Patch 3.13 early thoughts

[Quagga]

I started a game last night and have been in almost continuous war (none I started) for the entire game (seems that way anyway). First Shaka, with Qin pile-on, then Roosevelt, then Shaka plus vassals. Plus there were other wars between civs that weren't engaged in attacking me. Not playing with Aggressive AI turned on.

I've been playing as de Gaulle (Cha/Imp) and I built the Great Wall, so I have spawned a zillion GGs in this game due to the constant stream of invaders. I had a tech lead, but have fallen behind a bit.

I noticed the trade thing too. Not sure I'd consider it broken. Yes, they often want much more than I'm willing to give. But then they do come back and offer one-to-one trades. Seems like it could be a bug, but it also could be a savvy negotiating ploy.

 

[KMadCandy]

Hmmm...an update on my Wang Kon game.

I have now met a few more civs and the trading 'bug' seems to be related to valuation of health and strategic resources. Trading for luxuries seems more reasonable.

For example, Hannibal has silver, deer, cows and fish and 2 gold per turn available (plus 2 clams that are red), if I:

Ask for silver...he wants copper+clam+corn+pig
Ask for health...he wants copper+clam+corn+pig
offer copper...he offers 2 gpt
offer marble...he offers 2 gpt
...
offer health for any resource...he wants copper+clam+corn+pig
offer luxury for Silver...he ACCEPTS!!!

So, if you offer a one for one luxury trade the resulting deal is reasonable, pretty much all the rest of trading resources seems messed up!

i've had them do that in 3.02 (with solver's patch). i never ran scientific tests but each time i noticed it happening on luxury or health resources (i'm excluding strategics here), my empire was bigger than their empire. so i didn't think it was a bug, i figured they were being clever realizing that i need the luxury/health more than they need what they were getting. they'd ask for about 4 things if i let them name their price, but when i actually got around to "would you accept this deal" with my own idea of a reasonable price, they'd almost always take it.

but it doesn't sound like Drew's empire is bigger than Sitting Bull's ? edit: actually, maybe it is! look at how many more resources you have than he does .

the people that are seeing this now but haven't had it happen before, were you running solver's patch with 3.02/3.03?

 

[Thyrwyn]

I experienced the 1><Many trade issue last night, as well. Mostly with Shaka (friendly, shared wars, shared religions).

 

[bonafide11]

I've never had that happen to me. They're invisible units, so that shouldn't affect them at all. Odd.

I never had it happen to me pre-patch, but the first game I started playing last night, I had a spy sitting in Rome when I declared war on Caesar, then my spy is forced back into my land.

 

[CivAgamemnon]

That's just plain weird. Suggest you file it as a bug in the bug reports forum. It's certainly something someone should look at.

 

[DigitalBoy]

AIs teching faster is a good thing; the AI seemed to have a really hard time keeping up tech-wise.

AI never warring = . In my last several games, I've seen plenty of AI-initiated wars, which was a refreshing change in pace from the AI never initiating war.

Those trade offers seem pretty bogus too.

 

[Arlborn]

I experienced the 1><Many trade issue last night, as well.

Me too. I never had it before. It is annoying.

 

[DrewBledsoe]

i've had them do that in 3.02 (with solver's patch). i never ran scientific tests but each time i noticed it happening on luxury or health resources (i'm excluding strategics here), my empire was bigger than their empire. so i didn't think it was a bug, i figured they were being clever realizing that i need the luxury/health more than they need what they were getting. they'd ask for about 4 things if i let them name their price, but when i actually got around to "would you accept this deal" with my own idea of a reasonable price, they'd almost always take it.

but it doesn't sound like Drew's empire is bigger than Sitting Bull's ? the people that are seeing this now but haven't had it happen before, were you running solver's patch with 3.02/3.03?

No, I never used Solver stuff before this patch Kmad. It really sounds like a bug to me. Why otherwise, should an ai want 5 resources for 1, and then a few turns later be happy with a 1 for 1 again? I just can't believe this is in any way intended. It would make ais even more twitchy and schizophrenic than ever before, and all it would really encourage, is what several people have said:- i.e. "right you moron, I'll just come and fight you instead then".

Whether agg ais is less aggresive is still completely out for the jury, nobody has played enought yet to know.

The non showing culture has been bug reported.

 

[Bast]

Um... you guys want to have your cake and eat it too.

AI warring = AI teching slowly as it concentrates all its efforts on war.

So you want AI to war and tech quickly? Play Deity?

 

[KMadCandy]

No, I never used Solver stuff before this patch Kmad. It really sounds like a bug to me. Why otherwise, should an ai want 5 resources for 1, and then a few turns later be happy with a 1 for 1 again? I just can't believe this is in any way intended.

it may well not be intended, i'm not saying it's not a bug, just that i hadn't assumed it was. they're just doing what i'd do. i ask for a higher price just to see if i can get it. if i can't, i'll be happy with what i get *giggle*. my assumptions and non-assumptions have certainly been wrong before!

