Civ 2 AI behaviour back from the dead???

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

Using 1.21, I start encountering HORDES of defenders. A size 2 city often contains 10 or more Spearmen, a capital sometimes 12 Riflemen, and AI doesn`t seem to produce so may offensive units.

Last game, a stack of 22 Riflemen invaded my country, built by the Persians who had only 8 towns. I clobbered them quickly (lots of Cav), then wnet on the offensive. Luckily I had brought all other 5 civs into the war on my side. In horror I watched them throw up to 30 Cavalry per turn at Persian cities, all to no avail! Often, the 12th or 13th Cav would be up against a fresh defender! That means that they had 8 times 12 Riflemen defending (and Nationalism was only 25 turns old!) plus all they threw at me, plus some offensive unit - I counted 18 Longbowmen over the course of 5 turns. How many were in the cities or at the other front I don`t know! So I come to a unit count of 226 units I saw!

btw: Standard Pangaea Map, Regent, unmodded Civ3mod.bic.


Is this a step back to the old Civ2 times where the AI would build units whenever it didn`t have any improvement to build? Up to the point where they`d show up next to mx city with 20 attacker, 15 of them would be disbanded before they could attack because the AI ran out of money????? They weren`t saving money for Military, they were up to par in tech!

It`s all the same in every game! Now the Iroqus throw 65 Mounted Warriors at Zululand, who have no less than 6 Impi in each city despite the fact that they`ve been broke and outteched for ages.....

Anyone seen anything like that?

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

OK, it`s official, the Iroquese have so many Pikeme in a border city that attacking with 9 Knights doesn`t show the same one twice. This depite them having been my Ally until recently and having most of their militry in the (former) Zulu area!

Another game: I bring in the usual stack of attackers (10 Knights + 10 Cannons + 5 Piklemen) against a big town. Used to be overkill, but what the heck if I go kill them I intend to kill them all the way.... This time, being warned, I used two stacks of that size. Those Cannons and Knights failed to take a size 5, Pikemen defended city. No river or hill gave them bonus and I won (thanx to the bonmanrdment) 18 out of the 22 fights. But there were still troops in that city. Longbowmen, Swordsmen, Horsemen....

Two turns later (my Military hand`t lost many units, but I`d killed off 35 units on a standard map) my military was still average compared to the Russians, just like before the attack!


I`d really like the multi chaet back, just to see how the AI finances that militray of his!

 

[Tassadar]

it is amazing how each patch counter any human strategy to beat the a.i. My guess to explain that; firaxis programer is an A.I. and use every dirty tricks to annoy, frustrate and reduce human player to hate this game.

i still use 1.16 but stop playing after a game where russia respawn 3 time after beeing destroy, of course they reapear far away from my little army( old age), so it will toke me 20 turn to reach that city, so the only way to exterminate them is spread several units around the continent but this cost to much for my 6 city to support that much units.

I am taking a long brake on civ 3 ( made by cheater programer who doesnt undrstand a game should be fun to play and the rule the same for everyone)

 

[Northstar5757]

Why is this bad? Seems like they made the AI smarter. Whenever I don't have a building to produce I always make units. Wealth is a waste of time. And although it's an overused cliche the best defense is often a good offense in civ3.

It's not very hard to finance a big military since it's only one gold per turn per unit on republic. Lots of the time I have dozens of units on my front cities.

 

[Random Passerby]

I think I can pinpoint the exact cause of all this: The new patch significantly increases the "Tech Rate" value of all world sizes. This setting is a multiplier of some sort for tech costs, so the effect is that research is about twice as hard or harder across the board.

The result? Early in the game, any decent-production city will quickly burn through all available improvements to build. My normal building patterns netted me about five times as many units as normal by the early middle ages because I ended up with half a dozen cities with nothing at all to do but pop out pikemen or horsemen every 2-3 turns, whereas normally by the same time in the game I'm building universities and banks and still haven't gotten around to some of the ancient improvements. The fact that I lowered the AI trade rate doesn't help either; the AI is completely floundering now, so I'm researching 4 out of 5 every new techs.

 

[Mr Spice]

Random Passerby, my experience with 1.21 so far has been with a resulte totally opposite from yours. I am used to 1.16 and with the new one technological development is way faster. I am usually a bad warmonger, but in my two games so far there has been room for almost no offensive wars until the industrial era. (Monarch level.)

In my current game, when I had built a large enough army of swordsmen and catapults to attack one of my neighbours, they were already in the middle ages. I attacked anyway and won (both their supplies of iron were located close to our common border, hehe), but after finishing that war I had to spend the rest of the middle ages trying to catch up in science and infrastructure. Both ancient and middle ages were significally shorter than I am used to. I have barely had time to build enough units to defend my own cities. Heck, I am even upgrading spearmen to infantry!

 

[simwiz2]

"am used to 1.16 and with the new one technological development is way faster"

I am used to the fast tech development of 1.17, and 1.21 is still a lot faster, in the ancient age it is at least twice as fast. I think it is because city squares get an extra trade, can someone confirm this? In the very beginning of my game (despotism) my capital square was next to a river and had 3 trade. IIRC it should only have 2. Plus with the tile penalty, doesnt that mean my capital square was really was making FOUR trade?

 

[Dralix]

Silly question perhaps, but did you build on a bonus resource? Or maybe after discovering the wheel there were horses on your capital?

