Choices of Play Style on Deity

[tribefaninnc]

3. Play with special Rules and Never Abuse the AI to allow them to have a chance. (Not a bad way to play. I find that if you stunt your growth in games it can allow the AI to be more of a challenge.)

I'm not good enough at Civ to really say what I do in Deity. But in general for strategy games that become too easy for one reason or another, I'm usually in the "make house rules for yourself" camp. To me, it is not fun to take advantage of situations that skirt the intention of the game.

But I'm also fine if I never become better than the Emperor/Immortal line I currently straddle.

 

[Fluphen Azine]

Have you tried Artificial Unintelligence in the mods forum yet? When the AI goes rationalism, and can move and fire, the game becomes much more interesting.

Give that a try on Deity, and see if you're crushing every game.

Not a bad idea. The problem is that if I mod the game with this I would not be able to participate in the base game challenges on this site so that will not be very fun for me. However... If I was to mod the game so that the AI will get into Rationalism and change the game so that the units will move and shoot I do not think we should stop with only this. We should mod the game so that most of the AI will either go Tradition or Liberty and Full Ratio asap. Mod the game so they build almost all the early, mid, and late game wonders as well and make it so they win the game around turn 275. Also Mod the game so the AI uses all of its gold to buy up the CS's and what not. I have had Deity games where Alex has left 100,000 gold on the table!

It is not the problem of making the AI to be able to beat every human on the planet. That has already been proven that we can make the AI as strong as Deep Blue or even stronger. The devs wanted to make a combination of Challenge and Role type of game.

This thread was just a basic idea that I had about the three categories you pretty much fall into when you play the base game on Deity. You could combine all three I suppose or make the game as hard as you like but when you really think about it most of your games will fall under one of the 3 listed.

 

[tpac]

They seem to enjoy fighting each other and it is not hard to get them all on your side with some Maneuvering.

Do you not consider paying the AI to declare war on other AIs 'abusing the AI'?

 

[b7fanatix]

Do you not consider paying the AI to declare war on other AIs 'abusing the AI'?

Me too. I'm quite a fan of Marbozir's LP videos, but he ALWAYS does this and i think it's absurd the AI are willing to fight an equally strong opponent and loose most of their army, get a load of tiles and trade caravans pillaged for a bribe that is equivalent to only a tiny fraction of their daily income as Deity AI.

OTOH I have a hard time believing it is possible to win at all on this level without such tactic.

so here's a challenge - house rules

1) No bribing AIs into War

2) Don't exploit the "white peace" bug.

If you are loosing a war, the AI might offer a peace deal where you had to give them gold, cities or luxuries to forestall the attack. A few patches ago, this was a "take it or leave it affair". Accept the terms, or, if you think you are strong enough, keep fighting till the AI realises the tide is shifting and it offers you a better deal.

Now, you can simply offer a white peace and the AI always accepts, even though your capital was down to red health and surrounded, and the peace deal suggested by the AI involved you giving them everything. This cannot possibly be WAI.

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I also tend to give myself an additional house rule, which is basically to play the "good guy". I don't DoW anyone unless they are already a warmonger, having captured cities off peaceful Civs and CS.

I've only managed one science victory on Deity with these rules, because i got a very isolated start. Normally it's extremely tough i would say. You are bound to have the weakest army because of the AI's advantages, and since the house rules don't allow bribing them to attack someone their own size, they come after you. Most of my previous games i was at war, defending my little patch of turf, pretty much the whole game. Which caused me to narrowly loose out on the space race each time, because i was prevented from trading with my neighbours, constantly having tiles pillaged in my border cities etc.

 

[Fluphen Azine]

Do you not consider paying the AI to declare war on other AIs 'abusing the AI'?

I do not consider bribing an exploit. It is just part of the game mechanic. Perhaps it shouldn't be so easy to bribe them but it is supposed to be part of the game. I read a review years ago that claims that Civ V is a 4x game with Exploit being a part of it. If you read my original statement I said that I enjoy abusing the AI as much as possible. I find it funny and I will always do it. You could play with special rules which falls under number 3 of the statement. Not a bad way to play but kinda boring for me. This doesn't mean that other players will not enjoy playing with all the special rules they can think of to try to make the game more fun or fair. Some players think that building the Pyramids and going on a repair pillage tactic/exploit should not be allowed but I find that fun and funny at the same time. Obviously if they did not want that in the game they would of changed it long ago.

