Caveman 2 Cosmos (ideas/discussions thread)

[jshetley]

Mmm, I don't play multiplayer. I have no friends!

It is for this reason I prefer a competent AI. I need to feel like I'm playing against fake friends.

The AI is getting there. They just need to be taught how to conduct a war and things really would get interesting.

 

[Joij21]

Am I the only one who enjoys longer games with a bunch of medium-large, similarly matched AIs competing fairly and focusing more on long term diplomacy and containment of outliers? Basically, I like to get to the top first, elevate the lesser AIs as a generous Prometheus, and squash down the bullies.
My neighbours do tend to be assimilated though, sucks to be them.

I usually do that in Realism Invictus. The way that mod works is you kind of have to do this strategy. Mostly because there's a lot of rebellions, it's hard to remove foreign culture, and you need to slowly build up your nation's wealth in order to keep the culture slider up to keep your subjects pacified.

Basically it's impossible to conquer early without stability issues, so it forces you to work with and achieve a "balance of power" with the AI. Though the AI is often aggressive and has to be punished from time to time. Or intentionally weakened through gifting foreign cities to other civs and watch them implode into endless civil wars! Scramble of Africa basically or the Balkans!

 

[Somebody613]

In fact I do.

As did I, until Pit-the-bull-y challenged me to play his stunted version of a "scenario".
My point was precisely that WITH Size Matters (aka Merging Units), you can EASILY overwhelm the AI with almost no effort - they don't know how to defend against it efficiently.

 

[Toffer90]

I don't like it because there are no options to control it

Well, the only simple way to get back the normal non-quick move when moving a unit as far as it can go is to let the exe black box handle it again and remove the two BUG options it allowed us to make and give up being able to further modf unit cycling behaviour.

BUG options we would lose by changing it back:

 

[Joij21]

As did I, until Pit-the-bull-y challenged me to play his stunted version of a "scenario".
My point was precisely that WITH Size Matters (aka Merging Units), you can EASILY overwhelm the AI with almost no effort - they don't know how to defend against it efficiently.

Well sometimes I don't merge units because it takes awhile to train lots of units in the prehistoric era. Also I've seen the AI have merged units, they just don't do so well with the consistency of it, or they don't understand which units make the best defense, or they stay in the cities and refuse to counterattack.

Most of the time however the AI doesn't understand that it has to tech rush to the hafted tools techs as soon as possible, because those stone weapons warriors are the first generation of units whereby the tribal guardians can easily be defeated. Wooden spearmen are trash at defense but the AI likes to spam them along with the dogs. They should be using the slingers more but like they don't understand that it's supposed to be used as an early archer. And even with slingers I've noticed with a little bit of clever promotions, various leader trait bonuses, and possibly a great general acting as commander you can easily penetrate a slinger defense.

Counterattack the AI only really has atalytlsts (or whatever they're called). They can inflict splash damage to stacks, but the AI likes to keep them pent up in the cities as though they were an archer type unit. Never do they take the aggressive initiative like what other mods do to their AI when given skirmishers.

Plus absolutely forget about the AI knowing how to properly train or even use the various "megafauna" fantasy/alt-history units. Many of those require world wonders to train, so usually the player can get a tech lead and beat them to it. Personally I wish all the alt-history units throughout the mod didn't require wonders, because for instance I feel if any one nation ever researched steampunk technology then every nation would eventually get it, similar to nukes proliferating in real life. Ain't no nation that would have a forever monopoly on building steam powered airships!

 

[dummy1929]

RE: Defense from walls
Was the mechanism for walls changed? In my latest game, a single Light Cavalry took my size 8 city that was showing 65% defense, with walls, with a single Town Watch in it. No siege anywhere in sight.

My understanding is that the "Must fall below 60% rule" applies to the numbers showing on the map, i.e. my city should have been safe. I'm playing with realistic siege
I went back to a save game and checked the defense ratings inside the city screen, they are all different even for those cities with the same defenses!
I assume that this is not a bug and that I have missed something major (never noticed it before). It would be nice if the number showing on the main map were the same as the *effective* defense rating, since that is the number that counts.
So what influences city defenses? Terrain? City size? Troops stationed in the city?

I'm not saying I dislike this feature, if it is one, seems more realistic. But the different numbers are very impractical, as they require me to go into each city screen manually to check if my cities are safe.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Maybe this is why some expand like crazy and other do not.

One should not confuse traits and leader personalities. There are numerous bugs in personality xmls that can account for things too. This IS an area under development as we wait for some health issues to ebb enough for said modder to get back to the project. Guy's also got family on the Ukraine side of the Russian border so pray for em.

