Quick Answers / 'Newbie' Questions

[r16]

ı often see dying workers . Also the single unit they could manage to send to invade my territory . Must be related to that ı wouldn't see their entire unit range across their entire territory .

 

[Civinator]

If anybody ai is running negative gpt and disbanding units every turn, what is the logic or considerations for which units get poofed?

My observation is that they disband units away from their home territory more often, and also that they probably have some sort of rating for unit value that plays in, but idk how that all ties together

If remembering well, the abandoned unit when a civ is broke, is the unit with widest distance to its civ. But in a quick run I have not found a source for it and I cannot say, if the widest distance is measured from the borders of a civ or from its capital as I always play to avoid that situation.

Frequently killed workers are mostly resulting from a different situation than from a civ becoming broke. The AI kills its workers mostly when it sees no further chance to rescue its workers from beeing captured.

 

[bekeleven]

7. How does AA work? How is it rolled? I read somewhere that up to 4 AA stack. How about SAMs? What is the defensive value of one? Do either protect more squares than just the one they're on?
8. How is civilization-wide military strength calculated? I always assumed it was something like generating a combat score for each unit (maybe (Atk+Def)*MaxHP) and then adding up the scores for all of the units. Is that about accurate? Does the scoring metric prioritize attack over defense? That would explain why people try to push me around when I have hordes of musketmen.
9. The AI Attitude Study says that there is an attitude hit for disbanding workers of an enemy nationality. Is the same true of foreign settlers?

 

[Samson]

8. How is civilization-wide military strength calculated? I always assumed it was something like generating a combat score for each unit (maybe (Atk+Def)*MaxHP) and then adding up the scores for all of the units. Is that about accurate? Does the scoring metric prioritize attack over defense? That would explain why people try to push me around when I have hordes of musketmen.

I think the formula is attack strength * 3 + defense strength * 2. It takes no account of HPs, so a consript counts the same as an elite.

 

[tjs282]

7. How does AA work? How is it rolled? I read somewhere that up to 4 AA stack. How about SAMs? What is the defensive value of one? Do either protect more squares than just the one they're on?

As I understand it, the displayed AA strength of a unit is misleading, in that it's 10x the actual AA attack-value. AFAIK, this adjusted AA attack value is rolled against the bombing aircraft's D-value, and if the AA unit "hits", the plane is shot down immediately. Yes, a maximum 4 AA-units may be activated against any individual bombing-run -- but the same 4 AA-units can defend against multiple runs within a single turn. However, until @Flintlock figures out some new magic, they only defend their own tile.

 

[WeirdoJoker]

Last point: as luxuries do not spawn on land masses with no starting Civ, it may be harder to acquire luxuries peacefully (or aggressively) on Archipelago maps. That is, if there 10 land masses and your one is luxury scarce, it will take a horrible amphibious war to increase your control of luxuries. Whereas a land war on continent or pangea may be easier in order to acheive the goal.

That was the point I had not considered, and which probably is the issue in my case. I have 3 luxes: 2 spices on my starting landmass, 1 wines in a captured town (from Ottomans), and 1 furs in another captured town (from the now-defunct Byzantines) - both of the latter on separate landmasses. Even conquering Germany would not yield any more luxes, and I'd still have nothing to sell. It's starting to look like I should have played Continents instead of Archipelago...

 

[Civinator]

7. How does AA work? How is it rolled? I read somewhere that up to 4 AA stack. How about SAMs? What is the defensive value of one? Do either protect more squares than just the one they're on?

 

[justanick]

Yes, a maximum 4 AA-units may be activated against any individual bombing-run -- but the same 4 AA-units can defend against multiple runs within a single turn.

Yes, they can in theory defend against an infinite amount of bombing runs in a single turn. That does mitigate that only 1/10th of the AA value is used.

 

[justanick]

I think the formula is attack strength * 3 + defense strength * 2. It takes no account of HPs, so a conscript counts the same as an elite.

It does take HP into account, so damaged units count less. Also defensive boni are considered, so while on the surface offensive units seem favoured, for units fortified in cities(size 7 to 12) defences counts more. The bombardement value B is also considered, but it has little impact.

Military strenght = B + HP*(3*A+2*D)

A unit fortified(+25%) in a city(+50%) on plains(+10%) gets +85% on defence. Let us compare veteran units with full HP.

Ancient Cavalry: 0 + 5*(3*3+2*2*1.85) = 82
Pike: 0 + 4*(3*1+2*3*1.85) = 56.4
MedInf: 0 + 4*(3*4+2*2*1.85) = 77.6
Knight: 0 + 4*(3*3+2*3*1.85) = 92.4
War Elefant: 0 + 5*(3*3+2*3*1.85) = 115.5
Longbow: 2 + 4*(3*4+2*1*1.85) = 64.8
Musket: 0 + 4*(3*2+2*4*1.85) = 83.2
Cavalry: 0 + 4*(3*6+2*3*1.85) = 116.4
Rifleman: 0 + 4*(3*4+2*6*1.85) = 136.8
Infantry: 0 + 4*(3*6+2*10*1.85) = 220
Tank: 0 + 4*(3*16+2*8*1.85) = 310.4
MechInf: 0 + 4*(3*12+2*18*1.85) = 410.4
Modern Armour: 0 + 4*(3*24+2*16*1.85) = 524.8

Militärstärke (Civ3) – CivWiki

civ-wiki.de

 

[Fergei]

My continued failure to make the AI Mongols mighty makes me think the issue may be more deepseated.
(even a 3/1/3 master horseman at mathematics, UU boosted to 5/2/3 and available at polytheism seemingly does nothing)

Q1: do you think the AI is particularly bad at offensive campaigns when using units with a movement speed >1?

