K-Mod: Far Beyond the Sword

I told you not to reply to me. I said what I needed to say to you. God, you are horrible at reading.
Moderator Action: ...and this trolling is not appropriate either.
 
Yesterday I finished a somewhat stressful game in which Mansa Musa was going for a cultural victory, and yet most of the world seemed to be more interested in declaring war on _me_.

My intention was to build up a naval assault stack (marines & carriers, etc) so that I could just declare war on MM and raze one of his cities in the single turn, and then I'd just go on to win a space race victory; but there seemed to just be a non-stop stream of different civs lining up to try to kill me. So, I was there fighting against 4 or 5 different civs at once, most of which had power ratings much much higher than my own - and I knew that I would have to be the one to stop Mansa Musa from winning, and he crept closer and closer towards victory.

-- That was a very tense and exciting situation; and in some sense it was only made possible possible by the fact that the AI players lacked either the drive or the ability to stop Mansa Musa. (There was one other civ who did go to war with MM; and it was a significant war, but there was essentially no chance that the other civ would be able to raze one of the culture cities.)

In that game, I ended up having _barely_ enough marines to raze MM's 3rd culture city when it was on 49000 points. ie. He was one or two turns away from victory, and I razed his city with just 1 marine to spare. I did go on to win a space-race victory, but two other civs in that game also launched their spaceships a couple of turns after I launched mine; and I had to raze another one of MM's cities just 3 turns before my victory, because he was again at 48000 points with his next best city.

That was what I'd call a climatic finish to the game. 4 out of 9 civs came within just a few of turns of winning. -- And one thing that comes to my mind is that if the AI had really focused on trying to stop other civs from winning, then I would have won very easily - because Mansa Musa was obviously close to victory and I was not. (I was only just beginning my spaceship when I razed the culture city - but I had the space elevator and decent productivity - so I got it built pretty fast after the wars.)
 
Of course once you burned MM's 3rd cultural city and made your own progress on the space race ....the ai's attention couldve turned their attention against you (if it was programmed to start thwarting those closest to winning, while pursuing their own victory). In fact it would be mega cool (in my mind) if 3 or 4 countries were near cultural winning/space race and fighting/sabotaging amongst themselves, rather than hoping to chance for some sort of conflict.

You fighting off 4 or 5 civs makes me want to question the balance of tech vs production for the ai. But it sounds like everyone was going for a space race and it was close. And that sounds like a dream to me (no 300+ turn peace religion island with nuke stockpiles).

(BTW does the ai know how to or prioritize sabotaging space parts production?)

It seems more lucky and accidental that MM was distracted by a significant war the way things are currently...fate favored you rather than ai intelligence. So effectively in that instance nothing would change...because the ai wouldve acted the same (going after the victory leader, .i.e. "play to win", except the ai wouldve shifted their focus back to you after MM).

Glad you pulled off the big win though. Close wins are the best wins :D
 
In that particular game, it's hard to say exactly what would have happened if the AI was determined to stop others from winning. My guess is that it would have been much easier for me though, because I could have just let the other AI's deal with MM while I built my spaceship; or at least I wouldn't have needed to be so focused on defence during that time. And if the AIs couldn't beat me while I was trying to build up a strike-force to take out MM, then I don't think they'd have any hope at all when all I need to do is defend my capital.

With MM out of the picture, there were a few of us building spaceships; so what would be the best course of action for the AI players?

I would have simply focused on building my own spaceship as fast as possible, because I reckon I can do I faster than the others, and it's easier to defend than to attack. But for the others - maybe they think they're faster, or they aren't sure which of civ is closest, or they aren't sure if they are able to win a war in such a short time anyway. Should they be focused on building their spaceship, or should they be focused on building a huge military force to maybe slow down one of the other players (while the third player sails comfortably to victory undestracted)?

It's often to the AI's advantage to just ignore other civs who are close to victory - under the assumption that someone else will deal with them, kind of like a game of 'chicken'.

But anyway, that was just one particular game. I just think it's a example of an action-packed ending which may have been less exciting if the AI was more focused on blocking victory.
 
I guess what I was saying before was that the Ai did kinda partly deal with MM , except that it was luck rather than an intelligent move.

Do you think you wouldve beat MM without the "significant war" with that other ai?


On a different note, were you a large nation or did the 4-5 ais make mistakes when they all declared war on you? I'd love to know how you handled that, because ais usually have very sizeable navys, even if they are lacking in land forces. And you beat them and still had enough left over to go for MM.
 
