned), I was able to get to 10-12 cities or something before the next civ on my continent even teched Monarchy. Mansa Musa was the only one who went after Masonry (and like I said, I don't think despotism would really help him expand past 5 cities at this point in the game). This gave me a very large advantage from the start. Basically what happens is that the AI is getting stuck at 5 cities, should have the infrastructure to expand, but can't for a long time because they never bothered trying to get Masonry, or better, Monarchy.

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

In every game I've tried lately, monarchy is the first classical tech AI is researching. Sometimes math, almost never alphabet.
Also handicap levels are still unbalanced in my opinion, so playing on monarch or higher isn't anywhere as difficult as it should be.
About nukes, I have some plan to improve AI logic, just little time to think about it and write it down.

 

[Lord Bigfoot]

Could someone explain what these "Cheating options" are?