"Fair" Civ IV? I think not.

[Desert-Fox]

The unfairnesses what I've seen are...

1) AI never bribe... they demand... but you rarely get an option to bribe... even more that's miracle when they do something free... they never give me advanced techs.

2) They can know that you asked another AI to declare war on them or made embargo ... but you never know that AI did that.

3) You have no refuse to talk option.

4) You can't red out things.

5) AI had war another AI ... I was friendly with A(A and B had war eachother)... then they declared peace and soon B declared war on me... and I couldn't ask A to join because A and B are the best friends ... even they had different religion IIRC.

6) Maybe it seems to me or it is that AI plays in multi hands... with ones they try to kick out .. and then they have 1-2 hands who get advanced in techs... Even you are good in def/sci ... they just keep you in war and refuse to end it ... ofcourse they didn't get any advantage...(Read : they have lost 1-2 cities but still force me to produce new troops instead of more useful things + I can't improve lands during that time).

The higher level bonuses doesn't annoy me so much... because it is hard to program AI smarter.

 

[wolfigor]

Even though English some way away, they are my best trading partners (though different religion) but China keep asking me to cancel deals..which is out of question, as I'm trading Wheat, Fish,Ivory and Clams, for Silver, Marble and Stone..(would you cancel that? no I thought not)

It's a matter of choosing your friends and trading partners.
I give you an example from the 1000AD scenario (so that almost everybody can recognize the situation).
If you are one of the european power you'll share a religion (christianity) and a common war (against Saladin).
It will be easy to be "friend" with other European CIVs.
However if you stop the war against Saladin and make him a trading partner you'll start having big troubles with all the other European CIVs: they'll start complaining and asking you to break your commerce and start war against Saladin.
Trading with Saladin gives you more than trading with your fellow europeans.
Open Border with Saladin will open the silk road and allow trading with China (great for trade revenue and resources exchange).
Like in any other CIVIV game you need to balance trade opportunities with upsetting other CIVs: the AI think "the friend of my enemy is my enemy".

It's part of the game... if you play well the diplomatic side of the game you can have great advantages.

 

[wolfigor]

1) AI never bribe... they demand...

AI seldom bribe, not never.
In mostly of the cases AI play with low cash in the pockets (use all GPT and total GP immediately).
Sometimes they do bribe... but they do not offer a lot, not worth.

even more that's miracle when they do something free...

This really depends on your diplomatic relations... very high and with no "red" means the AI will give you stuff for free.

they never give me advanced techs.

look at the game (I don't remember who) did play without science at all, you'll learn a lot about getting techs from the AI.
He played also a game without any military (!!!) ... there again I learned a lof about diplomacy.

3) You have no refuse to talk option.

that will be useful to avoid negative diplomatic points... but it will also offer you an opportunity to shy away from a very important part of the game: diplomacy.
I also hate I cannot refuse to talk... but refuse to talk happen only when the AI is VERY upset with you (e.g. you are at war)

5) AI had war another AI ...

can happen... what was your starting relations with A and B?

6) [...] they just keep you in war and refuse to end it

This is the same trick you can pull-off as well.
Declare war against an AI and it will switch its production to military, getting behind in science.
If you can keep them at bay (not losing nor gaining territory) with the army you already have, you'll get all the advantages.

2) They can know that you asked another AI to declare war on them or made embargo ... but you never know that AI did that.

4) You can't red out things.

I agree on these points
The 4th is pretty annoying when it comes to "red" gained centuries before...
However it teach you to take care of diplomacy, selecting which CIVs you want ot be friend to and which you don't care.
Diplomacy is something to plan in advance, a bit like a war.
Not something to decide on the spur of the moment.

 

[Older than Dirt]

The spearmen who defeat tanks are obviously using Molotov cocktails and roadside bombs! Why do not expect to lose ever if cavalry charge uphill into a forest against longbowmen whose weapons have much farther accurate range and penetration and rate of fire than muskets? Barbarians provide training for troops and keep the early game interesting.

The most annoying "cheat" to me is that enemy ships move away and the screen never shows me what direction it moves away? Am I doing something stupid or does everyone else have this problem?

 

[Desert-Fox]

wolfigon : I've played civ4 a lot... since it was released and I've no experience that AI would give me gold or tech return that I would declare war on someone else.

I always choose my friends... it means that develop in time who is friend and who is not but always there is a bastard(Monty, Alex, Isabella...) who do not like me...

Yes.. If I play with right leader I just kill them but some civs are not meant to be warmonger.

