obsolete
Deity
Final Stats:
Spoiler :
Bismarck (Industrious-Deity Series)
- Thread starter obsolete
- Start date
Dirk1302
Deity
I don't see why Obs has to show a conquest/domination win, there are may threads on the forum where this is achieved.
budweiser
King of the Beers
It's not cheap. He is showing us one end of the spectrum. It's a strength of the IND trait which is compounded by the availability of marble, stone and gold. If you find yourself on a map with these conditions, its the way to go. Its a combination of knowing the tech path, reading the enemy using good diplo and good tile micro. Liek I said above, i think there is two key hurdles: avoid conflict with the neighbor, and seek the protection of the big dog. The latter seems to come around turn 200-240. I'm not sure about the former.
Th3 PuNiSh3R
Chieftain
- Joined
- Jun 29, 2009
- Messages
- 26
He doesnt need to show a domination win at all. Sure obsoletes wins are unique and rather easy to pull off by anyone but they are still fun to watch. I like seeing different win types. If I wanna see a more realistic and challenging game I can always watch an Immortal conquest. Obsolete games might not offer top of the line skill but they are still offer fun and excitement by off the wall gimicks. I mean come on, its awesome to watch someone in last place with 1 warrior in every city winning a game. I do that kind of stuff for fun sometimes too.
Keep up the entertaining series.
Keep up the entertaining series.
ABigCivFan
Emperor
I have a few questions for Obsolete.
1. What kind of maps do you typically use in these series? From what I have seen most of the maps in this series have small land mass or Archi type of map where the AIs dont get to build too many cities.
2. Did you pick AI leaders for each game or use random selection? I do not recall seeing many Financial AI leaders in your series.
It is very interesting that it seems with limited landmass, these Deity AIs do not perform too hot, often allow games drag into 1900's without serious competition. I know you sometimes hurry games without much micro management but seeing a human capital on Deity post 1000AD @ size 7, without a granary and working unimproved tiles and overall a very weak empire (military and economically) and still wins at the end is just amazing.
I played a peaceful wonder-heavy Deity Pangaea game with Mansa/Liz/Zara/Hannibal/WK as the AIs. And these guys gave me a lot of headache.
Mansa could win Cultural in the early 1700ADs if not for my intervention.
And Liz could easily launched in the early 1800ADs if not for me bribing ZY into war with her and consistently Sabotaged her Parts,
But all these intervention require a very strong Economy even with tech lead to pull off, a single Part sabo mission can cost 7600 EP.
So my conclusion is that these Financial AIs are the most competitive in these type of peaceful games, especially on a map with good amount of landmass.
1. What kind of maps do you typically use in these series? From what I have seen most of the maps in this series have small land mass or Archi type of map where the AIs dont get to build too many cities.
2. Did you pick AI leaders for each game or use random selection? I do not recall seeing many Financial AI leaders in your series.
It is very interesting that it seems with limited landmass, these Deity AIs do not perform too hot, often allow games drag into 1900's without serious competition. I know you sometimes hurry games without much micro management but seeing a human capital on Deity post 1000AD @ size 7, without a granary and working unimproved tiles and overall a very weak empire (military and economically) and still wins at the end is just amazing.
I played a peaceful wonder-heavy Deity Pangaea game with Mansa/Liz/Zara/Hannibal/WK as the AIs. And these guys gave me a lot of headache.
Mansa could win Cultural in the early 1700ADs if not for my intervention.
And Liz could easily launched in the early 1800ADs if not for me bribing ZY into war with her and consistently Sabotaged her Parts,
But all these intervention require a very strong Economy even with tech lead to pull off, a single Part sabo mission can cost 7600 EP.
So my conclusion is that these Financial AIs are the most competitive in these type of peaceful games, especially on a map with good amount of landmass.
JBossch
King
One more question for Obsolete:
How do you always have stone and marble? In my games they seem rare to say the least. Even after an initial conquest with a fair amount of land I typically only control one and not the other.
How do you always have stone and marble? In my games they seem rare to say the least. Even after an initial conquest with a fair amount of land I typically only control one and not the other.
obsolete
Deity
ABC, all maps were standard random. So everything was defaults. The only 2 things I changed was the first few games were on Archipelago because that was my weakest game-style map, so I wanted that challenge out of the way. Then I switched to standard Fractal at request. The leaders naturally, are all random.
