Civ illustrated: New series of Strategy Articles under construction

[Seraiel]

So...is this all about single player strategy?

Most players play Civ4 in single-player mode. We had a brainstorming on which guides we want to write / are needed the most, and MP didn't even come up in that discussion . Maybe you want to join the team and change that?

Sera

 

[Kaitzilla]

This project is still crawling along but will be done eventually
(52 leaders is a lot... even with so many people working on it!)

Here is another sample to bump this thread!

 

[Kaitzilla]

Sitting Bull

Fishing and Agriculture

Philosophical - +100% birth rate
Double production speed of University
Protective - Free Drill I and City Garrison I promotions for Archery and Gunpowder units
Double production speed of Walls and Castle

Dog Soldier - Axeman with 4 instead of 5. +100% vs. Melee units instead of 50%. Doesn't need Copper or Iron to build
Totem Pole - Monument that gives +3 XP to Archery units built in the city

Favorite Civic - Environmentalism

We Fear You Are Becoming Too Advanced appears after he sees you receive 8 techs from AIs on Emperor Difficulty (Varies based on difficulty, Tech steals don't count)
Will trade techs that don't unlock units or buildings to human when 80% of the other AIs also know the tech


Builds Wonders 0/10
Builds Units 8/10
Espionage Spending 7/10
Resists Capitulating 10/10

Asks for Help 0/10
Demands Tribute 10/10
Demands You Convert To His Religion 2/10
Demands Civic Change 1/10

Declares Wars of Conquest on Neighbors whom He is Annoyed With 4.3/10

Flavor Military (Medium) + Growth (Low)
Faction (Peace Weight) Good (+8)
Base Attitude towards Human Player (+0)​

Possible Diplo Bonuses
Different Religion Penalty - Up to -1 Relations (or -2 if Sitting Bull owns the Holy City)
Shared Religion Bonus - Up to +3 Relations (or +4 if Sitting Bull owns the Holy City)
Shared War Bonus - Up to +4 Relations (or +5 while human and Sitting Bull share a war)
Shared Civic Bonus - Up to +3 Relations
Tech trades required to receive +1 "shared your technological discoveries with us" - 20

Attitude Thresholds
Will open borders: Cautious
Will trade techs: Cautious
Will trade extra happy resources: Annoyed
Will trade extra health resources: Annoyed
Will trade extra strategic resources: Cautious
Will trade map: Annoyed
Can plot war at pleased: Nope
Can be bribed to war against AI: Friendly (If he is annoyed or lower with target AI)
Will sign trade embargoes: Pleased (If he is annoyed or below with target civ)
Will adopt religion: Pleased
Will adopt civic: Pleased
Will possibly peace vassal to human player: Friendly
Will form defense pact: Friendly
Will form permanent alliance: Friendly

Favorite Tile Improvement: Nothing specific


War Behavior: Sitting Bull builds a lot of units and always has highly promoted archery units due to his traits and unique building. His units have high courage and will regularly attack when they have the opportunity. The Dog Soldier makes it more likely he can declare on you early if you have border tensions and reject his numerous demands for resources/gold/techs. Once he takes one of your cities it is rather hard to take it back, so try not to get into that position.

The "Pain in the Neck" Factor: Medium. He makes a lot of demands for tribute until you get him to pleased. If you reject his demands and make him annoyed you will eventually have a problem.

Analysis: Sitting Bull is the most peaceful civ in the game if he is cautious with you, but once he becomes annoyed you can consider him a moderate threat.

He likes to spam City Garrison III archers to sit in his cities and lots of dog soldiers to roam around. The only civ capable of rushing him early is Egypt with War Chariots. If those aren't available, then it is best to wait until catapults if you want to conquer him. Getting him as a vassal requires administering a beating that would shock even the Romans so don't say you weren't warned!

Don't underestimate the dog soldier as they can counter even macemen if they are sitting in a forest or city. It requires no resource to build but is highly vulnerable to chariots if it is by itself.

You will often find one of your cities being poisoned over and over and over again. Well, that is probably Sitting Bull . Besides spamming units he likes to spend a lot of resources on espionage and poisoning your cities is one of his favorite activities. The best counter is to put one of your own spies in the city to make the mission -20% less likely to succeed and to close your borders with him if you can maintain "pleased" without the diplo bonus.