 

[DrewBledsoe]

It's a matter of choosing your friends and trading partners.
I give you an example from the 1000AD scenario (so that almost everybody can recognize the situation).
If you are one of the european power you'll share a religion (christianity) and a common war (against Saladin).
It will be easy to be "friend" with other European CIVs.
However if you stop the war against Saladin and make him a trading partner you'll start having big troubles with all the other European CIVs: they'll start complaining and asking you to break your commerce and start war against Saladin.
Trading with Saladin gives you more than trading with your fellow europeans.
Open Border with Saladin will open the silk road and allow trading with China (great for trade revenue and resources exchange).
Like in any other CIVIV game you need to balance trade opportunities with upsetting other CIVs: the AI think "the friend of my enemy is my enemy".

It's part of the game... if you play well the diplomatic side of the game you can have great advantages.

I do see your point, and in some (but very very few) games this can work...

But in an average game, when you play with say a dozen other civs on a huge map, it doesnt...for this reason:-

Whoever you trade with will have a "worst enemy", and and these differ widely. If I trade with Persia, this will cause negative modifiers with China, if I trade with China it will cause negs with Russia.....the list goes on..

The point is that someone will almost always ask you to cancel these deals, and then when you refuse, it starts the downward diplo spiral with that nation. Even if they aren't "someone's else's worst enemy", but still not particularly liked, you will still get asked, and if a war starts somewhere (anywhere it doesn't matter) you will get asked.

Because the AI never asks each other, these downward spirals are never initiated, and thus they will continue to trade in situations where for the player it becomes impossible.

People have discussed ideas like "triangle diplomacy" in other threads, but to me these seem highly idealised and in practice, it is rare that they work in any worthwhile way

 

[Zebra 9]

The reson that the AI never gets a down ward siral with another AI is because they can see if the other AI is likly to accept, where as they can not tell with the human player because the human is seperate from the computer.
I don't think that the AI cheats.
taipei_lad: Maybe the reson that you got attack instead of the ai is because the barbs planed on attacking them with other units that you could not see.
Cheezy the Wiz: Archers get 50% city defence, that means that the archers in the city had at least 4.5 vs. 3.0, your archers have the 3.0, and after awhile those archers in the city are gona get promotions, now as a rule of thumb the barbs are gona give at least one archer that's in a city, a City garrison promotion, thats another 20% bonus bring those barbs up to 5.1.

To those who use the right click and over for odds, you can move your mouse over then press ALT, tells all the same stuff in the same spot.

Oh, & the barbs get like 60% of the averge players techs. Good hint that your below average for techs when the barbs are more advanced than you.

P.S. There is a thread talking about the realism of the Spear vs. Tank senario.
Next time I'm on I'll post a link.

 

[Strobe]

The AI doesn't cheat in combat, this has been checked many times by people in these forums.

I am also used to the AI bonus now, but would agree the diplomacy can have problems. The AI demanding Alphabet when you are the only holder is a bit extreme.

When AI with positive relations to you demand tech etc.. it is very annoying. It would be better if AI that do not like you or at least were neutral did it but otherwise it should be a request.

 

[naterator]

i'm with drew bledsoe on the diplomacy. here's one of my pet peeves... an AI who is furious can either demand tribute or ask for something nice, whereas a player can only ask pleased and friendly civs for freebies, and can only demand tribute from annoyed and furious (and i think cautious). i want to be able to extort my friends and mooch off my enemies!

 

[bfordyce]

Ok, I'm playing mid-high lvl, but virtually every game descends into this kind of situation eventually..and I'm sick of it.

With whatever good intentions, the diplo was designed, it just doesn't work as it is..because the AI never get negative modfiers with each other except from religion and the odd you declared war on our friend, the natural state of affairs is that eventually nearly every civ will hate you (sound familiar Civ III players?) This just encourages you to become large enough and powerful enough, not to have to really bother with diplomacy at all.

..

Here's what I do.

1. As soon as you are able. Grant open borders to people you want to be friendly with long term. Don't give them to people you are going to war with.

2. Make trades. Let the AI occasionally get the upper hand. Long term resource trading helps relations a lot.

3. If you have 4 Furs or something like that, consider giving one to an AI that you like, instead of getting the paltry 2 gold/turn.

I'm playing Emperor now, and I've never had a problem with any games where everyone hates me. Sure, you'll get a couple guys that hate you, but I often finish the game with one or two countries Friendly to me. Try to work the relationship mods in your favor. It makes a big difference. Giving Catherine furs (for example) and getting her friendly makes it a lot easier to trade for tech or get her to declare war on someone later. Sometimes, I'll even flip religion when a country requests it.

 

[naterator]

whether there's ways around it or not, the fact remains that the AI doesn't ask other AI for techs, embargos, or war help unless success is guaranteed. this makes it so the AI can get bonuses for helping each other, and doesn't ever get the negatives for saying no. at the very best, it creates a need to manipulate the diplomacy to maintain balance (more micromanagement), at the very worst, it's an all out AI love train and you're not invited.
the other solution is, of course, to ignore the diplomacy altogether, which i am wont to do.

