K-Mod: Far Beyond the Sword

[Yin Cognito]

Just disregard the "foul language", it's there to emphasize things, not to offend. But you wanted some reasoning ... please tell me, if I am a vassal (through Alt-Z and 'chipotle' or in another game), do this kind of things happen to me (being given all the techs I need without even asking)? Yep, that's what I thought...

That's my "reasoning": on Noble difficulty, it's supposed that both the AIs and the human get the same "advantages" (aka same standards). But they're not - and frankly, it just makes your whole strategy irrelevant if all the AIs work as a team against the human player (since they are supposed to be rivals against themselves AS WELL). You could be making 5000 beakers per turn and it wouldn't matter, since all the AIs would change / give free techs between themselves, and in a "team" of 17 AIs, they could realistically be at the same level as you, even if they only produce 1/10 (or 1/3 at best) of your beakers.

I could give myself free techs in World Builder and it would be the same approach. It just isn't realistic for the master to give all their techs to the vassals, period - and it's hard to understand why can't you see the "reasoning" in this ... I mean, in human history, did the English gave their Indian "vassals" all their techs? Did the English / German / whatever give all their tech to the native american "vassals"? Did the Ottoman Empire give all their techs to their European "vassals"? Did the USSR give all their techs to their Warsaw Pact "vassals"? Going even further, did the Americans give all their techs to their European ALLIES in NATO?

This could be realistic only starting with the UN, for example, since it's all about globalisation now and "helping each other". But before that, it just looks totally off.

Can you see my "reasoning" now?

EDIT: one other thing: in this game, the Khan is a capitulated vassal of Ramesses, and he's still furious about the Egyptians razing one of his cities, and no free techs given to him change his opinion about it, apparently. Giving him all these free techs looks like even more "out of his mind" from Ramesses, since the Khan could very much use those techs to fight back against Egypt and all. In a real life example, I would call this a suicidal approach. Imagine Hernan Cortes giving all the European techs for free to the submitted Aztec Empire (assuming they wouldn't have actually conquered the Aztecs) ... I'd say that with this "strategy", the Europeans would have never conquered the Americas (if not for the demographic advantage of the Europeans, that is).

 

[Zholef]

Just disregard the "foul language", it's there to emphasize things, not to offend. But you wanted some reasoning ... please tell me, if I am a vassal (through Alt-Z and 'chipotle' or in another game), do this kind of things happen to me (being given all the techs I need without even asking)? Yep, that's what I thought...

Yes, that does happen. For instance, using your first save state I switched to playing as Genghis Khan and was immediately gifted Replaceable Parts upon ending my turn.

That's my "reasoning": on Noble difficulty, it's supposed that both the AIs and the human get the same "advantages" (aka same standards). But they're not - and frankly, it just makes your whole strategy irrelevant if all the AIs work as a team against the human player (since they are supposed to be rivals against themselves AS WELL). You could be making 5000 beakers per turn and it wouldn't matter, since all the AIs would change / give free techs between themselves, and in a "team" of 17 AIs, they could realistically be at the same level as you, even if they only produce 1/10 (or 1/3 at best) of your beakers.

I could give myself free techs in World Builder and it would be the same approach. It just isn't realistic for the master to give all their techs to the vassals, period - and it's hard to understand why can't you see the "reasoning" in this ... I mean, in human history, did the English gave their Indian "vassals" all their techs? Did the English / German / whatever give all their tech to the native american "vassals"? Did the Ottoman Empire give all their techs to their European "vassals"? Did the USSR give all their techs to their Warsaw Pact "vassals"? Going even further, did the Americans give all their techs to their European ALLIES in NATO?

This could be realistic only starting with the UN, for example, since it's all about globalisation now and "helping each other". But before that, it just looks totally off.

Can you see my "reasoning" now?

Look, even the K-Mod AI with all its improvements over the base game's AI is still very primitive. That is to say its actions are the results of very simple rules. Many of the advantages the AI enjoys, which can be perceived as unfair by players, are there to get around having to teach the AI all the nuances of the game. Doing that would be a massive amount of work resulting in only marginal improvements to gameplay. You can't expect that from unpaid mod developers.