The exception of course, is that I specifically chose myself to be an industrious leader or, it would defeat the whole point in the first place.
I'll take a look at your game later to see what may have happened. I don't remember ever seeing Mansa turn cultural on me. The Egyptians and Willem tend to be the trouble makers from my recollection. But maybe you're using the newer patch? I haven't installed it yet, so I don't know 100% of all the changes. The last I heard, there is far more wastage in that version because this is a side-effect of trying to remove the over-flow system.
JBossch, sounds like you are having some really bad luck. There should be at least one builder resource near by. They don't clump together like spices, but instead get spread around more evenly. Also, they tend to have much higher chances of showing up in certain terrains so after a while you get a feel for WHERE they should show up. Helps for your initial scouting. On rare occasion you may have to beeline a settler off in the distance a quarter of a continent away to snag one, but that's going to happen to all of us eventually.
On the other side of things, sometimes you are stuck with a Roman leader, and have no copper or iron anywhere around you... it's rare but it WILL HAPPEN. And I'm sure you had this happen just like the rest of us. Nothing you can do about that but try to improvise as best you can.
The exception of course, is that I specifically chose myself to be an industrious leader or, it would defeat the whole point in the first place.
I'll take a look at your game later to see what may have happened. I don't remember ever seeing Mansa turn cultural on me. The Egyptians and Willem tend to be the trouble makers from my recollection. But maybe you're using the newer patch? I haven't installed it yet, so I don't know 100% of all the changes. The last I heard, there is far more wastage in that version because this is a side-effect of trying to remove the over-flow system.
JBossch, sounds like you are having some really bad luck. There should be at least one builder resource near by. They don't clump together like spices, but instead get spread around more evenly. Also, they tend to have much higher chances of showing up in certain terrains so after a while you get a feel for WHERE they should show up. Helps for your initial scouting. On rare occasion you may have to beeline a settler off in the distance a quarter of a continent away to snag one, but that's going to happen to all of us eventually.
On the other side of things, sometimes you are stuck with a Roman leader, and have no copper or iron anywhere around you... it's rare but it WILL HAPPEN. And I'm sure you had this happen just like the rest of us. Nothing you can do about that but try to improvise as best you can.
ABigCivFan
Emperor
Yes, I am playing with Patch 3.19 and liking it. It seems to me the new patch made the AIs better. They war better and are more determined to win 
e.g. When they are stronger than you on the attack, they bring tons of CR siege + CR melee because they anticipate human will crawl up behind their city walls for having a much lower power rating, so the CR troops make sense. Also they seem use better combined forces in war with proper stack defense, mix of combat with CR troops and etc.
also this game I just played seems Mansa and Liz really wanted to win and had great planning on how to achieve it. Though the Espionage system still can be abused by human, I had at least 3 Engine/Docking bays destroyed by AI spies
and I was really impressed.
e.g. When they are stronger than you on the attack, they bring tons of CR siege + CR melee because they anticipate human will crawl up behind their city walls for having a much lower power rating, so the CR troops make sense. Also they seem use better combined forces in war with proper stack defense, mix of combat with CR troops and etc.
also this game I just played seems Mansa and Liz really wanted to win and had great planning on how to achieve it. Though the Espionage system still can be abused by human, I had at least 3 Engine/Docking bays destroyed by AI spies
and I was really impressed.
obsolete
Deity
I took a quick look now, unfortunately I can not even peek at any of the files. All I get is the black-screen-of-death. Maybe you have locked assets on, or this is less backwards-compat than I have heard.
I have a team-gamer on Monday, so I'm not going to modify anything yet until I know for sure we are all going to be on the same version.
I have a team-gamer on Monday, so I'm not going to modify anything yet until I know for sure we are all going to be on the same version.
iluvatar_gr
Chieftain
Mmmm call me a noob but I just can't possibly see how a wonder heavy victory on deity is easy to pull off... I'm also failing to see how obsolete's games are not offering top of the line skill
You must be a super player. Poor me still only plays immortal so I can't judge correctly 
muxec
Prince
Obsolete, what diplo would you do with random personalities?
ABigCivFan
Emperor
Obsolete, I know you have one more Industrious leader left. One small request if you dont mind. Could you save a couple of AI spots for Mansa and Liz? They will probably speed up the tech pace in your game a bit for enhanced challenge. Also could you post the 4000BC save in the first post and make it an open game?
