I had been on hiatus from Civ for a while. I don't know what made me visit Civfanatics again one day, but I did.
I saw a reference made to "Blake's Better AI" in a totally unrelated thread that I was browsing, and it piqued my interest. After a few unsucessful searches, I managed to locate the 92 page monstrosity and downloaded the Better AI mod.
Well, I decided to drop down to Warlord to try it out, and was (un?)pleasantly surprised when I saw that I was actually LOSING (handedly!) the score battle right from the get-go!
I'm not an advanced CIVer, I don't really try to make GP farms, and I sure as hell wouldn't know a SE if it bit me in the ass. But I've played Civ ever since the ugly little 64 pixel icons waltzing around on my old 386 system. So before I took a break, on Warlord level I would be able to have a massive score lead without much effort. In rare cases, my score being nearly twice that of everyone else combined. Wars were trivial. My modern armor would easily trounce their little medieval units and I could toy with any Civ I wished.
NOT TO BE THE CASE THIS TIME! Huzzah!
I'm in the year 2100ish right now, time victory disabled. I've just finally finished a 450, yes FOUR hundred fifty year war by wiping out 4 civs (They declared war on ME) and taking the Chinese who were #2 on the scoreboard as my Vassal.(who I thought was my best friend in the world until he and his 3 vassals decided to wipe me off the planet)
I didn't have any air defense to speak of, so the Chinese have essentially wiped out every single terrain improvement I had. And I mean every single one. I don't even have so much as a cottage left after last night. I actually had to scramble around the map trying to locate a source of oil because they kept destroying my local access. This left me without armor production capabilities for nearly 20 turns!
It really came down to the wire. I killed off his Vassals first (Alexander, Louis, and ol' King Tut or whoever the egyptian guy is) and then focused on beating back the Chinese juggernaut. In the end, I had to just pray he would agree to capitulate.
All of my cities were reduced to shambles. I had to put the culture slider all the way to 100% just to keep a few citizens working in my main cities so I could replace rapidly dying units. I started the war with 25k gold and a surplus of nearly 1600 per turn, by the end, after all the gold rushing I had to do and the fact that EVERY SINGLE FOOKING TOWN/VILLAGE/HAMLET/COTTAGE/WHATEVER I had was destroyed, I was left losing 200 gold per turn and a treasury of 1200.
Most of my cities were being defended by a single unit, and in many cases that unit was a modern armor because there weren't enough mech infantry to go around. I actually had 3 cities burried deep within my borders that had no defenders at all! I have *never* been stretched so thin before on Warlord.
Mind you, this is on a continents map. The reason the people on my own continent attacked me must be because I was using my army to dance all over the peace-lovers on the 2nd land mass. I lost quite a few units and they must have seen it as a perfect opportunity.
I quickly finished off the babies on the second continent, and made peace with those I lacked the resources to persue. That's when the war I described above began.
So while I'm dealing with local infidels... Cyrus, Kublai Kahn, and Julius Ceasar (#1 on the scoreboard) are merrily building spaceship components as I sit there, powerless to stop them. Make no mistake folks, I *will* lose this game. I saved and went to bed last night after accepting Mao's capitulation (which I had to ask for, he didn't offer!). At that point, Cyrus only had to finish 2 or 3 spaceship components. So I'm sure I'm only a few turns away from the loss. But when I get back home tonight, I'll load it up and see if I have any city infrastructure left to mount an amazing spaceship comeback of my own. Before the war started, my military production city was pumping out 2 modern armor every 3 turns. My GP farm (by default) had non-military production of nearly 150 hammers per turn. Unfortunately, I just don't think I'll be able to pull it off.
Now, I did end this war with nearly 20 more cities than I started with. And since I'm not big on pillaging, hopefully some of these Chinese cities will have decent production. I captured 4 or 5 Chinese cities with 27 or greater population... ONE of them must have had some decent production tiles. So with any luck, I'll be a space-race contender due to sheer production volume, but only the next few dozen turns will tell.
Based on the power graphs of that other continent, I realize that any attempt to win by force will be futile at best. A come-from-behind space race is my only hope!
Though now that I think about it... toward the end of that war, the people on that other continent were cancelling trades and demanding tributes nearly every other turn..... my Navy has been destroyed and I have no airforce.
Who knows what kind of army is lurking just off the shores of my now frail civilization..........
Thanks, Better AI!
