Let's Cheat Too! Playing Immortal With (most of) The AI Bonuses

[Pangaea]

Support playing this somewhat normally too. Working stealing and rushing right off the bat will kill off a couple of AIs right away, before the game has really started. Better to play it 'normally' to see how big an advantage the human can get with the same bonuses the AI has.

 

[Gumbolt]

In all fairness to tech fast you need the AI somewhat to trade with.

 

[Htadus]

Just play advanced start, then?
(Or whatever that mode was called where you can buy things for points at the beginning).

Unless I do a HoF game, i nearly always playing other peoples starts. So I have no clue as to this kind of start you are refering to. I thought he world build this start.

 

[Jex]

Unless I do a HoF game, i nearly always playing other peoples starts. So I have no clue as to this kind of start you are refering to. I thought he world build this start.

By he do you mean me? This start was done entirely by editing the Civ4HandicapInfo.xml file, world builder was only used to test some things. Surprisingly, you can set the amount of extra starting units for the player in that file. I just set it to be identical to the AI values. 3 defensive units, 2 explore units, and 1 worker unit.

If anybody else has any challenges for this game, by the way, feel free to speak them so I can either heed or ignore them, as decided by a whim. Rifles by 1 AD is probably impossible, even for these settings. I'll probably still beeline it since I usually go rifles, so we'll see. Furthermore, the AI will still have SOME advantage in tech pace; they still have their iAIPerEraModifier of -4. I THINK that means they'll still get some pretty hefty bonuses as the game goes on. Going to start playing this now.

 

[Jex]

Stopped since I've reached a critical decision point much earlier than expected. If you don't mind spoilers for the map and would like to offer advice, read on.

4000 BC - 3080 BC Turns 1 - 23

Spoiler :

That's a lot of scouting information for turn 1.

SIP, since I value the extra grassland hills more than the benefit of the early corn. The worker can go scout for a few turns in the meantime, because all of the pros scout with their workers. It's such an excellent idea, I don't know why more people don't do it.



Mining first to get the gems hooked up, and settler first because, I guess that's the best? These extra units are throwing my opening sensibilities out of whack. 20 turns to settler, but it would have taken 11 turns to grow, so this is the fastest way to get the first settler out.

You could probably found a religion on this map. I didn't, but with Mysticism and equal tech pacing with the AI in the beginning, it's certainly possible.

Met Mongolian scout to the south in 3880. With Genghis around, this map should be *slightly* less of a pushover. Like, before it was a quadriplegic on stilts, now it's just a crippled 80 year old on rollerskates.



Met Fredrick a little later. Mongolia is to southeast, Germany to the north.





Went AH after mining to make a nearby pig site more viable, and to reveal horses. It could be timed to finish right as the settler was done, so I wanted the second city to grab horses if possible.

Low and behold, the pig site I was looking at had horses.



And that's where I stopped. My question is, should I go for a horse archer rush? I've never gone HA before, but this start seems to be begging for them. If horseback riding is researched next, after BW, I could ALREADY start producing them. That's a possible horseback archer rush at about the same time people usually do chariot rushes.

If I do go HA, I'd like some advice on how many cities to build before committing to them. 3? 4? More? Just stick to 2? And should I build stables before producing them? How extensively should the whip be abused?

Alternatively, this looks like an ideal position to REX from as well. Nobody has been found to the west yet, so it might be possible to block off a HUGE amount of land. The trouble is Genghis. Although he hates Fredrick, if I share a border with him he'll still be pretty likely to declare on me.

Thoughts?

 

[Jester Fool]

Ya, I would definitely HA rush...probably go The Wheel->Writing->BW->HBR->Archery. I would stick to the cities you have now but you need quite a few workers to road every forest tile and pre-chop. Once Writing in, whip out a library to run 2 scientists and bulb Math once GS pops. Then proceed to chop out HAs. I wouldn't bother with stables though.

 

[vranasm]

with double gems no reason to tech Writing before HBR

shouldn't we already have Archery too? we're Immortal you know...

I will maaaybe take a look today since it can be somewhat fun

 

[Jester Fool]

with double gems no reason to tech Writing before HBR

shouldn't we already have Archery too? we're Immortal you know...