(I think they are, as I only see them doomstack with movement speed 1 units and it is arguably a doomstack that gives them the greatest chance of an early capture of a city).

Q2: has anyone ever seen the Zulus doomstack Impi and horsemen (both movement of 2)? I haven't.

Utterly tragically, I am considering giving the Mongols a mighty horse unit with a movement speed of 1, so it doomstacks! It may be the least worst option to try and make them terrifying and get them in the lead prior to them getting their UU.

 

[justanick]

(even a 3/1/3 master horseman at mathematics, UU boosted to 5/2/3 and available at polytheism seemingly does nothing)

Those are some weak defence values. Weak defence values make it easy to defend against them. Those two units, if intended to be strong, should not be weaker than ancient cavalry with 3/2/2/+1 and war elefants with 4/3/2/+1. As my post above implies those extra HP matter. Also of course the mere amount of units matters a lot. An UU with 5/3/3/+1 and blitz would probably make an impact if AI can build and maintain them at scale.

 

[Vuldacon]

Absolutely, the Defense and Hit Point settings make the most deference for Units.
... Multiple Hit Points also help against the "Random Play" factor in battles.

 

[tjs282]

Q1: do you think the AI is particularly bad at offensive campaigns when using units with a movement speed >1?

They're very good at Cav-rushes, but I think that's mainly because of the M=3, which frequently allows them to cross borders and capture a town(s), all within a single turn.

Conversely, an M-value of 2 often allows fast units to rush ahead of the M=1 units (including the defensive- and bombard-units), without leaving them enough/any movement points to actually take a town that's reached 100+ Culture. So the fast-units are now exposed to (potentially massive) counterattacks during the next players' turn, and killed or forced to retreat before they have a chance to do what they were sent to do.

One way to mitigate that would indeed be to slow down the fast-units -- but rather than giving them M=1, instead you could give all land-terrain a move-cost of (at least) 2, so that all attacking units get bunched up as they cross a border -- and are then forced to advance as a coherent stack -- while still allowing fast-units to retreat if losing.

If you did that, though, you would also need to reduce the Worker-job durations accordingly -- assuming you want to keep those roughly in line with the standard game.

 

[WeirdoJoker]

Playing as Spain (random draw), UU is the Conquistador. Short question: what good is it, when it becomes available with Astronomy?

 

[tjs282]

Playing as Spain (random draw), UU is the Conquistador. Short question: what good is it, when it becomes available with Astronomy?

Not great. Stats-wise it's basically an Ancient Cav but it costs nearly twice as much (70 vs. 40 shields), and doesn't have the bonus HP. Conqs also need Horses (IIRC? Or maybe that was just in my mod...) and must be built from scratch, since Spain is REL+SEA so can't build Scouts (in unmodded C3C) and — again IIRC — Bella can't build Explorers, either.

Their superpower is that they treat All Terrain As Roads, but although that does not seem worth that extra 30 shields, if you can find -- or create! -- an opponent without Iron or Salt (i.e. the best units they can field are Horsemen, Archers/LBMs and Spears), then ATAR will let you slice through them pretty fast.

And while individual Conqs are weaker on attack than both Knights and ACavs, ATAR also makes them pretty good at pillaging out those resources in the initial stages of a war — and a Conq Army is absolutely godly at it (because pillaging costs an Army no move-points, it could fully pillage up to 9 adjacent tiles per turn!).

Even assuming no RoP-violations, anything less than 6 tiles (or 9 tiles, with a Conq-Army) inside an enemy's border is therefore immediately vulnerable to pillaging with a cross-border raid. If you can arrange to end a pillaging unit's move on an (Iron-) Hill or Mountain, that will also improve their meager D=2 (and they can also retreat if redlined by slow unit — though only by 1 tile).

 

[WeirdoJoker]

Not great.

Unfortunately, neither was my starting position, which had a cow and wheat, but was in plains & no grassland to be seen, which is playing hell with my ability to grow a town (other than the capital) fast enough to get some real settlers out. Thinking of starting over w/ the same civs but a different map.

 

[tjs282]

Unfortunately, neither was my starting position, which had a cow and wheat, but was in plains & no grassland to be seen, which is playing hell with my ability to grow a town (other than the capital) fast enough to get some real settlers out.

No freshwater anywhere nearby that you could chain-irrigate back to your 1st-ring? If not, that might actually be an argument for using your capital to splatter low-pop ICS'd towns all over your starting area, and go Feudal instead of Republic (despite the extra time in Despotism) until you get Electricity. At least Spain is REL for quick gov-changes...

Or, as you say, just bag this attempt and start again

 

[vorlon_mi]

Playing as Spain (random draw), UU is the Conquistador. Short question: what good is it, when it becomes available with Astronomy?

Another way to view the Conq is an Explorer that can defend itself. Since I never build explorers (don't know many who do), that makes the Conq a lot less interesting. It's at least possible to get a victory with a Conq on a redlined unit to start your golden age. It won't be a Despotism GA, unless you've stayed in Despotism abnormally long.

 

[vmxa]

Conquistador's are the reason I dislike having Spain in an AW game. You have to cover too many tiles as the can move a long ways. Hell on workers and empty towns, making me need a lot more units to defend.

 

[r16]

conquistadors are my most hated enemy in ordinary games . Too fast in penetrating the frontier and ending up in undefended towns , because ı would be skimping on units to build city improvements because Modern Armour is everything . Until railroads come on , it is a dreadful thing .