It's hard to say whether or not I would have stopped MM without the other war.

On the one hand, I only barely took the city when I did attack - but on the other hand, the other war was nowhere near the culture cities. There was significant fighting, with great generals being born and so on, but it wasn't even happening on the same island as the culture cities; so it's hard to know how much stronger the defence would have been in the culture cities without the other war. -- My attack was just a direct naval assault - so only thing that mattered for MM's defence is how many city defenders and anti-air units he had in each of his culture cities.

As for me taking on the other AIs; well.. the truth is that AI's late-game war tactics are not very strong. They just send in big bunches of troops, and I make sure that their stacks have to step onto open-land plots so that I can smash them with tanks and bombers. They lose everything, and I lose almost nothing. - I had railroads and airports everywhere; so all my forces can get pretty much anywhere in just a couple of turns; and I had airships in border cities to scout for any approaching stacks.

Sometimes their stacks aren't quite big enough, or they're are too predictable, or they don't have the right kind of air-support. And every time they lose a stack, they have to rebuild their stuff, and I don't. It's a pretty major weak-point in the AI; but it's not something that's easy to improve.
 
I'd love to see some more late game evil military genius from the ai :D

I just thought of something, sort of related, but not completely.

Would it be feasible to get the ai to place a very high value on taking enemy capitals?

Thats almost always where the space ships, cultural centers, buildings and wonders reside.

I go for enemy capitals as one of my first targets (especially when they are near the ocean).
 
Karadoc I too have noticed patterns emerge in late game play, and I think the game would be more exciting if these were to be changed, although I'm not sure that it's within the scope of your mod. I guess a few things come to mind off the top of my head:

1) AI runs for a cultural victory: This is far too easy to stop. As you pointed out in your game, it wasn't about defeating MM in war, but just taking 1 of his near legendary cities. I really think this should be changed. The AI basically never beats me by getting to a cultural victory (though I lose in other ways), because it is just far too easy to raze a legendary city. 99/100, if playing on anything other than pangea, a civ will have at least 1, probably more than 1 of it's legendary cities on the coast, in fact, I'd say a lot of the time every legendary city is on the coast. Coastal cities in this game are too vulnerable. It's just so easy to launch a sneak attack and take one of them. Therefore I propose a few solutions to this problem.

A) solution A - make it so that a military cannot raze a city on the same turn that it is captured. Make it so that one must actually hold a city for x number of turns, at least 1, before it can be razed. I think this would add a lot to the game. Coastal cities would be less vulnerable and the sneak attack would be rebalanced, because as it is, sneak attacks on coastal cities are just overpowered. I think this is the best solution. You could make it 1 turn, you could make it 5, but anything greater than 0 is a drastic improvement.

B) make it so that the AI places most of its forces in its legendary cities when going for a cultural victory. I don't like this solution as much as A because it won't be as effective. Still, it would be a bare minimum. It would possibly be more difficult to code. Now that I think of it, the best solution would probably be a combination of A and B.
 
@noto2
i approve of that post and wish to subscribe to your newsletter. good idea.

@zarkon and charles
ha, great stuff, this place needs more shitfighting. makes for fun reading. keep it up chaps :D
 
Although my main three concerns are peace religion island, followed by the late game ai war organization, and the ai not acting aggressively/intelligently as it could, to stop others from winning....


I do like the idea of having to wait a turn to burn a city. From a realistic perspective mostly. But definitely not because winning a cultural victory is too hard.

Any preview changes available for the next version, Karadoc? :D
 
Putting some kind of delay on city razing might be an alright idea, but there are a lot of question-marks surrounding it. Here are a few that come to mind:

  • How long does the raze process last - and on what does the duration depend? (city size, culture, era, calendar based time or turns? can it be sped up with more units or something?)
  • How can the process be canceled? (city recaptured, captured by a third party, gifted, liberated into a colony, voluntary cancellation by the initiator of the razing?)
  • How is the razing process represented on the map? (Some kind of new symbol? City anarchy?)
  • Can the city screen by opened while the city is being razed - and if so, what does it show?
  • When are the buildings destroyed? (Immediately at the start of razing; immediately at the end; continuously throughout?)
  • Same question for population as for buildings.
  • Can air units be based in the city while it is being razed?
  • Can great people be settled?
  • Can it be culture-bombed?
  • Can espionage be done in the city?

