I so hate some things in this game....

[Napalm102]

Ok, I just got to get this of my chest, cause otherwise I'm going to destroy my computer....

Rant 1 - I seriously hate the the super mega cheap upgrades the AI gets at all levels. I mean this is got to be one of the most broken features of the game. As a human player you have to plan, gamble and sacrifice so much to keep your army up to date. Upgrading large army to a modern equivalent cost a fortune, you either have to go to 0% research and sacrifice valuable reasearch time to save up some money, or you gotta rebuild everything from scratch again costing you build turns/time. But for the AI its all a magic wand waving. One momet the guy who is broke has 50 longbows, the next moment he has 50 rifles, thats like thouthands of gold right there, and thats not the worst case scenario: Imagine Shaka with full army of obsolete knights getting MilTrad. Next turn he gets a serious testosterone overdose and declares on everything and everyone frend or foe. All your efforts to stay ahead in tech, carefull planning and management go for nothing in one moment.

Rant 2 - Where the heck did those guys in Firaxis study their statistics and probaility? This ofcourse may be due to the fact that I am the unluckiest player in the world, but I'm consistently seeing trebuchets and cats attacking my stacks survive alot more then they should. Ok things can go wrong, thats why this is all the probability, but when I start seing trebs with 25% retreat odds attack infantry, and at the end you have 8 out of 10 trebs withdraw from combat, then you have a problem with your statistics. If my siege equipment did the same, I would have to build alot less of it.

Rant 3 - The map generator sucks. You would think that it would aim to provide a more or less balanced starting location to all the players, but heck it can stick one player on a peninsula and the other at the mouth of the very same peninsula. One border pop and the first player is screwed. Or the other day on a continents map, the game made two continents one was about 55% of land mass with 5 players on it, the other 45% of total land mass with 2 AIs sitting there. Anyone sees a problem with that?

Ok done ranting, back to playing the game...

 

[Rancid Sushi]

Ok, I just got to get this of my chest, cause otherwise I'm going to destroy my computer....

Rant 1 - I seriously hate the the super mega cheap upgrades the AI gets at all levels. I mean this is got to be one of the most broken features of the game. As a human player you have to plan, gamble and sacrifice so much to keep your army up to date. Upgrading large army to a modern equivalent cost a fortune, you either have to go to 0% research and sacrifice valuable reasearch time to save up some money, or you gotta rebuild everything from scratch again costing you build turns/time. But for the AI its all a magic wand waving. One momet the guy who is broke has 50 longbows, the next moment he has 50 rifles, thats like thouthands of gold right there, and thats not the worst case scenario: Imagine Shaka with full army of obsolete knights getting MilTrad. Next turn he gets a serious testosterone overdose and declares on everything and everyone frend or foe. All your efforts to stay ahead in tech, carefull planning and management go for nothing in one moment.

Rant 2 - Where the heck did those guys in Firaxis study their statistics and probaility? This ofcourse may be due to the fact that I am the unluckiest player in the world, but I'm consistently seeing trebuchets and cats attacking my stacks survive alot more then they should. Ok things can go wrong, thats why this is all the probability, but when I start seing trebs with 25% retreat odds attack infantry, and at the end you have 8 out of 10 trebs withdraw from combat, then you have a problem with your statistics. If my siege equipment did the same, I would have to build alot less of it.

Rant 3 - The map generator sucks. You would think that it would aim to provide a more or less balanced starting location to all the players, but heck it can stick one player on a peninsula and the other at the mouth of the very same peninsula. One border pop and the first player is screwed. Or the other day on a continents map, the game made two continents one was about 55% of land mass with 5 players on it, the other 45% of total land mass with 2 AIs sitting there. Anyone sees a problem with that?

Ok done ranting, back to playing the game...

1) know that the AI's advantages are no match for your human intelligence. You should know who the largest threat on your continent will be long before they get powerful enough. If you let a leader like Shaka live long enough to get Military Tradition, you're not being aggressive enough. Keep up with the upgrades the AI gets by warring early and often.

2) Siege weapons are easily dealt with if you have fast units to patrol enemy territory and actively destroy them. Knights attacking trebs will win nearly every time.

3) If you get a lousy start, just regenerate the map.

 

[Mutineer]

actially only point one is valid and will be adressed in BTS.

In better AI mod AI given flat 50% bonus to upgrade(still a lot) on all levels.