As for excessive tech trading ruining your tech lead, that's by design, meaning the developers intended for this to happen. It occurs most prominently when there's what's sometimes called an "AI love fest". First the AIs that like each other team up to subdue the AIs they don't like. Then they settle down peacefully, build up mutual trust until they reach "Friendly", and finally use tech trading to race down the tech tree in pursuit of some peaceful victory condition. If 1) it comes to this and 2) you're not on the inside of that friend circle, then you have failed at diplomacy, which is a difficult and important part of this game (one which I didn't master until reaching "Emperor" difficulty).

EDIT: one other thing: in this game, the Khan is a capitulated vassal of Ramesses, and he's still furious about the Egyptians razing one of his cities, and no free techs given to him change his opinion about it, apparently. Giving him all these free techs looks like even more "out of his mind" from Ramesses, since the Khan could very much use those techs to fight back against Egypt and all. In a real life example, I would call this a suicidal approach. Imagine Hernan Cortes giving all the European techs for free to the submitted Aztec Empire (assuming they wouldn't have actually conquered the Aztecs) ... I'd say that with this "strategy", the Europeans would have never conquered the Americas (if not for the demographic advantage of the Europeans, that is).

What does it matter what my puppet government thinks of me? They're tiny; I'm big. They rebel; I raze their cities.

Frankly, I'm getting the feeling you're just upset about not winning as much as you'd like and looking for something to blame rather than rethinking your strategy. Because that's what Civ is about. It's a history-themed strategy game, not a history simulation.

 

[Yin Cognito]

For instance, using your first save state I switched to playing as Genghis Khan and was immediately gifted Replaceable Parts upon ending my turn.

I did the same thing (multiple times) and all I got was a tech exchange with Frederick. As far as I know, if the game is configured to keep the same random seed, the same things should happen for both of us. And even if that happened for you, Ramesses giving away ALL his technological advantage (and very expensive techs) for free is just ... come on now, do I really need to explain this? Absurd, yeah, that's the word for it.

Look, even the K-Mod AI with all its improvements over the base game's AI is still very primitive. [...] You can't expect that from unpaid mod developers.

No issue there. I coded a file manager, some small utilities, a math graph software and two games (one of them an attempted and unfinished CIV-like game) myself in my teens and played CIV since version 1, so, yeah, I get your point and I support what the modders of this forum do. What got me to the K-Mod however, was, among other things, the "AI cheats less" thingy. Needless to say, I'm a little dissapointed that the developer didn't go harder on the latter... cause to me, that tech give-away for nothing is just another way of cheating against the human player.

If 1) it comes to this and 2) you're not on the inside of that friend circle, then you have failed at diplomacy, which is a difficult and important part of this game (one which I didn't master until reaching "Emperor" difficulty) [...] Frankly, I'm getting the feeling you're just upset about not winning as much as you'd like and looking for something to blame rather than rethinking your strategy.

Oh, I see. So now it's my fault that I didn't receive 10-15 expensive techs for free? Erm ... really? I just want the same chances the AI gets, as I never received a free tech from anyone, not to mention ALL the opponent's techs - but I'm the one who needs to "rethink" my strategy? Hm... ok then.

But ok, since you mention my "poorly thought" strategy (which made me undisputed leader in that saved game, by the way), please tell me, what strategy should I follow in order to receive about 10-15 free 10000 beakers renaissance techs from the AIs, after previously waging war with nearly everybody on the map, being hated by almost every other player (like Genghis was) and enraged about everybody else too? I dare you to look on this forum for that magic strategy, and if you find it, I'll be glad to "rethink" my own.

And yes, you can bet I'm upset when: 1) undeserved and 2) absurd things happen in my game. Aren't you the same?

What does it matter what my puppet government thinks of me? They're tiny; I'm big. They rebel; I raze their cities.

You're not big anymore if you gave them all the tools to produce equally strong units as you have. You're just inviting your doomsday that way, considering that "puppet government" is (still) furious about you. That's exactly why I said it's absurd.

