Getting AI to develop city?

[Tumbles]

I'm playing on Deity... have a nice running Democracy, pulling 1 advance/turn with Freight....

The problem I'm having is that I cannot get my 'target' city to build Sewer System (and I'm loathe to hand them tech for Superhighways/Airport if I can't even make them use it).

Is there a way to encourage what they build, or am I just stuck waiting until they deal with it? It really cuts my Freight returns significantly

 

[Magic_gorter]

Do they have the sanitation tech? If not they won't build a sewer system.

 

[Tumbles]

Do they have the sanitation tech? If not they won't build a sewer system.

Yea, they've had it since I discovered it way back in the day. It's 1800+ AD now and they still haven't done anything with it, despite Babylon being a size 12 city with a huge surplus.

 

[Ali Ardavan]

The AI is very sluggish going above size 8 and even more so going above size 12. Cities above size 12 are rare indeed and only come very late in the game.

 

[Tumbles]

The AI is very sluggish going above size 8 and even more so going above size 12. Cities above size 12 are rare indeed and only come very late in the game.

If that's just how it has to be, I'm cool with that. I was reading some threads regarding trading and heard people mention things like 'getting' the AI to gain certain improvements.

If I have the civ isolated and with that as one of two cities, is it feasible to capture it, build the improvements, and lose it until it keeps the ones I want? Are Sewer System and Superhighways even in the same group?


EEEE sorry for the questions, I've only been playing a month or so. I used to play way back when I was 8 and too young to understand what was going on. This game is GREAT and Deity level is already "easy" for me... I want to pull of the ridiculous exploits I read about

 

[Ali Ardavan]

If that's just how it has to be, I'm cool with that. I was reading some threads regarding trading and heard people mention things like 'getting' the AI to gain certain improvements.

All you can do is give them the tech. You have no control over whether they choose to use it or not.

If I have the civ isolated and with that as one of two cities, is it feasible to capture it, build the improvements, and lose it until it keeps the ones I want?

It is possible, but given that some improvements get destroyed when cities change hands this is a very expensive way of doing things.
Late in the game, trading with my own offshore cities is more profitable than trading with the rivals mainly due to this reason. This is often true even before Superhighways and Airports.

Are Sewer System and Superhighways even in the same group?

I am not sure what you are asking here.

EEEE sorry for the questions, I've only been playing a month or so. I used to play way back when I was 8 and too young to understand what was going on. This game is GREAT and Deity level is already "easy" for me... I want to pull of the ridiculous exploits I read about

If you want a challenge beyond deity, come on over to the GOTM forum here and join us in the Game Of the Month. You get challenged in several new ways:
1. You get to compete against other expert players without playing directly against them. We all start with the same initial game and post intermediate results up to the end. You can see how others are playing and compare your stats with them.
2. A big part of our challenge, reflected in the GOTM scoring formula, is to end early. In the normal game your regular score is not dependent on how early you finish. In GOTM games your GOTM score is very much dependent on how early you finish. This is a huge challenge.
3. Once every quarter or so we play with special rules or on custom designed maps which bring about fresh challenges that you will NEVER get in a computer generated game.

GOTM 131 has just started. We are playing on a custom designed map with custom designed starting conditions. Check it out.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

If you have classic civ 2, you can also play "deity plus" levels to make the AI more difficult. You can check the stories and tales forum for numerous examples of these kinds of games (set the thread listings to "beginning" as these games happened more than a year ago).

Getting deity plus levels is described here.

If you have Multiplayer Gold Edition, you can "downgrade" to classic following instructions summarized here. This will also let you take advantage of the much less hostile AI that classic has for diplomacy.

 

[Tumbles]

All you can do is give them the tech. You have no control over whether they choose to use it or not.
It is possible, but given that some improvements get destroyed when cities change hands this is a very expensive way of doing things.
Late in the game, trading with my own offshore cities is more profitable than trading with the rivals mainly due to this reason. This is often true even before Superhighways and Airports.
I am not sure what you are asking here.
If you want a challenge beyond deity, come on over to the GOTM forum here and join us in the Game Of the Month. You get challenged in several new ways:
1. You get to compete against other expert players without playing directly against them. We all start with the same initial game and post intermediate results up to the end. You can see how others are playing and compare your stats with them.
2. A big part of our challenge, reflected in the GOTM scoring formula, is to end early. In the normal game your regular score is not dependent on how early you finish. In GOTM games your GOTM score is very much dependent on how early you finish. This is a huge challenge.
3. Once every quarter or so we play with special rules or on custom designed maps which bring about fresh challenges that you will NEVER get in a computer generated game.

GOTM 131 has just started. We are playing on a custom designed map with custom designed starting conditions. Check it out.

Thanks for your help! For some reason I was under the impression that you did not receive the beakers bonus from trade with your own cities - probably read it somewhere on here and was lazy about confirming and follow up.

I'll definitely look into the GOTM - that sounds like a great time.