 

[Thunderbrd]

RE: Defense from walls
Was the mechanism for walls changed? In my latest game, a single Light Cavalry took my size 8 city that was showing 65% defense, with walls, with a single Town Watch in it. No siege anywhere in sight.

My understanding is that the "Must fall below 60% rule" applies to the numbers showing on the map, i.e. my city should have been safe. I'm playing with realistic siege
I went back to a save game and checked the defense ratings inside the city screen, they are all different even for those cities with the same defenses!
I assume that this is not a bug and that I have missed something major (never noticed it before). It would be nice if the number showing on the main map were the same as the *effective* defense rating, since that is the number that counts.
So what influences city defenses? Terrain? City size? Troops stationed in the city?

I'm not saying I dislike this feature, if it is one, seems more realistic. But the different numbers are very impractical, as they require me to go into each city screen manually to check if my cities are safe.

Min defense to enter is very different from the # shown on the main map, which is the total defense %. Often you can't even eliminate ALL of the total defense value from the city defenses (even punctured walls still help). It would take something significant in the city map panel to be able to show if a city can be attacked or not by a standard assault. We're just not quite there yet with the system advancements.

 

[Maltazard]

Random thought about realistic siege: it's basically a medieval flavor modcomponent (extending into the renaissance at best), with all the buildings being castle annexes. Would it be cool and useful to create industial/modern renditions of extra fortifications? Think about Maginot line, coast of Normandy bunkers, trenches and ditches, flak towers etc. (some of which are probably already included as standalone buildings or national wonders I believe). With zone of control you could obtain a truly fortified border to recreate that neat WWI feeling. Add to that a line of forts and upgraded forts... strategic positioning... the iron curtain!

 

[JosEPh_II]

Then don't play on Deity! Finally the AI is getting fixed and is no longer lobotomized! Many other mods have already succeeded C2C's AI in intelligence so it's about time, no longer will it be Caveman to Castles but it truly shall be called Caveman to Cosmos!!!

Man it's amazing the take on what I posted. By the way I don't play Deity. I'm using all my games to test out different Civic changes. I never finish a game either.

Ok... make sure the AI is dumb and that they instead of being smart have lots of cheats, as that is what players want from C2C according to you...

BS! If that's what you got out of my post then reread it w/o prejudice. Did I say something that hurt your ego? Seriously did I?

After all these years of receiving complaint after complaint about how horrible the AI is and how incapable our mod is at providing a real challenge, are you really serious right now? Is your concern that playing at Noble will be too harmful to the ego?

C'mon Tbrd! I'm not the War Dog you are and You KNOW this! So why would you go down that path with me? The denigration just continues I guess. You really need to do some playing. Culture expansion thru Realistic Culture spread is really kinda Wonky now. The AI and NPCs do seek the player out faster to force war immediately. Or kill you off in Preh Era by stacking Cities next to the human player and completely surrounding you. Then their Culture Boost eats you up until you have Nothing left. Game over.

Wasn't about value - it was simply discounted as a possible placement for the AI to consider at all. This is specifically about placing a city right up against, aka adjacent to, an opponent culture. That's my understanding of it from what I've read from Toffer

So that is why I did not get a straight answer? And still won't?

The AI in Preh Era and all thru Ancient can have Culture controlled tiles up to 6 tiles out from City core thru Realistic Culture Spread. I'm realizing that Realistic Culture Spread Is NOT Realistic at all. When a size 2 AI/NPC city can have tiles 4 or 5 tiles out on the 2 axises RCS now gives when you're using the 1 city Tile to Start Option in conjunction with RCS, then RCS needs it's reins hauled in.

Okay I'm coming to the conclusion here that I cannot explain to y'all what is going on Without Screenshots. Lack of Play from the Modders hinders the giving of play experience because of this attitude... (ie I KNOW my codding is Perfect and I don't Need no stinkin' game play to check my coding out. That's the players Job!) Player tries to tell what is going on and gets bashed for it. Things never really change...<sigh>.

I'll try to get some screenies but the more I read this Negative backlash the less willing I am to do so. I'll just not use the broken Options in my games. Problem solved. Have a Nice and Blessed Day. C U L8tr!

 

[Toffer90]

BS! If that's what you got out of my post then reread it w/o prejudice. Did I say something that hurt your ego? Seriously did I?

I guess I just didn't understand what you meant, and still don't.

If your warning was more about the problem with making the AI so smart that it becomes hard to beat on settler difficulty, then I can with confidence say that this will never become the case for even Noble difficulty, as we would need highly advanced machine learning AI to achieve high difficulty just for the Noble difficulty. Traditional AI coding will only ever allow us to make the game hard when the AI has lots of cheats through higher than Noble difficulties, and if it proves too hard on higher diffs than Noble in general then the AI cheat incrementations between difficulties must be reduces to rebalance it to fit the smarter AI.

