Double Your Pleasure

[KDan]

Kind of a rant but...

England, Deity mode, normal settings on your world map:
AIs trade and expand so fast I find myself soon so outdistanced tech-wise (and of course with the 60 rate cap I can't even try paying for tech and screwing research) that it's pointless to continue the game. I mean, the *****es built the great library before I even got dynasticism... and I was beelining for it!! Now there's some suckage...

But then...
Same mode, but edited the deity settings. Made the AI trade rate 100 so that AIs trade just like humans. Screwed them out of their free unit supports and their massive free starting army, so that basically they start exactly like me and are treated like normal players, and well, you know what? The poor bastards are lagging behind tech-wise, I've colonised spain and part of northern europe and a bit of northern africa and they only have 3 or 4 cities apiece (fair enough, it's europe... I guess that doesn't help... but I just traded maps with the chinese and they only have 3 cities too. Same for the Indians).

So... well, I guess this is just a pointless annoyed rant, but I'm tired of playing against cheats... it can't possibly be that friggin' hard to make an AI that can play civ without cheating all the time. I mean, look at games like warcraft 3... the AI doesn't need to cheat there to kick your ass (and cleanly too)... it is actually muzzled and held down in the single-player campaign to make it more playable - otherwise most people wouldn't make it past the first few missions. Civ ain't a RTS you say? Well, let's have a look at chess then... pretty friggin' complex turn-based game if you ask me, yet they can make AIs which easily hold a candle to very good human players without any cheating.

So I guess this is just one more useless rant at developers of the civ series in general... why have they got it so ingrained in their heads that to make the AI better you gotta give it cheats? It completely spoils the game for me. I'll be glad when they come up with PtW - assuming it is actually practical to arrange games of civ with several human players, for which I have severe doubts about the logistics. Then I'll finally be able to measure myself against some players which don't cheat and have more intelligence, artificial or not, than the AI (Amoeba Intelligence?). Civ1 was the very first game I bought, and I bought every game in the series, including the cpts (both 1 and 2...) but I'm definitely not touching civ4 unless I read in every review that they finally made an AI that can win without cheating.

(/rant... sorry for putting it here... keep up the good work on the mod, at least it kept me playing for a little while longer and I'll be using it with PtW for sure)

Daniel

 

[Kal-el]

I know I said the next release wasn't going to be coming out for another month or so, well, things change and since I haven't been getting any good feedback on the Theocracy issue and since we had already sent out v0.85 to the test team, we will be releasing v.0.86 within the next day or two. Version 0.86 will address the Theocracy problem and also the problem of being able to have a larger army in Chiefdom than in Despotism.

The new techs are still a ways off. But this should help increase the AI's ability to put up a fight in the latter stages of the game. You should hopefully see more AI cities and more improvements in those cities. That should in turn lead to a more challenging game.

 

[Isak]

[Counter-Rant]

Originally posted by KDan
Kind of a rant but...

You're right - we all get a free monthly rant on CFC, I think

So... well, I guess this is just a pointless annoyed rant, but I'm tired of playing against cheats... it can't possibly be that friggin' hard to make an AI that can play civ without cheating all the time.

I disagree - I believe it is not only hard, but completely impossible - the only thing that might make it possible would be Extra-Terrestial-Super-Funky-Monster Computers.

I mean, look at games like warcraft 3... the AI doesn't need to cheat there to kick your ass (and cleanly too)... it is actually muzzled and held down in the single-player campaign to make it more playable - otherwise most people wouldn't make it past the first few missions.

I haven't tried WC3 yet, but in RTS, in general, as a human being you are limited by the speed with which you can move the mouse around in the interface. If you want to build something, you have to locate the right button, click it, select what you want to build, confirm that you will build it, and then it starts building. Likewise if you want to change the orders of units, you have to locate them, select them, change the order and confirm - lots and lots of clicking. Do you think the AI delays itself in order to "simulate" this searching and clicking? - I don't think so - it carries out all production and changes the units' go-to orders in miliseconds. Personally, I don't se why that is not cheating...

