Caveman 2 Cosmos (ideas/discussions thread)

[JosEPh_II]

Yeah, it's time to conclude that experiment, it was interesting to see how the AI fared on deity with only one settler though.

You gave back the 2nd Band of homo sapiens for Deity, but you left the AI defenders at 5. it really needs to be 8. Other wise the AI will not send out the 2nd settler Until it has built up enough units as escort. We will get reports that the AI is not building that 2nd city again.

Also did you just disable submerged towns from being a city?

 

[Toffer90]

You gave back the 2nd Band of homo sapiens for Deity, but you left the AI defenders at 5. it really needs to be 8. Other wise the AI will not send out the 2nd settler Until it has built up enough units as escort. We will get reports that the AI is not building that 2nd city again.

Also did you just disable submerged towns from being a city?

I just went to bed, could you increase the number of defenders the AI start with for me?

Did I remove a <bActAsCity>1</bActAsCity>? I only meant to remove those that was set to zero. Could you correct that mistake for me?

I appreciate your perceptivness.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Sure no problem.

 

[Noriad2]

Regarding burial traditions, I recently came across an ancient Native American tradition of burying their dead in a shallow lake. It took place in Florida and areas off the coast of Florida in areas later submerged in post-ice-age sea level rise.
The dead are wrapped in cloth, and stakes are applied to make sure the body stays under water.
Maybe this is another possible burial tradition? Water Burial, perhaps limited to North American culture.

From the below wikipedia link: "Robin Brown notes in connection with these underwater burials that many Native American groups have a tradition that spirits of the dead are blocked by water."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windover_Archeological_Site
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/native-american-burial-site-discovered-off-florida-coast-manasota-key/
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/02/florida-native-american-indian-burial-underwater/

 

[Tiranasta]

C2C is not only a builder game but also a strategy war game. That means balance is important. If you happen to place your city on a coast, on a river and with caves, you could stack so many prehistoric wonders you accelerate far beyond the rest of the civs.

I'm not suggesting removing the mechanic, just making it optional, as is the case for plenty of other C2C adjustments to the game.

EDIT: And what you describe is precisely what I do. My goal when playing is simple: I have to get EVERY wonder (except those incompatible with my native culture), my capital should be the holy city of EVERY religion, etc. This throws a huge wrench in that play style.

 

[Thunderbrd]

I'm not suggesting removing the mechanic, just making it optional, as is the case for plenty of other C2C adjustments to the game.

EDIT: And what you describe is precisely what I do. My goal when playing is simple: I have to get EVERY wonder (except those incompatible with my native culture), my capital should be the holy city of EVERY religion, etc. This throws a huge wrench in that play style.

You'd have to specify which one stays and the rest are not included in the game if the option is off. So the whole set boils down to just one being available in the game.

 

[Tiranasta]

You'd have to specify which one stays and the rest are not included in the game if the option is off. So the whole set boils down to just one being available in the game.

I mean have the system be optional, so the player has the option of going back to the way it was in v37 and earlier where you can build as many wonders from a given 'group' as you like. Unless there's some technical reason that can't be done?

 

[Toffer90]

Unless there's some technical reason that can't be done?

Yeah, easier said than done the way group wonders are set up right now.

Save game compatibility has now been broken, so I'll air a suggestion:

Who would agree that we should remove Settler and Chieftain handicap levels and make Warlord one step more difficult than Noble, and move all difficulties from Prince and up one step up in difficulty?

Noble would then be the lowest difficulty, but still the difficulty where you and the AI stand as equals; meaning no handicaps either way.

Ok, not a popular suggestion, I'll make another one instead:

What about removing the most problematic option, the one that makes the AI as stupid as a dung beetle, an option that completely paralyze the AI because there is little-to-no specific AI code to deal with the scenario the option presents:

Start as minor civs

 

[Thunderbrd]

Yeah, easier said than done the way group wonders are set up right now.
Ok, not a popular suggestion, I'll make another one instead:

What about removing the most problematic option, the one that makes the AI as stupid as a dung beetle, an option that completely paralyze the AI because there is little-to-no specific AI code to deal with the scenario the option presents:

Start as minor civs

Not against making it invisible and off by default at least. And aggressive AI.

 

[raxo2222]

Not against making it invisible and off by default at least. And aggressive AI.

Ruthless AI by extension too.

Ruthless AI: This is the more aggressive cousin to Aggressive AI. It will turn Aggressive AI on as well if you use it. Again, I advise against it for all the same reasons as Aggressive AI.

 

[Toffer90]

Ruthless AI by extension too.

Yes, Ruthless AI will, if selected, actually turn on the Agressive AI gameoption by default.

    //Ruthless AI means Aggressive AI is on too.
    if (isOption(GAMEOPTION_RUTHLESS_AI) && !isOption(GAMEOPTION_AGGRESSIVE_AI))
    {
        setOption(GAMEOPTION_AGGRESSIVE_AI, true);
    }

Is it necessary to hide and disable the Agressive/Ruthless AI gameoptions?
I've not played with them enough to conclude that they actually make the AI perform much worse... They may declare wars on those they have no chance of wining against though, so they do become a bit more suicidal.
I'll hide and disable them too if there's a consensus on it.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Agree with "Start as Minors" being hidden and off.(see comment below Noriad2's)

Haven't played with the others in a long time so have no opinion there.