Edit: I apologize if I offended you, was just being a bit cheeky I thought.

 

[Thunderbrd]

The denigration just continues I guess.

Where was I denigrating? I asked you if it would be a challenge to the ego to play on noble level and you later edited your post to admit that you were complaining that it was hurting the ego to step down a difficulty level. I mean, maybe I'd have to as well... I dunno, I sure hope so considering how challenging it has been to try to get this game to be harder than a cakewalk.

The AI and NPCs do seek the player out faster to force war immediately.

It's possible that there are realms of the coding where this is true that I haven't encountered but I haven't encountered it yet. Perhaps in the large scale strategy code there's something to get this to be the case. I always suspected this even from vanilla, but again, haven't seen evidence of it myself - of course, I haven't done much looking at war planning and diplo stuff yet.

So that is why I did not get a straight answer? And still won't?

No... you just don't seem to understand you're getting a straight answer. All that was changed was that the AI CAN now consider a tile adjacent to another player's culture as a valid plot to settle - it could not at all before.

Okay I'm coming to the conclusion here that I cannot explain to y'all what is going on Without Screenshots. Lack of Play from the Modders hinders the giving of play experience because of this attitude... (ie I KNOW my codding is Perfect and I don't Need no stinkin' game play to check my coding out. That's the players Job!) Player tries to tell what is going on and gets bashed for it. Things never really change...<sigh>.

I'll try to get some screenies but the more I read this Negative backlash the less willing I am to do so. I'll just not use the broken Options in my games. Problem solved. Have a Nice and Blessed Day. C U L8tr!

Bit of a misinterpretation on my part at least - I haven't BEEN coding is my point. No, haven't had much time to play either. Just trying to help with communication so far as I understand things. And I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say either so yes, some screenies would probably help.

 

[Somebody613]

I guess I just didn't understand what you meant, and still don't.

If your warning was more about the problem with making the AI so smart that it becomes hard to beat on settler difficulty, then I can with confidence say that this will never become the case for even Noble difficulty, as we would need highly advanced machine learning AI to achieve high difficulty just for the Noble difficulty. Traditional AI coding will only ever allow us to make the game hard when the AI has lots of cheats through higher than Noble difficulties, and if it proves too hard on higher diffs than Noble in general then the AI cheat incrementations between difficulties must be reduces to rebalance it to fit the smarter AI.

Edit: I apologize if I offended you, was just being a bit cheeky I thought.

Idea:
Couldn't you somehow "chess-program" AI to not decide on separate units/buildings/actions, but rather choose from a very huge set of prebuilt behaviors, based on what is available?
Like: "If you have access to Iron, then go for Iron-related units", predated by "if you can gain access to Iron, build and send a worker there", predated by "if there's Iron near your current territory, try capturing it via a fort or a culture expansion", etc.
Basically, give AI "goals", not "actions-as-reactions".
Not too easy to program, and I have no clue whether it's even possible AT ALL with the current game engine/system, but would make a much smarter (and "goal-driven") AI, for sure.

 

[raxo2222]

Regarding reading comprehension and or language barrier (some people doesn't have English as native language, so things may sound bit off):
I remember when I talked about using smart map mapscript to generate map of any shape up to 512x200 (ultimately used 320x40 for my duel space map), and dividing it into sectors (use different terrains for different parts of map).
Somehow others thought that I wanted them to not only make multimaps, but to make 512x512 maps, while I just wanted custom shaped map, that is very long but not very tall with custom terrain.

 

[Somebody613]

Regarding reading comprehension and or language barrier (some people doesn't have English as native language, so things may sound bit off):
I remember when I talked about using smart map mapscript to generate map of any shape up to 512x200 (ultimately used 320x40 for my duel space map), and dividing it into sectors (use different terrains for different parts of map).
Somehow others thought that I wanted them to not only make multimaps, but to make 512x512 maps, while I just wanted custom shaped map, that is very long but not very tall with custom terrain.

Did I just read a memoir from "How C2C revolutionized Multi-Maps: The beginning"?

 

[Joij21]

Random thought about realistic siege: it's basically a medieval flavor modcomponent (extending into the renaissance at best), with all the buildings being castle annexes. Would it be cool and useful to create industial/modern renditions of extra fortifications? Think about Maginot line, coast of Normandy bunkers, trenches and ditches, flak towers etc. (some of which are probably already included as standalone buildings or national wonders I believe). With zone of control you could obtain a truly fortified border to recreate that neat WWI feeling. Add to that a line of forts and upgraded forts... strategic positioning... the iron curtain!

