3.13 vs 3.17

[cesareDH]

Everyone says I needed to upgrade from 3.13 to 3.17, so I did. I wanted to stay with 3.13 because I had a trainer which allowed me to play on even grounds with the other AI's at the Deity level.

Now when I start a new customized game I run out of money after about 6 or 7 cities are built and then I start losing my workers because I don't have any money. I got a trainer which was supposed to add money after each turn, but it doesn't work.

Frustrated with the game now. I've been playing Civilization for about 13 years. I probably have about 25,000 hours wasted on this game, and now I'm going to quit playing it.

I could uninstall the game and then reinstall it to the 3.13 level, but everyone says 3.13's loaded with bugs, even though I never noticed more than 1 or 2 small glitches, which I could live with. I'm just not going to go backwards with the game. It's the principal of the thing.

This is a sad day for me. No more Civilization.

 

[Sian]

why not just play on a level you can manage instead of cheating yourself to believe that you can actually be better than the AI's handicaps at Deity?

 

[UWHabs]

Either play at the level you're comfortable with (if you want to be on equal footing with the AI, play at Noble), or devise your own mod that gives human players either X coins every turn, or prevents strikes, or whatever bonus you want.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Either play at the level you're comfortable with (if you want to be on equal footing with the AI, play at Noble), or devise your own mod that gives human players either X coins every turn, or prevents strikes, or whatever bonus you want.

The AI has marked bonuses at noble, although it's the closest. Don't fool yourself into believing it's even though. Upgrade costs and war weariness already speak otherwise. Just how significant are upgrade cost reduction to hosing the player/making the game harder?

Well, higher difficulty AIs would murder themselves soundly with gobs of unupgraded troops if they payed anywhere near what the human has to. If you took away WW and upgrade cost bonuses, you could roundly dominate deity AIs merely by baiting them into your territory and slaughtering masses and masses of axes, horse archers, and the like with minimal effort. Forcing them to remain at war, you'd get all their cities below pop 5 pretty quickly.

But a hefty chunk of the WW and upgrade cost discounts exist at noble already. Ever wonder how even on noble, the AI has longbows everywhere shortly after feudalism and there are no archers lying around after a short period of time? This is why.

This is really abusive. In the hands of the AI, it's just strong. If the PLAYER had this kind of discount, it would behoove him to just SPAM tons and tons of say axes or maces. Like, 50. Then upgrade them all to rifles, with city raider, for about 1k gold or so. I'm sure you don't have to have a creative mind to think of ways to use a stack of 50 CR II rifles. The gold to hammer rate for this is obscene, it's so far beyond what you can do with $$$ buy (ignoring promos for the moment) that it isn't funny. If you think the fact that they produce units at half your cost is bad on deity, this upgrade discount might be even worse...

Edit: If you modify your handicap in a worldbuilder save, you can easily give yourself bonuses equal to any difficulty level you please.

But why? If you're going to do that just play a different difficulty level like everyone says, or use the world builder and give yourself 5 great merchants or something. Zero functional difference.

 

[DanF5771]

Just to get an idea about the true numbers:

Cash needed to upgrade 50 Maces (70) to Rifles (110):

human: 50 * ((110-70)*3 + 20) = 50*140 = 7000
Settler-AI: modifier = 50% --> 50*70 = 3500
Deity-AI: modifier ~ 42.5% (Renaissance Era) --> 50*59 = 2950

Barbarian: 0 !

Axes (35) -> Rifles:

human: 50 * ((110-35)*3 + 20) = 50*245 = 12250
Settler-AI: modifier = 50% --> 50*122 = 6100
Deity-AI: modifier ~ 42.5% (Renaissance Era) --> 50*103 = 5150

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Looks like I exaggerated a bit...but nevertheless that's pretty staggering. 25 CR II rifles for a merchant. Must be nice...stupid AIs spamming cities and still having epic failure...

 

[MrCynical]

Another one here that doesn't really see the point of setting the game at the highest difficulty so the AI has staggering bonuses, and then giving yourself bonuses to compete. Why not just play a lower level?

 

[Mack the Knife]

because I don't have any money

sigh, i thought this was "well known"....if all you are looking for is a money cheat, go into the worldbuilder (^w), select city mode in upper right, click on a city, change the amount money....presto, more

 

[PieceOfMind]

sigh, i thought this was "well known"....if all you are looking for is a money cheat, go into the worldbuilder (^w), select city mode in upper right, click on a city, change the amount money....presto, more

Problem solved.