Perhaps more importantly...
  • Why is this a good change? (Realism? Gameplay?)
Regarding realism: For most of the game each turn represents many years, and that may be enough to destroy a city except possibly in the late game when the cities are very large and the turns only last a year. But then if we're aiming for realism then the raze-delay should be probably based on calender time rather than turns; and I think that might clash with gameplay a bit.

Regarding gameplay: a raze-delay would add a bit more complexity to the game, and I'm generally of the view that complexity should be avoided unless it adds a significant amount of strategic depth (or some other worthwhile benefit). What is the problem that we are trying to solve? It sounds like the main goal of the change is to reduce the power of very sudden attacks, where a big city is captured by a relatively small enemy force. Is that really the kind of thing we want to nerf though? I mean, is it actually a bad thing that it is possible to cause massive damage with a sneak attack, or a massive coastal assault force?

One might argue that sneak attacks are an extremely valuable part of the game which shouldn't be nerfed, because otherwise we'd only be left with stack-of-doom tactics. And as for the coastal assaults, which are essentially ocean-based stacks of doom already, one might argue that we might want to think twice before nerfing what is essentially the most powerful naval strategy in the game. Overseas battles are often seen as slow and expensive and somewhat tedious. Overseas wars typically cost significantly more time and resources than land wars; and if the defender's land is well equipt with defensive collateral units, air units, and so on, it can be near impossible to get a foot-hold in their territory without having far superior forces. -- So is it really a good idea to nerf the most powerful strategy for naval assaults?

...

anyway. that's just a smorgasbord of thoughts on the matter.
 
Few random thoughts after playing a game last night.
1. I have noticed a thing which was pretty obvious but somehow escaped my attention before: AIs don't make a resource for gpt trades with each other. In some situations it limits their ability to manage economy significantly and, generally, it seems wrong if a player can do something what an AI can't do. Can it be fixed somehow?
2. It looks like that AI doesn't transport great people through ocean. I've noticed this long ago but this game reminded me: one of civs got a holy city on a remote island. It was never shrined, though this civ generated few great prophets. I suspect that by the same logic they don't put great merchants on boats for trade missions. Once again, can it be fixed? Also, it looks like that AI doesn't transport missionaries, though he does transport corp executives. One of civs spread its religion agressively but only few of island colonies it had was affected (and I suspect it was an auto spread).
3. In the course of a game I attempted to raze a city with a corporate headquarters which belonged to a civ I already was at war with. I expected weak opposition as this city was very far from the main front. My strike force, however, was detected in three turns before attak. And when I reached my target city it had a huge army in it, about thirty highly experienced units. I had 32 marines in my fleet, 7 battleships, 12 destroyers, 4 carriers full of fighters but still had to drop my plan.
Hence I have questions. Am I correct that AI can understand the threat of naval strike during war? Can he, then, also be made to understand it during peace? And is it possible to teach it to employ such tactic (sniping down important cities like corp headquarters and holy cities)?
4. During the game Mao captured Orleans. It had a rich Islamic shrine in it, an even more rich headquarters of Standart Ethanol and Mausoleum of Maussolus, one of the best late game wonders. Also Orleans was right next to Chinese borders. And yet Mao razed it, though this city could, I think, double his GNP. Why? The only reason I can think of is that Orleans was close to a legendary status and France was heading to cultural victory. But France was falling apart and had no real ability to recapture it.
Actually, I think Mao razed every French city he captured during that war.
5. What do you think about the ability of bribing AI players to start wars in which you don't participate? During my last game I found that it is very exploitable. Basically the game was decided by me bribing Suleiman first to attak France to stop them from winning by culture and then by bribing him to attak my main competitor.
6. Oh, one more thing. I have noticed that AI doesn't leverage corps agressively enough. Particulary, it seldom trades for relevant resources and, as I noticed in the beginning, never buys resources for gpt.
 
I think the easiest way to implement the delayed raze feature would probably be to ask if you want to keep/raze the city only after it comes out of unrest. I.e. you capture a city and it goes into unrest for X turns, and only after X turns you get the usual popup that asks you if you want to keep or raze the city.

This of course might not be the best way to go about it (it would be quite a long delay in the late game, although I think unrest times are too long in general), but this way you could implement it without adding and explaining any new rules.

However, I share your skepticism if the whole mechanic would be a good thing overall.
 
both changes sound ok to me, maybe france could get looked at as well...


