Prince and AI cheating

[JujuLautre]

Well, first input, do not automate workers

I decided to not go for any improvements other than Oracle and I got that and took metal casting with it.

Oracle iw a world wonder, not an improvement. And if you don't build any improvement, no wonder you let the AI go away in tech/production, since improvements do everything (or almost everything)

 

[uanmi]

I normally have one worker per city in the early game and the worker is automated. I have seen that everyone thinks this is bad, so I will read about the improvements to make without using automated.

regards, Mark

 

[Lemminkäinen]

But why do you play with such weird settings? With only one AI you lose lots and lots of the gameplay with religions and diplomacy and all that stuff. Also, it skews with the balance somewhat fiercely. An Imperialistic AI that expands aggressively (say, Charlemagne, Joao II) will be a lot harder to deal with than a more cautious one (say, Toku).

Also, how were you able start chopping in ten turns (when the opposing scout came into view)? You need a Worker and BW for that, and getting both of those in ten turns is somewhat impossible.

 

[IronCrown]

This thread makes me think of a guy who fuels his car with olive oil and then complains loudly that the other drivers cheat because they are all faster than him.

Seriously though, the relevant game mechanics are open to everyone. We know exactly what the AI can do because we can look at the program code! That's why we can tell you that your accusations are just plain false.

uanmi, you should post a savegame. Preferably one some turns before the AI "steals" the pyramids from you.

 

[ZPV]

I have been playing with roman and as I said against barbarians and one random ai on prince. Great plains and large map.

I think this may be part of your problem. 1v1 . On a large map!
You get this in MP, certainly and RTS games, but I don't think this is how CIV was designed to be played.

The AI gets large discounts on city maintenance, so it's no wonder they can expand a lot into all that space. I would suggest playing on a standard size map with 6 or 7 AIs. This means that everyone can expand to a certain point, and then space runs out and you start having to deal with each other. Sure, you won't build every wonder, but neither will any single opponent, and there is no wonder that can defend against a large stack of your favourite unit.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Mark, there's nothing wrong with being a newby. Obviously everyone is at some point. Even if you have played 60 games you are still relatively new to the game, especially since you seem to be playing all the games as duels. In my opinion duels are actually pretty easy against AIs and are only interesting with other human players. Also, you don't learn very much from duels because they are very fast and as someone else noted, involve practically no diplomacy or long term strategy other than kill the other player.

You need to stop denying there is any fault with your playstyle. Things like the fact you automate any workers at all are clear indicators to all experienced players on these boards that you are a beginner in some sense. Keep listening to their advice and learn that it is your differing playstyle from game to game that is causing different results - not an AI that is reacting to your strategy. Believe us, if the AI were that smart we'd probably be delighted!

Probably the best thing you can do to get the best advice is to post a gamesave or two from games where you believe you are doing poorly or games where you are doing well. From gamesaves, experienced players can usually pick up on details the player may have overlooked and give much better advice. That is to say, most players will have certain flaws in their playstyles that they wouldn't recognise until someone else points it out to them.

Realistically, if you have played fewer than 500 games then there would be many things you could learn from others. Ok the 500 is fairly arbitrary but definitely 60 duels does not make you a master. Since this is a Civ dedicated site, you might be surprised to learn many of the players here have been playing the Civ games since the early 90s when Civ1 was all the rage! I'd dare say some of those players have spent more time playing Civ games than some people have spent in education (k-12) their whole life!

 

[OTAKUjbski]

Since this is a Civ dedicated site, you might be surprised to learn many of the players here have been playing the Civ games since the early 90s when Civ1 was all the rage!

That brings back memories. Civilization was the first computer game I ever played. I owned it before I even owned a computer! My brother and I spent countless hours at the local library playing Civ on their computer -- so much so the library instituted a sign-up schedule and usage limits to justify kicking us off.

Those were certainly the days.

On Noble I win every game. I do not chop at all and only have two workers on building cottages, the rest on auto.
...
I appreciate the "newby" thing here, but alas I am not.

As others have noted, duels are not indicative of skill level. I can barely win on Emperor most nights, but I can consistently win Deity duels with relative ease. (Does this make me a "Deity player"? Certainly not.)

Furthermore, we can't stress enough how much you shouldn't automate Workers. Not only does the AI choose terrible improvements for your cities, but it is even manages to do so in the most inefficient, turn-wasting method possible.

Instead of automating your Workers, learn to read the land and specialize your cities. Once you've determined what kind of city you have on your hands, choosing the right improvements becomes simple.

(If you automate your Workers for the sake of time-management, then you should consider holding down {SHIFT} while issuing a chain of multiple orders to create a queue. The Worker will execute each action in the order you give them, so you can easily give the Worker 50⁺ turns worth of orders and leave him be to do his work.)​

1. how many workers are reasonable per city? If this is different at different times in the game, I would appreciate an aswer say if you had 6-10 cities.