 

[Noriad2]

Yeah, easier said than done the way group wonders are set up right now.
Ok, not a popular suggestion, I'll make another one instead:

What about removing the most problematic option, the one that makes the AI as stupid as a dung beetle, an option that completely paralyze the AI because there is little-to-no specific AI code to deal with the scenario the option presents:

Start as minor civs

Isn't "stupid as a dung beetle" a bit exaggerated? What is it based on? Just a theory, or actual practice?

I play with Minor Civs on because of roleplaying reasons: hunter/gatherer societies tend to be in a state of permanent war and ownership of land is an alien concept when you travel around all the time in small groups.

If I conquer a city before Writing, it tends to have lots of buildings. When Tribalism comes around, the AI builds several cities. The AI also has lots of trackers and hunters running around, except that they have the wrong promotions and as a result they don't gain many myths. So where is the "stupid as a dung beetle?" in practice? Is it just an "urban legend" among forum dwellers here?

Nevertheless a case can be made for ending minor civs earlier than with writing. Negotiation tech (just after Sedentary Lifestyle) would be a plausible alternative.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Nevertheless a case can be made for ending minor civs earlier than with writing. Negotiation tech (just after Sedentary Lifestyle) would be a plausible alternative.

This is a good alternative and is closer to the original intent of this vanilla BtS option.

The AI also has lots of trackers and hunters running around, except that they have the wrong promotions and as a result they don't gain many myths.

That is possible to fix in the same way we fix the choosing of other promotions. I'll add it to the Hunting Review since it will cause changes to the promotions as well.

 

[Toffer90]

Isn't "stupid as a dung beetle" a bit exaggerated? What is it based on? Just a theory, or actual practice?

Every time I play with it the AI does really bad... It is a bit exaggerated though, but the AI does get paralyzed somewhat by the situation.
There is very little AI coding that compliment the scenario of "at war with everyone", wars with many fronts works a bit better in mature games where the players involved have several well developed cities, but even there the challenge is overwhelming for the AI code.

 

[Tiranasta]

Yeah, easier said than done the way group wonders are set up right now.

Ah, well that's a shame. At least I was able to remove the 'one per group' limit by modifying CIV4SpecialBuildingInfos.xml. I've been playing for several hours since then and it seems fine, but I don't suppose there are any hidden dependencies on that limit (e.g. code in the .dll that assumes only one group wonder per group per civilization)?

 

[SteelSterling]

I've never played with 'Start as minor civs' so if this is disabled / eliminated it wouldn't bother me. I usually play with both aggressive and ruthless AI on but is getting rid of this creates a more cunning AI, that would be fine by me.

 

[Noriad2]

Every time I play with it the AI does really bad... It is a bit exaggerated though, but the AI does get paralyzed somewhat by the situation.
There is very little AI coding that compliment the scenario of "at war with everyone", wars with many fronts works a bit better in mature games where the players involved have several well developed cities, but even there the challenge is overwhelming for the AI code.

Nevertheless "at war with everybody" can happen even with minor civs option off. And the AI should be able to deal with that situation in that case anyway, so strictly speaking, no specialized AI code should be necessary. Especially during the Prehistoric, when the AI only has 1-2 cities and it is more likely to have barb cities as neighbors than other civs as neighbors.

 

[Toffer90]

Nevertheless "at war with everybody" can happen even with minor civs option off. And the AI should be able to deal with that situation in that case anyway, so strictly speaking, no specialized AI code should be necessary. Especially during the Prehistoric, when the AI only has 1-2 cities and it is more likely to have barb cities as neighbors than other civs as neighbors.

There is no AI code aimed at a long scenario where every player is at war with every player.
Special code considerations would be especially necessary with a perpetual war when the AI only has 1-2 cities, (a special consideration could for example be to decide not to run this or that standard wartime code snippets because this war is special, considering not to consider something is a consideration too) for it to understand how to play well with 1-2 cities while at war with 20 cities (think a deity game with 10 AI players) and an enemy that has about 10 times more soldiers than itself, the war cannot end (something that was not especially considered when the code was written) and it lasts much longer than any AI code is written for.
The code that controls the AI is not rigged for that scenario at all, the AI should not be in red alert mode throughout the prehistoric era, it would do badly in that scenario in later stages of the game too (but it will at least be able to diversify its strategy due to having more than 2 cities) but rarely would such a scenario happen for all players in later games unless there is very few players left.

Start as minor civs was a gameoption that was created without writing/rewriting any AI code.
Only a few lines of practical code was written to solve some possible bugs and obvious shortcomings, nothing that ties in with AI more than a line that makes the minor civs value the tech that gives open border trading more when the gameoption is in use.

 

[hrudey]

I kind of like the minor civs option thematically as well, but I didn't realize it was deleterious for the AI to that extent. Because there seems to be an infinite amount of work and very finite amounts of time, I suppose it's horrible for me to suggest this, but is there a theoretical possibility of creating a new state (similar to how right of passage was added) that allows freedom for warlike actions for the AI/players without actually triggering full war state?