That give it actual 70% on deity, still a lot but smaller then 97% bonus it has currently.
yes, currently on Deity AI payes 3% of what human player payes for upgrades. Is not it fun? Even on noble AI payes only 50% of human upgrade cost.

 

[frob2900]

Heh,

Sounds like someone has just been "Shakaed" (i.e. rushed by huge newly-upgraded zulu stacks that no human player could ever hope to afford )

Re Ingame Odds:
Personally I've never had a problem with Civs RNG so I cant really comment on this except saying that in my experience its fair.

Re Starting Locations:
Sometimes theyre weird. If they are too unfair just reroll the map.

Re Cheap Upgrades:
Believe me, the cheap AI upgrades are there for a reason. Without them the AI can't play properly at all. I actually tested this by XML editing the upgrade prices for the AI to be 100% (i.e. same as human player). They ended up with huge medieval stacks in the industrial age and were really too pathetic to be entertaining at all. (of course, the BetterAI patch makes the computer somewhat smarter, so theres nothing stopping you installing that patch and increasing the upgrade price for the AI by editing the civ4handicap.xml file).

Still, my sympathies, sounds like you had a rough game

 

[scooter]

1. That's not fair, you have a mind and are capable of thinking, they don't and can't, that's not fair either... I understand where you're coming from but that's life...

2. There will always be a string of luck one way or the other... You just don't notice the good luck nearly as much as the bad luck so it seems to be off, but it's completely fair. Do some educated tests and you'll find out that things will in fact break the other way eventually. I've had times where I'll fight a war and never have a single catapult retreat from combat, out of 11-12 or in some unique cases even more. I remember one time where 4 catapults in a row withdrew from combat. The system is fine.

3. Wait, so every once in awhile ONE of the players gets a really bad starting location and the whole system's broken? Come on...

 

[Napalm102]

Still, my sympathies, sounds like you had a rough game

You can say that again. Well I wasn't unprepared for Shaka though. I know him too well. He was just too far away for me to deal with him early (2 civs inbetween. One of whom was Mansa (Starting on the best territory in the game as usuall), then after him was Toku and then Shaka. To make things more fun Louis was on my other side. The other continet was Hatty and Cyrus, bith with huuuuuge territories and teching the whole damn game.

 

[ajw2255]

also on point 3, Ive had a few games where the AI has had an atrocious starting position, and have destroyed them easily. It seems ok then, so its only fair it happens to human players aswell

 

[cabert]

also on point 3, Ive had a few games where the AI has had an atrocious starting position, and have destroyed them easily. It seems ok then, so its only fair it happens to human players aswell

what's fair?
the AI didn't pay for the game, there is no reason it should be treated fairly .
Anyway, I have played through a few games where my starting position was less than optimal (desert peninsula, artic island) and won some. It's really enjoyable! Of course, the challenge being bigger, you lose some too.

 

[Dirk1302]

1. These upgrade discounts are necessary to keep the game challenging, just the same i'm glad that AI itself will be improved so these discounts are no longer necessary.

2. I and a friend of mine also got the impression that cats have a higher than 25% chance of withdrawal both on our side as the Ai's. I'm 100 % sure we're wrong though, it's just an impression you get and remember if there are a lot of withdrawals. Game is far too good to be broken in this area.

3. It might be nice if you can choose as a player for "balanced start positions"
Not so easy to define what balanced start positions are though. At it is there are indeed starts that are ridiculously good or bad. Capital is always good but the generator doesn't seem to look much further. As it is you can always regenerate starts but if you do that often you come out with above average starts in the end. I usually regenerate very bad but also extremely good starts.

 

[Napalm102]

Yeah, yeah I know why the cheap upgrades are there, to compensate for a horribly incompetent AI. But that doesn't stop me from not liking it. I'm just a kind of person who hates any kind of cheating. I'm looking forward to BtS with it's improved AI.... But as they say: be carefull what you wish for..

 

[obsolete]

My last game, Cyrus had only riflemen while I had mechanised infantry. In one round he suddenly had helicopters, 10 of them!

How did he jump so fast, and upgrade to those Helos has me baffled. This has caused me to believe that the AI in warlords must be doing a lot of GIFTING units to one another. Not just tones of cash, but UNITS.

