ALC Game #23 Pre-Game Show: Playing as Lincoln

[madscientist]

I vote against an agressive AI. It just makes the AI dumber and they tech worse.

 

[armoredcrawler]

I dunno, I've always appreciated aggressive AI because it keeps me on my toes more - if that power graph falls too low I get punished.

Also, can I put in a special plea for a space race victory? We've had three straight military wins, and after all America DID complete the actual Apollo program.

 

[Bleys]

I wasnt suggesting a "pure" water map, just something where the naval aspect of the game (and the changes that come with it in 3.17) will be in play. Maybe a Big and Small, or a 4 Continent thing, although the basic problem with any continents type map is that once you take over your own landmass, there is rarely a need for much more to win.

 

[CivCorpse]

^^Maybe it is better to check if there is water or a mountain 1 NE of the warrior before doing that, don't you think ?....

You're obviously a newbie. EVERYBODY knows that if you can't move the warrior 1NE you regen because the map is unwinnable.

 

[Stuck in Pi]

then someone roll a start to see if we have to regen!

 

[Scarredroman]

Sisiutil has kept the number of Civs and map size the same throughout the ALCs. That's been constant and I doubt Sisiutil will change now. Lincoln's a good solid choice to increase the difficulty.

 

[r_rolo1]

You're obviously a newbie. EVERYBODY knows that if you can't move the warrior 1NE you regen because the map is unwinnable.

No game is unwinnable.... well, some are pretty close of it

 

[Bandobras Took]

Sisiutil has kept the number of Civs and map size the same throughout the ALCs. That's been constant and I doubt Sisiutil will change now. Lincoln's a good solid choice to increase the difficulty.

Again, there's little point. All increasing the difficulty does is force war sooner. Since we already know that Sisiutil does well at war, keep the difficulty level where it is so that the non-war aspects of the game don't have to be put on the back burner.

 

[CivCorpse]

I vote for a huge map @ marathon speed. Then we can start a betting pool for how long it takes Sis to finish it. I am putting $500 on July 27th 2017. But I may change that after we move the scout 1NE. Ooops, I mean after One moves the scout 1NE

 

[DrJambo]

Like I said, keep map size and difficulty the same, but increase the number of civs and use low sea level. It raises the difficulty level independent of warring.

 

[Daedal]

More civs, more heads to knock around. Higher difficulty, knock heads sooner. Maybe we could have a poll to settle this? It's just a matter of flavor. I doubt it'll affect the outcome of the game much either way.

 

[Sisiutil]

I've found 3.17 slightly harder, so perhaps staying at Emperor for the first outing might be advisable?

Also Sis, did you consider my suggestion for using low sea level and having 2 extra civs (9 total)? That will naturally increase the difficulty a little and also make the late game more interesting. 7 civs really is awfully small and unchallenging.

BEst,

I kind of like this idea and am strongly considering it.

Hello Everyone

FWIW, I agree with Mukuu, my view is that Emporer level games are the most fun to follow.

Personally I have found the latest patch more challenging and further, @ sisiutil, you play such an aggressive style yourself and yet you dont use the 'aggressive ai' setting. Not only does the AI build more units, but its more of a diplomatic challenge as well. I really think that you should have been using this setting since the Ragnar game.

As armoredcrawler said, when I've played with Aggressive AI on (as in the Shaka game), I've found that the AI techs much slower, which tends to offset the advantages they gain through having more units, since I end up having better ones.

I may try an Immortal level game off-line to see what that difficulty level is like, then make my decision for this game, which will start this weekend.

 

[Cronos]

I think Dr Jambo is right. With aggressive ai, all civs start with a negative modifier against you. With extra civs involved, as soon as you start focusing your attentions on one civ, you cannot ignore the others comfortable in the knowledge that they wont backstab you. The extra civs mean that its almost impossible to stay out of the crosshairs of one civ or another bent on your destruction.

And, while yes they tech slower because they are building more units, I think without a doubt the aggressive ai presents a much more challenging game esp on continents type maps and im quite adamnent that it is a much harder experience. In all my offline experience this has proven the case. Its not much good having a tech advantage and peacefully teching away when khan shows up on your doorstep with his horde of keshiks.

I wont reproduce the arguments for and against here, because it has been discussed at length previously and everyone has had varied results. Some times, as someone once put it, its better to be lucky than good, but for the vast majority of games all I can comment on is my own personal experience and on this one I agree with Blake.

Link: http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showpost.php?p=24979&postcount=18

So I guess the question is Sis, is it hardcore or sandbox for you

 

[Sisiutil]

Actually, Cronos, Blake says right in that article that the human player no longer has a relationship penalty with the AI in Aggressive AI. The AI simply expects there to be more conflict and behaves accordingly.

Did you follow the Shaka game? That was the ALC that experimented with the Aggressive AI. My response--which worked incredibly well--was to be aggressive right back. I expected to be at war that entire game and I pretty much was. In turn, as my empire grew, I had more cities spewing out flasks as well as units, so I garnered a tech lead before long. Granted, I had certain advantages. I had a UU which countered mounted units, which the AI loves. Tech brokering was on and goody huts were off, which further restricted the tech level of the AI.