He is a pain to get techs out of and quickly reaches We Fear You Are Becoming Too Advanced, so don't plan on him being a teching partner.

Strategy: No matter what your strategy for victory is, Sitting Bull is probably just in the way. He is a bad vassal, won't trade techs, pesters you with spies, and generally dies hard. If you don't take him out with siege before he gets longbows and castles, he will stick around until the gunpowder era easily. His high peaceweight and stubbornness makes him a good target to try and direct the more dangerous warmongers to attack, so "punching bag" might be the best use to put him towards.

 

[Doshin]

One small thing to add to the Sitting Bull article: Sitting Bull is the only AI in the game with an iMaxWarDistantPowerRatio of 0. This means that the human player should not assume that they can get away with rejecting one of his many (many ) demands simply because he's on another continent. He will march his enormous stack of CG III rifles across the world because you refused to give him a banana for free.

 

[Kaitzilla]

One small thing to add to the Sitting Bull article: Sitting Bull is the only AI in the game with an iMaxWarDistantPowerRatio of 0. This means that the human player should not assume that they can get away with rejecting one of his many (many ) demands simply because he's on another continent. He will march his enormous stack of CG III rifles across the world because you refused to give him a banana for free.

Hmm, a ratio of 0 means he will never attack you from a distance if you have any military at all I think, but I'd have to check. I've also heard somewhere that iMaxWarDistantPowerRatio is bugged and doesn't work right, but I have no proof.


When the AI decides to go to war is by far the most complicated thing to rate.

There are 3 kinds of wars, 3 different no-war probabilities based on relations (technically 5), various power ratio thresholds, demand rebukes, unique unit influences, state of the economy, etc etc. We split a lot of hairs to make a composite war rating which is "Declares war of Conquest on neighbors whom he is annoyed with". It is useful only in the sense of how likely that civ is to try to all-out conquer you when relations with them are at "annoyed".

We tried to be more specific but ended up with multiple war ratings, and the average civ player isn't able to tell when an AI is performing total war, a raid, or just dogpiling. So we picked total war since it is the most dangerous and hardest to stop. (We hope this single rating is an accurate barometer of how bloodthirsty a civ is. Nothing is set in stone though, so might have more than one war rating still)



We will have a more detailed explanation for each section to explain how we arrived at each rating and how useful it is at the beginning of the guide.


The only person who ever seemed to really try and figure out every factor of when AI's go to war is DanF5771 here.

 

[ecuwins]

Sitting Troll, eh. Nicely done, Kaitzilla.

 

[Zahar]

Cottages (which have no effect at 0% slider) .

..Huh?

 

[Doshin]

Hmm, a ratio of 0 means he will never attack you from a distance if you have any military at all I think, but I'd have to check. I've also heard somewhere that iMaxWarDistantPowerRatio is bugged and doesn't work right, but I have no proof.

Upon investigation, I think you're right. 0 means that he will never attack you across a continent, at least in an all out war. I was going off a post from the AI DOW logic thread that said that 0 meant SB would attack overseas at the drop of a hat (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7113259&postcount=12), but DanF's post suggests otherwise. Presumably this means that SB will never declare from another continent, except to join in a dogpile or engage in a limited war (and even then only rarely). This is assuming that the distance calculation mechanism isn't bugged.

In any case, SB is undoubtedly one of my favorite AI leaders . He can definitely be a pain in the neck, to use the guide's rubric, but frankly he is the most useful AI you could wish for when you start on a map with Monty, Shaka, or Napoleon (etc.). They are attracted to him like moths to a flame, but like said moths, they can rarely make any headway because of his super archers and high unit prob. Occasionally he'll take a warmonger as a vassal, which can be dangerous, but he's not very good at winning because his research tanks and it takes a lot to make him declare.

 

[krikav]

I think this is awesome. It makes the information more available to a wider audience.
I can help contribute to this effort during the coming winter. As for now I'm abit busy with harvest.

Is all energy currently being invested into explaining the leaders?
My personal favorite topic is that of tiles, workers, cities and micromanagement.

 

[Cusanus]

..Huh?

Cottages generate commerce. With the research slider at 100%, all commerce is transformed into research, and your pretty Wall Street doubles 0 gold into 2*0 gold. Yey!