I too wonder why you'd go to the effort of using a third party program which frankly could have any number of nasties in it (read: trojans, viruses), to achieve something which is trivial using the worldbuilder anyway.

Press ctrl+W to bring up worldbuilder by the way - to do this you must make sure you do not check the option "Lock modified assets" at the game startup screen.

It would also be worth looking into the unofficial patches that were made after the official 3.17 patch. These unofficial patches sought to correct the errors that were left in or introduced to 3.17.

 

[Mack the Knife]

Press ctrl+W to bring up worldbuilder by the way

that's what ^w means...

 

[Lord Parkin]

sigh, i thought this was "well known"....if all you are looking for is a money cheat, go into the worldbuilder (^w), select city mode in upper right, click on a city, change the amount money....presto, more

Indeed. Units can also be added for the human player (or removed from the AI) using the world builder as well, plus many other things. I'm yet another one who is perplexed that anyone would use a third party program to do something which is trivial in the ordinary game anyway.

Also, I can't understand why anyone would want to play Deity and give themselves multiple bonuses by cheating... seems to defeat the point of playing Deity. You may as well play at a more manageable difficulty level and win without cheating.

But then, I guess everyone has different ways of enjoying the game. If using multiple cheats to compete at the highest difficulty level makes someone happy, then who are we to say they shouldn't do that.

 

[Willem]

Frustrated with the game now. I've been playing Civilization for about 13 years. I probably have about 25,000 hours wasted on this game, and now I'm going to quit playing it.

Maybe you should actually learn how to play it instead of relying on a cheat to help you out. Even a chimpanzee could beat the game with a cheat like that.

 

[PieceOfMind]

that's what ^w means...

I was guessing that. I've never seen that before though so just clarifying in case.

 

[grossm2]

In defense of the OP, I also like to play over my level from time to time. If nothing else, war can be more interesting when the AI has endless hordes of up to date units. That being said, like all the other posters have suggested, I just use the World Builder to make myself competitive at difficulties where I otherwise would not stand a chance. With settled great people, you can give any city an unlimited number of gold, beakers, espionage, hammers, culture, food, and military XP.

I'm a big fan of Deity OCC Always-War games with a super start and forested hill choke point ...

 

[JulesDogg]

I'm a big fan of Deity OCC Always-War games with a super start and forested hill choke point ...

Which leader or UU do you like in those games?

 

[Mack the Knife]

@pieceofmind

I've never seen that before

now that i think about it it's probably just me and my little world. in an earlier life i worked on computers running unix and we always wrote the control commands (like Ctrl-C to kill a process) as ^C. i thought the ^ was universal for Ctrl but, as you pointed out, i'm probably wrong (...sorry to all for briefly hijacking this thread)

 

[grossm2]

Which leader or UU do you like in those games?

It's been a while since I played one actually, so I don't really remember specific leaders, but I think I've used Augustus quite a bit (Industrious and Imperialistic?). A leader with a clear economic and military advantage is ideal (I don't think financial is that strong in OCC). I tend to fortify my chokepoint with a few well-promoted defenders and spend a large portion of the game wonder-whoring to maximize GPP. For this purpose, I like to pair the Roman forum (+25% GPP if I remember correctly) with an industrious leader. Imperialistic isn't bad for the increased GG emergence - they give XP and beakers when settled under Representation. Unique units aren't a major concern as I usually wait until the modern era to launch an ultra-promoted hi-tech assault, but units with free promotions are good (ex. the Drill II Oromo).

 

[theKurgen]

The poor little baby upgraded his game and now can't cheat as conveniently as before. Awwwww!!! That's okay, just throw your toys out of the pram. Never play again

 

[PieceOfMind]

I'm guessing the OP assumed that Deity level AI was somehow better than the lower levels. This is of course not true but if it were then surely all of you could see good reason to "cheat" to bring your bonuses to a level similar to the AIs.

@theKurgen. It seems unlike you to write posts like that but you came across as more childish than the OP with your name-calling. I've come to expect better from CFC posters.

 

[Willem]

It seems unlike you to write posts like that but you came across as more childish than the OP with your name-calling.

Frankly I think the OP had it coming. I was tempted to write a post in a similar vein but decided against it at the last minute. If the OP wants to whine because he can no longer cheat his way through the game, then he deserves all the scorn that's gets heaped on him.