Any cheat for this?

[DCL]

I'm still learning the game, I'm on noble and I'm amazed at how good the ai is at keeping up and pulling ahead in tech early, building huge armies early, and just plain how good it is early and later on. (or maybe how bad I am early).

Anyway I was just wondering if there was a cheat that would allow you to look at what the AI is building in each of his cities, when it is using slavery to rush, looking at it's cities to see how it's allocating it's resources... stuff like that.

I'd just love to see how it does it, esp the tech race stuff. I'm amazed that even when I have like 20 cities and one of the AI races has like 5 it can still pull ahead of me in the tech race in the middle and later sections of the game. I'm wondering if he uses the research build option in his cities more often then I do (I hardly ever use the research and wealth build options....) Just how does the AI do it on noble (where it's not suppose to cheat)

I'd love to know it's secrets on noble so I could learn!

 

[TheMeInTeam]

If you have BTS just give yourself a ton of espionage points on them. Otherwise, use the world builder.

However, the noble AI is pretty awful. You'd be better served looking at the playthroughs/decision patterns of virtually any player on strategy and tips subforum. Take your pick...there's hundreds of games to read there.

 

[Supr49er]

Well, you could always pop in and out of the Worldbuilder.

Welcome to the Forums DCL.

 

[CoZe]

well, there is the worldbuilder. you can open the WB and give yourself infinitesimal espionage points against the AI, which will let you see what their cities are building, what they're researching, even inside the cities for specialists.

by the way, your entry imcludes the reason why AI is able to catch up with you in techs. You have 20 cities vs AI 5 or so. In civ 4 every cities comes with a maintenance cost, which increases exponentially. So the more cities you have, more maintenance you have to pay, and if you don't specialise your cities to the max, this usually gives a better optimised but smaller empire the upper hand. try to focus on specialising your cities instead of getting more cities.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

well, there is the worldbuilder. you can open the WB and give yourself infinitesimal espionage points against the AI, which will let you see what their cities are building, what they're researching, even inside the cities for specialists.

by the way, your entry imcludes the reason why AI is able to catch up with you in techs. You have 20 cities vs AI 5 or so. In civ 4 every cities comes with a maintenance cost, which increases exponentially. So the more cities you have, more maintenance you have to pay, and if you don't specialise your cities to the max, this usually gives a better optimised but smaller empire the upper hand. try to focus on specialising your cities instead of getting more cities.

If you can afford them without strike, there is virtually no time you'd not take 4x the AI's city count though. Assuming you have even half an idea of what you're doing, overtaking a 5 city empire is a matter of a very few turns...and even if they declare advanced units won't handle the kind of #'s associated with 20 cities.

 

[DCL]

Thx for the welcome and quick replies!

How do you add espionage points in the world builder? I don't see the option.

BTW I must really suck at this game because noble on BTS gives me a hell of a tuf time every game!

 

[the343danny]

Nah, I dont think you suck. IIRC, a lot of the players in the forums are Noble players. In fact I left the noble level about a week ago.

 

[Lord Parkin]

BTW I must really suck at this game because noble on BTS gives me a hell of a tuf time every game!

It's all relative. Remember, practically everyone here on the forums started out on Noble level or below when they first got the game. Certainly, no-one was an instant genius at the game; the good players have all become good players with time and practice.

I think you'll be surprised at how quickly you can improve your game, if you take some time every day or two to read through just a few of the many informative threads around the site. The War Academy and Strategy & Tips sections in particular are invaluable. Make sure to check them out, and you'll be playing better very soon.

 

[Iranon]

The good news is that you got into some good habit... most inexperienced players don't found enough cities. You can't really found too many of them - even if that means you fall behind in tech initially, sheer volume should allow you to catch up quickly.

If you don't leave the 5-city-empires in the dust by the medieval period, you're probably doing something fundamentally wrong though.

Care to post a save, to have us avoid asking insultingly basic questions?

 

[PieceOfMind]

well, there is the worldbuilder. you can open the WB and give yourself infinitesimal espionage points against the AI, which will let you see what their cities are building, what they're researching, even inside the cities for specialists.

by the way, your entry imcludes the reason why AI is able to catch up with you in techs. You have 20 cities vs AI 5 or so. In civ 4 every cities comes with a maintenance cost, which increases exponentially. So the more cities you have, more maintenance you have to pay, and if you don't specialise your cities to the max, this usually gives a better optimised but smaller empire the upper hand. try to focus on specialising your cities instead of getting more cities.

I don't want to be a pedant but I can't stand to see math jargon misused...

infinitesimal: A non-zero quantity whose magnitude is smaller than any positive number (by definition it is not a real number); Too small to measure; Of or pertaining to values that approach zero as a limit.

