Pulling ahead early

[Nitrah]

I have played several early games through to the Ancient era, upping the difficulty almost as soon as I hit sedentary lifestyle because it always seems like I have already dominated the AI.

I generally start my tech plan to get scouts ASAP, crank out a few of them and get them out hunting, while I then switch tech to boost production and research.

When I find the AIs several turns later, they're usually ahead of me by 20-30% in score and one or two techs (once my espionage gives me visibility). By the time I start pushing for tribalism however, they're always at least 40 turns behind on tech and I'm in first place. This has happened practically every game I have played up to and including Immortal level.

My guess is that this is a result of how the AI appears to treat its scouts and hunters. I can count on one hand the number of times I have seen a scout or tracker or hunter out by itself past the very early turns. Most of the time, I'll see a single prehistoric doomstack between 5 and 10 squares away from the AI borders comprised of several scouts and hunters, a few melee units and 4 or 5 trained dogs all sitting still on a protective tile.

This behavior is my guess why they're always behind by the time I get my first tribes out. The scouts should be moving around quickly- probably solo, but possibly paired with another scout, and should be looking for animals to kill. They should not be parked in a slow moving doomstack getting no kills for their city. If they're lost, oh well. Build a replacement.

How to tell the AI to do that, I haven't a clue, however.

 

[Thunderbrd]

They're probably doing this to keep their Great Commander relatively safe...

 

[strategyonly]

I have played several early games through to the Ancient era, upping the difficulty almost as soon as I hit sedentary lifestyle because it always seems like I have already dominated the AI.

Here is how i play, and alot of people dont like it, but it works, and works GREAT.

I play on EPIC (i know, i know)(you'll be glad you did once you hit the Industrial Era(turn times)), but this is because the AI understands it better IMPO), anyways, be a builder, not an aggressor. Meaning only do building and only build NEAR your capitol and then from there, but dont expand waay out, and dont expand fast, do more building than anything and hunt hunt hunt. Get all the butchering you can done.

Do this up to the mid-Classical Era, DO NOT engage in fighting as much as possible, NEVER. You will have enough to do with building ALL the buildings you can get your hands on again build the heck out them and NO (well hardly) any units, again no units.
Oh i forgot, YOU must play on NOBLE with Flexible Difficulty ON.
While going thru the techs do not go for Chiefdom right away, same as Sed Lifestyle, get the techs in PreH 1st, as many as possible.

Now back to the mid-Classical Era, by this time the AI will be far far far ahead of you with techs and units and cities this will be the CHALLENGE then from here on out.

I bet from here on out it will be BETTER than playing on Deity and you will have the game of a LifeTime.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

I agree with the observation about the early recon and hunter units not being used effectively by the AI. However once they get hunters they do send them out in stacks of two.

On the other hand I have seen both their stack of two hunters and my hunter on auto hunt ignore the animals around them just to move to a plot with a greater defense. In one example it ignored a heavily wounded pigeon on open grass land and moved to the forest plot when it could have attacked and then moved to the plot.

 

[Hydromancerx]

Meaning only do building and only build NEAR your capitol and then from there, but dont expand waay out, and dont expand fast, do more building than anything and hunt hunt hunt. Get all the butchering you can done.

I wish we brought back that limited cities setting as a game option. One where depending upon your civics limited how many cities you could build. But your method of just self control can do the same result I suppose.

 

[Nitrah]

I'm not sure I agree with strategyonly. If the AI on immortal level is unable to utilize proper tactics to stay ahead, it should have buffs to production and research to do so.

I'm not saying that I'm overexpanding and dominating that way. I'm saying I am repeatedly crushing the AI in tech before I even get tribalism. On immortal level, I should not be required to resort to gimmicks to keep the AI from falling too far behind. I should be required to play extremely well to keep myself from falling behind.

The current immortal game I'm playing (eternity, gigantic, big&small) I just got sedentary lifestyle. One AI I know of is at tribalism +2 techs, but I'm not seeing any tell-tale production or food spikes, so I don't know if he's settled any cities yet. Two others I have espionage visibility on are working on tribalism now. I was the first to livestock domestication.

The fact that I start winning less than 3% of the way through concerns me.

 

[JosEPh_II]

I wish we brought back that limited cities setting as a game option. One where depending upon your civics limited how many cities you could build. But your method of just self control can do the same result I suppose.

Isn't a form of it still an Option? The one ls612 made about scaling with map size. Or has that been recently removed? Wasn't last time I started a C2C game (bak at beginning of v33 cycle).

City Limits by Civic was a Horrible idea and I'm glad it became redundant and dead. May it's memory fade and be forgotten.

JosEPh

 

[Nitrah]

Didn't realise it was gone. The civics still say you get penalties for going above X cities.

Or was there a hard coded max? If that's the case, I too am glad it was removed.