Let me be even more specific: I could understand (and tolerate) an AI giving one or two lesser techs to a very good AI buddy of theirs (equal or more than "pleased" attitude both ways) - of course, if it happens to human players as well and ... not that often (let's say two or three times per game). But giving all your techs to your former worst enemy, which is still furious about you is, like I said, absurd ... was I clear enough now? I think some sort of common sense and some limits to this is achievable even with such "primitive" tools like K-Mod (or any other mod, for that matter).

Because that's what Civ is about. It's a history-themed strategy game, not a history simulation.

Yes, this time I think you probably nailed in on the head there. I often found myself wondering what a great game would have been a CIV combined with some sort of SimCity type of simulation. Of course, such a thing would have been incredibly complex, so I can understand why it wasn't done yet. But it would be great to have though.

 

[Leoreth]

The more I read your posts the less I understand what your expectation of the AI is, Noble setting or not.

Sure, you can complain that some of the trade offs that are made to make the AI competitive are illogical or strictly speaking "unfair", but what is even more unfair is that you're a human and the AI is just an AI. There is nothing you can do to overcome this fundamental asymmetry that exists in every single player game.

So yes, some AI behavior is designed to provide you a challenge. This includes elements like AI collusion and singling out the human player. This is only "unfair" to the point that it slightly pushes down the other end of the scale that is heavily tilted in favor of any human simply by virtue of them being human. This is all about AI behavior and not about AI advantages, so the difficulty setting is irrelevant, and so is your misconstruing of what the design goals of K-Mod are.

So I don't know what you want. If you operate under the illusion that removing this kind of AI crutches will reveal a fair and "realistic" opponent you are mistaken about how AI works.

What is going to happen if your radical expectations are implemented is that you get an unchallenging and inherently boring game.

That's the dilemma you're buying into when playing single player strategy games of any noticeable level of complexity. If you don't like it, stop complaining and play against humans.

 

[Zholef]

I have to agree with Leoreth. I don't quite understand what you want.

Suppose three AIs, namely Boudica, Cyrus, and Gandhi, live on an isolated continent. Boudica attacks Gandhi, while Cyrus leans back, expands and techs. Eventually Boudica ends up with 12 cities and a seriously pissed-off Gandhi as her capitulated vassal, who has 3 cities left and is therefore too small to keep up in tech. Opposing her is Cyrus, heading an 18-city empire with a modest tech lead over Boudica and who is already plotting to attack her. The smart move in this situation for Boudica is to keep gifting Gandhi with at least as many techs as he needs to keep building up-to-date units. It's what a human player would do in her place, unless the human player were stupid. In other words, it's the correct strategy. You may of course hold the opinion that doing so would be "absurd" historically, but that's exactly the point I was trying to get across. It's irrelevant what would make sense historically in a game that isn't a history simulation. It only matters what the correct strategy is. Unless of course if you want the AI to play less intelligently, which is pretty much the opposite of the aim of this mod.

 

[f1rpo]

This includes elements like AI collusion and singling out the human player. [...]This is all about AI behavior and not about AI advantages, so the difficulty setting is irrelevant, [...].

Hm ... The -1 human relations penalty is tied to the difficulty setting. Other than that, I don't think the AI gangs up on human players specifically. Only negligible examples such as tech gifting to vassals (see below) come to mind.

Tech gifting appears to be BtS behavior. The BBAI mod (included in K-Mod) actually puts a brake on this; a comment in CvPlayerAI.cpp by jdog says: "Don't give techs for free to advanced vassals ..." That's also what I've experienced when playing - AI masters keep their vassals at arm's length.

K-Mod has added a clause that makes the AI more cautious about gifting tech to human vassals. (Well, humans can't be vassals at all in BtS.) That said, I've never become a vassal to an AI, and I doubt it's a viable victory strategy. It's certainly not the same as "all the AIs work[ing] as a team against the human player".

The smart move in this situation for Boudica is to keep gifting Gandhi with at least as many techs as he needs to keep building up-to-date units.

And in the World Wars, British India did have artillery, tanks etc., so I don't find it particularly odd from a historical pov either.