Civ ain't a RTS you say? Well, let's have a look at chess then... pretty friggin' complex turn-based game if you ask me, yet they can make AIs which easily hold a candle to very good human players without any cheating.

True -after only some 40 years of research and prototyping, they finally managed to beat one of the best chess players in the world - so since Civ1 was released in 1991, we will only have to wait 30 more years for that super-sharp Civ-AI to come
But, Chess is not a good comparison - there are only 64 tiles, and 32 units and no deviations from this rule whatsoever - the scope of Chess is much, much, much smaller than Civ3. If you don't believe me, try this: Calculate, in how many different ways you can place the Units on the Civ3 map.

It can't be done, because you don't know how many map tiles there are and you don't know how many units there will be - it is possible to do so for Chess, though.

And, another thing - the Chess AI calculates many (hundred?) steps ahead in order to determine the best possible move - something that no human being is capable of. Why is that not cheating?

So don't give up on Civ3 just because it is cheating - it cheats in everybody else's game as well, so if you want to measure how well you are doing, you could just check out the Highscore thread or try out the Game Of The Month.

[/Counter Rant]

Ps. And don't worry about the Tech rates -we will eventually make them work just right - and your input is much appreciated

 

[gunning1]

Hey, Kal-el I downloaded versions .80, and .84. I tried to play, but nothing else was different. And yes I did install them in order. I need some help.

 

[ChaoticWanderer]

oh for anyone else wnating to use those two sims.

i didnt send the art folders.

theya re jsut renamed art folders.

so easy to do

just copy and rename jaguar warrior to quetzal Warrior change the isp as well

and copy and rename galley to phoenician galley

anyway was thinking about that may confuse someone. though the civs were for kal'el and i doubt the confused him *LOL*

 

[Guardian-Azure]

... all I have to say is, if you don't think the AI cheats in any RTS game, then you're quite nieve.

Warcraft, Starcraft, Total Annihilation, Command and Conquer, Dune, all of these considered some of the best RTS's of all time. The AI will cheat every single game. Mainly is that, the AI is given information, and it has a command for that information is given. There is no room for improvization. It's all scripted. Even the most advanced AI we argueable have (In Black and White) is scripted. Just to a very large detail. And with that scripting, it has one very large disadvantage. We think, learn, and can change what we're doing in an instant. While the AI can't see ahead and predict what we will do, we can certainly predict what it can do, because we LEARN what the AI will do in certain situations.

In command and conquer it is common knowledge that the computer can have no power, destroyed ore refineries, and it will still crank out tanks at an abnormal rate.

In Starcraft, if the computer AI is zerg, the second you reach a certain over-all score, the ai will rush you with 8 zerglings. No matter what, but we know that it generally won't rush untill you reach that score, so we use that time to prepare an intricate defense with the use of buildings and a few units. And we will completely destroy that rush. Because we know how to out-think the AI.

But those are all real-time, where we have the movement penalty of clicking the mouse, scrolling the screen, pressing hotkeys, placing buildings, commanding units. Now, take Civ, all those disadvantages against us are removed. It is a Turn-Based Strategy. Once you take that main advantage away from the AI, we now have as much time as we want to think, predict, feint, etc... So how do we give the AI a fighting chance? Extra gold, starting units etc... but even then, there are players on these boards that can absolutly destroy the AI on diety level. I personally can not, I've never been a very good Civ. Player. And never really taken the time to become one, because I don't care. I have fun on monarch level, and thats enough for me.

But if we didn't give the AI any advantage... it would kinda be a dull game wouldn't it? Especially since there isn't any multi-player for civ3 yet... but hey. Just my thoughts... and I would think game creators and very good players would agree with me. In C&C, and SC, the AI is too easy to me. I'll destroy them. And thats on the hardest difficulty, on easy its just funny to watch them play. I often would think my friends 4 year old brother could play better than that.

