[NFP] Dramatic Ages wrecking AI?

[Tarry]

I did the Game of the Month (as Byzantine with Dramatic ages).
Classical I was dark as was one of my neighbours, recovering from that and warring to take him worked very well, he was sufficiently weakened by the loss of a city and the redirection of troops to try take it I was able to sweep him. The free cities getting 2 highest available units is very powerful
Medieval I was gold, and all other Civilizations were Dark. It completely crippled them, they spent most of the era recovering their lost cities (some never did recover as my armies went on a tour... but that is another story). I easily pulled up to and passed them.
Renaissance all were golden, but my lead was so well established that I swept them away before they could make use of their new age.

I've no idea if AI Civ's make use of the gold/dark policy cards.

 

[Melkus]

I wonder how much civ crowding affects the free city snowball.

You're not wrong, it does. (High sea levels probably help, too) The mode can work well with the right settings and a bit of luck.
My counterpoint as someone who compulsively crams a few civs in before starting a game and likes the idea of dramatic ages for the same reason: it creates more interaction in the game, a bit of history (more than a number-crunching race to some victory).
With current rules (and passive AI), a huge free city blob does the opposite of that. It's chaos, but it's not particularly dramatic because it makes no narrative sense. There's potential here with the right amount of tweaks.

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

My counterpoint as someone who compulsively crams a few civs in before starting a game and likes the idea of dramatic ages for the same reason: it creates more interaction in the game, a bit of history (more than a number-crunching race to some victory).

I actually found the opposite to be true actually, at least when I played it.
Since you do get 1 era score for every tech/civic researched, I found that I was micro managing my a** off to create an optimal path towards steady era score (researching cheap techs with eurekas only, getting more eurekas), which really took the fun out of the game for me.
I could of course have kept on playing like "normal", but since the cost of a Dark Age is so severe, I felt like I had every incentive to work said a** off for more era score in order to not get boned later on.
And once I crossed the era score threshold for a Golden Age, I would similar halt any progress on further era score in order to "save up" a bunch of era score for when the counter reset at the new era.
The one time I did get into a Dark Age (renaissance), I mitigated that by planning 20 turns in advance, saving up lots of faith and production for a huge army, spreading it around to key positions, so that I could quell the uprising on the first few turns once the free cities spawned.

All in all, it was one of the most micro intense games I've had ever, and not in a good way.
Needless to say, I haven't played with it since either, it just wasn't fun micro managing like that, even if I ended up handling it rather well.

 

[c4c6]

I felt like I had every incentive to work said a** off for more era score in order to not get boned later on. [...] All in all, it was one of the most micro intense games I've had ever, and not in a good way.

I have to ask: Do you want an adventure at all on your way? Perhaps if you prefer a clean straight way to victory, 'Dramatic ages' isn't aimed for you. I mean, you look at the era score as onto a dangerous snake, you work so hard to avoid the 'rise&fall' aka unnecessary, time-wasting up and down.
And it doesn't work for you. Being recipient for some moments of loosing something (NOT AT ALL VICTORY, IN THE END YOU ARE WINNING!!) opens the possibility for dynamic moments, for Drama.
Imaging, you could magically just not see the fetish, the era score as people are sometimes able to ignore several gorillas walking through the room ...

Eg. the fairy-tale of Hänsel&Gretel without moments of the situation becoming worse would be just: the 2 children are brought into a deep forest, because the parents haven't enough to feed all.
Start: It is cold and dark, they are hungry and cannot find back (the second exposure - Hänsel solved the first with pebbles). They find a goody hut made out of bread and cake. Later they find a goody hut with lots of gold. Then magical animals help them find the way home. There they live happily and filthy rich until the end of their days. (continuously not falling curve)
Even small kids like the tale better with more action, ie. the situation becoming worse before becoming better again and before the happy end: The witch in the first goody hut captures Hänsel&Gretel and cages them up in order to gorge them until Gretel succeeds in tricking the witch into the baking oven. (partly negative gradient of the curve)

Some denounce it as masochistic - I just wanna have more drama & fun before I win ANYWAY.
Have you ever seen cats playing with living mice? They know very well, that the mice can't escape; still they like to catch them again and again. Do they even like the thrill out of the idea 'what if the mouse would escape'? Evil Garfield grin: what if, but they cannot!!

 

[Askia Muhammad]

I really can't stress enough how much I enjoy this mode. I was VERY disappointed with the first two modes and i've enjoyed the last two a ton (shuffle and dramatic ages)

 

[Timothy001]

The loyalty dominos reminds me of an old game. It was Star Wars Rebellion. You played as either Empire or Rebellion There were 10 core systems, 10 outer systems. Each system had 10 planets. All the core planets had native population. Each had a loyalty meter to either side. If you had a planet, but it was fully loyal to the other, you had to garrison a lot of troops to hold it. I had 1 game, using the Rebels, I bombed am Imperial planet, killing the garrison. The planet was fully loyal to me. It started a domino effect. When it was done, the Empire only had 2 planets left in the 100 inner planets, the rest were mine.
When an inner city goes, more go with it.

 

[TolkienBard]

That's a good point; same in my games. I think it is related to the AIs focusing more on scientific progress. And that - together with loyalty pressure of free cities increasing - leads to higher difficulties not necessarily helping the AIs to cope better with the Dramatic Ages mode: They might lose %ually less cities per Dark Age (and of course especially compared to the human player), but on the other hand their rushing to the tech tree means shorter ages (= less time to earn era score) and the cities which defect are more unlikely to flip back peacefully (and then the AI troubles with sieging start, because of the overall tech level the free cities are heavily fortified and churn out modern units...)

Nothing like reaching the Renaissance in 200 BC. I'm somewhat used to a fast-tech game reaching the Medieval Age around turn 115 or so. But when I saw it hitting Renaissance I was very confused. Well, not so much confused as much as it was having to acknowledge that I was likely screwed. I was making good, steady progress through my tech tree, but I was playing a peaceful, culture-focused game. That was a game I eventually got eaten. It happens, but I suddenly appreciated just how much faster the world started flying through ages, and how much harder that made keeping up with era score.

 

[ggalindo001]

In my first game with dramatic ages, on Emperor level, some AI could not cope with the snowballing of free cities in their empire -- others could.

I've started a new game and made some rather dramatic tweaks to this mode.

1. Made the impact to AI for losing cities even better than vanilla Deity. Hopefully, this lessens the initial impact of cities revolting associated with a dark age.
2. Made the impact to human player even stronger than vanilla Deity.
3. Lessened the loyalty pressure that free cities have except on higher levels (all levels 2 except Immortal and Deity 2.5)

I'm going to see how this plays out. I love the concept on me, but since the AI cannot effectively handle too much of it, I wanted to nerf it for the AI.

Now, if we could make "free cities" into a coherent new civilization -- then I think this mode would be awesome. That would give a fresh challenge inside of a game.