In this example, Britain's back is against the wall, but even otherwise, a capitulated AI vassal turning against its master is very rare. The vassal needs to have at least half as much population and land as the master. Moreover, AI vassals don't build up units specifically for breaking free, and they'll only revolt if they (happen to) have sufficient military power. The vassal AI could be fleshed out in this regard. Currently, they're pretty much just (furious) zombies. (Voluntary "peace" vassals, on the other hand, frequently revolt, and the master AI should arguably be more careful about gifting techs to peace vassals.)

 

[Yin Cognito]

The smart move in this situation for Boudica is to keep gifting Gandhi with at least as many techs as he needs to keep building up-to-date units. It's what a human player would do in her place, unless the human player were stupid. In other words, it's the correct strategy.

Look, Zholef, I understand your point: a human player would try to make Gandhi a pain in the arse for Cyrus, by giving him techs to be able to compete with him. All fine there, and I would agree to your point...

BUT, all of you folks keep disregarding a simple thing: Gandhi's enemy is Boudica, not Cyrus. That's what's making this whole thing absurd in the first place. It isn't about the historical reality (which I only mentioned to support my point), it's simple logic.

Now since you mentioned what a human player would do in the case of Boudica, let's see what a "human Gandhi" would do, shall we? If given all these techs for free and assuming the "human Gandhi" gets back on his feet with the demographics and the military, he would choose to be a pain in the arse for Boudica (which he still sees as the enemy), and not Cyrus. In fact, a human Gandhi would even ally himself with Cyrus to take his lands back from Boudica or simply to inflict the same damage to Boudica as he's been inflicted on.

For the n-th time, that's why I said this thing is absurd. Again, I would understand and tolerate a moderate and relatively rare sharing of techs between friends (AIs or not), but between enemies? As I said, that's suicidal (or like you kindly say, "stupid"), especially since Gandhi's attitude towards Boudica doesn't seem to improve because of these free gifts - in other words, Gandhi will continue to be Boudica's enemy, irrespective of the "love" that Boudica seems to show towards him.

The only thing stopping Gandhi to adopt this strategy is the silly rule that vassals needs to have at least half as much population and land as the master to "revolt". Frankly, this is not what happens in the real world: people revolt even if they look like they have slim chances to win. Sure, it's a game, and not a historical simulation and all that sterile blah blah blah, but in your own words, Zholef: "that's what a human player would do". Especially when Gandhi, in your example, would most likely have an ally in Cyrus, which also plots to attack Boudica.

Now you all can pretend that you don't understand what my point is and all. But you know I'm right. That can be corrected in a mod, for example (I don't request that, by the way, I'm just saying). Introduce some limits to the sharing of techs: for example, the AI much more likely to share techs with a friend than an enemy, or the make the AI not stupid enough to share all his techs to anyone (even if they're friends), etc.

a comment in CvPlayerAI.cpp by jdog says: "Don't give techs for free to advanced vassals ..."

Does a comment like "Don't give techs for free to enemy vassals ..." sound also logical? It does to me, however, that's exactly what doesn't happen right now. The AI can give him all his techs for free, not considering a possible revolting or an alliance with another enemy (which is what a furious enough vassal would logically do as soon as he gets the chance). Oh, and did I mention seeing AI civs still "pleased" with each other, despite their war between them? Huh, guess not...

It's all common sense and logic, folks. Don't be reluctant to those things just because that's the way the game (and the mods) currently work.

P.S. Leoreth, justifying absurd and illogical things with the "poor AI vs the smart human" is not right. Just like you said, "stop complaining and make the AI smarter, playing better". If every programmer out there would come up with that "there is nothing you can do to overcome this fundamental asymmetry that exists in every single player game between the AI and the human" excuse, better games (or better AIs) would never be created. There IS something you can do, since it's actually the humans who program the AIs - in other words, they can influence stuff (and they do).

 

[Zholef]

Now you all can pretend that you don't understand what my point is and all. But you know I'm right.

Well, if that's my MO, then I guess there's no productive discussion to be had with me. I'm sorry that I wasted your time.