1.5 Workers per city is a great number to start with. So for 6 cities, you should have at least 9 Workers.

To determine whether you need more, ask yourself two questions: "Are any of my cities working unimproved tiles?" and "Are there any unimproved resources within my cultural borders?" If either of those questions get answered with a 'yes', then you need more Workers.

2. Has anyone tried to a strategy to find the ai and put the second city next to the ai, and then move the palace there and then to try to box the ai in? I have found that when the ai can be seen and restricted in land area it is possible to win in prince quite easily

Blocking the AI's expansion room is a good idea, but why move the Palace to do it? Can't you just rush a Monument, Temple or Library?


-- more of my 2

 

[DaveMcW]

Furthermore, we can't stress enough how much you shouldn't automate Workers. Not only does the AI choose terrible improvements for your cities, but it is even manages to do so in the most inefficient, turn-wasting method possible.

Instead of automating your Workers, learn to read the land and specialize your cities. Once you've determined what kind of city you have on your hands, choosing the right improvements becomes simple.

Automated workers aren't as stupid or useless as you make them sound.

They are more of an indicator that the player doesn't know/care enough to specialize cities.

 

[Groogaroo]

I used to think I was an alright player at Civ4 and have been playing it since vanilla came out, it was only after discovering this forum a few months ago and reading the advice and tips here that I realised that I didn't even understand the basic concepts of the game.

I'd follow peoples advice here, look at some of the strat guides, particularly sisutils beginners guide(a great overview of the whole game) and posting saves for more indepth feedback on your games.

I'm a noble level player, but happy at this level because I enjoy the game. Now and again I try moving upto prince, if I dont do well(which is often) or enjoy the game I just move back down to noble until I'm think I'm ready to try again.

Don't get disheartened, just play at the level you have the most fun at.

 

[Silence101]

1. how many workers are reasonable per city? If this is different at different times in the game, I would appreciate an aswer say if you had 6-10 cities.

A lot of people recommend a 1:1 ratio of workers to cities. I don't think that there's a solid answer... it depends on how much improving your cities need, your city's population, and how much can be done at a given tech level. You definately want your cities to be working only improved tiles. As a general rule, the 1:1 ratio is a good guideline. 6 - 10 cites... maybe 8 workers.

2. Has anyone tried to a strategy to find the ai and put the second city next to the ai, and then move the palace there and then to try to box the ai in? I have found that when the ai can be seen and restricted in land area it is possible to win in prince quite easily

I don't agree with that strategy. Palaces are an expensive build and where you place your capital is an important production / empire matinence factor. There's also plenty of more effective ways to increase cultural pressure on nearby Civ's than with the palace.

 

[Florian]

Uanmi,

You're playing each game against a random opponent. That means every game you are playing against a different leader, with different strengths and starting techs. With that much randomness, it makes no sense to try to explain the differences you see from game to game entirely by how you are playing that time around. When you see a scout on turn 10, that's because your random opponent happens to be one of the civs that starts with Hunting, and therefore begins with a scout instead of a warrior. It doesn't mean he's teching and building at some crazy rate of speed.

 

[grandad1982]

If you do see ascout on turn 10 , it means the AI is max of 20 tiles away. You should hopefully get some idea of where it canme from too.
Scout out in this direction and see whos out there and what their up to. If there really close you could even rush them and take their capital city.

 

[uanmi]

I decided to uninstall and reinstall the game and patch. Some of the weird behaviour has now disappeared. I appreciate the ideas posted here and have learnt from them. I agree that one ai and barbarians on a large map may appear unusual but I have been trying to learn a strategy for this game type. I'm also playing with 3 ai and barbarians and this is interesting as well.
regards, Mark

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Automated workers aren't as stupid or useless as you make them sound.

They are more of an indicator that the player doesn't know/care enough to specialize cities.

I automate them quite often...................once I have manually set the improvements on my core cities. If I want to workshop over something later I can always do that, but usually once the conquest starts I can't be bothered. <3 fast games.

OP needs to just read some strategy articles/game summaries to see how others play, and if he wants to try playing like that or just dueling the AI. I've personally never tried a 1v1 on a large map, but if that's enjoyable to someone go for it!

Oy, that reminds me of a recent game, where I won by domination, and the ONLY civ that took any cities was some minor barbarian civ. It hit me with a surprise naval invasion of 2 trebs and 3 maces! I didn't even notice them land !