Salon replaces observatory, which comes late and is kinda weak (just adds an artist, come on),
Musketeer has one more movement speed than a regular musket, perhaps add one extra power or small bonus vs melee or small bonus vs mounted?
 
^ I think a buff to the dun is a great idea. I also second the notion that France needs a buff, the musketeer is worthless in single player, and the salon is weak.

- Okay, in response to the razing discussion. I guess I should be more clear - I'm more concerned about the amphibious sneak attack function than I am of razing itself. Karadoc, think of it this way:
imagine you are in a late-game space race that is neck and neck. You and an AI are both about 10 turns away from launching a space ship. You are equals in tech and economy but the AI has a much larger military. Now imagine 2 scenarios:
Scenario 1 - the AI's capital is far, far in land. In this situation, if you were to go to war with them to slow the ship launch or to capture their capital, you'd have to fight it out and actually beat them in the war.
Scenario 2 - the AI's capital is on the coast. Well in this scenario I'd give you a 99% chance of winning. It doesn't matter if the AI has 5 times as many military units, or 10 times. It doesn't matter if the AI is far ahead in tech, has 5 times your GNP, MFG, and 20 times the number of military units, you will still win, because all you have to do is drop a nuke on their capital and have a boat or two full of marines, and you take it. Or just have several boats full of marines backed up by battleships for bombardment, and you take it.

What I'm trying to convey is that the enemy having a legendary city or capital city on the coast makes or breaks the game. If there were no coastal targets, you'd have to actually land a beach-head and actually win the war. When the target is coastal all you have to do is take the city for 1 turn and you win the game.

It seems like a cheap exploit to me, and it's game-breaking. You see, on land, this doesn't happen. Usually on land when you declare war and cross the border you can't attack a city on the same turn, so the invaded country has a turn to react. Sometimes, however, due to short culture borders and/or fast units, you can attack on the same turn, but in any case it is almost never a major city. You can sometimes lose a fringe, a border city on the turn of invasion, but you would never lose your capital or major core city like this. However, with naval warfare, all coastal cities are up for grabs. You might be far ahead in tech, economy, and military, and yet any of your coastal cities could potentially be taken by a sneak attack.
I think this is very bad for balance. Especially in a game when losing the capital or losing a legendary city means the difference between victory and defeat. Also, the AI does not know this or how to prepare for it.
So that is my beef. I don't think the game should be decided by whether the AI's capital is on the coast or in-land. I think coastal invasions are too overpowered. I'm not sure how to solve that problem which is why I suggested the raze delay because it seemed like the most straight-forward solution. Another solution might be to say that ships that enter enemy territory cannot disembark on the same turn.

I say all this because I thought Kmod was about making the AI smarter, so that we had to beat it without using "gamey" exploits. If an AI is far more advanced than me and has a much bigger military, I shouldn't be able to raze a capital city simply because I had a couple of transports full of marines and a few battleships. If an AI is ahead of me in GNP, MFG, military, tech, and diplomacy, I should lose that game, boatloads of marines or not. If I win a game, it should be because I outplayed the AI throughout the game, not because I know a silly endgame move that is broken and overpowered.

Am I the only one who feels this way? If so, I'll let it go and just play with razing turned off I suppose.

If you are in agreement with me, what would be a better solution? Raze delay? Or making it so naval units cannot disembark on the same turn they enter enemy territory? Personally I would prefer the latter solution but I'm fine with either. As for raze delay...honestly, even just a straight out 1 turn delay would be an enormous improvement in my opinion. I think the raze delay should be independent of everything else. For example, you take a city, and on that turn you can't do anything with it - you can't culture bomb it, you can't raze it, the only thing you can do is inspect it. You have to wait until the next turn before you can do anything with it.
 
I just thought of something. You can put your air units on intercept, and that way, even if you get suprised DOW'd, your air units will defend your skies against enemy air units. Just as your ground units defend your cities when surprise attacked - you don't need to give them orders to defend.
So then why can't the navy do this? You could have dozens of ships, battleships, destroyers, subs, and aircraft sitting in a coastal city or even in the water outside it. If the enemy declares war, they can leisurely sail right by your navy, wave at them, and then proceed to invade and raze your coastal city. Your ships won't respond to the threat at all. This really bugs me.
 
Im not sure if I really want the razing change anymore, but I do like the intercept battleship type idea 100%.

And even ai France always does badly in my games...
 
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