 

[f1rpo]

That can be corrected in a mod, for example (I don't request that, by the way, I'm just saying). Introduce some limits to the sharing of techs: for example, the AI much more likely to share techs with a friend than an enemy, or the make the AI not stupid enough to share all his techs to anyone (even if they're friends), etc.
[...]
Does a comment like "Don't give techs for free to enemy vassals ..." sound also logical? It does to me, however, that's exactly what doesn't happen right now. The AI can give him all his techs for free, not considering a possible revolting or an alliance with another enemy (which is what a furious enough vassal would logically do as soon as he gets the chance).

Human players would still take advantage of the fact that vassals don't really revolt. You'd have to change the rules for capitulation (land/pop threshold) and adjust the behavior of AI vassals to the new rules; a complete overhaul of how capitulation works. I would actually like to do that (along with some other changes to nerf military strategies), but I doubt I'll get around to it, and I don't think it's within the scope of K-Mod.

I believe capitulation was mainly intended (by the Warlords developers) as a shorthand that saves players the tedium of capturing [edit]and administrating[/edit] every single city of a defeated enemy. Consequently, capitulated vassals mostly work with/for their masters. E.g. the master can tell the vassal what to research and (in K-Mod) to start war preparations. More interesting things could be done with capitulations (and perhaps some mods already do), but the BtS approach gets the most important thing right: You can win a conquest victory without having to conquer 50 cities.

It would be more consistent to remove the half-baked revolt-after-capitulation mechanism entirely, and to show vassal attitude as "subservient" (or simply "pleased") regardless of past relations, but those are just superficial changes.

 

[Yin Cognito]

Human players would still take advantage of the fact that vassals don't really revolt. You'd have to change the rules for capitulation (land/pop threshold) and adjust the behavior of AI vassals to the new rules; a complete overhaul of how capitulation works.

I know you're talking about that rule regarding 1/2 of pop/land I mentioned above, but regarding what you quoted from me - which referred to some limits in that tech sharing -, things wouldn't be so complicated, I think. All one has to do is just apply roughly the same rules as when asking for "help" from the AI (for example, asking a resource from an AI): if the AI is "best friends" with that vassal, then the probablity of it sharing techs would be quite high (but not 100% though, cause you know, they're still rivals in the game, after all); if he's not "best buddies" with that vassal, then maybe give him one or two techs for free, and only continue that sharing if the attitude between them improves. Or something along those lines.

But yeah, changing some things about capitulation would be logical. But I know there's much to change, I get that, so I'm not having a problem with that per se. However, that "set some limits to tech sharing" thing is much easier to do.

It would be more consistent to remove the half-baked revolt-after-capitulation mechanism entirely, and to show vassal attitude as "subservient" (or simply "pleased") regardless of past relations, but those are just superficial changes.

Finally, now we can understand each other! That's all I was saying too: either set those tech sharing limits according to the attitute between them, or just make them "love" each other more, cause right now, doing this kind of "charity work" towards a potential (and still) enemy looks unrealistical, honestly. I'm not having a problem with either solution, although the sudden change of attitude might raise other questions. And again, to me, they are both relatively simple - no "complete overhaul" required.

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

Regarding the vassalage, I have a question... In my game, which advanced into the 1500s, it seems vassalage is the norm and no one seems interested in defensive pacts - there's only Ramesses and Hanibal who have a pact like this, being neighbours and all. That was not the case in CIV III, where I forged some VERY solid and useful defensive pacts/alliances with the Turks and the Indians (my neighbours on a similar Earth map by Teturkhan). Could it be possible that I finish the game and not sign a defensive pact even once? Vassalage, while VERY useful to the masters (I have 3 vassals now - so it's useful to me too), seems a little too "degrading" for modern times...plus there's the cost and all...

 

[Yin Cognito]

Well, if that's my MO, then I guess there's no productive discussion to be had with me. I'm sorry that I wasted your time.

Hey, now don't be silly Of course there is a productive discussion that we can have, but for god's sake, please understand that enemies (even if in a master-vassal relationship) are much more reluctant to share things than friends. And if things like this happen in a game (aka the enemies of a couple of turns before sharing all their techs between them) I have no choice than to believe it is directed against the human (aka "AI cheating").