 

[YNCS]

I don't mind giving freebies to AI civs I'm trying to influence. But like so many others, I hate it when someone who is annoyed or even furious with me demands that I quit trading with someone who is pleased or friendly with me. What's my incentive? If I quit trading, I take a major hit with my old trading partner (and I lose the benefits of the trades). If I continue trading, I take a smaller hit with the civ wanting me to stop trading. If I were offered something in exchange for quitting trading, I might consider it, but the AI never offers me anything, it just makes a demand.

Also, negative points never seem to go away. In my last game, early on one civ asked me for a tech I had just researched. I said no and got the "-1 You refused us help." Over two thousand years later, that -1 was still there.

 

[naterator]

Also, negative points never seem to go away. In my last game, early on one civ asked me for a tech I had just researched. I said no and got the "-1 You refused us help." Over two thousand years later, that -1 was still there.

i know different leaders have different memories for different modifiers. i use random personalities, so i'm never quite sure who thinks what, but in my last game ceasar remembered both my help and my refusal to help for centuries, all the way until i killed him, whereas hatshepsut would forget how fair and forthright our trade relations had been in no time. and i almost never cancel my deals either. only if i'm just about to declare war on them anyway so the negative affect is no big deal. correct me if i'm wrong, but i don't think there's even a "+1, you stopped trading with our worst enemy" modifier. not only does it not improve relations, it doesn't even remove the negative for trading with their worst enemy!

 

[Mr. Do]

I have seen this anti-humans sentiment as well, to the point that a hilled maceman is more prime a target than a AI worker in a square adjacent to the barb

Worst example I've seen is a barb moving away from a mine on a AI-controlled hill into the open area. If it had been a human player he would've automatically destroyed the mine.

 

[dwarrior]

The spearmen who defeat tanks are obviously using Molotov cocktails and roadside bombs!

So a unit that only has technology to melt a little metal to the end of a stick is now making bombs?

 

[wioneo]

I agree with the point that the AI cheats dipomatically, but that is the only way really. and another thing about barbs, they are free experience! You can have veterans before you even start a war...

 

[cymru_man]

Worst example I've seen is a barb moving away from a mine on a AI-controlled hill into the open area. If it had been a human player he would've automatically destroyed the mine.

Barbs don't pillage every time. Although that seems strange. There are AI-vs-barb bonuses on the higher levels iirc.

Yes the AI cheats with the diplo, they don't hate each other enough. The trick with the "Stop trading///help us in our war" thing is just to pick a couple of powers (preferably with your religion) and make those guys your buddies - help them in their wars, don't trade with their enemies, then f*** everyone else, they will all hate you anyway.

But the AI doesn't cheat with the combat. You just don't know what you're doing. I've seen barb archers fortified in cities on hills with walls with level 3 city garrison. You attack 3 archers like that with your 8, you are dreaming. As has been said, get some better units. Go down a difficulty level or 3 until you know what you are doing, before you try to say the computer is cheating.

 

[Mr. Do]

Oh okay, I guess it's not automatic. I've never seen the AI pass up an opportunity to pillage my improvements though, except to attack an adjacent unit. Never mind...

 

[ggganz]

The big seller for me about Civ IV is that is was supposed to fix many of the classic problems with the older games. These problems include but are not limited to:
The AI Cheating
The Spearman vs. Tank scenario
Neither of these have been fixed IMO. My main pick is with the latter of the two: the combat engine is just plain broken. I have Macemen attacking archers and getting crushed, my Infantry attack a Swordsman, and the Sword takes no damage at all! Longbowmen somehow can defend against my Cavalry, too, when there ought to be no competition.
The other half of this rant is the barbarians. They are so overpowered, and they take so much advantage of the broken combat engine. I sent a squad of 8 (eight) archers against a barbarian city which contained three archers. My men fell like flies, they didnt do hardly any damage to these invincible barbarians. A few turns later, these same super barbs are knocking on my doorstep with macemen, while I have archers and warriors defending my cities( the best I can get)!
I hope someone can explain this quickly, my patience is growing thin, and your answer may just save the life of my CIV IV disk.
one more note, I play on Noble, since it seems to be the equivalent of Civ III's Regent, where the human and AI are 'equal,' no one has set advantages over the other (Ha!).

Once my Catapult beat-uhhh, well, something-with 0.3% combat odds

 

[dwarrior]

Once my Catapult beat-uhhh, well, something-with 0.3% combat odds

my best win was something in the 3.something% range.