It would make ais even more twitchy and schizophrenic than ever before, and all it would really encourage, is what several people have said:- i.e. "right you moron, I'll just come and fight you instead then".

haha now it wouldn't provoke that reaction from me most days! but i am hardly representative .

 

[Arlborn]

Just a minot note now, which is a bit annoying but nothing really serious, is that now I can't click in the name(on scoreboard) of other AI while I am already talking with one and expect the window of diplomacy of the otyher AI to appear after I finished talking with the first AI. Nothing serious, but it is changed. Or at least it is not working anymore in my computer hehe.

 

[LiberiGlacialis]

Grah....I hate making a small XML edit (Tsunami CHAOS!), then having to do it again when you patch....

Looking at whats happened in the first post....I have to try this myself...

 

[Dagta]

The non aggressive AI seems much more aggressive. I tried three builder games last night and didn't make it far into any of them before I was getting pounded by the AI. The RNG wasn't in my favor last night, either, as I lost many 90%+ battles.

 

[Roland Johansen]

No, I never used Solver stuff before this patch Kmad. It really sounds like a bug to me. Why otherwise, should an ai want 5 resources for 1, and then a few turns later be happy with a 1 for 1 again? I just can't believe this is in any way intended. It would make ais even more twitchy and schizophrenic than ever before, and all it would really encourage, is what several people have said:- i.e. "right you moron, I'll just come and fight you instead then".

There is one case where Civ A trading 5 health/happy resources for 1 of such resources of civ B is somewhat fair and that is in the late game when civ A is offering duplicates of resources already owned by civ B and civ B is offering a unique resource to civ A. civ B would want those duplicate resources for a corporation.

Reading your description, this is not the case, but could it be that they just removed the restriction of trading duplicate resources before corporations are available? In that case, the duplicates could be used for trading by civ B, not that useful and thus not that valuable.

By the way, a bit off topic, but in civ3, resources were valued by how much happiness they would bring your empire and thus a large empire would have to pay more for resources. I've never observed this behaviour in civ4, but it could have been introduced anyway.

In its turn, the AI may propose deals that are not advantageous to itself and it won't accept these deals when you renegotiate. This has been present in the game for a long time although it doesn't occur that often.

By the way, I expect it to be a bug and it should be reported as such in the bug forum, even if it's just to be analysed more closely. A savegame is then needed. Maybe I'll stick with 3.02 a little longer. I'm still playing a modded game anyway so upgrading could cause problems.

 

[Aurelius321]

I don't know if this was mentioned or not and I'm too lazy to read. If you have an overabundance of resources and are looking to trade a Civ for the one thing they have extra the AI has sometimes asked for more than just a 1 for 1 trade. The OP had about 10,000 resourced compared to the six the other civ had. I mean come on.

 

[DrewBledsoe]

Here's my current trades in that original game:-



Here's Gandhi's idea of "fair":-



And Bull's new idea of "bull":-



N.B. I don't actually need either happiness resource for a long time either, it's 515 ad and Im in Herid Rule, with several happiness resources myself. None of the trades involve "duplicate" commodities, as in those traded in later game as RJ pointed out.

This is looking intentional. If so (sigh) then it'll just be a fact of changing it back to how it was. I for one, can't possibly play with yet more diplo/trade BS.......

 

[Titler]

Well, I think I can beat the record for most ridiculous request; Just loaded a previous game I was playing (just to see how it ended) under the latest patch, and Mansa Musa, who is leading the game, on his way I think to a Space Race victory, and apparently is pleased with me, but not pleased enough to avoid asking for the following in exchange for 1 Oil...

Iron
Clam
Corn
Fish
Pig
Dye
Gems
Incense
Silk
And 85 gold per turn



Let's see... hmmm... how about... NO.

 

[Horace]

ive found they have always been reluctant to give away any strat resources.

 

[Arlborn]

If it is intentional, all I want to know is why...
Is it relared with the fix of vassals not redding out a resource for the master?

 

[eewallace]

Well, I stayed up much too late last night playing with the new patch, for about 1.5 games, and here are the oddities I encountered:

1. Very early in a game, and I'm rapidly expanding. On the same turn one of my warriors meets Justinian, my settler and another warrior settle my second (or was it third?) city, Tolosa. Immediately thereafter, I get a message that the people of Tolosa are asking to join Justinian's empire (which I haven't even located on the map yet)! Okay, this is new, but I'm not seeing it as an improvement...

2. I generally play serious science-tech games and if I lose, it is not because I'm losing the tech race. But last night (playing on noble) Gandhi and Isabella were both keeping up with me in tech. Gamdhi maybe, but Isabella???

3. As noted by others, virtually no AI civ is willing to make anything like an even trade for resources. (Money-for-resources doesn't seem to be so badly affected.)

4. Maybe this was just an anomaly of that particular game, but for some reason, nobody wanted to share world maps.

5. And a weird graphical glitch where occasionally the ghosted pop-ups wouldn't fade properly. I could make them go away by calling up advisor menus though. (Never had any graphics issues before, and all my graphics are set to highest level.)