 

[Koshling]

I'm not sure I agree with strategyonly. If the AI on immortal level is unable to utilize proper tactics to stay ahead, it should have buffs to production and research to do so.

I'm not saying that I'm overexpanding and dominating that way. I'm saying I am repeatedly crushing the AI in tech before I even get tribalism. On immortal level, I should not be required to resort to gimmicks to keep the AI from falling too far behind. I should be required to play extremely well to keep myself from falling behind.

The current immortal game I'm playing (eternity, gigantic, big&small) I just got sedentary lifestyle. One AI I know of is at tribalism +2 techs, but I'm not seeing any tell-tale production or food spikes, so I don't know if he's settled any cities yet. Two others I have espionage visibility on are working on tribalism now. I was the first to livestock domestication.

The fact that I start winning less than 3% of the way through concerns me.

Last time I played (which was about two months ago) the AI was highly competitive early on on immortal, for slow game speeds at least (which is what I tend to use). What game speed are you on? If you always find this I suggest you turn on BBAI logging, as that will enable us to pinpoint where the AI is falling behind, and to some extent probably why. Note that the BBAI logs are overwritten each session, so if the play is broken up into multiple sessions you'll need to copy or rename the log in between to ensure you have everything.

 

[Hydromancerx]

Isn't a form of it still an Option? The one ls612 made about scaling with map size. Or has that been recently removed? Wasn't last time I started a C2C game (bak at beginning of v33 cycle).

City Limits by Civic was a Horrible idea and I'm glad it became redundant and dead. May it's memory fade and be forgotten.

JosEPh

There are just the "soft limits" there are no "hard limits" like we had way back when. You can still go over the ammount of cities but with penalties. I was suggesting an OPTIONAL setting that outright prevents you from founding anymore cities once you hit the limit.

Doing so would not only stop civs from expanding too far early in the game but would also keep the AI from expanding with penalties. Meaning a player could know not to keep expanding because you get a bunch of penalties. But the AI might not know and just keep expanding gaining greater and greater penalties.

In other words having the hard limit would keep the AI from ever reaching the penalties and also keep the player in check from expanding too early. And as I said before it would be OPTIONAL for those who do not like that setting.

In addition the settings would be strict limits that you could actually reach too. As it is now its still hard to ever reach the city limit before you unlock another civic that unlocks more cites.

Anarchism = 3 (Start)
Chiefdom = 6 (Chiefdom)
Despotism = 9 (Bronze Working)
Monarchy = 12 (Monarchy)
Republic = 12 (Democracy)
Theocracy = 12 (Theology)
Democracy = Unlimited
Totalitarianism = Unlimited
Technocracy = Unlimited

Note this would not matter what map size you were on. Since its such a strict limit. It also allows for barbarians, animals and splinter nations to fill in the territory you just cannot expand to until late game.

You still CAN conquer or buy other nations cities but cannot place more until later eras. But you also run the risk of revolutions (if you have that setting on) from having non-native cities.

I know this sounds insanely strict but I really think such a setting could be great for those who want a challenge for a longer time in the game.

 

[Nitrah]

Last time I played (which was about two months ago) the AI was highly competitive early on on immortal, for slow game speeds at least (which is what I tend to use). What game speed are you on? If you always find this I suggest you turn on BBAI logging, as that will enable us to pinpoint where the AI is falling behind, and to some extent probably why. Note that the BBAI logs are overwritten each session, so if the play is broken up into multiple sessions you'll need to copy or rename the log in between to ensure you have everything.

Eternity speed (the slowest). Map is a gigantic C2C Big and Small, with default numbers of civilizations (15? plus or minus one or two). I was dropped on one corner of a large continent with a moderately good start (moved two tiles to settle on a river coast with lots of forested hills and a corn resource, but nothing else visible in the BFC yet). With these settings, there is tons of expansion room (too much, I'd say). I am about 15 to 20 tiles to the nearest civs.

How does one turn on BBAI logging? I'll try to swing my 200 experience hunter over near some of the AIs to get screencaps of their ridiculous doomstacks parked in the middle of nowhere doing nothing.

 

[Thunderbrd]

There are just the "soft limits" there are no "hard limits" like we had way back when. You can still go over the ammount of cities but with penalties. I was suggesting an OPTIONAL setting that outright prevents you from founding anymore cities once you hit the limit.

Doing so would not only stop civs from expanding too far early in the game but would also keep the AI from expanding with penalties. Meaning a player could know not to keep expanding because you get a bunch of penalties. But the AI might not know and just keep expanding gaining greater and greater penalties.

In other words having the hard limit would keep the AI from ever reaching the penalties and also keep the player in check from expanding too early. And as I said before it would be OPTIONAL for those who do not like that setting.

In addition the settings would be strict limits that you could actually reach too. As it is now its still hard to ever reach the city limit before you unlock another civic that unlocks more cites.