 

[KDan]

Ok, maybe my rant was a bit unfair on some points - fair enough about the click rate aspect of rts... still, I would think that scripting the AI so that it is far more able to deal with various situations - eg the starting build order/exploration method/etc, so that it can start itself up as fast as the best player without getting free offensive units, free defensive units, free settlers, free workers etc... - would be more of a 'work a bit more on this' issue rather than a 'have a genial new idea and write a computing phd thesis on it cause it's that good' kind of idea...

Sure, the specific scripts would not do very well in a mod like this one - but that's why you do things more like Ctp did and allow people to write their own AI scripts...

I don't see anything wrong with thinking many moves in advance - in chess that's what all good players do, though they usually don't think as far as a computer can. But an International Master (or even a Grand Master) will have many different possible scenarios in mind, many moves ahead, even when playing 20 people in simultaneous games while blindfolded (that's why they're so damn good ). It wouldn't hurt the civ ai to think 2 moves ahead for once Of course, in civ, moves are not definite - the outcome of a fight is undefined - but probabilities can still be worked out. And when the AI attacks, it should do so with a force that it knows will have a high probability of being strong enough to wipe out the defence. Dropping 3 knights on my railroads when all my cities have tanks in them definitely doesn't qualify, but how many times does that happen?

Kal-el - this game I'm playing, assuming I'll play it longer - has theocracy turned into "Virtual Democracy" which comes with Advanced Warfare, some sort of evil mofo government I decided to add cause I get tired with war weariness crap in the end game, and with worker speeds and all that (so I gave it worker rate 10, no war weariness, minimal corruption, 5 gold per unit support though to balance it out a tiny bit... > ) I also removed the merchant units, so I'll see how it plays out. Atm the AI is lagging behind in tech, but I'm being reasonably generous with my tech donations to the ******** AI fund so that they have half a chance of catching up... I'll have a look later on to see what govs they choose and what sort of stuff they're building, and I'll let you know - assuming I get that far and don't get bored before.

Daniel

 

[Isak]

Originally posted by KDan
Ok, maybe my rant was a bit unfair on some points - fair enough about the click rate aspect of rts... still, I would think that scripting the AI so that it is far more able to deal with various situations - eg the starting build order/exploration method/etc, so that it can start itself up as fast as the best player without getting free offensive units, free defensive units, free settlers, free workers etc... - would be more of a 'work a bit more on this' issue rather than a 'have a genial new idea and write a computing phd thesis on it cause it's that good' kind of idea...

Sure, some things could be improved - but for every aspect you want the AI to consider and calculate, more processing time is needed, so you will be waiting longer between turns. Also, computer AI programmers work under the same conditions as the people who write up the Tax laws - every time a loop-hole is closed, two new ones appear

Sure, the specific scripts would not do very well in a mod like this one - but that's why you do things more like Ctp did and allow people to write their own AI scripts...

That would have been brilliant, I can't argue with that. But again, would we really have been able to fare much better?

I don't see anything wrong with thinking many moves in advance - in chess that's what all good players do, though they usually don't think as far as a computer can.

Pardon, but that is a bit of an understatement - according to the IBM - Deep Blue Website the current version of that super-computer is "capable of calculating 100-200 billions moves within three minutes, which is the time allotted to each player's move in classical chess. " - Now I wonder if Gary Kasparov is even able to calculate a fraction of that, given as much as a week.

Dropping 3 knights on my railroads when all my cities have tanks in them definitely doesn't qualify, but how many times does that happen?

If you're hogging all the Iron, it doesn't really have much of a choice, does it?

 

[ChaoticWanderer]

HELP

Seems i have a small problem with my new civs when they talk to me they will jsut use.
civ#1 instead of any saying.

cant see where i can fix this small problem. doe anyone know?

FINSIHED MY THIRD CIV AND GOT THE RESEARCH FOR MY FOURTH BUT WANT TO FIX THIS PROBLEM BEFORE I ADVANCE

 

[Harrier]

Originally posted by Kal-el


I have said it before and I will say it again, the Aborigines are still in the Stone Age!!!