Kwibuss
Warlord
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=312862
Check his Hyuana Capac game ABCF. The tech pace was really crazy with obsolete missing almost all wonders as the AI was teching at an insane pace.
ABigCivFan
Emperor
@Kwibuss
I took a quick look at that game. It seems that Archi map has limited land mass for the AIs to be very effective. They did not even launch the Space ship until post 1900AD. That is extremely slow for a typical Deity AI like Catherine. Also given the empire Obsolete has, he really does not have any means to stop any AI launching ships but hoping his 3 cities turn legendary first.
That is why I suggested playing the last industrious leader on a random fractal/conti map with Mansa and Liz added for additional challenge/fun. And make that an open game for further strategy discussions.
I took a quick look at that game. It seems that Archi map has limited land mass for the AIs to be very effective. They did not even launch the Space ship until post 1900AD. That is extremely slow for a typical Deity AI like Catherine. Also given the empire Obsolete has, he really does not have any means to stop any AI launching ships but hoping his 3 cities turn legendary first.
That is why I suggested playing the last industrious leader on a random fractal/conti map with Mansa and Liz added for additional challenge/fun. And make that an open game for further strategy discussions.
obsolete
Deity
Since I never played random personalities, that's a good question. I'd have to think on it a bit, but I would most likely be glued to the Diplo-screens, checking every bit of detail on what's transpired from one leader to another, and checking how their diplo stats are changing at each stage. So...eventually the pieces to the puzzle would fall into place. I guess my games would take much longer to play though! And a little more tedious.
I just did some back-checking through the whole series to see if the RNG was biased any. There were a lot of financial civs already, including often more than 1 at a time. Mansa has made his appearance, and so have the wonder builders and culture-whores.
I don't want to tamper with any pre-set leaders list, because that would taint the current trend of having a truely random-default series. If it draws Mansu again, then it will draw him again and so be it.
Anyhow, it's not his Financial traits that give people problems, if it was, then leaders like Wang would be lots of trouble as well. But here is a hint, one has a shinyness to wonders, another doesn't. And therein lays part of the problem. And of course, spiritual (one of the most under-rated traits) has its advantages too.
----
That aside, I get to start a whole new team-game in less than 24 hours and that will be my next voyage for a while (I can't wait).
TheMeInTeam
If A implies B...
- Joined
- Jan 26, 2008
- Messages
- 27,995
SPI is great for us but it SUCKS in AI hands...they can't even begin to take advantage of that and I'm sure you know it.
Most of the AI performance does not lie in its traits, but rather in its strategy "flavor", preferred improvements, and willingness to trade.
Joao is a good example ----> he favors science 1st military 2nd and will expand to a decent size, somewhat offsetting his average unitprob. If he gets that land, he's every bit as fast of a techer as mansa, possibly faster...so much for financial. Favored improvements are farms and windmills.
Cathy is flavored culture and military, usually thriving on size alone (and the creative trait, which the AI actually DOES use somewhat).
I could go on, but there have been AI lists done over and over in terms of who does well generally. With a few exceptions (like runaway shaka), the vast majority of the successful AIs have a middling peaceweight, are willing to trade tech freely (a far greater beaker multiplier than any infra choice or tile improvement), and are leaders that expand fast enough (or war successfully enough) to get a fairly large empire with which to apply the stupid AI bonuses.
As far as I can tell, the culture and science flavors take the AI down the lib path sooner than normal, too.
Good as mansa is as a techer, it's easy to see him putting up unimpressive #'s w/o some of his wonders. I actually fear somewhat more deceptive leaders like Peter, Bismark, Zara, and Gilgamesh more in typical games. All can declare at pleased, have unitprobs of 30 (only 5 behind monty), and tend to reach decent sizes (bismark is more of a wildcard, since he'll actually use nationhood and when the AI is in it, it will draft! Without that, he's not impressive though).
The only warmongers I respect are Shaka and Genghis Khan. Of the culture/wonder whores, I only care about them if they're a vassal to someone stronger or wind up feeding a powerhouse some tech. Rare is the game where they are the *real* reason someone loses, rather than someone else preventing the human from stopping them.
muxec
Prince
I agree with TMIT that the main stupidity of the AI is personality, worse MM, less city specialization, poor military tactics are outshadowed by inability to declare on friendly. Or being stuck in inappropriate favorite civic...