Maginot Line sounds like it would be a modern great wonder similar to and using the same graphical placement as the Great Wall (that is following one's cultural borders when it's completed). Maybe make it so instead of blocking barbarians, it blocks infantry type units, but everything else like tanks etc. can still get through (panzer tanks through the Arden!).

Bunkers, trenches, etc. sound like they'd be better used as improvements or even a specific kind of terrain that replaces regular terrain (a sort of early "evil" kind of terraforming) after certain units successfully defend (such as trench infantry automatically converting plains/grassland to "no-man's-land") or after certain units successfully bombard (artillery, battleships, and planes bombarding to automatically convert tiles to "craterland"). Nukes could also use this function with fallout (if it's not scrubbed in time) to make various kinds of wasteland terrains. We already have burnt forest, so bombardment and nukes should also automatically convert any forest/jungle to that after a good pounding.

 

[Maltazard]

Right, similarly to city ruins after you raze a city. I'm pretty sure forts upgrade to fortresses and then bunkers already. I'm mostly referring to the need of destroying a city's defense before you can enter it with your units which is present in medieval/renaissance times but disappears with mechanized warfare, I'm not convinced that's entirely realistic. You're more likely to see the entire city leveled down before mechanized troops can walk in than viceversa. A little feature that kills city pops based on defense damage could also be considered to better mimick that destruction. I remember in Civ III you could bomb a city down to size 1, now it's nearly impossible with how many buildings there are and whatnot.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Right, similarly to city ruins after you raze a city. I'm pretty sure forts upgrade to fortresses and then bunkers already. I'm mostly referring to the need of destroying a city's defense before you can enter it with your units which is present in medieval/renaissance times but disappears with mechanized warfare, I'm not convinced that's entirely realistic. You're more likely to see the entire city leveled down before mechanized troops can walk in than viceversa. A little feature that kills city pops based on defense damage could also be considered to better mimick that destruction. I remember in Civ III you could bomb a city down to size 1, now it's nearly impossible with how many buildings there are and whatnot.

I certainly agree that the defenses situation is really only fine tune audited and mostly developed through medieval and maybe renaissance at best. One reason for this is that some of the project plans are to remove the total gunpowder trumping of many defense values and I don't think even that has been done yet. But I also did notice that the minimum defense to enter situation is a bit out of whack post medieval.

 

[Joij21]

Right, similarly to city ruins after you raze a city. I'm pretty sure forts upgrade to fortresses and then bunkers already. I'm mostly referring to the need of destroying a city's defense before you can enter it with your units which is present in medieval/renaissance times but disappears with mechanized warfare, I'm not convinced that's entirely realistic. You're more likely to see the entire city leveled down before mechanized troops can walk in than viceversa. A little feature that kills city pops based on defense damage could also be considered to better mimick that destruction. I remember in Civ III you could bomb a city down to size 1, now it's nearly impossible with how many buildings there are and whatnot.

Maybe there should be a devastation mechanic like Stellaris. After pounding a city for awhile the city graphical style converts to a ruined graphical style. During this phase the city is now "devastated" and incurs increased unhealthiness, disease, crime, unhappiness, instability, lower production, lower food, lower commerce, lower wealth, and lower culture. It also cripples the city defense by eliminating places for snipers to fire down from, therefore it creates negative defense.

In essence the city should then easily favor the attacker over the defender, or the attacker can simply wait and the city will revolt just like the Paris Commune at the end of the Franco Prussian War. With options like "realistic siege" or "zones of control" the city can only be entered if it has been induced into this devastation phase.

After awhile if not further bombarded the devastation disappears and the city graphics changes back to normal looking architecture, the penalties therein removed. Though devastation should last for some time even after the city has been captured to make occupation difficult for the conqueror as well as to slow down conquest from snowballing.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Maybe there should be a devastation mechanic like Stellaris. After pounding a city for awhile the city graphical style converts to a ruined graphical style. During this phase the city is now "devastated" and incurs increased unhealthiness, disease, crime, unhappiness, instability, lower production, lower food, lower commerce, lower wealth, and lower culture. It also cripples the city defense by eliminating places for snipers to fire down from, therefore it creates negative defense.

In essence the city should then easily favor the attacker over the defender, or the attacker can simply wait and the city will revolt just like the Paris Commune at the end of the Franco Prussian War. With options like "realistic siege" or "zones of control" the city can only be entered if it has been induced into this devastation phase.

After awhile if not further bombarded the devastation disappears and the city graphics changes back to normal looking architecture, the penalties therein removed. Though devastation should last for some time even after the city has been captured to make occupation difficult for the conqueror as well as to slow down conquest from snowballing.

Will look to include in v832