General A New Dawn discussion

[Rezca]

Thanks for the reply. Especially on how to make the game harder. Although, funnily enough I am actually worried about making the game too difficult for my self. Like, ignoring the fact that there are all these new things to learn like all the new mechanics I basically just returned to Civ after a year or so of not playing and my current skill level just about allows me to beat a game of vanilla on Prince. Just about.

Adding Flexible Difficulty can make the game more 'balanced' in that if someone is snowballing it'll make things harder for them - unless you literally have the game sealed, in which case at that point it hardly matters anymore without Revolutions enabled. If someone's falling behind a ton - which has happened to me a few times, especially when being shafted by the map generator - then it makes things easier for them. So it's less a tool to make the game easier/harder, and more one for attempting to regulate it.

The reason AI don't do well with the Great Commander option is because they stop settling their generals, and use their new commander sometimes to just sit in a city or even scout with it. On the other hand, you can make your invasion stack nearly immortal once the commander's leveled up enough.


Right now - at least in my experiences - the early game is the roughest part, especially if you've got AI neighbors nearby that are prone to aggression. So starting the game on Chieftan or Warlord with Flexibile Difficulty might be a good choice. Or giving yourself an AI teamate in the custom game options xD
Starting on a low difficulty gives you a brief chance to research and possibly expand a bit at the start before Flexible Difficulty kicks in and starts pushing you up to Noble or such. The AI will be quickly catching up even without flex.difficulty, so don't worry about the brief easier start.


All that said, don't be afraid to experiment a bit. There's a lot of options for AND so there's many ways you can play it ^^

 

[<Nexus>]

>Don't enable Great Commanders or Surround and Destroy. The AI can't understand these, and Great Commanders especially cripples the AI.

Don't be worried about enabling Surround and Destroy. It truly makes the game easier if you take care of it but if you send your forces in a single group it benefits you neither.

 

[Evs]

Recommended Size would be Large and above generally. Speed's up to user preference, but I hate anything slower faster than Normal, and Snail and slower tends to be TOO slow. Normal/Epic is my preferred speed.

Difficulty varies. I tend to find it's got a good balance of difficulty usually, others have different opinions. Because of the many options and varying playstyles, it's going to vary quite often.
Some common tips for some general balance though:

>Don't enable Great Commanders or Surround and Destroy. The AI can't understand these, and Great Commanders especially cripples the AI.

>Don't enable Ruthless AI. While it makes them more unpredictable in some areas, it tends to have adverse effects on them more than it does you.

>Revolutions is a mixed bag. The AI often makes very poor decisions, so if you've mastered how to handle and approach rebellions, then it's just going to hinder the AI more than it will you. I haven't mastered rev, so I tend to suffer as much as if not more than them xD

> Most importantly, switch ON the Flexible Difficulty feature in the Bug settings once you start a game. Do it for the AI too. A 10 to 20 turn interval would be your best bet. What this does is it'll increase or decrease the difficulty by how well they're doing on the scoreboard. While this sometimes has unintended sideeffects (like a large number of One-City backwater tundralocked civs pushing everyone else up into Monarch+ because of their low positioning on the board) it's generally a good way to make the game start to be more difficult when you're pushing ahead real fast, while making it more bearable if your'e falling behind. THe AI receives these bonuses/penalties too, though from what I experience the civs falling behind tend to remain behind - all that it really does is give them a shot at sniping wonders and Tech-firsts from the big leaders and keep up in terms of military technology until they inevitably are conquered. Still, enabling this - at least for the player - tends to have a more positive effect


Those are just some of my thoughts though ^^

Is this correct regarding ruthless AI ?

Does enabling aggressive AI over Ruthless AI create more of a challenge ?

Are the mod creators still working on the Ruthless AI being more of a challenge ?

 

[<Nexus>]

Is this correct regarding ruthless AI ?

Yes. I think RAI was developed for BtS and probably work with it well but not so good with mods.

Does enabling aggressive AI over Ruthless AI create more of a challenge ?

Yes... for the AI

Are the mod creators still working on the Ruthless AI being more of a challenge ?

I don't think so.

 

[gay_Aleks]

It creates less of a challenge, as it forces the AI to ignore their city development in favour of more military units.

 

[<Nexus>]

It creates less of a challenge, as it forces the AI to ignore their city development in favour of more military units.

...and with a weaker infrastructure they perform poorer in combat too.

 

[Rezca]

I used to love playing with Aggressive AI back in BTS. Always had it on, but I don't really recall it making things any easier. I'm not a 'skilled player' though, Noble BTS being my comfortable spot and I sometimes struggle to keep up even then, so my opinion on this probably doesn't count.