Anarchism = 3 (Start)
Chiefdom = 6 (Chiefdom)
Despotism = 9 (Bronze Working)
Monarchy = 12 (Monarchy)
Republic = 12 (Democracy)
Theocracy = 12 (Theology)
Democracy = Unlimited
Totalitarianism = Unlimited
Technocracy = Unlimited

Note this would not matter what map size you were on. Since its such a strict limit. It also allows for barbarians, animals and splinter nations to fill in the territory you just cannot expand to until late game.

You still CAN conquer or buy other nations cities but cannot place more until later eras. But you also run the risk of revolutions (if you have that setting on) from having non-native cities.

I know this sounds insanely strict but I really think such a setting could be great for those who want a challenge for a longer time in the game.

Do you think it would be as challenging when you consider that the AI would also be similarly limited? SO's 'method' to a challenging game ties a hand behind the player's back while allowing the AI as much room to breath as they wish.

 

[strategyonly]

Do you think it would be as challenging when you consider that the AI would also be similarly limited? SO's 'method' to a challenging game ties a hand behind the player's back while allowing the AI as much room to breath as they wish.

If Koshling could fix it so that the AI was improved by 50% somehow, that would be about the right amount to do so. (I believe)

 

[Hydromancerx]

Do you think it would be as challenging when you consider that the AI would also be similarly limited? SO's 'method' to a challenging game ties a hand behind the player's back while allowing the AI as much room to breath as they wish.

Yes I do think that having both the AI and player hand tied for the the first part of the game would work. Especially since the soft limitations still would be in effect if you conquered other cities.

For instance lets say you had 4 civs (3 AI and 1 player). For the early part of the game (per-colonization) each would build a max of 12 cities, thus leaving open more land for barbarians or even split civs to break off of established civs.

Then lets say one civ takes over a city of the other civ. Now that civ has 13 cities and the other has 11 cities, but can build a new 12th city while the other cannot. Likewise the civ that took over the city now is now over the limit and is suffering the penalties for doing so. And may even loose that new city to revolt/revolution because it was the other civ's city.

I feel that this period between getting settlers and getting Democracy or Totalitarianism allows the other civs to catch up, or at least not be as far behind. Each additional city can mean more and more of an advantage the lead civ has.

However I do not think giving the strict limitations only to the player and not the AI will help it. If anything I think it will just create 1 or 2 leader AIs and the rest will be at the bottom.

 

[Thunderbrd]

The scenario you paint suggests the player would have an even greater advantage by far since the player can wage war significantly better than the AI can. I'm just being a devil's advocate as I personally don't appreciate any arbitrary limitations in my games. You said you'd make it an option so I'm not against such a modification, just figured I'd challenge the base premise that it would somehow help with the player vs ai challenge balance.

 

[Hydromancerx]

@TB

Well I think the player being better at war than the AI is a whole other issue that happens weather or not you apply this setting. Lets say the player was kicking butt and taking cities, the AI could still build more cities up to the limit. Likewise the "soft limit" would still penalize the player for going over the city limit.

Is that making it easier or harder for the AI. I am not sure. On the one hand the loosing AI would not get the penalties because they are not getting past the number of cities limit. On the other hand even with penalties the player still has more cities.

Lets say we have the scenario you proposed where the hard limit was only on the player. They still would be penalized for going over the limit but they could keep making cities. Would that give them an upper hand on the player or would it just give the player that many more cities to conquer?

And what about a 3rd scenario. Hard limits where if you tried to take over a city and you reached you limit the cities would automatically be razed? I know this is super extreme but do you think that would help or hurt the AI?

 

[Koshling]

Eternity speed (the slowest). Map is a gigantic C2C Big and Small, with default numbers of civilizations (15? plus or minus one or two). I was dropped on one corner of a large continent with a moderately good start (moved two tiles to settle on a river coast with lots of forested hills and a corn resource, but nothing else visible in the BFC yet). With these settings, there is tons of expansion room (too much, I'd say). I am about 15 to 20 tiles to the nearest civs.

How does one turn on BBAI logging? I'll try to swing my 200 experience hunter over near some of the AIs to get screencaps of their ridiculous doomstacks parked in the middle of nowhere doing nothing.

Turn on logging generally if you don't have it on (in the INI file - can't remember the details but there are plenty of posts about it around), then in the BUG options there is a logging TAB - turn BBAI logging to level 3. Amongst other things the resulting log will contain a summary of each AI's troop levels (and types) plus stats fro each city (production etc.) each turn, as well as their civic and tech choices throughout. It should be possible to see obvious errors from it.

Also, if you can post a save highlighting an AI doom-stack that doesn't appear to be doing much, we can analyse the save to determine what the AI **think** it's doing with it. It may be that some geogpraphical artifact is causing the AI to continually try to reroute it or something in such a way that it just 'dithers'...