Design Issue - Attack AI Opponent Early Problem

[Oddible]

Found a problematic design issue. Scenario: Beginning of the game, I am Dutch, the Spanish AI have placed their first settlement nearby. I immediately send my Soldier (Free Colonist) over to their city, declare war, capture their Pioneer, then capture their city. They get a new colonist with a new boat and send it over and place it also nearby. I move my soldier next to it, wait until they either a) build something of b) get another colonist by boat so they have 2 citizens in the city, then I capture it again. This can go on and on.

Exploit? or just poor AI design?

 

[Viperace]

Good catch.

Perhaps could be solved by restricting war declaration towards other colony at the early stage. After all, the new settler are still loyal to their motherland and follows the Europe war status.

 

[playshogi]

What level are you playing on? At lower levels of Civ4, you can often walk your exploring warrior into an undefended AI city, but not on the higher levels.

 

[Sol_Invictus]

Maybe the offended King should send a small expeditionary force to recapture any colonies that another nation captures in the early game. I guess we players can simply avoid any early blitzkrieg offenses since this will certainly skew the entire game.

 

[Lord Shadow]

I suspect this wouldn't happen if the difficulty's set high enough.

 

[mboza]

This was my favoured tactic in the original on viceroy, just steal from the other 3 civs in the early game.

 

[Ellestar]

I suspect this wouldn't happen if the difficulty's set high enough.

Works on Governor, cities are defended but defence is too weak to be effective.

The problem is that military part of the game was designed for wars with natives and independence war, so a war between a player and an AI is out of whack.

 

[1EyedKing]

While experimenting around with the game I tried this and found it completely brakes the game since it locks you on an ever expanding parasitic cycle: you conquer a town, get a free colonist and muskets, arm said colonist with said muskets, repeat.

Easy solution: just make the first 50 muskets and first colonist inside a town act as a soldier (the computer ALWAYS settles with the soldier).

 

[Yeekim]

All too true. Unbelievable this got past playtesting....
Actually, being able to attack other European powers without some sort of consent from your King and no retribution from anybody whatsoever makes terribly little sense as well...

 

[Bad Brett]

This is how it used to be in the original game and I'm glad that they kept it this way.

 

[Gliese 581]

In the original game the AI would often kick your ass if you made a halfhearted attempt, it seems that in col2 you can steamroll two AIs with no problem if they're close.

 

[warroom]

I spend early money buying troops to kick the AI and mooch off their resources. If a weak AI in the early game bothers you, just don't attack them. I doubt anyone attacks hoping for a big drawn out war.

 

[Llotyhy]

That's rediculous. Ever heard about the Seven Years War and the resulting French and Indian War? That wasn't a quick conflict... it was a long drawn out war between all the European superpowers that was fought not only in Europe but also in the colonies. In Col1 that kind of thing could happen. In Col2 it's impossible, since the AI is simply way too weak. The natives aren't btw, they do reasonably good most of the time, but the other colonies' AI is laughable. It's one of the worst AI's I've ever seen.

 

[Bob the Barbari]

I don't have Colonization so I don't know how relations with the king look like but maybe it could be solved by improving the realism of the game and making it so that you have to ask your king for permission to declare war os someone. In other words:
"My king the [civ name] colonies are a big problem to us. Maybe we should consider wiping them out."
"Well it may have a serious impact on our relations with [civ name]. It can even be taken as a reason for war here in Europe and wars are, you know, expensive."
a) "Maybe we could loyally help you in defending our motherland" Pay big sum of gold that cannot be easily obtained in the beggining of a game.
b) "I'm sure our people will agree to pay war taxes" Big increase in tax rate.
c) "Never mind"

 

[Gliese 581]

I don't have Colonization so I don't know how relations with the king look like but maybe it could be solved by improving the realism of the game and making it so that you have to ask your king for permission to declare war os someone. In other words:
"My king the [civ name] colonies are a big problem to us. Maybe we should consider wiping them out."
"Well it may have a serious impact on our relations with [civ name]. It can even be taken as a reason for war here in Europe and wars are, you know, expensive."
a) "Maybe we could loyally help you in defending our motherland" Pay big sum of gold that cannot be easily obtained in the beggining of a game.
b) "I'm sure our people will agree to pay war taxes" Big increase in tax rate.
c) "Never mind"

I like this idea.

 

[obsolete]

Wow, I had thought this early waring was HOW YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO PLAY it!

All this time I was taking advantage of an exploit and didn't know it, ahah!

I had assumed, there was beta testing at one point... what happened to that?

 

[centrelink4]

Early war isnt the problem, I like the idea of early skirmishs to establish who gets the best stuff or stealing treasure wagons etc.

The problem is just the AI settles with solder and cant defend automatically with only one dude.

Just changing this rule would make a big difference

 

[Gliese 581]

The AI was dangerous on higher levels in the original, I would often see huge armies of dragoons annoyingly all over my territory (no borders back then).
That made you sit up and garrison a few troops. The natives would also make alot of random attacks on your citizens and settlements without it being a formal war, more like raiding parties which they themself did not view as war, rather the young warriors having a bit of fun not too serious I reckon.

I remember buying artillery back then for city defense was one of my very first priorities. In col2 it's almost an afterthought to add defense.. "oh right, perhaps I should get a cannon or two it's been a hundred turns already.."

 

[Viperace]

That was the good old days.... I am gonna miss those feature