strategyonly
C2C Supreme Commander
If you read at least some of this, you'd know it is an "option."
Called Nightmare Mod.
At least for the Handicap stuff.
NEW Handicap's
- Thread starter strategyonly
- Start date
If you read at least some of this, you'd know it is an "option."
Called Nightmare Mod. At least for the Handicap stuff.If you read at least some of this, you'd know it is an "option."
I meant the new maintenance system
Thunderbrd
C2C War Dog
I think so yes. But if it's really 'off' and there's unpleasing aspects of it, I think we'll need to hear that stated in detail to resolve it. I have a sinking feeling I'm going to be a bit frustrated with it myself because I thought that of all versions we've ever had, just before these changes went into effect we really had the best balance we could have there. The main thing I was thinking was that it was probably far to easy to generate a huge, and I mean gargantuan, empire and that it wasn't penalizing enough past a certain point on that matter. I don't mean the first few cities were not challenging, just that the recognition of a limit to a # of city maintenance revealed why after a point there's no further struggle to grow.
So I have a feeling that it may be a long road back to balance here but I haven't had time to playtest to figure out where we're at with it all right now.
The "old system" was not really a system, more a placeholder and desperate attempts to increase maintenances in the early games to curb at least some of the hyper-expansion that was possible.
Fast expansion should be an option always, and might still be possible with the right Traits, it is the hyper-expansion that was too much.
Regardless of my own opinions though you can "fix" it to be closer to the "old system" easily enough.
Just find the Civ4WorldInfo.xml in Caveman2Cosmos/Assets/XML/Gameinfo and halve the values in the tags
<iDistanceMaintenancePercent> and
<iNumCitiesMaintenancePercent>
then find CIV4HandicapInfo.xml in the same folder and halve the values in the tags
<iMaxNumCitiesMaintenance>.
To "keep" this over SVN settings you can have the modified files in Assets/Modules/My_Mods and just move it along when updating C2C.
Be careful though to not reduce the values too much as there are no longer any placeholders in Civics to curb excess gold through maintenance increases.
@Thunderbrd: These are the numbers to tweak when finding a balance too so testing with various values would be good.
Cheers
Fast expansion should be an option always, and might still be possible with the right Traits, it is the hyper-expansion that was too much.
Regardless of my own opinions though you can "fix" it to be closer to the "old system" easily enough.
Just find the Civ4WorldInfo.xml in Caveman2Cosmos/Assets/XML/Gameinfo and halve the values in the tags
<iDistanceMaintenancePercent> and
<iNumCitiesMaintenancePercent>
then find CIV4HandicapInfo.xml in the same folder and halve the values in the tags
<iMaxNumCitiesMaintenance>.
To "keep" this over SVN settings you can have the modified files in Assets/Modules/My_Mods and just move it along when updating C2C.
Be careful though to not reduce the values too much as there are no longer any placeholders in Civics to curb excess gold through maintenance increases.
@Thunderbrd: These are the numbers to tweak when finding a balance too so testing with various values would be good.
Cheers
To be fair I haven't played it too much, its just very different and I was quite content with the old system.
I play on Giant Map, Monarch, and I struggle to found more than 6 cities at chiefdom even without happiness city limits. That seems to keep the AI at about the same level.
Haven't managed to get beyond Ancient yet (eternity or nothing for me)
I play on Giant Map, Monarch, and I struggle to found more than 6 cities at chiefdom even without happiness city limits. That seems to keep the AI at about the same level.
Haven't managed to get beyond Ancient yet (eternity or nothing for me)
Thunderbrd
C2C War Dog
Mind that I've not played since these adjustments so I'm just going off of the things I've read and may not even have pieced all that together correctly so take what I have to say with a grain of salt. But what strikes me is that I always felt that civics SHOULD play a major role in upkeep manipulations and I thought it had been stated that all maintenance matters were basically removed from the civics to control. Is that the case or are the civics pretty much unaltered under this system?