To the OP, the easiest way to keep checking on the Ai is world builder IMO. As far as I know you can't check inside their cities but you can definitely see what they build. Giving yourself a large number of great spies via world builder is the easiest way to get a esp boost, but that may affect the AI in that they will divert more of their income to esp to keep up with you. Both ways of checking on the AI have some merit.

Another option is to use the AI Auto Play mod (I think it's a mod by jdog500). Using it, you can actually change the civ you control, so you could switch to another civ to see a snapshort of their game.

I'll get a link for you if you can't find it.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Hmmm, when playtesting maps for noble's club and PYL when I do awkward things to spice the game up and want to check balance to make sure it's playable, I just give myself like 50 great spies at the beginning and an explorer next to each civ. That should get you enough ep/turn to see everything they do for most if not all of the game, if you truly intend to just watch.

Like I said though, the AI does a lot of suboptimal/crappy things and almost never specializes cities properly. You'd not be best served by mimicking their actions, but rather those of humans who beat higher levels consistently.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. This may improve relations with some AIs!

 

[DCL]

The good news is that you got into some good habit... most inexperienced players don't found enough cities. You can't really found too many of them - even if that means you fall behind in tech initially, sheer volume should allow you to catch up quickly.

If you don't leave the 5-city-empires in the dust by the medieval period, you're probably doing something fundamentally wrong though.

Care to post a save, to have us avoid asking insultingly basic questions?

I overwrite my savegames so all I have is this save after Zara has won a space race victory against me (dan0808).

Kublia Kahn was the one that even though he had many less cities then I did (30 for me compared to 7 for him) was always able to stay way ahead of me in tech. I got closer at the end but I was amazed at how he was able not only to keep up with me but remain way ahead until the end (when he was still ahead dang it!)

 

[theKurgen]

You'd be much better off watching how a good player plays than trying to emulate the AI.

 

[DCL]

You'd be much better off watching how a good player plays than trying to emulate the AI.

Yeah you're right. I'd love to be able to join A multiplayer game and just watch too bad that's not an option..

 

[Lord Parkin]

Yeah you're right. I'd love to be able to join A multiplayer game and just watch too bad that's not an option..

You can certainly do that. Join in the current BTS Democracy Game - a multiplayer game involving more than 100 members from this site. Whatever team you join, you're certain to find plenty of interesting discussions involving very skilled players, and you'll be able to watch the game as it unfolds.

Also, I'd be quite happy to talk with you over PM about some of the multiplayer games that I'm in currently, if you're interested. (I've played over 100 such games - ranging from 2 to 18 players - and have won perhaps 80% of them.) You only have to ask. I'm sure others would be willing to share their exploits too - most of us love to tell a good Civ tale.

 

[DCL]

Thx for the offer. I could use a tip for what I'm doing wrong in my present game. This is good example of the trouble I get into on the lowly noble level. (Man do I stink)Anyway I saw a opportunity to take out Ceasar's empire (I had a better military what the heck) and I did. The problem is now my economy stinks and Justinian is way ahead of me in tech and (I think) military). I'm pretty sure this game's lost. What did I do wrong? Did I make a mistake in going after Caesar and over expanding? It was such a crowded map I figured I had to start conquering someone.. Maybe I made other mistakes (as usual) in building my cities early.... Anyway to recover or am I dead?

This is such a hard game for me to get the hang of...

 

[DCL]

And now Louis is pulling way ahead of me. (Even William van Oranje with 4 freaking cities is ahead of me..) This is what I don't understand. If I could just understand how Louis who, looking at the worldbuilder, has a largest city at 10, and not that big of an empire, can get all that tech I could get a grasp of what I have to do to keep up. I just don't understand how he can do so well in tech...

 

[theKurgen]

Dude, you have like 14 cities and haven't built one courthouse! I only had a very quick look, but you seem to be doing quite well.

Build courthouses in every city, especially those new ones that are so far away from your cap. Once you build 7 u can build the forbidden palace and then your economy will be back on track.

Change into slavery so you can whip some of those courthouses. Now that the war is over change into Beauracracy also so your capital will make more commerce.

Build a marketplace in your cap and in other commerce cities. This will boost your gold so you can run more science again. Stop running 10% espionage will help that too.

Get some more cottage spam going around some of those river cities. After a period of recovery you should be able to easily win this game IMO

EDIT: Also don't worry about building monuments etc in those new cities, you have the confuscian holy city so just spread confusc to all those new cities. This will give you extra gpt and spread culture in those cities. Build a market in that holy city ASAP!! I would also spread confusc to the rest of Zara Yaqob's cities for more gpt and so he doesn't think about switching over to Jewism. Good luck.

 

[DCL]

Thx. After 1320 I did start building some courthouses, using slavery to speed some up and that helped a bit. I'll work on the cottages next.

Anyway thx...