I will maaaybe take a look today since it can be somewhat fun

Having played (but not posted yet), yes you don't need Writing (you can research Math faster than bulbing it ) but I still think the waaay early Academy is worth it. Derp...forgot we already have Archery. You definitely should play...lols abound. Spoiler:

Spoiler :

Freddy has no metal!!! Hahahahahahahaha!!!

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Sure, they get a 20% discount to research, production, city maintenance, and stuff, but I've always thought it must have been something like 50%.

It's a lot closer to that when you consider those bonuses in tandem with the penalties the player takes. The resulting advantage is actually enormous, though even more ridiculous by a wide margin on deity.

 

[vranasm]

took continent on horse archers and since i was just too lazy and had 27 cities wanted to finish, but won Religious victory under Budhism (leading religion on other continent)...

fun map...

had factories everywhere at 1340 AD working towards superconductors...oh well

 

[Jex]

@TMIT: That's what I thought too, but for the most part the player pays normal costs, while the AI gets a discount. The exception is research, where the AI actually pays the normal value, and you pay 125% of the cost in beakers. Which is basically the same as the AI getting a 20% discount compared to the player.

(EDIT: Still, as far as player experience is concerned, it FEELS like you're getting some penalties tacked on you on Immortal. As far the game is concerned it just got rid of the bonuses you had for lower difficulties, but taking away a benefit and a disadvantage feel exactly the same. On Emperor the player actually starts with a slight unit discount compared to the AI, because the player pays 80% of unit cost while the AI pays 85%. The era bonuses quickly get rid of this advantage, however.)

Although it may be possible some of the bonuses to production stack. It depends on what some of the xml values I couldn't identify are.

I think what accounts for a big part of the bonuses I wasn't seeing is the iAIPerEraModifier. It's -4 on Immortal, and -5 on Deity. From what I understand now, it is an additional discount applied across the board for production, city maintenance, etc., but NOT research. It starts at 0 in Ancient, and then increases for every Era after that. By the modern era, it adds up to an additional 20% (Immortal) or 25% (Deity), on top of the normal 20% on Immortal, or 40% on Deity. eek Good thing it's applied multiplicatively on top of the normal bonuses, and not subtractively. So on Deity the unit costs would be 60% * (1 - 25%) = 45% of normal, not 60% - 25% = 35%


@vranasm: Researching Superconductors in 1340 AD? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Now that's what I wanted to see.

 

[vranasm]

@TMIT: That's what I thought too, but for the most part the player pays normal production costs, while the AI gets a discount. The exception is research, where the AI actually pays the normal value, and you pay 125% of the cost in beakers. Which is basically the same as the AI getting a 20% discount compared to the player.

Although it may be possible some of the bonuses to production stack. It depends on what some of the xml values I couldn't identify are.

I think what accounts for a big part of the bonuses I wasn't seeing is the iAIPerEraModifier. It's -4 on Immortal, and -5 on Deity. From what I understand now, it is an additional discount applied across the board for production, city maintenance, etc., but NOT research. It starts at 0 in Ancient, and then increases for every Era after that. By the modern era, it adds up to an additional 25% discount, on top of the normal 20% on Immortal, or 40% on Deity. Good thing it's applied multiplicatively on top of the normal bonuses, and not subtractively. So in the modern era unit costs for the AI on Immortal would be 80% * (1 - 25%) = 60%, not 80% - 25% = 55%. Deity's costs are 60% * (1 - 25%) = 45%, not 60% - 25% = 35%.


@vranasm: Researching Superconductors in 1340 AD? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Now that's what I wanted to see.

well towards != superconductors...would have to recheck I think i was around physics x electricity...nothing impressive imo
edit:

rechecked eventlog
1330 astronomy
1370 Physics
1390 Electricity

but it wasn't beelined since I took detour for SoL around 1210 build it
1200 AL
1200 SciMeth (was traded for)
1160 Steam Power

I made some detours for guilds, chemistry which probably some of that isn't neeeded...the tech path wasn't planned too much

edit2:
1420 refridge
1430 backtrade rifles+steel
1450 Superconductors

 

[coanda]

@TMIT: That's what I thought too, but for the most part the player pays normal costs, while the AI gets a discount. The exception is research, where the AI actually pays the normal value, and you pay 125% of the cost in beakers. Which is basically the same as the AI getting a 20% discount compared to the player.