You mentioned that finishing early does not give score in the regular game mode - I'm running MGE and just finished a King level game on a normal sized, normal settings map. My only score were ~2 million people from some ridiculous number of tiny cities and wonder points from Hanging Gardens and Sun Tzu's War Academy. But the game gave me some large number of points labeled "bonus score" and my final score ended up being 1440, despite the fact that barbs, pop, and wonders didn't add up to it. What would cause that? I finished in 300 BC but you said finishing early didn't give any points, which is just what I assumed had caused it.

 

[Tumbles]

If you have classic civ 2, you can also play "deity plus" levels to make the AI more difficult. You can check the stories and tales forum for numerous examples of these kinds of games (set the thread listings to "beginning" as these games happened more than a year ago).

Getting deity plus levels is described here.

If you have Multiplayer Gold Edition, you can "downgrade" to classic following instructions summarized here. This will also let you take advantage of the much less hostile AI that classic has for diplomacy.

Your message actually gave me the incentive to look around my MGE and see if it was possible to do it. I'd already patched the AI attitude back to classic, but I was able to change both barbarians and difficulty to have more levels in the text files. One of them (forget which is which) was located in rules.txt, and one was located in game.txt. In case anybody else with this edition was interested in this.

But you can just edit it the same way you would in classic it seems.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

You mentioned that finishing early does not give score in the regular game mode - I'm running MGE and just finished a King level game on a normal sized, normal settings map. My only score were ~2 million people from some ridiculous number of tiny cities and wonder points from Hanging Gardens and Sun Tzu's War Academy. But the game gave me some large number of points labeled "bonus score" and my final score ended up being 1440, despite the fact that barbs, pop, and wonders didn't add up to it. What would cause that? I finished in 300 BC but you said finishing early didn't give any points, which is just what I assumed had caused it.

You get a bonus score for early finishes if you finish by conquest, not by spaceship. Also, if you play the GOTM, this bonus is ignored, because GOTM scoring already takes speed into account.

Your message actually gave me the incentive to look around my MGE and see if it was possible to do it. I'd already patched the AI attitude back to classic, but I was able to change both barbarians and difficulty to have more levels in the text files. One of them (forget which is which) was located in rules.txt, and one was located in game.txt. In case anybody else with this edition was interested in this.

But you can just edit it the same way you would in classic it seems.

First of all, you should edit both things in the game.txt, since they are both found there.

Second, editing a text file isn't the issue here -- that can always be done. The issue is if MGE will actually recognize the edits and give you the extra options, and making sure the game doesn't crash when you use those options. It is possible that it does work for MGE, but when I learned about this, the statement was classic only, and no one ever seemed to question it.

 

[Tumbles]

You get a bonus score for early finishes if you finish by conquest, not by spaceship. Also, if you play the GOTM, this bonus is ignored, because GOTM scoring already takes speed into account.



First of all, you should edit both things in the game.txt, since they are both found there.

Second, editing a text file isn't the issue here -- that can always be done. The issue is if MGE will actually recognize the edits and give you the extra options, and making sure the game doesn't crash when you use those options. It is possible that it does work for MGE, but when I learned about this, the statement was classic only, and no one ever seemed to question it.

There is no difficult option in my game.txt , and MGE has recognized the changes I made (and choosing the higher difficulties/barbarians actually affects the gameplay as well).

 

[Prof. Garfield]

Well, if it works it works, but I did find the line @DIFFICULTY in my MGE file, a few lists above the @BARBARITY line.

 

[simpeter]

The issue is if MGE will actually recognize the edits and give you the extra options, and making sure the game doesn't crash when you use those options. It is possible that it does work for MGE, but when I learned about this, the statement was classic only, and no one ever seemed to question it.

Is there a definitive answer to this question?

 

[Sir_Lancelot]

The AI is very sluggish going above size 8 and even more so going above size 12. Cities above size 12 are rare indeed and only come very late in the game.

I don't know how difficulty level works here, but on the medium difficulty setting I see that every AI city will grow beyond 12 if there is enough food. They are often slow to build Sewer System but they will do it if they are not too busy replacing lost units.

If that's just how it has to be, I'm cool with that. I was reading some threads regarding trading and heard people mention things like 'getting' the AI to gain certain improvements.

If I have the civ isolated and with that as one of two cities, is it feasible to capture it, build the improvements, and lose it until it keeps the ones I want? Are Sewer System and Superhighways even in the same group?


EEEE sorry for the questions, I've only been playing a month or so. I used to play way back when I was 8 and too young to understand what was going on. This game is GREAT and Deity level is already "easy" for me... I want to pull of the ridiculous exploits I read about

You can make them build anything if you enable cheat mode. But it is bad for your score.
Without cheating, you can influence somewhat what the AI prioritize. If you or someone else are at war with said AI, it is more likely that they will only build units. If they are not at war they are more likely to build city improvements.
You can perhaps use a spy and reload the game every time that city starts to build something else than Sewers.

If you are allied with them you can perhaps send your Engineers there and change some tiles into more food-producing terrain. Maybe they will prioritize Sewers more if they have a large food surplus.

 

[Ali Ardavan]

I don't know how difficulty level works here, but on the medium difficulty setting I see that every AI city will grow beyond 12 if there is enough food.

They will but very very late in the game. The AI rarely has large cities before the 20th century. Most games, by expert players, are over by then. Some of the shots you are posting are a hundred or more turns after the official end of the game.