Quick Answers

[Nate1976]

Are there any ways to get a certain civ to declare war on you for war happiness reasons besides failing espionage or nukes? Because doing those wont give a wh bonus.

bring them up in diplomacy, and offer a stupid traide, like a city for one gold. Keep doing it untill they are furious. Then demand they leave.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Question: Where Do I Go to Ask Requests?

Well, it depends what kind of requests you're making. Here's a good thread which details most of the different kinds of civ stuff that people do that you might want to request, and how to contact them.

 

[fe3333au]

Since the AI knows where resources will appear, sees invisible units (I think I read somewhere), etc ...

Question ... has anyone suspected or tested that the AI moves units to a city when it is defenceless ???

 

[Turner]

Yes, it does.

In fact, there's a stall tactic called 'bouncing' or 'ping-ponging' where you put a defenseless city on one side of an AI SoD, and when it gets close to it, you put a defender in that city, and empty another city. The AI then goes towards the newly defenseless city. You can ping-pong them back and forth while your defenders get up there.

 

[Arnold J Rimmer]

Since the AI knows where resources will appear, sees invisible units (I think I read somewhere), etc ...

Question ... has anyone suspected or tested that the AI moves units to a city when it is defenceless ???

So, following the question above, am I right in thinking that this means the AI knows your troop locations etc?

 

[Lord Parkin]

Yup. The AI pretty much "knows all"... where your troops and cities are, where the resources are, where the land and water is, and so on...

 

[Padma]

Yes, that is pretty much the only real *cheat* for the AI: it knows the entire map, including the location of all your forces, at all times.

 

[Arnold J Rimmer]

Yes, that is pretty much the only real *cheat* for the AI: it knows the entire map, including the location of all your forces, at all times.

So I take it from the above that the AI knows the location of your cities before you sell them a teritory map? (-in which case, why do they ever buy them?)

Two related questions:
Is the set up of the AI to generally stop the human player winning, or does the AI pursue some sort of victory target of its own, e.g decide that it'll try and win the game by conquest or diplomacy? Also I presume that when the AI decides that it needs to go to war it is predisposed to attack the human player first, irrespective of the odds of it actually winning the war?

And related to that (especially if the AIs sole motivation is to prevent a human victory rather than secure its own), why when you're only a few turns from achieving either a spaceship or cultural 20k victory doesn't the AI launch an all out desperate attack on your capital/20k city? On the lower levels at least it just seems to let you win which I've never understood.

 

[Padma]

So I take it from the above that the AI knows the location of your cities before you sell them a teritory map? (-in which case, why do they ever buy them?)

Yes, they know your cities, your territory, etc. But ithey are programmed to behave as if they *don't* know the map. (Except they *will* settle where future Resources will appear, and will, as explained above, attempt to attack your undefended cities when at war.)

Two related questions:
Is the set up of the AI to generally stop the human player winning, or does the AI pursue some sort of victory target of its own, e.g decide that it'll try and win the game by conquest or diplomacy? Also I presume that when the AI decides that it needs to go to war it is predisposed to attack the human player first, irrespective of the odds of it actually winning the war?

It would appear the AI is programmed more to "hinder" the human player, than to win itself.

And related to that (especially if the AIs sole motivation is to prevent a human victory rather than secure its own), why when you're only a few turns from achieving either a spaceship or cultural 20k victory doesn't the AI launch an all out desperate attack on your capital/20k city? On the lower levels at least it just seems to let you win which I've never understood.

I don't understand that, either. I had a game recently, where China had been sneak-attacking me through the Ages (and getting a big smack-down each time). We were both building the Spaceship, but I was way ahead. As I was building my last piece, I kept expecting a Nuke to hit my Capital city, but it never happened, and I won the game by Spaceship.

 

[Arnold J Rimmer]

I don't understand that, either. I had a game recently, where China had been sneak-attacking me through the Ages (and getting a big smack-down each time). We were both building the Spaceship, but I was way ahead. As I was building my last piece, I kept expecting a Nuke to hit my Capital city, but it never happened, and I won the game by Spaceship.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, i've played several fastest finish 'science' games, and in order to maintain a four turn discover rate I don't bother with an army. On one of my practice runs I was one turn from building the final component, and it occured to me that I literally only had workers in my 'army', all the AIs had ROP agreemnets with me (to make them like me and to stop them declaring war ironically), yet despite being entirely defenceless, none of them attacked me. They just let me win. It kinda makes me think that that kind of game is in itself an exploit.

 

[Luthor_Saxburg]

So I take it from the above that the AI knows the location of your cities before you sell them a teritory map? (-in which case, why do they ever buy them?)

To mislead you, chap! This way you don't think he knows it ALL!

Maybe the AI doesn't know this is a game so he plays as it is real life. In real life, the game doesn't end - one day Rome is ruling the world, a few centuries later it's the British, now is USA, tomorrow will be... so the AI thinks the game will go on forever as it's real life for him! Don't tell him the truth!

If you keep on playing a game with VP's after the official end, the AI still protects heavily the VP locations!

 

[EMan]

So I take it from the above that the AI knows the location of your cities before you sell them a teritory map? (-in which case, why do they ever buy them?).....

I think the answer to your latter question is similar to the answer to these questions:

1. Why don't the AI Civs always abstain in the UN Election? (viz. If they vote for you, they lose the game!)
2. Why won't the AI with 50 Knights attack your 1 Army of 3 Cavalry in the Field?
3. Why does Civ insist on allocating City Laborers to Forest squares in "Dead Cities"....instead of assigning them to 2-food producing squares?

Maybe Sid has consulted the "Fritz 8 Chess Program" analysts/programmers for programming the AI in Civ 4!

 

[Arnold J Rimmer]

I1. Why don't the AI Civs always abstain in the UN Election? (viz. If they vote for you, they lose the game!)

Yeah, this always bothered me as well.

 

[Pentium]

How do you imagine a Diplomatic win if all the civs abstained?

 

[Luthor_Saxburg]

I wonder if anyone has ever won a Multiplayer game with a Diplomatic victory...

 

[Pentium]

Maybe, if he played with people who have never seen civ before

 

[superslug]

Does anyone know the formula for how much an AI will pay for a worker?

EDIT: I've never used the espionage options much. If I try to steal a tech, do I get to target which tech?

 

[Lord Parkin]

I wonder if anyone has ever won a Multiplayer game with a Diplomatic victory...

Actually, that would be possible. All one would need to do is keep the majority of the AI alive and on your side. (If your human rivals are destroying them, simply gift each AI a city safely within your empire that you can protect, then keep relations good, build the UN, and... bingo! Diplomatic victory. Of course, for this to work you have to have at least as many AI's as human players.)

 

[Turner]

Does anyone know the formula for how much an AI will pay for a worker?

EDIT: I've never used the espionage options much. If I try to steal a tech, do I get to target which tech?

I'm not sure there's a formula, but I tend to pay about 55gold per worker, and this is in AP. So I guess that makes the true cost about 110gold.

As for the espionage, once I sucessfully steal a tech, I see the tree with the techs I can steal as being blue. Basically, you can only steal a tech you can trade for. So one of those will be blue on the tech tree.

 

[Abdomination]

Can the Sid level AI research a tech in less than four turns?

Oftentimes I've seen two AI Civs work together researching different techs in 4 turns then swapping them. For instance, one will research Steel and the other will research refining so effectively they will get 2 techs every 4 turns