maltz
King
- Joined
- Jan 24, 2006
- Messages
- 967
I think we have all seen this - we struggle to survive with a small army, chipping away a powerful AI foe. Finally, the foe crumbles before our eyes and beg for peace. This AI dude offers:
1. All of his cities except the capital
2. All cash
3. All income
4. All resources
5. Open Border
Now you may argue that the hard work deserves a little reward, or a big reward for very hard work. But if you look at it this way:
(1) The city income is counted TWICE.
I wonder why nobody has reported this BUG, because obviously it is.
Suppose there is city A.
City A generates a revenue of 10 gold per turn.
City A's building maintenance is 6 gold per turn.
Now when a player acquired City A, he or she earns a profit of 4 gold per turn (after the riot is over).
Now the trouble comes - in a desperate peace treaty, both the city and its income is given away. Therefore, the benefactor not only receives 4 gold per turn from the city, but another 4 gold per turn from the income deal. Can a city generates 100% extra income out of thin air? No way.
(2) High difficulty = low difficulty
This part is not really a design flaw, but not less ridiculous either. Now when we factor the difficulty, things become more interesting. For example, level 8 AIs get a maintenance discount of 50%. For a Deity AI, it only pays 3 gold per turn for City A's building maintenance, giving it an income of 7 gold per turn.
Deity AIs also get a big discount (40% off) on unhappiness. They are frequently in Golden Age. Let's be conservative and say City A under a Deity AI generates a revenue of 13 gold per turn since it happens to be in Golden Age.
The net profit of City A under a Deity AI is therefore 13-3 = 10 gold per turn.
When this city is yielded to the human player, who enjoys no discount on anything, suddenly the player gets:
- 4 gold per turn from the city
- 10 gold per turn from the Deity AI's current profit from this city
... the human player gets a whopping 3.5X profit!
Then we know AIs are terrible cash hoarders. Let's again be conservative to say that the AI failed to spend any income from City A for only the last 30 turns. That 30 x 10 = 300 gold is sitting in AI's pocket.
Now the peace treaty goes, and the 300 gold also goes to the human player.
For the same little City A that generates 4 gold per turn, the human player suddenly acquires 75 turns of city income paid in cash PLUS 250% extra income just through the system's flaw. Isn't this ridiculous?
And it is extremely easy to beat the crap out of Deity AIs if the player knows to rush military techs at the right time. Along the Gold Per Turn exploit (and its sister trick - selling resources to the war declaration target before the war) and selling crappy cities to an adjacent friendly AI for thousands of gold each time... once the war starts, this game becomes a farce.
***
p.s. I can't help but to shamelessly recommend my Level 9 MOD
, which completely removes the AIs monetary bonus (but boosts AI's technology by 200% among other things to make the AIs more competitive than Level 8). The game is much more fun and the above exploits, even if utilized at its fullest extent, grants the players a much smaller advantage. I actually welcome (and hope) users to do whatever they can do in order to beat the Level 9 AI.
You can read more about the MOD here:
http://lv9civ5.blogspot.com/
You can also find the MOD on steam, but it is an older version and I embarassingly haven't been able to update it.
1. All of his cities except the capital
2. All cash
3. All income
4. All resources
5. Open Border
Now you may argue that the hard work deserves a little reward, or a big reward for very hard work. But if you look at it this way:
(1) The city income is counted TWICE.
I wonder why nobody has reported this BUG, because obviously it is.
Suppose there is city A.
City A generates a revenue of 10 gold per turn.
City A's building maintenance is 6 gold per turn.
Now when a player acquired City A, he or she earns a profit of 4 gold per turn (after the riot is over).
Now the trouble comes - in a desperate peace treaty, both the city and its income is given away. Therefore, the benefactor not only receives 4 gold per turn from the city, but another 4 gold per turn from the income deal. Can a city generates 100% extra income out of thin air? No way.
(2) High difficulty = low difficulty
This part is not really a design flaw, but not less ridiculous either. Now when we factor the difficulty, things become more interesting. For example, level 8 AIs get a maintenance discount of 50%. For a Deity AI, it only pays 3 gold per turn for City A's building maintenance, giving it an income of 7 gold per turn.
Deity AIs also get a big discount (40% off) on unhappiness. They are frequently in Golden Age. Let's be conservative and say City A under a Deity AI generates a revenue of 13 gold per turn since it happens to be in Golden Age.
The net profit of City A under a Deity AI is therefore 13-3 = 10 gold per turn.
When this city is yielded to the human player, who enjoys no discount on anything, suddenly the player gets:
- 4 gold per turn from the city
- 10 gold per turn from the Deity AI's current profit from this city
... the human player gets a whopping 3.5X profit!
Then we know AIs are terrible cash hoarders. Let's again be conservative to say that the AI failed to spend any income from City A for only the last 30 turns. That 30 x 10 = 300 gold is sitting in AI's pocket.
Now the peace treaty goes, and the 300 gold also goes to the human player.
For the same little City A that generates 4 gold per turn, the human player suddenly acquires 75 turns of city income paid in cash PLUS 250% extra income just through the system's flaw. Isn't this ridiculous?
And it is extremely easy to beat the crap out of Deity AIs if the player knows to rush military techs at the right time. Along the Gold Per Turn exploit (and its sister trick - selling resources to the war declaration target before the war) and selling crappy cities to an adjacent friendly AI for thousands of gold each time... once the war starts, this game becomes a farce.
***
p.s. I can't help but to shamelessly recommend my Level 9 MOD
, which completely removes the AIs monetary bonus (but boosts AI's technology by 200% among other things to make the AIs more competitive than Level 8). The game is much more fun and the above exploits, even if utilized at its fullest extent, grants the players a much smaller advantage. I actually welcome (and hope) users to do whatever they can do in order to beat the Level 9 AI.You can read more about the MOD here:
http://lv9civ5.blogspot.com/
You can also find the MOD on steam, but it is an older version and I embarassingly haven't been able to update it.
I hope people don't get the idea that I have two accounts.
