[NFP] Dramatic Ages wrecking AI?

[Ash plays civ]

I am playing a game on king difficulty and am found my ai opponents just completely ruined with all their cities in revolt. Some eventually died out. From the trailer it said that on difficulties higher than prince you should be losing more cities than the AI but that does not seem to be the case.

Anyone else getting this? Does the AI handle the update better on higher difficulties?

 

[nmb93]

I encountered the same thing on deity. When I finally discovered the other continent, more than half of it was free cities. 2/4 of the civs that started there (China & Egypt) were already gone.

It seems to me, though feel free to correct me, that the compounding loyalty of free cities can fairly easily subsume whole civs. So when one or more high pop cities instantly rebels on era change, that loyalty pressure can be problematic.

 

[Apocrypha]

In my current game (emperor, standard map size, splintered fractal with low sea level and some other adjustments and no mods due to being console) 7/9 civs went into a medieval dark age and all lost one city.

3 of the cities were isolated and assimilated back to their original owner, 2 were just close enough to sustain their free city status, and 2 were right next to each other and included an 8 pop Mecca. This latter pair threatened to flip a struggling Poland via a loyalty domino effect. After some pondering I decided to capture Mecca and return it to Arabia, though not before I raided the crap out of it

 

[Ash plays civ]

I feel like this mode would be better if the AI's were made less likely to go into dark ages because right now I feel like I am playing on warlord. No real competition.

 

[Onii-chan]

Yeah I felt the same. Doesn’t seem like the AI really knows how to handle the sudden mass revolts and if they don’t take them back fast then the problem will only escalate. I think dramatic ages was a decent game mode as far as my own play went but considering how badly it affected the AI... I probably won’t be playing with it on too often until something changes

 

[RealHuhn]

Unfortunately yes. I like this game mode and it reminds me of how boring normal ages are and how badly the dedications are balanced in the main game. Please convert some of the changes into the main game. That would be awesome.
But, even on Deity, almost all the AIs get consumed by the mighty empire of free cities while the player can just retake cities easily and/or stay in golden ages throughout the entire game. It's just silly.

 

[Ash plays civ]

Yeah I had to start a new game without it. This mode might be real good for multiplayer though.

 

[Deggial]

Interesting. I was about to start a thread like this myself. But apparently, it isn’t necessary.

And yes, indeed poor Mapuche’s whole empire crumbled under the pressure of free cities. (Emperor difficulty)

His demise wasn’t even caused by the city loss when entering a dark age. Well, it might have started with it. But it was definitely completed, by my own empire’s golden age loyalty pressure (I earned some in a row) and even more, by the combined pressure of multiple free cities.
It was a death spiral: the more cities he lost, the higher was the pressure and the faster he lost even more cities.

I like the game mode.
The struggle to avoid dark ages was real and way more intense than in “standard” games.

However, I will have to have an eye on these crumbling civs.
If this is the rule rather than an exception, I am not sure, if this game mode will be the next “always on” addition I thought it would be.

 

[Karmah]

Best QA team strikes again!

 

[Nerevatar]

Free city loyalty is easily moddable and also scales with difficulty, so it seems to be a solvable problem if what is reported here turns out to be the norm. Would be good to get an indication from the people playing many games.

 

[8housesofelixir]

It seems to me that the problem lies in Free City generating their own loyalty pressure to other civs - an AI civ in a Dark Age is already struggling with other civs' loyalty pressure, let alone another source of pressure. A Free City with a population higher than 6 is able to cause a domino effect on at least 3 to 4 nearby cities. Maybe the loyalty pressure from the Free Cities can lower down a bit.

 

[juanpavo]

The drama of losing your own cities and/or gaining your neighbors cities can be a little too dramatic. I wish there was a hybrid where each upcoming age has a 50% chance of being announced as "dramatic". That would add a fun tension to the announcement of each new age. Maybe it could be announced midway through the current age to give you time to prepare (i.e. quickly acquire era points as needed).

 

[Ash plays civ]

I feel like free cities should not exert loyalty at all. That could solve it.

 

[Apocrypha]

It seems to me that the problem lies in Free City generating their own loyalty pressure to other civs - an AI civ in a Dark Age is already struggling with other civs' loyalty pressure, let alone another source of pressure. A Free City with a population higher than 6 is able to cause a domino effect on at least 3 to 4 nearby cities. Maybe the loyalty pressure from the Free Cities can lower down a bit.