 

[Solid]

Ok everything is probably said in this thread but I feel the urge to say somthing none the less. : D

This is a game that is easy to learn but very hard to master. Meaning it is easy to start up a game and have fun, but it´s very hard to win every game and never make any fatal mistakes. The game are far to complicated for anyone to be able to fully learn. (In my onest opinion that is, many players on this forums come close to master the game but not me, and I played a lot of civ since the good old civ1 days.I don´t play with a calculater by the computer for one thing )

Difficulty levels in this game are very flexible, I play on all levels from nobel to monarch on a regular basis, all depending on what I want to do, somtimes I want a hard an challenching game and I chose a harder setting, and somtimes I just want some time for myself rewriting history and choose a easier one, I even drop down to warlord from time to time, just so I really can dominate the world and win really early, or just to whip Togukawas ass, cause he looked me in with his closed borders for the third game in a row.

The different victory conditions also makes the game fun, tell me how many times have you had your mind set on winning by dilpo, and end up loosing to a culture monger, (that I did not noticed) or end up in a space race when you really need all your resources to your spaceship but you also need to protect your borders...
I also think it´s way easier to win by military means, conquest och domination on harder difficulties.

 

[ScribJellydonut]

It's a game. I play on noble and haven't won yet.

I have not intention of mastering the game. I have no intention of learning to micro-manage my workers and city improvements down to the tee. I have no intention of winning.

I know that might sound weird to some of you, but for me a game is about having fun (I know, everyone says that, right?). Really it is, though. If I find that I'm winning games too much the game isn't fun anymore. If I find I have to learn the game down to how it's programmed to win it's not fun anymore. If I find myself losing all the time it's not fun anymore.

This where Civ IV comes in. I play epic and marathon games and I play the same game for a long time. I like to "write" my own history as it were, and I think being the most powerful civilization is boring. Even if my civilization is being destroyed or were to become a vassal of another civilization(hasn't happened yet), I would still play that timeline, and have fun with it. This is what floats my boat and is the reason I bought the game.

 

[PutCashIn]

The description for Noble level, in my first ever game of civ 4, said 'A good level for a veteran of the series'

Now Civ 1 2 and 3 were complex games, no-console-only-bent-thumb-wannabes-here, thank-you-very-much....I was chuffed (pleased), my first game and im already like 2/5 or whatever up the difficulty scale.

Two 'games' later and I was browsing Sullas or Susuitils Arabian walkthrough, the one were he was Phi/Spi and made a GP Farm out of the English Capital, I was sooooo damn stuck!

I did better in my first game of civ 1, at least I made a second city, all of what, 15 years ago!

Now I'm playing through winning with all the leaders on prince, yeah its tuff, but thier bonus, believe it or not, is pretty much 10%...(95% cost of research/105% science)

Now I know, any game with a building with a 10% global bonus and everyone playing would be building it, but people win at deity where its 50%, so take this into proprtion...

Also I know the AI gets other bonuses, play with an AI as a team mate, look at its first warriors production bar...but its not going to rush you with that warrior (next time, when its an enemy), its doing that so you dont rush it with yours (as easily).

And Id admit quicker than most on this forum that the AI uses your actions for some 'nodes'/'weightings', even in a 'cheating' sense.

But do you remember Civ2 on PrinceAI?

The AI would desperatly be sending in 3 diplomats a turn, stealing automoibile and completely revolting/flipping citys for like 80 bucks and still I'd have gunpowder befor jesus, be rolling through thier citys with anything from musketmen to armour at my lesiure then building 85 million citizens for a phat score space ship win. usually all because I hadn't started next to Ghenghis and I'd built LOTS of settlers at the start.

Its better thats its tuffer now, honestly.

Then again, many years ago I had a friend that could give zeus on level 1000 of Populus 2 a fair challenge, with an ass amiga mouse, (I'm scared to go past 283, which was about 5th in a series of Plague fests)..so maybe all us people that can't do Prince in Civ4 are just genetic mutants.

 

[Airefuego]

You are playing random leader random map - so it's very likely you will get different results in your various games. It's not because of "cheating."

Good luck with your new settings now you are playing more opponents

 

[Gooblah]

Hey, Unami.

An easy way to get better at the game is to start off a game that everyone on the forums can see. Simply start a thread, post a save, a screenshot of the starting position, and your thoughts, as well as the settings and Leader/Civ. Look through the ALCs and other such threads to figure out how to do this. By playing a 'public' game, you'll get better and better at making tough decisions on your own, by remembering past games and what the forum members had to say in similar situations.

If you start such a thread, I'll be sure to check it out

 

[pigswill]

So the settings are Prince level, playing the Romans (any particular leader?) on a large Great Plains map script with standard barbarians and one random opponent, open victory conditions?

Might give it a whirl.

Might post an opening save to see if anyone else wants to give it a go. If I do I'll probably use Hof 3.13 because I haven't got round to loading Bhruic's patch.