Important things to realize about civ that will keep you sane

[xDestroyerx]

While I'm rather new to the forums, I've been playing BTS since it came out way back when. I've been up and down the ladder and played in my fair share of CCC's then those things were still relevant. Through it all I've come to realize a few things about civ that you need to keep in mind to keep yourself sane (mostly SP).

1) Civ is not now, nor will it ever be fair or logical.
You're going to lose a tank to a longbow... learn it, love it, accept it. How that is possible you ask? I will never know, apparently the RNG knows something about the penetration power of arrows that I just can't comprehend. Either way it is going to happen and there isn't a thing you can do to stop it, so instead of going crazy and rage quitting just bring some extra tanks.

2)Montazuma and Genghis aren't going to make peace with you
I don't care if they have chariots and you're rolling through their land with infantry, if they declared war on you that's that. They usually won't stop until one of you is dead, and honestly that's going to be them 75% of the time. Whether or not they have set you back so far that winning is an impossibility by this point is a completely different story. Figure out a way to kill them efficiently and quickly, don't mistake that 10 turn peace treaty for the end of your troubles. A 10 turn peace treaty for these two is 10 more turn s to make units to kill you with. Don't haggle with them, if they declare war, make your only goal exterminating them, otherwise theres a good chance you'll war them on and off for 200 turns only to lose to Mansa who's been teching like a mad man all game.

3)Civilization IV BTS revolves around war
Conquer or lose, it's a sad truth. I love teching as much and probably more than anyone else, but no matter how peaceful and tech oriented you are, the guy killing everyone on the other side of the map is going to win. Don't let this discourage you, it doesn't mean that you have to spend the rest of your games war mongering to get anywhere, but you should be prepared to conquer at least one or two civs a game. If war isn't your thing then by all means tech to a point where the war will be quick and easy because you're so far ahead, but keep in mind that you NEED it.

4)The AI cheats
Don't even try to dispute this, the AI cheats it's a fact. The important thing is to know the AI cheats ahead of time and compensate for it. If you're going to war, bring more units than you think you're going to need. 9 times out of 10 that .6 archer that you just hit is going to magically turn into 3 archers and a spear next turn. So just bring a couple more swordsman to account for it, it will save a lot of hair pulling.

5)Regardless of the teams, every game is you vs. every AI
Ever found yourself winning a nice game of civ and then all of a sudden 3 different AI's decide they hate you and declare war? Yeah that's because they don't want to see you win. The AI will sacrifice themselves and each other to see you lose; in fact they don't care who wins as long as it isn't you. AI's will literally traverse the map to declare war on you rather than their neighbor just because you have the greatest potential of winning. Long story short, never trust an AI.

These are just a couple of things to keep in mind, hope someone finds it helpful (or therapeutic at the very least )

 

[2metraninja]

My conclusion after reading this is too much SP Civ can be dangerous for your health

If you want to interact with some alive, breathing and thinking civvers, contact me and I will join you as adviser in our Team CFC in the ongoing Inter-Site-Democracy-Game. The ladder have team in it too

 

[chiznut]

Really, you think the AI "cheats"?

 

[BornInCantaloup]

1) Civ is not now, nor will it ever be fair or logical.
You're going to lose a tank to a longbow... learn it, love it, accept it. How that is possible you ask? I will never know, apparently the RNG knows something about the penetration power of arrows that I just can't comprehend. Either way it is going to happen and there isn't a thing you can do to stop it, so instead of going crazy and rage quitting just bring some extra tanks.

Turn the tables around, be resourceful! Transform that abnormality into your own advantage!
Don't build tanks that will die to longbowmen but rather lead a host of longbows into victory against ennemy tanks! Now that will take the AI off-guard.


Multiplayer is a good keyword.
Point 3 is an important realization. Took me years to get there... It's tied to the nature of a map, just as much as the nature of the game. Some areas of the map are important to control/harvest and war may be the only way to do so. Map control.

 

[xDestroyerx]

My conclusion after reading this is too much SP Civ can be dangerous for your health

If you want to interact with some alive, breathing and thinking civvers, contact me and I will join you as adviser in our Team CFC in the ongoing Inter-Site-Democracy-Game. The ladder have team in it too

Thanks man I appreciate that, I'll probably take you up on that when I'm not at university

 

[xDestroyerx]

Really, you think the AI "cheats"?

I know the AI cheats, especially on the harder difficulties. They stream units that they couldn't possibly have made in one turn, and they tech much harder than they should be able to with 85% machined tiles. It was built in to keep people like me who have played to much from taking anything for granted.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

AIs have different rules than players but they abide by the rules

Sometimes their rules are handicaps, sometimes they're advantages... depends.

 

[Jastrow]

3)Civilization IV BTS revolves around war
Conquer or lose, it's a sad truth. I love teching as much and probably more than anyone else, but no matter how peaceful and tech oriented you are, the guy killing everyone on the other side of the map is going to win. Don't let this discourage you, it doesn't mean that you have to spend the rest of your games war mongering to get anywhere, but you should be prepared to conquer at least one or two civs a game. If war isn't your thing then by all means tech to a point where the war will be quick and easy because you're so far ahead, but keep in mind that you NEED it.

This is an exegeration... There is no doubt that some warring makes things easier, but I have beet the AI in space races more than ones, on Deity, and with fairly special setting and nothing "cooked", using a completly peaceful approach with not a single war. Up to emporer it is almost always possible on standard settings, on Imortal, more often than not, and on Deity, sometimes.

 

[xDestroyerx]

Vs. AI you may be able to pull it off, however in my experience playing humans who are often better than a deity level AI, you are not going to win without war.

 

[Jastrow]

Of course, but your opening posts sais these itmes are focussed on SP.