This seems the logical fix to me. I enjoyed the chaos that a "Free" Mecca and Wroclaw started to cause initially in my current game, especially since Arabia and Poland were at war at the turn of the age. It felt like a new faction had seized power of the area in the conflict

However, when I saw that Poland was in major trouble, losing the loyalty battle and already sapped of troops from the war with Arabia, I decided to step in. Will be interesting to see how chaotic the rennaissance age is - I made the medieval golden age with not an era point to spare

 

[Linklite]

The drama of losing your own cities and/or gaining your neighbors cities can be a little too dramatic. I wish there was a hybrid where each upcoming age has a 50% chance of being announced as "dramatic". That would add a fun tension to the announcement of each new age. Maybe it could be announced midway through the current age to give you time to prepare (i.e. quickly acquire era points as needed).

I like that idea a lot. Perhaps tweak the percentage of eras in which it occurs, but part of what puts me off is that it occurs every era - a tad too much stress for me. But the anticipation and mad scramble for era points every now and again might well be just enough to spice things up.

 

[c4c6]

I am playing a game on king difficulty and am found my ai opponents just completely ruined with all their cities in revolt. Some eventually died out.
[...]
I feel like this mode would be better if the AI's were made less likely to go into dark ages because right now I feel like I am playing on warlord. No real competition.

Best QA team strikes again!

The fear of falling ...

We see now the second attempt of 'Rise & Fall' and it is a bit of 'Rise & rise & rise even more' again ... they just can't stand the thought of a newbie, who (of course!) has to play on Immortal or Deity a high difficulty, may become somehow sad (also because of lack of being ready to learn substantially).

We all want to have fun. Some don't understand, that there are no Highs without Lows. Ie, if you Always have luck (eg. by rerolling the map until it is a 'great start'), this is the new normal. Which in turn really means you also Never have luck.
Ie. this way, You Never can have luck - genuine, true luck.

Already Sid bemoaned lengthly in context of civ1 the double sided sword of delivering negative aspects to the player. I had hopes when I saw 'Rise & Fall', but nope, Anton's baby cannot start to run. Before that it is already brought to the ground. He does a good job, but what can you do arguing against pitchforks?!

Free city loyalty is easily moddable and also scales with difficulty, so it seems to be a solvable problem

The AI has problems capturing free cities - AI playing nevertheless by the same rules is a problem we probably have to solve ourselves. If it must be cities flipping magically back to the Civs during the human players turn via Lua.


[Edit: changed 'Immortal or Deity' to 'a high difficulty']

 

[Karmah]

The fear of falling ...

We see now the second attempt of 'Rise & Fall' and it is a bit of 'Rise & rise & rise even more' again ... they just can't stand the thought of a newbie, who (of course!) has to play on Immortal or Deity, may become somehow sad (also because of lack of being ready to learn substantially).

We all want to have fun. Some don't understand, that there are no Highs without Lows. Ie, if you Always have luck (eg. by rerolling the map until it is a 'great start'), this is the new normal. Which in turn really means you also Never have luck.
Ie. this way, You Never can have luck - genuine, true luck.

Already Sid bemoaned lengthly in context of civ1 the double sided sword of delivering negative aspects to the player. I had hopes when I saw 'Rise & Fall', but nope, Anton's baby cannot start to run. Before that it is already brought to the ground. He does a good job, but what can you do arguing against pitchforks?!
The AI has problems capturing free cities - AI playing nevertheless by the same rules is a problem we probably have to solve ourselves. If it must be cities flipping magically back to the Civs during the human players turn via Lua.

I don't really get your post. I'm not sure what you are trying to say.
I spot that you highlighted King. This happens in deity in the same fashion as in any difficulty while it was advocated (see video) as a major difficulty increase at deity.
Maybe someone had another experience of deity being harder with this but for me it is just survive the rush (that is unchanged) and watch them all crumble in a medieval dark age.

 

[Ash plays civ]

Problem for me isn't that King is too easy with Dramatic Ages turned on. My problem is that King with Dramatic Ages is easier than vanilla on Warlod. At least in vanilla the AI doesn't just kill itself.

 

[Apocrypha]

In my Emperor game (standard speed, standard map size, splintered fractal, low sea level, +2 AI opponents) there was only one instance so far where a Civ looked like it might be in trouble (I'm in the Rennaisance Age rn)

All the AI hit Classical Golden Ages and then all hit Medieval Dark Ages. It was at this point one Civ was in trouble, but really might only have been because I, their neighbor, had taken one of their cities and also was in a Golden Age.

Rennaisance Age had a mix of Dark and Golden Ages amonst the AI but even those that lost cities this time around are large enough to survive, though Rome is going to be in big trouble if it hits a third consecutive Dark Age. (Fwiw, I hit a Dark Age and with my neighbor hitting a Golden Age I am unable to hold onto the city I took from them back in the Classical Age. Ended up pillaging the land and "liberating" the city back to its founder.. for now)

 

[Zenstrive]

Also, anyone feels that the ages change faster than before?