Each one of you is probably applying the above principles in everyday life: you wouldn't lend money to someone still holding a grudge on you for some recent fights in the past, now would you? And even if you wetre friends with that someone, you'd still not lend ALL your money, right? That's why I was saying that you know I'm right. You just don't want to understand it in the context of the game ... yet

 

[Zholef]

I'm neither silly, stupid, nor dishonest; I'm serious, I understand, and I disagree. I disagree not because I don't understand; I disagree even though I understand. I understand your arguments, but I think them flawed because you conflate AI behavior with the game's rules. The rules are a compromise. They're an attempt to make the game as entertaining as possible, with realism being merely a secondary consideration (because Civ4 isn't a simulation).

The AI too is a compromise, a substitute for human players, generally trying to win, but with some built-in irrationality to make playing with them more enjoyable. Some of these irrational behaviors (e.g. capitulated vassals not backstabbing their masters during war-time, hating other players for adopting different religions, voting in favor of someone else winning a diplomatic victory) have particularly strong influence on single player games, but that does not make the AI's behavior part of the game's rules.

Changing the game's rules along the lines you're suggesting would mean keeping all masters (not just AI masters) from giving loads of techs to their vassals, which would require placing restrictions on all one-sided tech transfers to keep things consistent. Your actual suggestion, that the AI playing this game should not take certain actions if humans governing real empires wouldn't do those things is even more absurd. My original objection stands: I'm gifting my backward vassals lots of techs (regardless of your opinion), and I don't see why the AI should be prohibited from doing the same.

 

[Leoreth]

P.S. Leoreth, justifying absurd and illogical things with the "poor AI vs the smart human" is not right. Just like you said, "stop complaining and make the AI smarter, playing better". If every programmer out there would come up with that "there is nothing you can do to overcome this fundamental asymmetry that exists in every single player game between the AI and the human" excuse, better games (or better AIs) would never be created. There IS something you can do, since it's actually the humans who program the AIs - in other words, they can influence stuff (and they do).

First of all, that is not what I said. This post shows an entitled attitude because you 1) are accusing others of complaining and 2) are yourself the one complaining, while expecting others to come in and fix the issues you're complaining about.

If there is something wrong with the game, why don't you go on and fix them yourself? I'm not going to accuse you of being too lazy to do it (which besides would make your entire speech about "not giving up" or whatever kind of hypocritical), so I'm going to assume that you lack the required skills. That's fine of course, not everyone can be good at programming, especially AI programming (on the other hand, if everyone came up with that excuse, better games would never be created ). But if you justify your inaction with the lack of skill and knowledge compared to others, you should defer to the evaluation and judgment of those who do have it.

Everyone who knows their way around the Civ4 source code can tell from the way you're talking that you have never looked at it. Everyone who has even dabbled in the problem of computer game AI knows you have no idea what the challenges and limitations are. It's not a problem where "trying harder" produces meaningful results. As someone who has established themselves as someone who doesn't know anything about this you have no right to condescend to those who do (at least in some limited fashion) without coming off as rude.

Don't trust my credentials? Give this podcast a listen for your education. It conveniently has Soren Johnson as a panelist, i.e. the guy who both designed the game we're talking about and wrote substantial parts of its AI. But you're probably won't listen to it, or dismiss him as the guy who didn't try hard enough and wrote this terrible AI instead.

It's not about individual aspects of the AI that undoubtedly can be improved, no matter how many of those you want to bring up. Your fundamental expectation of what an AI should be or do is something that no conventional AI can ever achieve.

 

[Yin Cognito]

Ok, that's a new thing I'm experiencing right now, LOL. We got moderators (who should keep these things under control, right?) and so called developers who resort to personal attacks (calling me "stupid", "lazy", "lacking the required skills", "hypocritical", etc.) when they lost the argument (but curiously, complaining about my "foul language" )) and who think that editing a few XMLs or recompiling stuff made by others is ... "designing an AI". And the icing on the cake ... calling me "rude" afterwards, when it was them who attempted to offend? Pfff... I didn't think I might came up to these kind of behaviors on CivFanatics forum.

