Maybe it depends on the civ that the PC is playing, even more so then in regular Civ 4? I do not have screen shot, but in my example, Japan had 3 cities and I had 5. They had 3-5 Spearmen, 2-4 Swordsman, and 2-4 Wako? at all times. I was Ashoka, so could easily kill their archers with either the Heliopolis or my special unit. But even though I had their defense down to zero, I didn't have enough units to take them out in one or two turns. So I would kill one or two units, but the very next turn another unit was back in the city. This went on a while. I finally made peace b/c it was a stalemate, and fifteen turns later Japan attacks me with well over twenty units! I have found that I can destroy many civilizations when I play Monarch, but there is always one civ that ends up with a gigantic army that is impossible to defend without basically only creating units all the time. I am referencing the current release. But it seems like other people are not having this happen. Again, I comfortably won the two games I played on Noble, so to me it seemed a difference in difficulty level. I can do fine with culture and science on Monarch, but there always seems to be one empire that has a gigantic army I am unable to stop. I also always found a religion for the culture bonus, so maybe that is hurting me enough diplomatically to make it hard to have more then one friend. Interestingly enough, I find it easy enough to keep the peace on Noble, but with Monarch everyone except for one or two empires is usually annoyed or worse with me.
Realism Invictus
- Thread starter Walter Hawkwood
- Start date
Rosie McCattail
Chieftain
- Joined
- Feb 21, 2019
- Messages
- 25
Yeah, I've already mentioned it at some point. The AI only uses range bombardment as a part of its doomstack strategy. Aside from that, the cannons are just a random defensive unit to the AI, much like anything else - irregulars, scouts, horses, etc.
To clarify: I have never, not even once, seen the AI use the Ranged Bombardment outside of its "doomstack" strategy. It will not bombard your stacks approaching the city it's in, it will not bombard your ships that are approaching the city from the sea, and even within the doomstack strat, it will not bombard anything that isn't directly in the path of the doomstack.
I've read somewhere that the doomstack strat is extremely flawed and very easy to defend against, because the only thing it consists of is the AI selecting a stack, selecting a city, and clicking GO. If you stop being greedy and don't grab the land you don't need, and fortify your bottlenecks with forts and strong units inside - the AI WILL without hesitation smash its whole doomstack into your fort with disastrous results for the stack. That is, provided you actually are on a landmass with bottlenecks. If you aren't, well, good luck playing anything higher than Prince without having to constantly rethrow your units and rebuild pillaged tiles, and build nothing but more and more units, running yourself deep into negative income.
In any case, here's what MODERN siege units have on them. Older units like Bombards have all that minus UNITAI_ATTACK.
ATTACK_CITY is obvious. RESERVE probably just tells the AI to not throw the unit into the fight headfirst, although I have no idea why that would be the case, since with Bombard onwards you can't attack directly. CITY_COUNTER looks like the culprit, though. So if the problem is in UNITAIs, well, it's in either of these last two.
Spoiler XML :
Last edited:
TheBirdMan
King
It's an old issue from sometimes last summer - an issue, that I (still) hope Walter will "upgrade" from "pending - maybe" to "active - probably".
If any want's to try how it "feels", when the AI uses this, then start a game with Dale's mod "RoadToWar". I do not like the old graphics in that mod - but the way it handle this issue with counterbombardments is perfect - or at least as close to perfect, as it can be done in this game.
(post from Rosie):
shrug
In my experience, the AI never uses ordinary (cannon) bombardment outside of attacks with doomstacks. You walk right up to the enemy city that has cannons among other units - nothing. They don't even try. Same for passing ships right under their nose.
Also, it might be the outcome of AI's love for Explore (Automated) order, but if you have, say, a fort right on the border with the AI you're at war with, every couple turns the AI throws one or two fast units at you. It's very strange, throwing singular units at a wall. I suspect this might be the outcome of AI's units on an Explore order randomly jolting around the map. Because they jolt around blindly all the time when on that order with no regard for dangers or anything.
Also, the AI has absolutely no qualms about sending its singular ships right next to your naval vessels (or privateers, although I suspect the AI sees whose privateers those are). Many many times has the AI fed singular merchantmen and the like to my naval doomstacks. Now, the work boats - those have a correct AI, they hide when there are enemies nearby.
Also, the AI barely covers its landing forces. 4 merchantmen covered by what, 2 sloops? Seriously? The guy spent so much effort building 16 land troops and couldn't afford to build some frigates or just more sloops?
Which reminds me - veteran players (you and others), please give feedback on 3.6. I am specifically talking about 3.5 vs 3.6 differences or lack thereof. Areas I'm particularly interested in are AI behaviour and stability issues.
I may take a look at some point, but no promises.
Rosie McCattail
Chieftain
- Joined
- Feb 21, 2019
- Messages
- 25
I cannot provide feedback on 3.5 -> 3.6 differences for multiple reasons, however, I've posted a lot of glaring issues in 3.6 here.
Just off the top of my head:
Naval units
a) AI sends singular uncovered units across the sea with zero regards to distance or dangers in the way. The purpose of the units being sent is not always clear, I suppose most of the time it's either collecting a naval doomstack, covering fishing boats halfway across the globe, naval scouting or attempts at attacking random enemy units. In any case, the result is the unit is usually lost on the way for no gain whatsoever. If not to legit (war) combat, then to privateers.
b) AI barely covers naval invasions. Yesterday a Chinese convoy has stumbled into just one of my 10 battleships roaming the oceans. The result was a complete loss of all 7 or 8 ships for the AI in one turn, with all land units and a Great General. I mean I understand that the chances against a technologically superior enemy are slim, but one could at least try to throw 10-15 cheap sloops so that at least some ships could get through. That said, it was a pangaea map. Naval invasions weren't that important, strictly speaking.
c) AI barely replaces ship losses, and in general doesn't have enough ships. AFAIK the AI gets discounts to everything it builds on difficulties higher than Noble, and it has more cities in general, so it probably could afford to build more ships. But it doesn't.
d) AI throws random ships at random targets for zero gain. It feels compelled for some reason, while keeping a huge fleet in port, to throw just singular weak units into battles they have zero chance of winning. Happens constantly to my Privateers. Also happens on land.
