AI combats go by too quickly...

[Dr. Feh]

I like playing the game of "Let's you and him fight" with my rivals. It's not as easy to do in Civ4 as in previous games, but it's still possible, and Spies and religious intel make it easy to watch 'em happen.

Well. They would, if I could actually see them happening. I don't have 'Quick Combat' turned on, or AI moves turned off, or anything else I can think of that would make this happen, but I basically end up having to guess at where a unit went or who won a given fight. At best all I've ever seen is the explosion from an artillery bombardment on a city, and I never even see those all the time (never from a ship bombard for instance, although the city is obviously being hit by them).

It's very frustrating. I assume not everyone is having this issue or there would be more complaints... even if you could care less about watching your neighbors fight, it'd be nice if you could actually figure out which direction an AI unit headed into the "fog". Right now my screen just jumps around madly from location to location for a bit, then it's my turn again and I have no clue what happened.

Bah. Help?

 

[Jaybe]

No help, here. Civ4 seems to be a poor spectator sport, though I enjoy the game greatly in most other areas.

 

[WetWarev7]

I noticed there was a combat log(just below your gold/GPT display). Does it contain enemy combat info?

 

[Dr. Feh]

No, only your own info. You'll also get the news if a city is captured or razed, but everything else just blips by too fast to see, let alone comprehend, and never gets logged.

Actually there's one exception, the game is /happy/ to slow down enough to show you your rivals' ships sailing in circles over and over for no reason. But anything that would actually be useful intel gets fast forwarded. You especially shouldn't have to guess which way a unit went when it moved off and left your field of view. As it stands it's nigh impossible to follow another unit around without some lucky guesswork, plus you get barbarians that seem to "vanish".

Is my computer just too fast? I can't believe none of the beta testers cared about this problem. Watching the AI fight it out, okay, maybe that's arguably just disposable aesthetics... but there really at least ought to be some log tab to get the combat results from a turn. AND some way to slow down enemy moves enough that having 'Show enemy moves' clicked on actually MEANS something.

Grr. This is such a huge disconnect. I'm actually bored with the game before finishing my first session, because I feel so alienated from what's going on.

 

[Varelse]

Well I noticed in the options setting that there is not a box to turn off AI movement, but there are two boxes for turning ON AI movement, one for friendly and one for enemy. I tend to only check the "show enemy moves" button as I found the game slowed down alot when you set the "show friendly move" box, especially if you are a heavy exporter of your state religion. You might want to check the "show friendly moves" box only when these wars are going on, then turn the option off when the war ends.

 

[Dr. Feh]

Well I noticed in the options setting that there is not a box to turn off AI movement, but there are two boxes for turning ON AI movement, one for friendly and one for enemy. I tend to only check the "show enemy moves" button as I found the game slowed down alot when you set the "show friendly move" box, especially if you are a heavy exporter of your state religion. You might want to check the "show friendly moves" box only when these wars are going on, then turn the option off when the war ends.

Both these boxes have been checked since the beginning of the game. I exported my religion over most of the world and, aside from the aforementioned 'ships sailing in circles', everything else jumps by so fast as to give me a headache.

Are you actually able to watch the AI move around and fight when you have these turned on? I mean, seriously, my machine doesn't even meet all the recommended specs and I wish it would show things at least slowly enough for me to comprehend, rather than "blip-blip-blip-blip-yourturnagain" and leaving me guessing where some event even /happened/, much less what the result was.

I'm mostly posting here to see if someone found some option or configuration I've missed (it's not on the options screen, whatever it is) to dial the IBT speed down to a sane level. No one's posted a solution so far, so I'm guessing there isn't one, and unless someone posts one in the next couple days I'm going to assume this somehow made it by all testing and sanity checks and will have to post to the suggestions board, hoping Firaxis can patch this problem.

 

[WetWarev7]

I don't think there is an option, or if there is it is extremly well hidden. Maybe in an ini file?

I have noticed that when the disply actually gets to where an AI is moving into the fog of war, it actually blurs its movement. So even if the camera is in the right place, you still have to have a quick eye to even tell what it is! I notice this mostly in areas I can view via religion.

One thing I don't miss from Civ3 is stacks of AI naval units travelling along my coast, one unit at a time, one tile at a time! That used to drive me nuts!

 

[Varelse]

I get the blur, and my comp exceeds recommended specs. It is enough to tell who is coming from where, but I do wish it was fully animated like in Civ3. I guess they figured the requirements were too high to begin with and adding that animation would just make it worse. I get the same blur from my own units, but at least with them I know what to be looking for.

