Breed Like Rabbits.

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

Originally posted by Dinorius R.
Can anyone who claims the AI is less rampant in 1.21f point out to me any settings in the Editor or any statements in the Readme which justify those claims? This shouldn't be a matter of anecdote, it should be in the game settings somewhere!

hey, "Game swill" , AFAIK there`s nothing in there at all. But it seems that AI behaviour is very strictly orientated towards getting as much territory as possible while staying below OCN (optimum city number). So I guess depending what you do to corruption you`ll see very different AI expansion rates.

 

[Dinorius R.]

@ Killer

I've only played with the corruption set on the default (100%) value so far. This is a bit of a worry, since if I reduce the corruption (as I would dearly love to) it will make it just so much easier for the AI to contaminate the earth with their filthy cities.

If there really is no change in the civ3mod.bic to explain people's perceptions that the AI is using contraceptives, then where the heck do such myths come from? They are baseless in my view (but I'm willing to be convinced by some hard evidence).

Yours,

Game Swill

 

[Zouave]

Originally posted by Dinorius R.
..no, I don't mean you, I'm talking about the AI civs under 1.21f.

I ventured to play a couple of 1.21 games this weekend and, yes again, the AI is overpopulating as badly as it ever did. I thought I read somewhere (was it in that incomprehensible Readme file?) that this had been fixed, or was I just dreaming? I haven't seen too many comments from the punters about it, so have people just accepted settler diarrhoea (as Zouave so aptly puts it) or am I alone in finding it a real pain in the...oops, bad choice of words?


:love2: - "I love you, lets go somewhere and have babies, quickly!"

- "OK, how about a horrible place on the tundra or in the desert?"

:love2: - "Oh, I don't care, just anywhere will do!"

Well, I've now played enough to tell you with certainty that although Firaxis managed to do such undesirable things as make the game even slower, they did NOT solve the Settler Diarrhea problem.

I have a good sized kingdom around 900 AD, and rival civs' settler/pikemen duos just boldly march into my territory repeatedly. I tell them two times to leave, and they don't. I tell them to leave or declare war and then they teleport themselves to the other side of my kingdom or any place there is an open tile. Sometimes even peaceful civs do declare war. Galleys are busy dropping settlers off on tundra tiles surrounded by nothing but other tundra (no forests). In otherwords, the AI does stuff no one but an idiot would in reality do.

Yes, THEY STILL BREED LIKE RABBITS. Or roaches.

 

[damunzy]

Originally posted by Dinorius R.
Can anyone who claims the AI is less rampant in 1.21f point out to me any settings in the Editor or any statements in the Readme which justify those claims? This shouldn't be a matter of anecdote, it should be in the game settings somewhere!

Maybe I don't know the true definition of anecdote but I have seen the A.I. severly out produce me in cities in Regent difficulty so I doubt that I could go to a higher level and be able to outproduce or stay with the A.I. in city growth. I haven't been playing enough to improve like that so I would say I have observed less A.I. cities being built in relation to v1.17. I have however lost my first city to Culture flip, but this is also my first time playing a non-Religious civ. From the same culture I have taken 2 cities previously to losing mine so I would have to agree with Zouave, a little bit, that culture flipping is weird in the way it is implemented.

I have played with 100 percent corruption and 0 percent and A.I. city growth seems the same with both settings.

 

[Dinorius R.]

Well then, at least we've settled that question (?).

I'm not sure if I can do this but I'm thinking of using the Editor to make unimproved tundra, desert and mountain tiles provide no food at all - the aim not being to stop the AI from starting towns there, but hopefully to starve them and make them disappear the next turn.

Your observation about 0% - 100% corruption not affecting AI expansion rates is very interesting Palehorse. Maybe it just means the AI uses one or two of its core cities to make all those settlers?

And here's a quote from Jeff Nebraska in another thread on AI cheating which testifies to the promiscuity of the AI civs;

"Here's what I consider proof of cheating. I met up with the Chinese on about turn 15, Warlord level. We started negotiating some deals and I looked at their city list. In the time I was able to create two cities, they had built seven or eight.

It is ridiculous and most A.I.s are well-designed enough to be able to compete with a human without this nonsense. At the very least, the A.I. shouldn't need this kind of leg up on level two out of six!"