So if your going to play your game with no bribes or no white peace you should just take it as far as you can go and play with No trade, no worker stealing, no bribing, no internal trade routes for food... especially the three cargo food ship tactic which the AI does not understand, heck keep going and play with No religion since it can get abusive as well. So many exploits in the game it is hard to list all the rules that you should play with to make the game more fair. Another style I have seen is no building roads, no wonders... etc. The list goes on and on. The point is with or without abusing or exploiting the AI you still will be able to win with ease which other players have shown many times. So you have to choose how you want to play your game and how far you want to exploit. Bulbing GS's or any GPs really is an exploit as well. You just can't get around using some sort of exploit in your games but you could limit them. This is all a matter of preference. I have no problem of people playing with as many rules as they think of or none at all.

Actually one of the fun things I love to do is to bribe a warmonger like Shaka or Harold to war it up with a CS or two taking them out. This makes the whole world hate them. Now they have to have you as a friend and send you all the trade routes and you can play nice with them till you have a good tech advantage. After that you denounce them and the World loves you and now you DOW them and start to take cities which the world is in favor of as well!

Usually when I see a Deity Challenge and have special rules of no trade or no bribes I will play within those guidelines but when I play a game with no special set of rules I will exploit as much as possible.

 

[b7fanatix]

OK, I see that if you derive a lot of amusement from abusing the AI then you'd be depriving yourself a whole lot of amusement and mayhem by not bribing ridiculous wars.

Since I prefer to RP the "good leader" to an extent, i won't instigate chaos in this way. As a tactic i don't think it falls in the same category as trading, building wonders, roads or internal trade routes. These are legitimate parts of the way the game simulates a world economy so the player is free to optimise in whatever way they can. I play the diplomacy simulation the same way to try and get the majority of Civs to like me, but i avoid tactics that are obviously a-holish which the AI somehow fails to see in that way eg. worker stealing, war bribing, bribing then denouncing etc.

As regards war bribes, they should probably change it so that

1) AI can only be bribed if you are already at war with the civ in question.
2) The AI has to dislike them
3) the amount required depends on hate and force ratios, as it does now

The White Peace bug is probably an anti frustration feature, thinking about it.

The AI has an awful method of calculating force ratios, same as your "advisor council" military advisor uses. On harder difficulties it would be hard to get the AI to ever accept peace (i seem to remember 2000 year wars that didn't end until i got an era ahead in tech and surrounded my aggressor's capitol - he finally offered white peace). Rather than improve the method of assessing how the war is going, they just made it possible to peace out after 10 turns in almost all conditions.

Eg. You only have two melee and two ranged units, AI still has 6 , though 3 are garrisoning his cities. Therefore AI is winning and will only take peace if you give him everything.

Except that in the war so far he only managed to kill one unit and lost 10 of his own , and has 3 left to attack with vs 4 defenders... a better algorithm would consider white peace at this point, yes he's harassing and frustrating the player, but at the expense of making his own civ fall behind even further. And at the end of the day, AI leaders aren't supposed to sacrifice themselves to stop the player winning , they are supposed to be acting within the best interests of their own civ.

 

[Acken]

I'll try to avoid bugs but I'll abuse the AI stupidity without a second thought.

What is the white peace bug ?

 

[LordBalkoth]

and can move and fire

I've always wondered if this was a bug or a feature. The problem is mainly naval units -- even if I have an aircraft carrier surrounded by half a dozen nuclear subs that are like 6+ tiles out, it is still possible for an enemy sub to move 7+ tiles in one turn and still fire a 3 range shot to instantly sink it.

That goes for all naval units, really, I can have a 7+ range privateer and a dozen battleships that move in, fire, and capture a city in one turn from 7+ tiles away (which is probably at least 2-3 tiles out beyond what the player can even see.

They can just move so far and fire so far relative to land units. Frustrating enough versus a player, but against the Deity unit spam?

 

[LordBalkoth]

What is the white peace bug ?

I'm guessing that's referring to the fact, *IF* an AI will accept peace, they will ALWAYS be willing to accept a neutral peace deal. You can always avoid paying them concessions to end the war -- despite the fact they will ask for it.

Of course, they have to be open to SOME kind of peace deal first.

 

[mattspoker]

Its hard for me to win on Deity if I don't use the AI against itself. You can't just sit back and let one AI become dominant or even take down a moderate to strong one without some sort of chicanery. IF you don't give the AI a target on a big enough map, you will be the target. I tend to only like warmongering on huge maps and you just can't compete with certain civs until stealth.

Rules of war are for civilizations in decay and too lazy to adapt.

 

[fallout3dc]

I play the game as if it has no victory condition. I can beat Immortal, but I'm forced to play a set way throughout the game against a rubbish AI that only had bonuses given to it to make it tougher. It is easy to beat Deity and Immortal by taking advantage of the AI behavior. Selling strat. resources for 2 gold each, luxs for 7, not accepting embassies, composite bow rush, double worker steal, etc etc.