It also seems just wrong to gift units to a nation when they don't even have the technology to understand how to us it! Where do they get the fuel when the diesel engine isn't even invented yet?

 

[Napalm102]

My last game, Cyrus had only riflemen while I had mechanised infantry. In one round he suddenly had helicopters, 10 of them!

How did he jump so fast, and upgrade to those Helos has me baffled. This has caused me to believe that the AI in warlords must be doing a lot of GIFTING units to one another. Not just tones of cash, but UNITS.

It also seems just wrong to gift units to a nation when they don't even have the technology to understand how to us it! Where do they get the fuel when the diesel engine isn't even invented yet?

Thats actaully quite common. And also has to do with cheap upgrade costs. AI likes cavalry, it has alot of it too. When AI gets flight all of the Cavalry gets upgraded to Gunships for very cheap.

But yeah you have a point to. Thats another thing thats often weird in this game. Since AI is only capable of going for space race victory, it essentially beelines for rocketry. So you end up with quite funny situatios, like AI armies composed of cavalry, artillery and SAM infantry (and nobody has flight either).

 

[DNK]

I've been stuck on a small, 3-city peninsula with another civ, and yet another civ at the end of the peninsula, blocking it off. I found axemen to be a good way to remedy the computer's unfairness, and turn it into a nice advantage.

Some starts are just naturally terrible, though, and I understand. There's not much to be done with an all plains peninsula with no food resources and a bunch of hills. Still, I made do with that start even. Extra challenge and all...

 

[JoeBlade]

1 and 3: fully agree. 1 is almost a gamebreaker to me, esp. at higher levels. It was fine when the AI was outright ******ed but with the improved worker automation it really doesn't need this bonus anymore. Combined with the 'improved' city placement algorithm (= favouring short-term gains that work against the player more than they improve the AI's position) it's definitely over the top.
And you're absolutely right about the bonus applying to all but the very lowest level, that part really doesn't make any sense at all. Killing an opponent before fuedalism if at all possible has become sort of a Pavlov reflex thanks to that feature.

3 is bad but can favour both player and AI. Still, I'd very much prefer a more balanced algorithm for sure, so no argument there.

2. is truly luck. I've seen the same thing on my units but one tends to remember the unexpected, i.e. losing a complete stack against all odds. Human players aim to ensure good odds and are thus surprised by bad luck but not so by exceptionally good RNG since their goal was a decisive victory in the first place.

 

[Breunor]

I'm pretty sure that the RNG has been tested thoroughly. There used to be a problem with first strike, but otherwise it works accurately.

Plese also note that you can fix the start to be balanced (at least in resources) in the custom generator. Also, some game scripts are less balanced than others. IIRC, Continents is a less balanced script. You may want to read through the map scripts to see which ones provide more balance.

Breunor

 

[Lord Chambers]

I generally stay away from the main forums to avoid ******ed threads like this, but thanks for bringing one to Strategy & Tips.

 

[Napalm102]

I generally stay away from the main forums to avoid ******ed threads like this, but thanks for bringing one to Strategy & Tips.

I must then congratualte you on having a constructively ******ed reply that ads to the general flow of this thread Relax, the original topic is not without its merit, as there are things in this game that still can be improved.

 

[Rancid Sushi]

I must then congratualte you on having a constructively ******ed reply that ads to the general flow of this thread Relax, the original topic is not without its merit, as there are things in this game that still can be improved.

Things such as playing skill.

 

[Heeringas]

Yep take it as a challence... You have to plan carefully when to attack or not to attack... better before they get mil trad. o r Assembly line... Intelligence, missionaries, open borders, diplomacy...
what else... if you get bad position regenerate or give it a try...
If you lose, so what, if you win, so what?

About treb killing infantry... it can happend (also in real war), what if that infantry army doesn´t get enough bullets (happens sometimes in real war as well) or sudenly their guns got wet because of heavy rain (and pants as well)...
In real war one can destroy tank with just a knife, lighter and bottle of good vodka

sorry, i didn´t mean to be offensive. there are things that needs to be balanced, I agree, but the ones you mentioned are quite balanced imo...

 

[Napalm102]

Things such as playing skill.

Yeah that can use some improvement too

But anyway I paid back to Shaka big time the last game Bribed him in to attack Russia and his Chinese vassal. Poor him.....he had no rifles, but loooooots of cavalry, unfortunatelly he was facing Russian cavalry