I agree with you on this point. I was thinking more of game play than historical fact. But see below.

Originally posted by Kal-el


With Siam, Japan, and Polynesia fighting for space things should be more interesting in the South Pacific.

I'd overlooked the addition of Siam (Thai's). and Polynesia as an effect on the game.

Thinking about my choices, I realized I had based them on previous games I had played on Marla's Map - using
normal rules, not a mod. As China and Rome, in both cases the Pacific and most of South America had been left
untouched by the AI. Even as the Romans I colonized most of the Pacific and South America (Inca's and Mayan's
should stop that). That's the problem with an Earth Map - you know where land is before you find it and after a few
games you know the places the computer ignores.

I've not yet played a full game on your Earth map - so I can not comment yet on the AI ignoring parts of the map.

 

[Morbius]

dyp world map, 0.84, the egypt theocracy that im at war with, prefers to rush their cities to total annihilation when my cavs and tanks come close.
they get an additional unit of infantry and the cities are just gone, rushed to death in exchange.

this has to be stopped, i think. its ridiculous -- they lost over half of their cities that way.

 

[Guardian-Azure]

Okay Kal-El, your not online, and my email is being buggy. So I'm posting it here.

I've played through my game with being an extremely pacifist, non-major world power, keeping myself as low as I possibly can in anything, and trying to stay on the good side of all the other AI players.

I play on the Monarch Level, huge map, most civs had their own continent, but 2 continents did have 2 civs on it. Which I thought was good, would let me compare this.

I was trying to attempt to see if the AI will not goto theocracy if there wasn't a substantial war threat. So I kept myself on a small island, limited my power, spent the money I would recieve. And I kept in the bottom 3 spots for total score as best as I could.

I was successful in doing my part. And the AI civs that had to compete with land, did so, and stayed in their theocracy gov't. Now, all but one civ who happened to stay in anarchy (I'm guessing a rival civ kept the propaganda going, and then forced all the workers changed to entertainers, then city dropping in size, allowing workers, anarchy, entertainers etc...) But all the other civs still stayed in theocracy.

So that was a bit of a failure at an attempt to see what the AI would choose of the human player didn't pose any threat.

I'm still playing my game where you get theocracy when you get advanced warfare. With the corruption set to problematic.

The AI have been switching gov't a lot more often thats for sure. Some are being forced to switch through war, or lack of luxery etc... quite interesting to see how this will play out further as the only gov't available at the moment is Chiefdom/Monarchy/Republic/Despotism.

 

[ChaoticWanderer]

ok im gonna add the addition of my newest civ additions

but i ran into a problem with the game.

it seems that as i was going into the jungles and do exploring i started to see silk before i got weaving. then when i got weaving my comp performed a crash. im not sure if this is from this problem. but it happened right after irtraded for weaving with silk allready on the map.

im not sure if it mapped out silk when the comp discovered it then went to do it again and ran into a problem or what. but thats what i got

thier are four civs on this. special units

mayan change copy jaguare warrior into quetzal warrior
phoenician copy galley into phoenician galley
inca copy jaguare warrior into sky warrior
and portuguese coppy caraval into portuguese explorer.

anyway this isnt perfect yet still working on everything
but seems to be working other then the crash mentioned before

 

[RobO]

Originally posted by gunning1
Hey, Kal-el I downloaded versions .80, and .84. I tried to play, but nothing else was different. And yes I did install them in order. I need some help.

This is usually in Isaks ballpark, but I don't know why he isn't picking it up.

There are two standard answers to this one

1. Are you installing it in the right place? If you unzip to your Civ3 directory or are using the exe files to install in that directory then you should be fine.

2. Uninstall and reinstall Civ3, then install DyP on top of that. Remember to also uninstall any Civ patches you have installed.

