Caveman 2 Cosmos

[Somebody613]

This is a misunderstanding. It's not the minimum distance between cities, I want the AI to settle more realistically, best case scenario by using a modifier of "don't settle more than x tiles away from your closest city" because the concept of the AI building cities next to mine when it can neither defend nor support them at that location is dumb as hell. I want a more realistic or at least more useful sort of sprawl, so to speak. The value could even increase with ages so that it allows the AI to finally settle those really fudging bad wasteland towns it loves so much.

Wouldn't the easiest fix be that Dogs are civilian units and not to count civilian unit strength for power calculation?

The first task is way beyond the current AI's capabilities somehow.

They aren't, because dogs do have a certain significant STR that makes them useful as military units.
It's the priority that has to be fixed, and I don't know how, because I don't know how it is calculated (clearly not by plain STR, and I doubt it's even as simple as Gold/STR efficacy).

 

[Mr.Misfit]

The first task is way beyond the current AI's capabilities somehow.

[...]

I'm not entirely sure. There's a "MIN_CITY_RANGE" in the GlobalDefines.xml as Toffer90 mentioned. So it shouldn't be impossible to add a similarly reference-allowed MAX_CITY_RANGE variable with a value that increases over civic value. Don't know if the schema has to be updated first in the .xsd though, it's been quite long since I had to work with xml.schematas.

 

[Somebody613]

I'm not entirely sure. There's a "MIN_CITY_RANGE" in the GlobalDefines.xml as Toffer90 mentioned. So it shouldn't be impossible to add a similarly reference-allowed MAX_CITY_RANGE variable with a value that increases over civic value. Don't know if the schema has to be updated first in the .xsd though, it's been quite long since I had to work with xml.schematas.

But that's hardly the solution, if you are complaining that AI is blocking your cities deliberately by building dumb cities just for the sake of blocking you.
Meaning, distance is one of the least factors in why it does this.
Oh, you mean distance from YOUR cities.
No, wait, that's precisely what you were told previously - make the distance so far that you can have a healthy buffer between you and AI.
Would be detrimental to you as well, but you can cheat by saving before you would found a city, closing the game, changing it to vanilla, using the Settler, returning it back to high number.
It sure would look stupid, and would probably annoy you on long save loads, but you COULD do so, lol.

 

[Mr.Misfit]

But that's hardly the solution, if you are complaining that AI is blocking your cities deliberately by building dumb cities just for the sake of blocking you.
Meaning, distance is one of the least factors in why it does this.
Oh, you mean distance from YOUR cities.
No, wait, that's precisely what you were told previously - make the distance so far that you can have a healthy buffer between you and AI.
Would be detrimental to you as well, but you can cheat by saving before you would found a city, closing the game, changing it to vanilla, using the Settler, returning it back to high number.
It sure would look stupid, and would probably annoy you on long save loads, but you COULD do so, lol.

No no, you understood me the first time. I want more realistic empire building. I understand blocking someone else, I don't understand building a city on the other side of the continent, cut off from all your support and logistic lines during the classical age just to block the human player. A max city range would imply that the AI, just like most human players I suppose, expands in more close-by directions instead of primarily "against you".

 

[Somebody613]

No no, you understood me the first time. I want more realistic empire building. I understand blocking someone else, I don't understand building a city on the other side of the continent, cut off from all your support and logistic lines during the classical age just to block the human player. A max city range would imply that the AI, just like most human players I suppose, expands in more close-by directions instead of primarily "against you".

Well, my solution still works, somewhat.
Put the distance at 20, lol, and at the very least there won't be any sneaking Settlers to annoy you.
Heck, this (at, say, 10) may even work as an actual game method to prevent city overcrowding in general, lol.
As of your actual complaint, though, I have no idea, but I also have no idea why AI would do what you said either (how does it decide to block you to begin with), so I'm confused here.

 

[jshetley]

You could go to war with them and wipe out the cities they build trying to block you. I do not notice it happening as much as I used to a few versions back though. They used to come halfway across the map and build close to my border. Instant war usually resulted. If you think they build too close now though you must not have played Test Of Time. They came right to the edge of border in that game and built even if they could control only 3 tiles.

 

[jshetley]

The chance of it NOT doing it... is pretty much nil...

I have not noticed many trained dogs in cities lately. They usually put better units in them so taking them can get rough. I have not been seriously attacked by an AI in a long time though. It just does not happen.

 

[jshetley]

I doubt it. AI is absolutely stupid most of the time and in most ways. This is both an easy exploit and an enraging nuisance, depending on what we are talking about.

They are better than they used to be though, especially with growth. An AI having more than 7-8 cities used to be a rare occurrence. Now they easily get 20+ if they have room.

 

[Toffer90]

This is a misunderstanding. It's not the minimum distance between cities, I want the AI to settle more realistically, best case scenario by using a modifier of "don't settle more than x tiles away from your closest city" because the concept of the AI building cities next to mine when it can neither defend nor support them at that location is dumb as hell. I want a more realistic or at least more useful sort of sprawl, so to speak. The value could even increase with ages so that it allows the AI to finally settle those really fudging bad wasteland towns it loves so much.

