Hi all.
Played Civ 4 a few times now and read about the changes to the AI at higher difficulty levels. Im approaching the time when i can take the AI on at Noble difficulty since i do appear to beat the AI on a regular basis on warlord now.
I usually play on marathon these days, huge maps etc.
Thats the background, now for something ive noticed at warlord level that I want to talk about.
In every single game, no matter how far a head in the tech tree i appear to get. The One or more AIs always catch me up before the game ends, usually around the industrial era it happens. I dismissed this for several games but my last game left me with some serious questions.
Basically, you could fit all the remaining AIs territory inside my own empires territory. India was my closest competitor but only had half a dozen towns and only 1 above 15 pop and that was 20 pop. My empire had gotten so big the names started appearing as cityname/cityname and all where above 18 pop but smaller than 25 pop except for 4 towns i built to gain access to extra trade. There where about 8 pop because i built them late in the game. All on the same continent btw and the palace was right in the center of the empire. Corruption/wastage was held to a min.
Very few needed anything else building and most could turn out modern armour in 2 turns (to give you an idea of what they could produce and how fast).
My science was set between 70 and 80, i juggled it about when i needed a little extra cash. My culture was at 10 to 20 (depending on if i used that extra cash to make money or put pressure on the AI borders via increasing the culture).
My cities had everything they needed, nothing was holding them back.
So how does an empire with half a dozen cities of average size catch up to me in tech race ?
He was making about 4 gold per turn, i was able to make 340 gold per turn without causing any major slow down in my research.
The other thing i wondered about was the space race, india started to build stuff for the space race relatively late, i already had my ship half built when he started and I had my biggest and best cities doing the building.
Yet by the time the ship was finished, we where both down to the last item.
Even with his half a dozen cities, theres no way his cities could have built every piece of the ship all at once, he simple didnt have enough cities. The casings alone would have needed 5 cities to build them all at the same time and even then, theres no way his towns could build them faster than mine, he simply didnt have towns that good. His cities where too small to do it in less than 100 years.
Mine could build the biggest components in less than 50.
So how did he manage to catch up with me in the space race when you cannot rush any of the items the ship requires ?
Btw i used a spare city to build the space elevator, if i didnt he would have won.
Finally, i was trying to get one of the religions early and went for hinduism. 10 turns in to the game another AI got it first. The quickest ive ever had it at is consistantly around 40 turns after i start researching it, yet they got it within 10 turns of the start of the game. Even allowing for the AI starting with the tech before that religion, 10 turns is an all time record. I have never seen it picked up from villages yet, is that even possible at warlord ?
These are issues that leave me thinking Civ 4 has code that gives the AI a boost if the player gets too far a head. I have seen it happen in every game ive played so far. In the case above, india had to catch up a whole 6 techs to match me.
Giskard
Played Civ 4 a few times now and read about the changes to the AI at higher difficulty levels. Im approaching the time when i can take the AI on at Noble difficulty since i do appear to beat the AI on a regular basis on warlord now.
I usually play on marathon these days, huge maps etc.
Thats the background, now for something ive noticed at warlord level that I want to talk about.
In every single game, no matter how far a head in the tech tree i appear to get. The One or more AIs always catch me up before the game ends, usually around the industrial era it happens. I dismissed this for several games but my last game left me with some serious questions.
Basically, you could fit all the remaining AIs territory inside my own empires territory. India was my closest competitor but only had half a dozen towns and only 1 above 15 pop and that was 20 pop. My empire had gotten so big the names started appearing as cityname/cityname and all where above 18 pop but smaller than 25 pop except for 4 towns i built to gain access to extra trade. There where about 8 pop because i built them late in the game. All on the same continent btw and the palace was right in the center of the empire. Corruption/wastage was held to a min.
Very few needed anything else building and most could turn out modern armour in 2 turns (to give you an idea of what they could produce and how fast).
My science was set between 70 and 80, i juggled it about when i needed a little extra cash. My culture was at 10 to 20 (depending on if i used that extra cash to make money or put pressure on the AI borders via increasing the culture).
My cities had everything they needed, nothing was holding them back.
So how does an empire with half a dozen cities of average size catch up to me in tech race ?
He was making about 4 gold per turn, i was able to make 340 gold per turn without causing any major slow down in my research.
The other thing i wondered about was the space race, india started to build stuff for the space race relatively late, i already had my ship half built when he started and I had my biggest and best cities doing the building.
Yet by the time the ship was finished, we where both down to the last item.
Even with his half a dozen cities, theres no way his cities could have built every piece of the ship all at once, he simple didnt have enough cities. The casings alone would have needed 5 cities to build them all at the same time and even then, theres no way his towns could build them faster than mine, he simply didnt have towns that good. His cities where too small to do it in less than 100 years.
Mine could build the biggest components in less than 50.
So how did he manage to catch up with me in the space race when you cannot rush any of the items the ship requires ?
Btw i used a spare city to build the space elevator, if i didnt he would have won.
Finally, i was trying to get one of the religions early and went for hinduism. 10 turns in to the game another AI got it first. The quickest ive ever had it at is consistantly around 40 turns after i start researching it, yet they got it within 10 turns of the start of the game. Even allowing for the AI starting with the tech before that religion, 10 turns is an all time record. I have never seen it picked up from villages yet, is that even possible at warlord ?
These are issues that leave me thinking Civ 4 has code that gives the AI a boost if the player gets too far a head. I have seen it happen in every game ive played so far. In the case above, india had to catch up a whole 6 techs to match me.
Giskard
) and i thought, whoa I'm back in the game again...