(EDIT: Still, as far as player experience is concerned, it FEELS like you're getting some penalties tacked on you on Immortal. As far the game is concerned it just got rid of the bonuses you had for lower difficulties, but taking away a benefit and a disadvantage feel exactly the same. On Emperor the player actually starts with a slight unit discount compared to the AI, because the player pays 80% of unit cost while the AI pays 85%. The era bonuses quickly get rid of this advantage, however.)

Although it may be possible some of the bonuses to production stack. It depends on what some of the xml values I couldn't identify are.

I think what accounts for a big part of the bonuses I wasn't seeing is the iAIPerEraModifier. It's -4 on Immortal, and -5 on Deity. From what I understand now, it is an additional discount applied across the board for production, city maintenance, etc., but NOT research. It starts at 0 in Ancient, and then increases for every Era after that. By the modern era, it adds up to an additional 25% discount, on top of the normal 20% on Immortal, or 40% on Deity. Good thing it's applied multiplicatively on top of the normal bonuses, and not subtractively. So in the modern era unit costs for the AI on Immortal would be 80% * (1 - 25%) = 60%, not 80% - 25% = 55%. Deity's costs are 60% * (1 - 25%) = 45%, not 60% - 25% = 35%.


@vranasm: Researching Superconductors in 1340 AD? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Now that's what I wanted to see.

The AI starts with a worker and free garrison units, barb defense, and techs. This puts them ~15 turns ahead of the human right off the bat, so you have to play catchup.
Then as you start getting a few cities, the increased maintenance is often just enough that you have to trim back how many cities you have in order to get to key economic techs. While 5 cities without Currency isn't a big deal on Noble, you'd better think long and hard before trying that on Immortal. It's not huge bonuses, but there just isn't that much you can do yet.
When you finally start getting several cities, significant pop to play with, and a real economy (instead of just cottages, commerce resources, and the palace), you also start seeing the AI per-era bonuses kick in; at the same time, you discover that #-of-cities maintenance is much higher on Immortal than on Noble.

So in a nutshell, just as you start to adapt to and overcome one AI advantage, a new one starts kicking in.

 

[Jester Fool]

1210AD AP Cheese...

Spoiler :

Since in cheat mode we start with Agri there's no reason to not research AH as the first tech (especially since the scouting brigade reveals some pigs not far away). Sip and start on settler.

We meet Freddy who's to the north and eventually Genghis (who comes from the south). There turns out horses are by the pig and considering Freddy is a wimp (at least early on) and we start in a huge forest...the only sensible thing is to HA rush good old Freddy. Now you see him, now you don't.

Spoiler :

Decided to build Oracle after killing off Freddy (mostly as an afterthought but also cause no one else did). Not too shabby a CS date.

Spoiler :

Dowd Genghis and also bribed Mehmed in on the fun. Took peace for tech (to heal my HAs) and 10 turns later attacked again when he had 3 workers next to my stack. I had to stop soon after he got spears but had longbows for defense so wasn't really worried about it.

Decided to Lib Nationalism cause I already had MoM and really wanted the Taj. My tech had really slowed a bit due to maintenance (should have built CHs much sooner than I did) so didn't think I could beat Ghandi to Lib if I went MT. As it turned out, I would have been able to...opps.

Spoiler :

I had founded Confuscianism which had spread to Wang early on, and for some reason he built the AP under Confuscianism. Totally unexpected turn of events leading to cheesing out the diplo win. Main reason I killed off Genghis instead of vassaling him...he would have messed up the diplo.

Spoiler :

Not that bad of a score for a cheese run, and incidentally, a personal best for earliest diplo win.

Spoiler :

 

[Jex]

Apologies for ignoring this for a while. I've been a little busy in RL, but the primary reason is the Steam Summer Sale came around, and my free time was suddenly consumed by a number of high quality titles I've been meaning to pick up. With Skyrim + Saints Row 3 + Binding of Isaac + a huge number of other indie titles, it's should be pretty obvious why.

Will get an update either tonight or tomorrow.

 

[obsolete]

The Ai will never worker steal!!

Because it is too stupid that it even deletes its own workers when liberating...