JosEPh_II
TBS WarLord
You say you've been seeing this for 6 months now. I have not. My last game before the release of v35 was on Monarch difficulty Huge PM map 10 AI. Early game I was ranked 4th in empire size by Ancient era. But 6th in Science as I missed out on an early religion.
With BG's adjustments and new v35 game that I gave initial report on, I'm #1 in ALL categories at 4300BC. I have 12 cities to Hittites 8, America's 5, Celtic 6, Arabia 4 and Spanish 2. Still have 5 more Civs to meet. My unit count is double all other AI's.
I could have more cities if I pushed it (I do have to rebuild gold/turn after a new city is placed. Usually drops gold/turn by almost 40 gold). And this is a Monarch level game so the AI is not getting any "bonuses" at this level. It's getting shorted.
Screenshots at 11.
Of course remember I don't use REV or Slavery or any of the Leader Trait Options nor any of the Combat Options. I play a rather plain jane, what I call Base C2C.
Maybe, before implementing new structures into the game, testing should be done with as many vanilla type options as possible so that the radical Options don't distort the gameplay picture and results. And if you use REV and similar Option you Are distorting the base game play. Whether you think so or not.
JosEPh
Thunderbrd
C2C War Dog
I can add that I was playtesting just before his adjustments and felt the AI was growing quite quickly after I'd freed them up to do so from a number of unreasonable impediments they'd been suffering. So since I made no changes AFTER testing that I can only believe that his adjustments have harmed the AI considerably.
But I'm not sure how except to say they must not be economically keeping in the clear enough financially to be growing at an appropriate rate while the player is able to make tougher decisions in the realm of ambiguity rather than straight black and white that an AI is limited to.
But I'm not sure how except to say they must not be economically keeping in the clear enough financially to be growing at an appropriate rate while the player is able to make tougher decisions in the realm of ambiguity rather than straight black and white that an AI is limited to.
JosEPh_II
TBS WarLord
Can post multiple saves of this game if anyone wants to dig into it.
JosEPh
JosEPh
Thunderbrd
C2C War Dog
AI logs would probably be more helpful actually.
JosEPh_II
TBS WarLord
BBAI log?
See below.
JosEPh
See below.
JosEPh
Joe: I do not know how long you usually play your games but I can almost bet that usually they play out with you being a bit or slightly behind up until a point after which you break lose from the boundaries the AI has and soar high.
This coming from the AI having a decent bonus even at Monarch diff, Noble is the "pure" diff.
All: Pre35 early game when the humans are unable to get more cities to increase their science and gold and production the AI outperforms them, getting a head start. After a certain time the humans start first matching the speed in gaining technologies, then outperforming the AI rather severely, thus playing catch-up. Once caught up the Humans levels are so much higher that they rush past and leave the AI's behind in the dust.
That the AI generally outdid themselves in their expansions only served to delay the point of catching up but it is usually inevitable, unless they manage to successfully wage war on the human players and take them out.
Joe: With the post35 version the AI slows down their expansion a bit, quite a bit it seems, but does so with being able to maintain a higher science output (in %, though with fewer cities the actual number could be less) and the means to host a bigger army if needed when going to war.
TB: I still believe the maint costs for some buildings the AI seem to find vital are too high and help stop the AI from expanding.
All: Other than that the AI should in a perfect world be on par with a humans strategy level, but we all know that will never happen, or not in many years to come and probably never for CivIV, so all we have to "fix" it is to give the AI bonuses. We do need to do so in ways that makes this exponential curve not happen so that the AI stays decently competetive even through to and beyond the Modern Era, and I am not talking by war as any program can massproduce units if need be to wage an all out war, but in the tech part too. It was seldom with the old system that I found the AI any match by the time mid- to late Renaissance came by, even when I imposed limits on myself. (in lower game levels this should come earlier). With the exponential curve in player science the AI was so outperformed that even tech diffusion did not help them stay anywhere near in tech.