I also don't have to show "my credentials" to these kinds of individuals - I already said what I built since high school / the MS-DOS days (and yes, I have hard proof on this), when you kids probably played with your friends outside (if you were born, that is). I'm not gonna brag about it, like you apparently love to do about those Civ XMLs though. You might believe you are super-smart 'cause you blab about AI left or AI right and modify some parameters in an already built game (or mods) and maybe write a few lines in Python (although I see EmperorFool or jdog signatures almost everywhere), and who am I to deny you this pleasure?

Dear Zholef and Leoreth, you are the cream of the crop of the "AI developers". Congratulations, you are great and have "credentials" and all ... but when it comes to a simple thing like change the probablity of a tech help to a vassal, you quickly come up with why you don't want to change it (not why it is logical to not change it) and, of course, with all these "how hard is to" program an AI - when I didn't ask you to, just wanted a simple parameter tweak.

Don't bother anymore. Just tell me where to look (if you want to and you know where, that is, since you know so many things that I don't) and I'll do it myself. Python is not my preferred coding language and I'm not an XML master either, but I'm sure I'm going to reach my objective - I've done harder than this. I frankly don't need to tolerate these pathetic attempts to discredit me, my game strategies or my skills from some relatively unknown moderators / developers online who think they can dictate things and offend people they disagree with just because they manage some posts on the internet. I tried to be friendly and concentrate on the actual subject and the arguments until now, but it seems it's no longer possible. People that lose the argument often revert to insults and this is no exception.

It is my last post on this forum, so if you want to point me to the files that hold the key to the issue, fine. If not, also fine. Have a nice day!

 

[Zholef]

In the file named CvPlayerAI.cpp look for the phrase "AI Vassal Tech gift". Good luck and a nice day to you too.

 

[Rob (R8XFT)]

Moderator Action: Let's now draw a line under this and move on.

 

[Yin Cognito]

Look, I'm sorry for the things I said in my last post, but that's what you get when people repeatedly offend you (directly in indirectly) - sometimes you say things you don't really mean and stuff degenerates.

I actually think you're all doing a great job (and for free) - thanks again for your help and advice (and Zholef for pointing me in the right direction in his last post).

Let's bury the hatchet, if there ever was one. If you want to, of course.

 

[f1rpo]

Not to reignite anything ... I'm still not sure I get you. Once you've made your AI changes, are you, as the human player, still going to give free technologies to your vassals? Or do you intend to roleplay, so to speak, treating them like they might revolt?

Fwiw, I just tell myself that angry India only represents Gandhi's personal feelings, which are meaningless once he's no longer in charge because capitulated vassals are always subservient and docile.

 

[Yin Cognito]

Short answer: roleplaying. I would have no chance than to do so, since the other option seems too unrealistic, in my view. But again, I have no problem with moderate tech sharing according to the relationship between civs (say, in a defensive pact or an alliance); it's just that what happened in my game seemed excessive.

Fwiw, I just tell myself that angry India only represents Gandhi's personal feelings, which are meaningless once he's no longer in charge because capitulated vassals are always subservient and docile.

Gandhi IS India in this game, and capitulated vassals are always subservient and docile because the game forces them to be (the 1/2 of pop/land rule, which is never really reached, in "normal" circumstances). Anyway, it all leads back to the realism Zholef talked earlier. I will abstain from making further comments on this, in order "not to reignite" stuff, I'll just say that for a game that made every effort to build real leaders / civs / cities / buildings / units / wonders, etc., saying that realism (as a principle) is just secondary is a bit of an understatement. Civ is not WoW.

However, there are limitations and compromises (which I do understand that they exist), so, it is what it is. It's still a great game and a great mod (which is why I'm playing them, after all), so Zholef or Leoreth have strong arguments on their side as well. Maybe I'm the one that's wrong, after all. Or maybe we are all correct, to a certain degree.

 

[karadoc]

I've just uploaded a new version. I think it will be a decent improvement over the previous version. There have been lots of bug fixes and changes since then.

However, this version hasn't been as rigorously tested as usual - so there may be problems that I've missed.

In particular, I had one OOS error come up in one of my test games. From what I can tell, it was actually caused by an old (and very rare) problem that has existed in the game since before K-Mod which is not yet fixed; but on the other hand it could be caused by one of my recent changes. So if you see any OOS problems (or other bugs), please let me know.

Otherwise, enjoy!