 

[Arathorn]

I can't even see what the AI is doing in MY territory, let alone where I just have a bit of vision. Except tanks, that is, which seem to move at the speed of a constipated snail. Everything else just zips around. Makes it really hard to know/guess where units have been dropped off. I wish there was some way to change this, too.

Arathorn

 

[Padmewan]

Not to change topics, but out of curiousity what would you do if one of the civs gains a decisive upper hand? Is it possible to create a monster civ when you intended really to knock both of them down, and if so, how do you respond? (I used to do this in Civ3 and would eventually have to pick up a gun and even things out for the losing side, which sometimes wasn't worth it...)

 

[Dr. Feh]

Not to change topics, but out of curiousity what would you do if one of the civs gains a decisive upper hand? Is it possible to create a monster civ when you intended really to knock both of them down, and if so, how do you respond? (I used to do this in Civ3 and would eventually have to pick up a gun and even things out for the losing side, which sometimes wasn't worth it...)

I think anytime you start messing about with the Balance of Power, there's a danger of sending things out of control... it's not something to do casually. Not even the fact I was bored out of my skull by centuries of unbudging peace really made me stir the pot, although it was a factor. Ironically, inciting war proved to be just as boring since (per this thread) I couldn't tell what the hell was happening despite religious and espionage "observers" in or near the cities being assaulted.

It's scary to find out the movement is just as blurrily fast when you're dealing with enemies on your own lands. I have a mid-sized continent all to myself and kicked out the last barbarians ages ago, so I didn't know that. That's even worse.

Anyhow, in regards to your tangent, in my case I was happy and secure on my own separate part of the world, while Elizabethan England, half a world away, had neighbors. I had the tech lead but Elizabeth was cranking out discovery after discovery of her own and very obviously beelining for the space race. When I saw she'd have Rocketry done in 3 turns I got Qin and Catherine to go to war on her. Strategically speaking this worked perfectly... Elizabeth lost a large city and several production tiles, but the stacks of industrial age units Cathy and Qin sent couldn't keep up momentum once Lizzy switched to war mode and cranked out Infantry to defend her cities.

End result was more loss than gain for all parties involved, plus it killed the 'everyone loves me' club Elizabeth had going up until then. But it was... boring. I had to just check cities and unit stacks after IBT's to see who might or might not be winning. I had to figure out if other stacks had been destroyed or had just moved somewhere else. It felt, overall, like nothing was happening. At least nothing entertaining.

Anyhow, I'd say the big thing to watch out for when playing AI's against each other is relations. I got a whopping -2 out of Lizzie for siccing Qin and Cathy on her, which was nothing... she's still "Pleased" with me, in fact. On the other hand, those nations who you pay off to aggress often come back in a turn or two asking you to help them out. If you refuse, they smell a rat and you take a hit for that.

I don't know, I probably could have won even without hacking Elizabeth's kneecaps, but I wanted to be able to take a leisurely pace and check out various techs. And I was bored. But now I'm still bored. Bah.

 

[tirpidz]

For me it looks more like a bad inplementation.
Imagine with all the line of sight provided with religion and such: it would be extremely long to see the AI moving all its units over and over.

What i think, is the implemented the "blip" thing to prevent us from wasting hours watching at AI moves.

So it would be a clever thing to add more options:

Show enemy moves:
- naval units on/off
- enemy moves into/close to my territory on/off
- enemy moves near to my forces on/off
- enemy near allies on/off
- all enemy moves on/off

where of course "show enemy move" clearly show all movement and combat slow enough for an human to understand.

Also, the fact the ship are running in circle also seem like a bad implementation.

The way the AI see the naval units is on a one unit basis. They should try to
get the naval units like the air units. (ie: give them differents mission to perform)

like the following:
-convoy
-amphibius landing
-naval blockage
-naval bombardment
-naval supremacy

So basicly you select a few naval units, get them into a "task force" and give them one of thoses "missions". Now you only have to help the AI a little by telling him what kind of units use together for X, Y missions.

PS: the WW2 senario was a lot of disapointment. Only seeing the italian "super marina" sailing in circle around the british battlecruiser that poped out of nowhere, AND not seeing the afrika corpse figthing. Just when your turn come back, you notice the italian forces had disapeared and your panzer IV have more damage but 2 more promotions...