Joe: You are playing at a lower level than me. May I suggest giving it until the AI reaches mid to late Classic age and see what they do with cities then? That is when they in my current game, and tests, usually have been able to push their expansion a bit more, and the AI might be slower in your game than in mine but I still think Alphabet, Currency, and even City Planning and Courthouses, play a large role in allowing more cities to be placed for the AI. Deity more focuses on hampering the human player with severe penalties on science output and gold costs, and not as much on booosting the AI as one would think.
TB: Civics play a lesser role in maintenance now, and moved to only a few categories rather than having multiple areas give unreasonable maintenances. Each bonus or penalty now is also a lot more severe, even 25% either way can make a huge difference. Which civic types do you want to see City Maintenances have a greater effect from, and what civic areas to a lesser extent?
Cheers
This coming from the AI having a decent bonus even at Monarch diff, Noble is the "pure" diff.
All: Pre35 early game when the humans are unable to get more cities to increase their science and gold and production the AI outperforms them, getting a head start. After a certain time the humans start first matching the speed in gaining technologies, then outperforming the AI rather severely, thus playing catch-up. Once caught up the Humans levels are so much higher that they rush past and leave the AI's behind in the dust.
That the AI generally outdid themselves in their expansions only served to delay the point of catching up but it is usually inevitable, unless they manage to successfully wage war on the human players and take them out.
Joe: With the post35 version the AI slows down their expansion a bit, quite a bit it seems, but does so with being able to maintain a higher science output (in %, though with fewer cities the actual number could be less) and the means to host a bigger army if needed when going to war.
TB: I still believe the maint costs for some buildings the AI seem to find vital are too high and help stop the AI from expanding.
All: Other than that the AI should in a perfect world be on par with a humans strategy level, but we all know that will never happen, or not in many years to come and probably never for CivIV, so all we have to "fix" it is to give the AI bonuses. We do need to do so in ways that makes this exponential curve not happen so that the AI stays decently competetive even through to and beyond the Modern Era, and I am not talking by war as any program can massproduce units if need be to wage an all out war, but in the tech part too. It was seldom with the old system that I found the AI any match by the time mid- to late Renaissance came by, even when I imposed limits on myself. (in lower game levels this should come earlier). With the exponential curve in player science the AI was so outperformed that even tech diffusion did not help them stay anywhere near in tech.
Joe: You are playing at a lower level than me. May I suggest giving it until the AI reaches mid to late Classic age and see what they do with cities then? That is when they in my current game, and tests, usually have been able to push their expansion a bit more, and the AI might be slower in your game than in mine but I still think Alphabet, Currency, and even City Planning and Courthouses, play a large role in allowing more cities to be placed for the AI. Deity more focuses on hampering the human player with severe penalties on science output and gold costs, and not as much on booosting the AI as one would think.
TB: Civics play a lesser role in maintenance now, and moved to only a few categories rather than having multiple areas give unreasonable maintenances. Each bonus or penalty now is also a lot more severe, even 25% either way can make a huge difference. Which civic types do you want to see City Maintenances have a greater effect from, and what civic areas to a lesser extent?
Cheers
Thunderbrd
C2C War Dog
Interesting logs. I'll have to spend some time looking deeper but it appears that it's possible that the AI is struggling to get settlers where they want them on the map for some reason. They are not having gold problems and the first few AI have built settlers.
Tell me about Hatti... do they have limited land where they are at?
JosEPh_II
TBS WarLord
No they have been unrestricted for the most part. In the 3 screenies I posted above the middle one shows the location of the Hatti in relation to me and America. In fact the Hittite are now 2nd with number of cities at 8 to my 12. And they have a settler group on the move which I have left alone.
JosEPh
strategyonly
C2C Supreme Commander
I think you might have hit something in that statement. But i still say it was something MORE than 6 months ago when i first noticed stuff like this going on. Wish i could find when i said something about it??