 

[chiefpaco]

I'm not sure I understand what you're asking.

Your observations show that the AI seems to have a lot of units in towns you're attacking. I think that can be seen as a very smart strategy, & one that I would use.

Perhaps reload the game, get a boatload of money, and do a lot of "Investigate City" & see if they have that many defenders in all their towns. Then I'd be wary of their intelligence.

Also, riflemen have the offensive and defensive flags checked and with 1.21, the AI now recognizes that. My guess is they would now tend to stockpile more since they would build them for both strategies.

 

[Beam]

Originally posted by Killer
Using 1.21, I start encountering HORDES of defenders. A size 2 city often contains 10 or more Spearmen, a capital sometimes 12 Riflemen, and AI doesn`t seem to produce so may offensive units.

Last game, a stack of 22 Riflemen invaded my country, built by the Persians who had only 8 towns. I clobbered them quickly (lots of Cav), then wnet on the offensive. Luckily I had brought all other 5 civs into the war on my side. In horror I watched them throw up to 30 Cavalry per turn at Persian cities, all to no avail! Often, the 12th or 13th Cav would be up against a fresh defender! That means that they had 8 times 12 Riflemen defending (and Nationalism was only 25 turns old!) plus all they threw at me, plus some offensive unit - I counted 18 Longbowmen over the course of 5 turns. How many were in the cities or at the other front I don`t know! So I come to a unit count of 226 units I saw!

btw: Standard Pangaea Map, Regent, unmodded Civ3mod.bic.


Is this a step back to the old Civ2 times where the AI would build units whenever it didn`t have any improvement to build? Up to the point where they`d show up next to mx city with 20 attacker, 15 of them would be disbanded before they could attack because the AI ran out of money????? They weren`t saving money for Military, they were up to par in tech!

It`s all the same in every game! Now the Iroqus throw 65 Mounted Warriors at Zululand, who have no less than 6 Impi in each city despite the fact that they`ve been broke and outteched for ages.....

Anyone seen anything like that?

I can confirm that behaviour, please verify attached pic of Thebes. 8 Pikemen and the 9th is in progress! AI can still build Marketplace, Granary, Courthouse, Swordsman. Just negotiated peace, so lets see how this develops. If they would just change production topic....

btw, Tiny, Monarch, everything default and just Cleo and me left

 

[sappling]

I played one game over the weekend with the new 1.21 patch. Emperor on a Tiny map. I found that the AI always kept 5 to 10 defenders in most cities. In every game I played before this patch, AI cities would only have 2 or 3 defenders. This did make it more of a challenge.

I like the new patch but the game runs slower. Also, the AI raced up the tech tree, especially in middle and industrial ages.

 

[Zouave]

Originally posted by Tassadar
it is amazing how each patch counter any human strategy to beat the a.i. My guess to explain that; firaxis programer is an A.I. and use every dirty tricks to annoy, frustrate and reduce human player to hate this game. . .

I am taking a long brake on civ 3 ( made by cheater programer who doesnt undrstand a game should be fun to play and the rule the same for everyone)

You are wise beyond your years!

 

[CivKilla]

Its there capital, and it has a wonder in it. I would be defending it like that as well.

 

[God]

Well by 1210 AD Great Libary isn't all that useful other than for culture.

The tech rate has gone up, because i reached Middle Ages in around 10 AD on warlord . Thats crazy on warlord.
I wasn't even expansionist and the Great Libary hadn't been built yet and the AI wasn't trading techs at all amongst each other, sometimes it did, very rarely.

 

[Beam]

Originally posted by CivKilla
Its there capital, and it has a wonder in it. I would be defending it like that as well.

UPDATE: It was their capital Costed a bunch of elephants though.

 

[FireDragon]

Originally posted by Tassadar
and the rule the same for everyone)

If the rules were the same for everyone, the AI would abort the game when it was losing.

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

"All full back!" - "Aye-aye, Captain!"

I`m making a 180 here, now I love the high number of units! It`s great!

Somehow the tech rate is so far down (techs so expensive) that you can fight meaningfull wars with LOADS of units! Even the freaks of the combat system don`t matter too much now, and resource denial is practical, too! Also, the AI runs out of units (rather realistic) since battlefield deaths are significantly higher than production, but still there are no practically defenceless cities around!

One thing i had to fix though: the ancient era was worthless since everyone limited production to military and settlers. I upped the cost of tech by 1/3 and made the max time 50 turns - and it worked beautifully. I beeelined for Knoghts, then beat up that Spearmen army and that Impi Army! Also, I haven`t seen one of those curiosly mixed Spearman+Cav+Infantry Amries the AI usually builds. Now, tech goes slow enough for a "normal" develpoment!

I LOVE 1.21 (with my little mod )

anyone want to try it out, mail me! I`d love to have this checked out and improved by you all!

Changes:
Ancient tech except Monarchy and Republic + ~1/3 cost.
Max research time 50 turns.
Hills can be irrigated
Tundra gives no food
Resources give more bonus (now it`s worth fighting for them even if they aren`y strategic)
AI-AI trade is 100% on Regent, 110% on Monarch and so on.
HP tripled.
Bombard changed accordingly.2 new cultural levels, 1 at 5:2, one at 3:2 so rate can be judged better.


I`ll update when I remember what else I changed