C2C - Tips and Tricks

[Zolika Toth]

20 techs behind is no reason to assume the worst. But if you are unable to keep up in power, then yes I would say you are in trouble.

The best difficulty is the one where neither you nor the AI walks all over the other. The AI needs a tech lead to achieve this, because, tbh, it is so dumb.

Can you gauge what the relative power situation is?

The other thing to mention is, we (limited data admittedly) have noticed that the tech lead starts to be whittled back at some stage. From nearly 2 eras behind, you can get back to half an era behind by the end of Modern. If you never get this far behind, you may catch up in Industrial or maybe much earlier.

Well, i am on a middle-sized island, and i had there the Tupis only, who were exterminated by the Neandertal barbarians, who were later exterminated by me
So i dont have any contacts with other civilizations yet, and my ships can sail only at the coast. So probably they will get to me first, when they will be able to build caravels.

 

[tmv]

You can always sail in your own territory, so if you have a high-culture city (and not very wide oceans) you can sometimes travel the ocean much sooner than that. Of course, usually you get that much culture only with Great Wonders, so you would need to build them first (difficult if you are not the tech leader).

 

[Thunderbrd]

Well, i am on a middle-sized island, and i had there the Tupis only, who were exterminated by the Neandertal barbarians, who were later exterminated by me
So i dont have any contacts with other civilizations yet, and my ships can sail only at the coast. So probably they will get to me first, when they will be able to build caravels.

Some games go that way. 20 techs behind at that stage is not really that much when you consider the scope of this mod and how much time you have to catch up still. Of course, if you're limited by size by being stuck on an island, that's a classic civ cause to fall behind in tech anyhow. If WFL is on, you'll compensate that somewhat.

 

[Zolika Toth]

Some games go that way. 20 techs behind at that stage is not really that much when you consider the scope of this mod and how much time you have to catch up still. Of course, if you're limited by size by being stuck on an island, that's a classic civ cause to fall behind in tech anyhow. If WFL is on, you'll compensate that somewhat.

Okay, i managed to gain upon them, and now am the most advanced civilization again.
My problem now is that i have many times crash to desktop, have you got the same issue as well?

 

[Thunderbrd]

Okay, i managed to gain upon them, and now am the most advanced civilization again.
My problem now is that i have many times crash to desktop, have you got the same issue as well?

Are they MAFs or CTDs? A CTD will give you a minidump file with data in it in the main BeyondtheSword folder, a crash report for evaluating in Visual Studio basically. A MAF is a memory allocation failure and the mini will have 0k if that's what you encountered. Huge, land heavy maps will start MAFing around Industrial and by mid-Atomic will be crashing every round. There are discussions regarding trying to find ways to beat this issue.

 

[Zolika Toth]

Are they MAFs or CTDs? A CTD will give you a minidump file with data in it in the main BeyondtheSword folder, a crash report for evaluating in Visual Studio basically. A MAF is a memory allocation failure and the mini will have 0k if that's what you encountered. Huge, land heavy maps will start MAFing around Industrial and by mid-Atomic will be crashing every round. There are discussions regarding trying to find ways to beat this issue.

Am sorry, but what is MAF? lol

 

[raxo2222]

Am sorry, but what is MAF? lol

Crash due to running out of memory (game can't use more than 2900 MB).
It looks like this:

Spoiler :

You won't see that you got VRAM MAF, if you have this enabled in INI settings.

; Don't show a warning when a video memory allocation fails
HideOutOfVRamWarning = 0

With big maps especially PIts scenario you will get MAF just by moving around on minimap after some time.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Am sorry, but what is MAF? lol

I explained in my response. You don't always get the message raxo explained either.

 

[Zolika Toth]

Crash due to running out of memory (game can't use more than 2900 MB).
It looks like this:

Spoiler :

You won't see that you got VRAM MAF, if you have this enabled in INI settings.

; Don't show a warning when a video memory allocation fails
HideOutOfVRamWarning = 0

With big maps especially PIts scenario you will get MAF just by moving around on minimap after some time.

Thank you for your explanation. It is CTD, i dont get any error message, the game just shuts down, and i end up in the windows.
Like i just exited from the game.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Thank you for your explanation. It is CTD, i dont get any error message, the game just shuts down, and i end up in the windows.
Like i just exited from the game.

As explained, this can still be a MAF when the memory runs out. Check the minidump file and if it has memory in it, it's a CTD, otherwise it's a MAF.

 

[Yudishtira]

You won't see that you got VRAM MAF, if you have this enabled in INI settings.

; Don't show a warning when a video memory allocation fails
HideOutOfVRamWarning = 0

You don't say which ini file this is in. Doesn't it matter?

 

[raxo2222]

You don't say which ini file this is in. Doesn't it matter?

I said vanilla BTS ini before.

 

[Anq]

Don't build your city right next to a volcano! It hurts so much to have an eruption wipe out your gatherers and animals!