 

[RobO]

Originally posted by Morbius
dyp world map, 0.84, the egypt theocracy that im at war with, prefers to rush their cities to total annihilation when my cavs and tanks come close.
they get an additional unit of infantry and the cities are just gone, rushed to death in exchange.

this has to be stopped, i think. its ridiculous -- they lost over half of their cities that way.

We're working on it

 

[Dingocat85]

Originally posted by Kal-el
since I haven't been getting any good feedback on the Theocracy issue...

It usually takes me a day or two just to get to Theocracy, and about 5 days to run the rest of the game..on top of this, I always play just one game at a time, start-finish. So on top of finishing up my old game, it'd usually take me about 1.5 weeks to get a test done w/out Theocracy.

But that's not all..

Being the complete idiot I am, I had not the slightest idea how to mod Civ3. Then I saw this program in the Civ3folder called civ3edit.. With some guesswork, I figured out how to make Theocracy available w/ Advanced Warfare.

If there's more out there like me, either we don't know how to play a game w/out Theocracy, or we haven't finished ouor current game yet.

But what you're doing seems allright..like the Chiefdom tile-penalty debate (when instead of asking people to edit Chiefdom themselves, you released a new patch).., you're making the change yourself, and seeing how it works out

 

[KDan]

Pardon, but that is a bit of an understatement - according to the IBM - Deep Blue Website the current version of that super-computer is "capable of calculating 100-200 billions moves within three minutes, which is the time allotted to each player's move in classical chess. " - Now I wonder if Gary Kasparov is even able to calculate a fraction of that, given as much as a week.

The only reason why Deep Blue has to calculate that many moves is because he lacks the very developped heuristics that an experienced chess player has, which is both a good and bad thing. It means it might find a move that no chess player would even begin to consider and discover that it's the optimal move, or it means that it has to go through all the crap, no-future moves as well as the good ones because it doesn't have that sense of heuristics.

If you're hogging all the Iron, it doesn't really have much of a choice, does it?

I wasn't though, that's the thing. And anyway, does cavalry need iron? Cavalry is one damn sight more powerful than knights, even against tanks... though I still dispute the wisdom of dumping it well in view of my entire tank army on a railroad...

Anyway, enough ranting from me... back to that game...

Daniel

 

[bshirt]

RobO;

"We're working on it "

Thank goodness.

I play at the Monarch level on huge maps. Usually around twelve civs. Using DYP .84, the game is tighter than a flea's ass. I'll be hanging on for dear life until around the early 1800's which then results in the AI self destructing massively with Therocracy.

I'd love it if you guys simply removed that form of government. Used long term equals suicide for the AI & I sure wouldn't use it for any extended time.

Can't wait for you folks to do your magic for this....

Thanks!

 

[Bamspeedy]

I am from Wisconsin too! Born in Milwaukee and raised in Green Bay. Go Packers!!!

I'm from the La Crosse area. Packers rule!

- - - - - - - - - - - -

I did some testing with tech rates and AI to AI trading...

On chieftain, 180x180 world map with 16 civs, I set AI to AI trading at 100 and I doubled the tech rate to 480. A couple civs reached the middle ages around 1000-1100 A.D. Isn't 1000 A.D. when you were hoping the middle ages would start? However, a bunch of civs were far from getting to the middle ages. I think I should have set the AI to AI trading a little higher, to allow a little faster tech speed. Of course, though I'm in the industrial age .

But if the middle ages doesn't start until 1000 A.D., wouldn't you have major problems getting to the modern era before 2050 A.D.? I'm not sure, but slower tech rate would give the human and AI more time to build the improvements and actually use the ancient era units. And having time to actually build libraries, temples, forges, etc. might give the AI some more boost for later in the game, but the human should still easily win because he is more efficient with his cities. Expansionist civs are the ones that can really throw off the tech speed if they get alot of goody huts.

 

[Isak]

Originally posted by RobO

This is usually in Isaks ballpark, but I don't know why he isn't picking it up.

Sorry Gunning1 - I guess I missed your post somewhere in the excitement of an AI discussion

If you're still having problems, please just send me an email and we'll figure out what goes wrong.