Baiting the AI?

[Daaraa]

How do you bait, guide, manipulate, use and direct the AI?

I've noticed a few posts talking about doing it but I can't find an explaination.

I usually just ignore the AI diplomatically. If they want war, I give them war. If I don't like them and they want peace, I give them war. If I don't have a prefrence on like or dislike if they want peace, I give them peace, but one strike only, not three. If they threaten me, I will destroy them. I will usually destroy an AI in three turns or less. If they don't theaten me technologically or militarily then that is the only time they have peace.

:slay: :rocket2:

So, now that I've explained how I deal with the AI usually, I'm open for ideas on how to manipulate them. I didn't before because I didn't know how.

 

[Sodak]

It's easy to bait them into war, just demand enough tribute or that they withdraw their troops (even if nobody is in your city radius). Eventually they attack you. Demanding tribute is a key source of income in the early game, anyway. You should do that unless you play OCC.

Manipulating them into war with each other is easy. For a fee, they will declare war on anybody. Sometimes you can demand tribute, get 250g, then pay them 100g of it back to declare war on somebody else. They aren't geniuses, but they like money.

You can steer them thru the tech tree by giving them things they don't have. Once they discover something you need, trade for it.

Beyond that, the AI typically just deserved a good beating.

 

[Daaraa]

I've never gotten any gold out of them.
I've also usually just researched everything myself or find "ancient scroll"s. I guess I'm not understanding the advantage of trading technology with the AIs.

 

[duke o' york]

It's quite simple - every time you give the AI a tech, the tech you are researching becomes easier to get. I'm not sure how many extra beakers you get for this, but it is in relation to the total number required to research the tech. Starlifter will be able to give you more details so if he doesn't post here for a while then PM him and invite him to explain. He knows almost too much about Civ and is happy to help you.

 

[Sodak]

The wider the tech gap between you and the least advanced AI civ, the more beakers you will need to discover your next advance. If you give the morons your techs, the gap shrinks - and the number of beakers you need is reduced.

The number of beakers required for an advance depends on map size, too. Smaller maps require fewer beakers.

You get a bonus for giving tech to the key civ - the seven colors (in the order the game uses them) correspond to the power rankings. If you are supreme (ranking 7), giving techs to the purple (color 7) civ will give you a science boost. If you plan to be supreme, don't play as a purple civ!

 

[Daaraa]

So if you give a tech to another lower civ you get a bonus because the gap is lessened.

The lower civ in question, is it the lower civ on science or on power? eg. the Mongols typically have lots of power not so many techs. The Indians could have lots of tech, no power.

Also, is the graph at the end of the game or when you retire, is that at graph of power? Influence over the world? Or is it just a poor representation of culture as defined by the Civ 3 people and it is just poorly represented.

On a side note, since signing up on this site (the first I've found I just found Appollton (sp?) last night. I found this site after doing a search for civ 3 after seeing an ad in Time magazine) I've found this site to be widely informative. I never knew I knew so little about Civ 2.

 

[Sodak]

Originally posted by Daaraa
So if you give a tech to another lower civ you get a bonus because the gap is lessened.

The lower civ in question, is it the lower civ on science or on power? eg. the Mongols typically have lots of power not so many techs. The Indians could have lots of tech, no power.

In this case, lower meaning the number of advances they have researched. Note that the techs with which you start the game do not count toward this total (the ones listed when you start "Soandso, you have risen..." popup window).

Originally posted by Daaraa
Also, is the graph at the end of the game or when you retire, is that at graph of power? Influence over the world? Or is it just a poor representation of culture as defined by the Civ 3 people and it is just poorly represented. [/B]

The powergraph is the total power ranking - I can't remember the details, but players have figured out it is based on population, techs, and gold.

Originally posted by Daaraa
On a side note, since signing up on this site (the first I've found I just found Appollton (sp?) last night. I found this site after doing a search for civ 3 after seeing an ad in Time magazine) I've found this site to be widely informative. I never knew I knew so little about Civ 2.[/B]

If you want to learn even more, look in the Apolyton forums, CivII Strategy Forum. There is a thread called the Great Library Index at the top. It contains dozens of useful links to discussions about strategy, units, combat, challenges, etc etc etc. Much of my expertise at CivII has come from being involved in that forum. Many ideas and explanations to improve your game! :grad:

 

[Daaraa]

Well, I've only been to the other site a few times but I think this one looks nicer.

I guess that is a tribute to the staff here and designers etc.

I spend hours in front of a computer with work then play civ at home I need things to look "easy" to the eyes. Like keeping the map grid thing off.

Thanks for the advice though I'll keep learning more.