 

[Merovech]

I know the AI cheats, especially on the harder difficulties. They stream units that they couldn't possibly have made in one turn, and they tech much harder than they should be able to with 85% machined tiles. It was built in to keep people like me who have played to much from taking anything for granted.

The AI has very few cheats, and certainly not the ones that you describe. One of these is that units can "see" their entire movement range, but this information is not transmitted to the rest of the civ. They also get a small amount of bonus production when settling a city, I believe 10 hammers on standard. That's all the cheats that I can think of off the top of my head.

 

[Jastrow]

I beleive they also have a couple of cheats with regards to diplomacy, such as knowing that you traded with their worst enemy even before they met you.... But yeah, they certainly do not magically get extra units or any such nonsense.

 

[kochman]

2)Montazuma and Genghis aren't going to make peace with you
I don't care if they have chariots and you're rolling through their land with infantry, if they declared war on you that's that. They usually won't stop until one of you is dead, and honestly that's going to be them 75% of the time. Whether or not they have set you back so far that winning is an impossibility by this point is a completely different story. Figure out a way to kill them efficiently and quickly, don't mistake that 10 turn peace treaty for the end of your troubles. A 10 turn peace treaty for these two is 10 more turn s to make units to kill you with. Don't haggle with them, if they declare war, make your only goal exterminating them, otherwise theres a good chance you'll war them on and off for 200 turns only to lose to Mansa who's been teching like a mad man all game.

#2 is completely incorrect.

 

[xDestroyerx]

#2 is completely incorrect.

Really? Because in the actual coding of the game Montezuma and Genghis are designated "numbers" that dictate whether or not they will make peace with a human, and after one "minus" or "red" sign is designated to the player that number drops to almost zero. I bet your opinion is based ont he fact that you've made peace with them in some random game before...

As for whether or not you want to designate what the AI does as "cheating" is another issue. It seems people love to nit pick the out of the term "cheat" so I'll put it this way. What would you call a human who had no fog of war, could see what you were teching 100% of the time, knew where every resource was ahead of time, and had an extra 10% production in their starting city. I'm guessing a cheater?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Wow. I misread that. I thought it said '#2 is completely correct' and was going to agree. There is hardly any sensible way to deal with those two other than smashing them.

 

[Ghpstage]

Have you got any code references for well... any of that?
Everything I have come across or read tells me that the AI does need to deal with fog of war (though it is relaxed), doesn't see what tech your researching and certainly can't see resources without the required tech. The production advantages tey get are a lump of hammers on settling a city.
% bonuses are a handicap depending on difficulties.

Also you certainly can make peace with those AIs, even if it is more difficult than others.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Have you got any code references for well... any of that?

................................

Also you certainly can make peace with those AIs, even if it is more difficult than others.

There's a spreadsheet in the download base with all the variables that make up the AI personalities. In the variable for willingness to make peace GKhan and Monty have a value of 80 (this is some sort of 'number to beat', so higher is harder). This high value is also shared by Ragnar, Shaka, and Brennus...who are also best dealt with violently and permanently in the vast majority of situations.

 

[xDestroyerx]

Have you got any code references for well... any of that?
Everything I have come across or read tells me that the AI does need to deal with fog of war (though it is relaxed), doesn't see what tech your researching and certainly can't see resources without the required tech. The production advantages tey get are a lump of hammers on settling a city.
% bonuses are a handicap depending on difficulties.

Also you certainly can make peace with those AIs, even if it is more difficult than others.

As a matter of fact I do have coding references, but you wouldn't understand it even if I did lay it out for you. Does any of what you have "read" or "come across" have coding references, or is it automatically true because it's on the internet? I'm thoroughly humored by peoples rebuttals on how the AI operates when they don't even know how to access lines of code. Does "relaxed fog of war" actually make sense to you, because in all honesty I have no idea what that means. I have never seen the map exactly how the AI sees it because I'm not an AI, but from everything I have seen in the coding and elsewhere I'm inclined to believe its something like we see in world builder.

Don't believe me because honestly I couldn't care less, but if you want to use your head or maybe even some common sense run a little test. See how many apparently terrible cities the AI settles in the first 175 turns (ie. limited food tiles and production) and then see how many of them pop oil, aluminum, uranium, coal etc. late game. You'll be very surprised to say the least.

 

[Ghpstage]

There's a spreadsheet in the download base with all the variables that make up the AI personalities. In the variable for willingness to make peace GKhan and Monty have a value of 80 (this is some sort of 'number to beat', so higher is harder). This high value is also shared by Ragnar, Shaka, and Brennus...who are also best dealt with violently and permanently in the vast majority of situations.

Except thats not what the OP is talking about, theres claims of active anti player bias and talk about negative numbers (negative diplo points perhaps?) having an impact

It certainly is harder to get peace with those AIs (the 80 is probably related to war success score), but its far from unreasonable or even uncommon to get peace with them. They do have the joint second longest refusal to talk time however, it can be up to 20 turns if they declare and are winning the war.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Except thats not what the OP is talking about, theres claims of active anti player bias and negative numbers and things

'Anti-player bias' might be valid, if indirect.

Becasue AI behavior is basically an outcome of a 'what to do right now' algorithm an AI might start beating on another AI just because it can. Then keep beating on it until either it gets tired of it or the other AI gets tired of it. Then some sort of deal is struck. There are some new factors in the relationships among the AIs and their little simulated lives move on.

Now, let's assume the player is actively trying to win. Because the player has this long term objective the 'just because I think I can' attack by the neighboring AI is not just a factor for future consideration, it is obstruction of the objective. Only the player has a long term objective that can be obstructed, so the AI is inherently biased against the player. They only obstruct the player.