Thunderbrd
C2C War Dog
Well... as stated, I noticed quite a few issues holding them up and fixed those lurking in the code regarding holdups on settler generation. That was pretty recent so the problems you noted 6 months ago have largely been addressed. What's suggested at the moment by all reports coming in is that there's something more current causing an issue.
Also, knowing how quickly Joe expands it's not terribly surprising that the AI is not keeping up with a city count alone but I might think they would be doing well comparitively in terms of research (provided they're selecting building constructions appropriately.) On a positive note the civic choices appear to me to be VERY appropriate so that's a big thing there.
His AI logs suggest this is not the problem for them at all and even suggest it's not their economy either (however it appears I've only looked at the few civs doing pretty much the best aside from the human player so does warrant further investigation.)
I asked about Hatti because they were desperate to get ships to help them move one of their settlers. I'm not sure if it's just that the best identified spot required such action or if there is legitimately something wrong. Their second settler did not need this assistance apparently. And I wonder how quick they are to order and coordinate the deployment of accompanying troops as well. Unfortunately a lot of what I'm seeing may be wrapped up in some of the most complex regions of code so It's going to take a very long time for my investigations to turn into anything really useful. I mainly wanted to determine where they were at with their economies and again there's still a little digging to do to see that.
AI logs from say, 10 turn intervals from the start of a game would be brilliant.
strategyonly
C2C Supreme Commander
I am going to look at RI because their Barbarian (and AI) go out around 50 turns and start pestering everything around them, and i personally like that, but then again i know some dont?? I think it is in the dll though??
One thing i just looked at right away is this:
<iBuildingClassPrereqModifier>100</iBuildingClassPrereqModifier> why???
Modiki: iBuildingClassPrereqModifiers The number of buildings which is needed before some wonders, e.g. Statue of Zeus, Great Library, can be build
ours used to be 0, FfH2 is 0, but RI is 75??
I remember that strategyonly reported problems with AI expansion a few times earlier this year but i don't remember that it really got fixed. I only removed one danger check from the settler movement and merged a few changes Afforess made. So those problems don't have to be caused by a recent change but maybe they are more visible now.
About:
It looks like you are forcing the AI to build settlers but i think building them was never the problem. Then i looked at this earlier this year i even added settlers using the WB but they did not use them because they had no desire to expand at that point. Now with your changes they build Tribes and later Settlers but it looks they have no use for them. In my last Autoplay i saw one AI building 2 Tribes and a few Settlers a long time before they settled their second city. There must be something else stopping them maybe it's danger from Animals and Barbarians or Economic factors???
strategyonly
C2C Supreme Commander
OK with these current changes made, i have a current game, in Classical Era, and the AI expanded alot, but only 1 nation didnt, it didnt even have a 2nd city, but the rest are well over 7-10 cities. The weird thing about this game is i had it on "autoplay" for 600 turns, and to find out this is the best game i have seen in a year, everything and i mean everything is working GREAT. Turn times are less than 30 seconds which are amazing!!!!!! All the rest of my games, like the ones i sent alberts2, are over 1 minute and some are in Ancient Era.
Thunderbrd
C2C War Dog
There were some points where settlers weren't being built properly but yes, apparently that's not the only issue. I'm not 'forcing' them as much as I allowed them to in more situations. Economic factors are getting ruled out by AI logs and that's a factor that holds up the building of settlers potentially as well so without those factors holding up the training of settlers it's hard to think that's the factor holding them back from using them.
So threat levels, transportation, and potentially (albeit somewhat unlikely since they don't seem to generally have this problem) some kind of problem with the generation of or use of units to accompany and protect the settlers may be an issue.
Threat levels... I'm wondering if that's a bit more concerning to the AI than it should be, if the threat is being measured appropriately. If a small animal is considered as great a threat as a stack of doom then we could certainly have an issue there. I'm not quite sure how to look into that at the moment. It also appears that perhaps inappropriately assigned threat levels may be messing with worker generation, protection, and function which could be one of the issues underlying this one.