The AI will settle better cities if it is not allowed to clump cities tightly together, I thought that you wanted AI that don't settle somewhere bad just because it can, AI will settle on goods spots first, then fill in all the bad spots as it can, a higher minimum distance between cities will drastically reduce bad city placements by the AI. Though that's not to say that the AI code for city settling can't be improved, it probably can.

 

[Mr.Misfit]

Question: Is it normal that the AI will nuke liberally and freely as soon as the A-Bomb Bomber unit is available in the Atomic Age? Certainly feels like a good reason for leaving the planet soon considering how 15% of the planet is already irradiated with fallout.

 

[GreatLordofPie]

That's just the default AI nuke behaviour even in vanilla civ4

 

[Thunderbrd]

Wouldn't the easiest fix be that Dogs are civilian units and not to count civilian unit strength for power calculation?

No. A good army requires not selecting just one 'best unit' and spamming it. No matter what.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Question: Is it normal that the AI will nuke liberally and freely as soon as the A-Bomb Bomber unit is available in the Atomic Age? Certainly feels like a good reason for leaving the planet soon considering how 15% of the planet is already irradiated with fallout.

That may depend on the nature of the AI player.

 

[Mr.Misfit]

That may depend on the nature of the AI player.

Ahhh. okay, so in that regard I suppose that Ruthless AI may trigger more attacks like that than would be typical I guess.
I currently have Margete I (Dutch), Ben Gurion (Israel), Dom Pedro II (Brazil) and Johan de Wit (Netherlands) as great powers with me in the Atomic Age and it felt fascinating to just constantly see the messages.

Another question: Why would the AI go back to really bad government civics at times even when its not useful? I've seen this several times even when it already was a Democratic or Totalitarian Government before? And on that note, It doesn't feel like Totalitarianism is really that well balanced against the other governments, but most early government forms are bad if only because of the progression logic behind them and the fact that many early ones are tied to bureaucratic effiency of city number happiness.

Edit: Addendum Question: Can it be that Religious Disabling isn't working completely right? I get religious buildings disabled even though I'm running "Free Church" as my religious civic which by definition should allow other religions, shouldn't it? Or did I misunderstand something?

Edit Edit: Another question: Is it possible to somewhere write the Order of units in the build screen? All the animal units are sorted, something similar for the for example police units would be awesome etc. And can you somehow force the unit build overview to always open in DOMAIN instead of NONE? At least domain re-sorts everything so the naval and light units aren't cluttering up the land units as well.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Why would the AI go back to really bad government civics at times even when its not useful? I've seen this several times even when it already was a Democratic or Totalitarian Government before? And on that note, It doesn't feel like Totalitarianism is really that well balanced against the other governments, but most early government forms are bad if only because of the progression logic behind them and the fact that many early ones are tied to bureaucratic effiency of city number happiness.

Some AI players prefer certain civics and maybe some strategies don't consider things as accurately as they should.

Can it be that Religious Disabling isn't working completely right? I get religious buildings disabled even though I'm running "Free Church" as my religious civic which by definition should allow other religions, shouldn't it? Or did I misunderstand something?

Free Church gives a single cause for buildings to not all be disabled. There are sources of causes that can counteract - numerous traits play a role as well if you are working with traits.

Is it possible to somewhere write the Order of units in the build screen? All the animal units are sorted, something similar for the for example police units would be awesome etc. And can you somehow force the unit build overview to always open in DOMAIN instead of NONE? At least domain re-sorts everything so the naval and light units aren't cluttering up the land units as well.

There are quite a few sorting options...

 

[Mr.Misfit]

Some AI players prefer certain civics and maybe some strategies don't consider things as accurately as they should.


Free Church gives a single cause for buildings to not all be disabled. There are sources of causes that can counteract - numerous traits play a role as well if you are working with traits.


There are quite a few sorting options...

Yes, that might be it, it just seems worse because of how some of those early government civics are literal punishments even for the AI.

I did not realize that, thank you for noting the "cause of freedom" for the civics.

There are a few sorting options but I was hoping there was a way to force one to be active without me setting it every time, like an additional option? Whenever I reload the savegame the sorting reverts to none even if the selected sort selection shows another value set.

 

[Thunderbrd]

There are a few sorting options but I was hoping there was a way to force one to be active without me setting it every time, like an additional option? Whenever I reload the savegame the sorting reverts to none even if the selected sort selection shows another value set.

not that I'm aware of

 

[Osk21]

I would love it if someone would consider making The Mayo Clinic or Walter Reed Hospital as National or World Wonders...

 

[Mr.Misfit]

Quick question: It's 1932 now, Turn 3779 of 8000 and the AI has thrown well over a hundred nuclear bombs and started with BBMs ....at what point does nuclear winter/global warming set in?

 

[Mr.Misfit]

Quick question: It's 1932 now, Turn 3779 of 8000 and the AI has thrown well over a hundred nuclear bombs and started with BBMs ....at what point does nuclear winter/global warming set in?

So while I'm waiting for an answer as to why there's no permanent problem from turning the planet to ash somehow, I've got another question:

Would a possible problem solution for the AI building units completely stupidly not be to make every unit a national unit with limit 15? First of all it would give much greater weight to units, make fleets more interesting and mean that you cannot solve all problems everywhere all the time by bombarding the cities with units to keep the problems down. Suddenly outlier cities of your empire are forced to endure higher crime rates etc...