Spoiler :

 

[Thunderbrd]

Don't build your city right next to a volcano! It hurts so much to have an eruption wipe out your gatherers and animals!

Spoiler :

View attachment 524820

It actually damages the units/wipes out units without strength in the city now? Cool... I like that.

 

[VCrakeV]

Any idea how to deal with unit spam? I've just entered the Classical era, and I had my militaristic city rushed by about 100 javalineers and enough battering rams to reduce my defences to zero from over 100. The invader had aggressive and imperialistic, so that made it much worse obviously. I had Axemen and Spartan Warriors with city defense promotions, but they were no match.

Should the AI be able to have so many units? Is this a case of there being too much gold per turn, so that such a huge army could be maintained? I'd go on a lower difficulty (on monarch now), but I found myself quite ahead technologically even on monarch (reached Classical Lifestyle by about 1600BCE), and the AI is way behind on lower difficulties.

Assuming this is manageable, I would have used crossbowmen, since they get a city defense boost, but they're weak to javalineers. My units had bamboo armor too, but obviously that wasn't enough.

 

[Thunderbrd]

This is a good question. I know that Javelineers would make a good city defensive force against Javelineers. Not sure if Spartan Warriors are a comparable unit to them. I've been meaning for years to give macemen as much city defense as they have attack but know there's some issues with doing that in the AI code which is why I haven't yet.

Playing SM, I wonder what this would look like and if it is more or less counterable. Either way, it's obvious this is pretty severe. There was an aspect of the AI that was corrected and apparently it has suddenly enabled the stack sizes it always wanted to have and has furthermore made it more possible than ever for the AI to find itself 'ready' to go on the offensive - and wow is it not playing around. I'm not sure how effective I could be myself at countering this. Knowing this is possible would certainly adjust the play style and may even demand some discipline to delay other priorities in order to train up a suitable mobile defensive force. I know this is frustrating, but keep in mind that our greatest frustration throughout the history of the mod as a whole has been trying to make the AI competitive, and this kind of report shows it's doing it - perhaps not in the way one might expect, but it's doing it.

Unless it proves impossible to counter, this may be a very good thing for gameplay. Another challenge to have to learn how to be ready to overcome.

Keep in mind one of the best counters to a heavy throwing unit force would be a strong mounted attack force to go after them in the field. Mounted are the natural counter to throwing, even if they don't defend worth a hoot usually. Anti-throwing arsonists could do some serious collateral damage to them as well.

 

[Yudishtira]

Any idea how to deal with unit spam? I've just entered the Classical era, and I had my militaristic city rushed by about 100 javalineers and enough battering rams to reduce my defences to zero from over 100. The invader had aggressive and imperialistic, so that made it much worse obviously. I had Axemen and Spartan Warriors with city defense promotions, but they were no match.

Should the AI be able to have so many units? Is this a case of there being too much gold per turn, so that such a huge army could be maintained? I'd go on a lower difficulty (on monarch now), but I found myself quite ahead technologically even on monarch (reached Classical Lifestyle by about 1600BCE), and the AI is way behind on lower difficulties.

Assuming this is manageable, I would have used crossbowmen, since they get a city defense boost, but they're weak to javalineers. My units had bamboo armor too, but obviously that wasn't enough.

I'd like to see your save, and I'm guessing others would too.

My main question is: what's the strategic situation? Are you facing total defeat, or do you have forces elsewhere that may be sufficient to defend against this stack?

My other main question might be: how foreseeable was this attack? How much do you know about other civs' power, and do you have the capacity to keep up with them?

 

[VCrakeV]

I'd like to see your save, and I'm guessing others would too.

My main question is: what's the strategic situation? Are you facing total defeat, or do you have forces elsewhere that may be sufficient to defend against this stack?

My other main question might be: how foreseeable was this attack? How much do you know about other civs' power, and do you have the capacity to keep up with them?

I'm on my phone right now, but I'll get on the PC soon to upload my save. To answer your questions... I think I'm boned, a long with the rest of the AI. They (Holy Rome) took my military-pumping city, and I had significantly less units left than they did (around 10-15, compared to their 100+, not to mention what they might have in their territory).

It was foreseeable that they were a problem, but I didn't think it was as big as it turned out to be. They were capturing a few cities, but I assumed this was just the other AI being incompetent. I have several cities that could start pumping out units, but it would take a while to produce enough units to catch up, and I don't think I have that many turns. I could load an earlier save, but I find it quite ridiculous that one should have to prep for such large stacks.

 

[Yudishtira]

I find it quite ridiculous that one should have to prep for such large stacks.

Nothing ridiculous about it. It's a new experience that understandably takes some getting used to, but it's BtS basics that you have to match your neighbours in power (especially the warmongers), or they attack you.

Since Monarch is (finally) providing a challenge, which for now you find overwhelming, there is no shame in dropping down to Prince or Noble.

 

[VCrakeV]

Here is the save I was talking about.