BTW, Zouave, welcome back from exile. As you can see, nothing much has changed around here in the last 24 hours.

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

Originally posted by Dinorius R.
Maybe it just means the AI uses one or two of its core cities to make all those settlers?

I don´t think so, since I devote all my cities to settler prod and still the AI is faster / as fast....

 

[Dinorius R.]

Oh dear, then it's even worse than I thought, cos I know you're a higher level player than I am.

Do you think my notion of making tundra, desert and mountains foodless has any merit Killer?

 

[thamis]

All right, guys. I am a CIV player from the beginning of the CIV timeline on. I've played CIV1 and was able to win on the hardest level. I've played CIV2 and was able to win on the 2nd hardest level. Now in CIV3 I'm able to win at Regent!!! How pittyful!

And I can also tell you why: In CIV1 and CIV2 I was able to outnumber the computer by have about 5 times as many cities as they did. In CIV3 I just can't keep up!

Well, maybe I could, but that would become boring. I would have to build nothing but cities until every little patch of the world is settled! Then I would be able to produce virtually nothing because of corruption and it would take me like 20 minutes to complete a turn.

Call me and old-fashioned guy wearing the pink nostalgia glasses, but I liked it better when every civ had it's own area. I just don't see the point to settle every tiny bit of the world with totally useless cities that produce NOTHING, are IMPOSSIBLE to defend and make the game SLOOOOW!

If anyone comes out with a hack that limits the number of cities that a civ can build (and corruption DOESN'T keep the AI from building...) - he's my hero.

 

[Tweedledum]

Originally posted by Tweedledum
If anything, the flood of settlers seems to have got worse - they're running around all over the place.

I've just had 6 (!! count them) English settlers start wandering through my territory all at once (and of course when I ask them to leave they say they will, but just keep going). I can't imagine where they are going to go, there's nowhere left apart from the odd bit of desert...

An update on the settler flood:
They never did found a city, just kept running around like headless chickens. It's interesting to know that the AI can waste its time this way (unless it found the settlers under a rock or something... )

On a different (but related) topic: I've found out why the AI dumps all these cities on "useless" bits of desert and tundra... That's where the oil is. The last game I played, I was mocking the AI for its desert/tundra cities until I discovered that they controlled all the oil and I had none at all (and no one would trade me some at any price). Boy, did that put a spanner in the war I had planned...!

 

[Zouave]

Like rabbitts, the AI is also dumb, but not as cute.

Here's what I mean. . .

I raze an enemy city - always a stupd option made necessary by the dopey Culture Flipping. Instantly, every other civ knows about it, and immediately they dispatch a foot soldier/settler duo. I am absolutely certain the AI gives the nearest foot soldier (or ship) a free settler, they get there that quickly.

It gets worse.

The civ I am at WAR with also sends settler/foot soldier duos right into my territory, bold - and stupid - as could be. I wiped out three of them before I got bored and quit the game.

Yes, they breed like rabbitts, and the AI is as dumb.

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

Originally posted by Dinorius R.
Oh dear, then it's even worse than I thought, cos I know you're a higher level player than I am.

Do you think my notion of making tundra, desert and mountains foodless has any merit Killer?

I modded my Civ2mod so the ancient age goes slower up the tech tree - and now it`s fine. You simply run out of land early on and the rest of the game is fun. This on Regent.

I set hills irrigationable and Tundra foodless, and this worked fine in first try - albeit, there was little Tundra. I`ll try a Monarch game with a cold world now....

Regent allowed me (modded) to keep a severe tech advantage - 7 or 8 techs in front) when i went for it, and I was level when i kept up to the AIs troop count. Interestingly, when I got ahead in tech, they changed priority from military and culture to tech. Also, the high number of units (15 defenders in border towns) meant many more fights, thus the sample of random numbers got big enough to give fair overall outcomes. Freaks happened often, even with tripled HP, but they happened to both sides.
Two interesting side effects: the AI now uses Defenders extensively as attackers (Riflemen, while it could also use Cav) and it uses Armies a lot.

All in all, with slower ancient age and some minor fixes, the game now is beautiful (remember, I only tested this once though).

So, all in all, setting Tundra to no food is probably a good starting point, Dino!

Anyone want my mod file, please mail/PM me. Somehow, I can`t upload