Most of all, I think, I had a map that allowed me to leave fewer units in my core cities and focus on defending the border towns. In fact, the map (an inland sea, if you recall) may have been the largest factor there, since my entire southern border was on the edge of the map and was therefore impenetrable. On a continents map or one like it, that would have been the southern coast of a continent and would have been vulnerable to amphibious invasions.

And I grant further that it was only one game. In the past I had discussed the possibility of activating AggAI when I knew I was going to warmonger from the get-go. This may be another game where that's the case, since Charismatic, to my mind, is a warmongering trait just as much as Aggressive or Imperialistic; the SE compliments warmongering, and that economic strategy, of course, dovetails with Philosophical.

So I may take your advice and use AggAI instead of going to Immortal level, give the setting another whirl and see if it does indeed present the challenges Blake says it will. I'll leave tech brokering off and goody huts on to allow us to experience the setting in isolation a little better, and use a map type that requires me to keep an eye on all points of the compass. Sound good?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I don't necessarily see Agg AI as harder, but it's different so both going to immortal and running it might make the game a bit too complicated to adjust to instantly.

AGG AI is probably harder for people who worry about AI aggression, but my playstyle tends to deal with it perfectly as I make units early and often with aggression in mind anyway. In many instances I see more units, but the AI handles them poorly allowing me to have ridiculous k-d ratio at tech parity (if only fighting humans were that easy). In AGG AI the computer has more units, but it doesn't handle them any better than it did before. It techs slower though (as Blake notes), which means the odds of an AI getting infantry first and then dropping 10 of them in my territory while I still have grenadiers is actually lower given the same difficulty. My problem in high level games is falling behind in tech, not fighting . Tactics don't matter as much when you have exactly 0 units that can attack anything the AI has above 20% odds , and that's where I die. AGG AI reduces the chances of this! It might actually make the game easy for you now Sisiutil, but we'll have to see .

 

[BlueSoxSWJ]

I can see points for both sides here on the Emperor/Immortal debate. On the one hand, immortal difficulty, from the sounds of it, requires a formulaic, unvarying approach to the game, which doesn't leave as much leeway for the whole point of the ALCs, which is to vary each game off of the generic formula in such a way as to maximize the unique aspects of the civ/leader being played.

On the other hand, a secondary goal of this series, it seems, is to be didactic. These threads are full of people who upped their game levels by simply reading the ALCs (I'm one of them ... I started reading struggling on warlord [never played any Civ game before], and last night I played a noble game just for fun ... and took Industrialism as my free Liberalism tech, just because I could). There is plenty of material out there in the older threads for the more novice players, so perhaps it's time to help those stuck on emperor to make the next leap?

In terms of map size, my experience with adding civs to smaller maps is that the quality of the land available goes downhill. In a game where I tried adding 2 additional civs recently, my capital had only one resource in it (3 clams), and the shape of the land cut me off at three cities with a sum total of 5 unique resources available (clams, fish, oil, iron, and rice). Of course, the iron was then used to confiscate some nearby resources from my neighbors ... but has anyone else had similar experiences, or did I just get a really tough roll of the dice?

 

[ratrangerm]

Just a brief comment: If you're going to try to make things more difficult for yourself, you should figure out exactly how making those more difficult affects your play style.

Your play style favors war more often than not and your tendency is to shoot for domination victories first and foremost.

Therefore, you should adjust the difficulty to make you think more carefully about your approach... in other words, that you have to smartly plan for war and that domination may not be the most sensible approach.

Personally, I'd go with the move to Immortal at first, but if things don't work, go back to Emperor and consider another adjustment if you want. Moving to Immortal would, from what I've read, force you to be a little smarter when it comes to picking your wars.

And who knows... maybe you'll end up like aelf and become a master diplmoat.

 

[r_rolo1]

One point about Agg AI that seems to had been overlooked: Agg AI is more eager for war, hence it is more easily bribable to it. My experience with Agg AI is that is very easy to provoke a diplo mayhem with all the AI hating each other and depleting their armies in useless AI-AI fights ( this is especially true if there are backstabbing AI in game ,like Alex or Cathy ). Of course this does not assure absolute safety, but, as long as you can bribe a AI to war, the game can be transformed in a inter AI meatgrinder while you do whatever it may please you ( as long as you have a sufficient army, that is )

 

[Daedal]

Personally, I'd go with the move to Immortal at first, but if things don't work, go back to Emperor and consider another adjustment if you want.

I'm not picking on you ratrangerm, but this has been suggested several times and I doubt Sisiutil would consider this. Whenever he's gone up in level, it's stuck. You can't back down from a challenge like that. This is the All Leaders Challenge, after all. Restarting a failed game is one thing. Dropping down to a lesser difficulty is another thing entirely. I think S needs to be sure about the move to Immortal before he does it. I think he's ready for it, but only he can say for sure.

I don't think S should pick both the 2 extra opponents AND Aggressive AI. Extra opponents means more inter-AI war. AggAI means more inter-AI war. That much inter-AI war is going to cripple the AI's tech rate. This is especially true on a close quarters map such as tectonics where each continent or peninsular area will probably start with 2-3 civs. Speaking of which, if S picks tectonics we should prepare for an early war.

 

[DrJambo]

I used to be a firm believer in the notion that Agg AI made the game more challenging. However, having tried countless games using both options, I no longer think that is the case.

Here are the options I use for a very rewarding Emperor game:

Standard map size
Epic speed
Low sea level
9 civs
Choose religions
Permanent alliances