I saw a reference made to "Blake's Better AI" in a totally unrelated thread that I was browsing, and it piqued my interest. After a few unsucessful searches, I managed to locate the 92 page monstrosity and downloaded the Better AI mod.
Well, I decided to drop down to Warlord to try it out, and was (un?)pleasantly surprised when I saw that I was actually LOSING (handedly!) the score battle right from the get-go!
I'm not an advanced CIVer, I don't really try to make GP farms, and I sure as hell wouldn't know a SE if it bit me in the ass. But I've played Civ ever since the ugly little 64 pixel icons waltzing around on my old 386 system. So before I took a break, on Warlord level I would be able to have a massive score lead without much effort. In rare cases, my score being nearly twice that of everyone else combined. Wars were trivial. My modern armor would easily trounce their little medieval units and I could toy with any Civ I wished.
NOT TO BE THE CASE THIS TIME! Huzzah!
I'm in the year 2100ish right now, time victory disabled. I've just finally finished a 450, yes FOUR hundred fifty year war by wiping out 4 civs (They declared war on ME) and taking the Chinese who were #2 on the scoreboard as my Vassal.(who I thought was my best friend in the world until he and his 3 vassals decided to wipe me off the planet)
I didn't have any air defense to speak of, so the Chinese have essentially wiped out every single terrain improvement I had. And I mean every single one. I don't even have so much as a cottage left after last night. I actually had to scramble around the map trying to locate a source of oil because they kept destroying my local access. This left me without armor production capabilities for nearly 20 turns!
It really came down to the wire. I killed off his Vassals first (Alexander, Louis, and ol' King Tut or whoever the egyptian guy is) and then focused on beating back the Chinese juggernaut. In the end, I had to just pray he would agree to capitulate.
All of my cities were reduced to shambles. I had to put the culture slider all the way to 100% just to keep a few citizens working in my main cities so I could replace rapidly dying units. I started the war with 25k gold and a surplus of nearly 1600 per turn, by the end, after all the gold rushing I had to do and the fact that EVERY SINGLE FOOKING TOWN/VILLAGE/HAMLET/COTTAGE/WHATEVER I had was destroyed, I was left losing 200 gold per turn and a treasury of 1200.
Most of my cities were being defended by a single unit, and in many cases that unit was a modern armor because there weren't enough mech infantry to go around. I actually had 3 cities burried deep within my borders that had no defenders at all! I have *never* been stretched so thin before on Warlord.
Mind you, this is on a continents map. The reason the people on my own continent attacked me must be because I was using my army to dance all over the peace-lovers on the 2nd land mass. I lost quite a few units and they must have seen it as a perfect opportunity.
I quickly finished off the babies on the second continent, and made peace with those I lacked the resources to persue. That's when the war I described above began.
So while I'm dealing with local infidels... Cyrus, Kublai Kahn, and Julius Ceasar (#1 on the scoreboard) are merrily building spaceship components as I sit there, powerless to stop them. Make no mistake folks, I *will* lose this game. I saved and went to bed last night after accepting Mao's capitulation (which I had to ask for, he didn't offer!). At that point, Cyrus only had to finish 2 or 3 spaceship components. So I'm sure I'm only a few turns away from the loss. But when I get back home tonight, I'll load it up and see if I have any city infrastructure left to mount an amazing spaceship comeback of my own. Before the war started, my military production city was pumping out 2 modern armor every 3 turns. My GP farm (by default) had non-military production of nearly 150 hammers per turn. Unfortunately, I just don't think I'll be able to pull it off.
Now, I did end this war with nearly 20 more cities than I started with. And since I'm not big on pillaging, hopefully some of these Chinese cities will have decent production. I captured 4 or 5 Chinese cities with 27 or greater population... ONE of them must have had some decent production tiles. So with any luck, I'll be a space-race contender due to sheer production volume, but only the next few dozen turns will tell.
Based on the power graphs of that other continent, I realize that any attempt to win by force will be futile at best. A come-from-behind space race is my only hope!
Though now that I think about it... toward the end of that war, the people on that other continent were cancelling trades and demanding tributes nearly every other turn..... my Navy has been destroyed and I have no airforce.
Who knows what kind of army is lurking just off the shores of my now frail civilization..........
Thanks, Better AI!
I really enjoyed reading it 
Would you mind sharing what difficulty level did you play at?