I turned it off in AND after numerous 'peaceful' AI's declaring war on me after years being at Friendly hah. (So it's not a case of "planning war at Pleased, then declaration goes off after Friendly". They still did that even after turning Aggressive AI off, just not as often
Haven't had it happen for a while, but I stopped playing for a bit after the AI Razing bug came up, just now started again. Current game I've got an AI buddy from the start though. I want that AI friend that AND doesn't seem to want me to have!

 

[PPQ_Purple]

I used to love playing with Aggressive AI back in BTS. Always had it on, but I don't really recall it making things any easier. I'm not a 'skilled player' though, Noble BTS being my comfortable spot and I sometimes struggle to keep up even then, so my opinion on this probably doesn't count.

Given that this is basically my own comfortable spot as well I would say that it does.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Final question before I start this. What's the best, most representative map script I should use? Like, ideally something with separate continents that will also let me experience everything the mod has to offer. But like I don't really know what any of them are.

 

[<Nexus>]

My favorites are: SmartMap, Tectonics and Hemispheres.
Some players also love Totestra and PerfectWorld, but I dont, because those don't generate Marches - although generate nice maps.

I suggest you take little time to experiment with the mapscripts a bit first. Generate one - Open WorldBuilder - see if you like it or not. If you like it, then generate a new one with the same settings and examine it to see if its still that desirable. For this test choose smaller sizes - Normal should load acceptably fast. But for your game choose something bigger: Large or Huge at least, depending on your PC's configuration.

Also: If you prefer early exploration and peaceful game halve the number of starting civs. If you like early war, than leave it as it is.

 

[gay_Aleks]

PerfectWorld3 also doesn't seem to generate Flood Plains.

 

[Rezca]

PerfectWorld3 also doesn't seem to generate Flood Plains.

I haven't seen it (Or any other script for that matter) generate Fossils either.


But yeah, Perfect World and Perfect Mongoose are two really good ones for detailed maps with continents and beautiful varied terrains overall.

 

[gay_Aleks]

Earth2 seems to generate all those, actually.

 

[Rezca]

Earth2 seems to generate all those, actually.

Ah cool, Fossils too? I wonder why they aren't spawning on others though... I have to place them by hand, which is something I don't mind doing tbh (I usually stick them in deserts and tundra) but I try and save it for after I've explored the world since I don't want to spoilers everything ^^:

 

[gay_Aleks]

I believe so; I've seen some Fossils popping up there and there. I think, however, we need an event for them to pop out - perhaps on a farm tile or a cottage tile after you research Archaeology, as sudden and accidental Fossil finds are usually more common IRL.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

If you do that don't make them appear under cottages. There are very few things which are so infuriating in BTS as discovering that there is a resource under your well developed cottage. The last thing we need is an event deliberately designed to make that happen.

 

[Rezca]

If you do that don't make them appear under cottages. There are very few things which are so infuriating in BTS as discovering that there is a resource under your well developed cottage. The last thing we need is an event deliberately designed to make that happen.

Doesn't matter in AND, since you can spend a pitiful sum of gold (Like 60 or something...) and then some turns to build the well-developed cottage whenever you want. Once you research the right tech that is. At first you only have the option to build a Cottage. Then with (City Planning?) you can build a Cottage OR spend some gold and more turns to build a Hamlet. Like that. So you don't have to wait for them to grow from scratch anymore. Unless you're bankrupt and can't afford it

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Still, I would find it somewhat infuriating if my perfect well maintained micromanaged city layout that I manually plan and execute meticulously were disrupted. I am, you see, the sort of guy that considers automation and winging it to be a sin.

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

Still, resources placement isn't tied to improvements but to base terrain.

 

[Rezca]

Still, I would find it somewhat infuriating if my perfect well maintained micromanaged city layout that I manually plan and execute meticulously were disrupted. I am, you see, the sort of guy that considers automation and winging it to be a sin.

It's hardly an interruption, since Fossils are somewhat of a niche resource. It's not Oil or Iron, where owning them are critical, and it's not Gold or Wine either. You get some bonuses for Museums and I think one of the Corporations (?), and get a construction boost to a Transhuman wonder. I think there was something else, but the point is its a situational resource and not a high demand one. Seeing one pop up on an improvement when you research Archeology is only a "setback" if you feel you'll need it.

As a side-note, the excavation camp improvement is invisible, so you can't tell if a Fossil is being harvested unless you mouse over it. C2C uses one of the mining camp(?) arts for theirs and IMO had a more aesthetically pleasing fossils art, but could we have say the Hunting Camp improvement artwork show up over a Fossil resource that's being exploited?