That is: unless your WS-city has a shrine and/or some merchants [or spiral-minarett-buildings or others sources of gold (not commerce!) that I might be forgetting].

In a perfect world, your WS-city has no research multipliers at all (because they are unnecessary), but produces enough gpt for you to run 100% research the whole time - your Oxford city, otoh, has no gold multipliers and just keeps spending the money.

 

[Abegweit]

Cottages generate commerce. With the research slider at 100%, all commerce is transformed into research, and your pretty Wall Street doubles 0 gold into 2*0 gold. Yey!

But the line he referred to said 0% slider.

 

[Htadus]

I may be wrong, but hasn't djannon's referance guide has done all this?

 

[Kaitzilla]

I may be wrong, but hasn't djannon's referance guide has done all this?

Oh nice! Yes, it appears someone else has attempted something like this 4 or 5 years ago.

Here is the link


Hmm, we are indeed replicating a lot of the information, but I still think it is worthwhile. Our whole goal is to illustrate a part of civ in as easy a way to understand as possible. Nearly all of the information that we are trying to show has been discovered by others on this forum before us. We are trying to collect and simplify it so all players can get maximum value out of it.

Comparing differences, DJ Anion's reference guide gives each leaders' information in 3 seperate parts so there is a lot of scrolling. The diplo information is in the negative voice instead of the positive. The bonuses for religion/civic/shared war seem a bit off (Sitting Bull's shared religion maxes at +2? Heh), but there are also some nice goodies in there such as refuses to talk durations and border pressure sensitivity. Ours would use a 0 to 10 rating where the DJ Anion's guide uses words. Our first post will have a list of link's going to each leader for fast viewing in the strategy guide section. Their's is a .pdf in the download section. Also, the guide mentions all the nowarprobs but not how bloodthirsty the various civs are.

Thanks for that info Htadus!, none of us knew about it before . We will certainly include a link to that guide in our references in case people like it more than ours.

Right now most of our guide is being transcribed/translated from information found here.

 

[Kaitzilla]

I think this is awesome. It makes the information more available to a wider audience.
I can help contribute to this effort during the coming winter. As for now I'm abit busy with harvest.

Is all energy currently being invested into explaining the leaders?
My personal favorite topic is that of tiles, workers, cities and micromanagement.

Yes, all energy is going into explaining the leaders. Hopefully when it is done we can move onto something else! We'd be happy to invite you in the winter if Civ Illustrated is still going.

 

[Pangaea]

99% sure I mentioned and linked to that guide at some point in the internal discussion, as I have it on my harddisk and use it from time to time. It's a good guide. This one will cover some of the same ground, but in a different and hopefully better way. With wordy analysis sections, it should also bring something new to the table, that is easier to access and understand.

 

[shakabrade]

I was DoWed by Sitting Bull from another continent recently, when I refused his demand. Luckily, I was expecting him and sank his invasion fleet. But it was a small fleet with 4-5 galleons and some caravels for protection. Nothing like Charlies invasion fleet in more recent game. So maybe he just wanted to pillage me?

Bottom line is: if you don't give 2000 gold when SB asks you, you can expect a DoW from another continent.

 

[enKage]

I've already seen SB building some wonders (GW, Versailles, Spiral Minaret, GLibrary) in one game, even though it is said he builds none. What is needed to put him on a wonder path?

EDIT: Not that he is a though opponent, as he really sucks most of the times, I am just curiuos.

 

[coanda]

Sitting Bull is rated at 0 because he has a 0 iWonderConstructionRand. However, that doesn't actually mean he'll never build a wonder... just that it's exceedingly unlikely (he tries on the order of 1% as often as the real wonder spammers). So... the guide could call that a 1/10, but that falsely implies that it's more on the order of 10% as often.

As far as what's needed, basically he needs to have a good production city that can build wonders quickly, then he needs to roll a 1 out of 100, then he needs to feel that a given wonder is the best of all available builds.

 

[Manco Capac]

By how much quarry resources boost their value of a wonder?

Anyways, coanda's response explains why I saw (once) Monty building the Great Lighthouse. That seemed so unlikely to me.

 

[DDRS2]

This is a little off-topic, but to Seraiel:

In your Incan Marathon builds, you get wheel as your second tech, right?