Land units
a) Too great of a love for doomstacks. Build one, throw it at a wall, build another one, repeat. Sometimes it maybe works, but even if it does, the AI doesn't really have enough spare units for other needs. Which leads to a funny situation - don't sue for peace, kill enough of enemy doomstacks, and watch his civilization descend into complete RAGE. Works wonders if you also can afford to kill off some of their garrisonning units, because the AI doesn't really reinforce cities fast enough, even if they're about to blow. I really prefer this strategy to break up larger empires, since I really don't need any of their cities or lands. And that's not even mentioning how flawed the doomstack strat even is by itself.
b) Explore (Automated). Everyone runs out of tiles to explore by medieval era. And then map trading becomes a thing. Yet the AI still puts units on Explore (Automated) order. And you know what that does when there are no unexplored tiles left? It makes the unit move one tile. Then one tile more. Then again. And again. All in random directions, until the unit runs out of moves. Good luck spending 5 minutes waiting for your turn if you have vision of the enemy territory and they have railroads. The order isn't even exclusive to Recon units, Irregulars do it, too. And the size of the landmass has no effect. I've seen irregulars jolt back and forth on a two-tile island. Doesn't seem to happen with naval units, perhaps later naval units are exempt from being put on this order.
c) Bombardment? Bombardment. Or lack thereof.
d) Yes, it throws singular units into combat on land, too. I have no idea why this happens, but I've had it happen almost every other turn when I've had forts at the border with my lovely Celtic neighbor who was hellbent on destroying me at all costs. So every other turn I would hear trumpets as we've killed another one or two of his fast cavalry that he's thrown alone into my fort of 12+ units. Great strat, innit?
Just off the top of my head:
Naval units
a) AI sends singular uncovered units across the sea with zero regards to distance or dangers in the way. The purpose of the units being sent is not always clear, I suppose most of the time it's either collecting a naval doomstack, covering fishing boats halfway across the globe, naval scouting or attempts at attacking random enemy units. In any case, the result is the unit is usually lost on the way for no gain whatsoever. If not to legit (war) combat, then to privateers.
b) AI barely covers naval invasions. Yesterday a Chinese convoy has stumbled into just one of my 10 battleships roaming the oceans. The result was a complete loss of all 7 or 8 ships for the AI in one turn, with all land units and a Great General. I mean I understand that the chances against a technologically superior enemy are slim, but one could at least try to throw 10-15 cheap sloops so that at least some ships could get through. That said, it was a pangaea map. Naval invasions weren't that important, strictly speaking.
c) AI barely replaces ship losses, and in general doesn't have enough ships. AFAIK the AI gets discounts to everything it builds on difficulties higher than Noble, and it has more cities in general, so it probably could afford to build more ships. But it doesn't.
d) AI throws random ships at random targets for zero gain. It feels compelled for some reason, while keeping a huge fleet in port, to throw just singular weak units into battles they have zero chance of winning. Happens constantly to my Privateers. Also happens on land.
Land units
a) Too great of a love for doomstacks. Build one, throw it at a wall, build another one, repeat. Sometimes it maybe works, but even if it does, the AI doesn't really have enough spare units for other needs. Which leads to a funny situation - don't sue for peace, kill enough of enemy doomstacks, and watch his civilization descend into complete RAGE. Works wonders if you also can afford to kill off some of their garrisonning units, because the AI doesn't really reinforce cities fast enough, even if they're about to blow. I really prefer this strategy to break up larger empires, since I really don't need any of their cities or lands. And that's not even mentioning how flawed the doomstack strat even is by itself.
b) Explore (Automated). Everyone runs out of tiles to explore by medieval era. And then map trading becomes a thing. Yet the AI still puts units on Explore (Automated) order. And you know what that does when there are no unexplored tiles left? It makes the unit move one tile. Then one tile more. Then again. And again. All in random directions, until the unit runs out of moves. Good luck spending 5 minutes waiting for your turn if you have vision of the enemy territory and they have railroads. The order isn't even exclusive to Recon units, Irregulars do it, too. And the size of the landmass has no effect. I've seen irregulars jolt back and forth on a two-tile island. Doesn't seem to happen with naval units, perhaps later naval units are exempt from being put on this order.
c) Bombardment? Bombardment. Or lack thereof.
d) Yes, it throws singular units into combat on land, too. I have no idea why this happens, but I've had it happen almost every other turn when I've had forts at the border with my lovely Celtic neighbor who was hellbent on destroying me at all costs. So every other turn I would hear trumpets as we've killed another one or two of his fast cavalry that he's thrown alone into my fort of 12+ units. Great strat, innit?
TheBirdMan
King
No, not all. But I admit, that I do play only on oversized maps (normally 160*100 tiles or bigger as in my running game 160*120 tiles). And because I have disabled maptrading (changed value <bMapTrading>1</bMapTrading> to <bMapTrading>0</bMapTrading> under TECH_SEXTANT.
If I (ever) should want to enable maptrading, then it wouldn't be earlier than with TECH_HIGH_SEAS_WARFARE but more likely later with either TECH_FLIGHT or TECH_RADIO.
Maybe that fact, that I always plays on very big maps might be the reason why "my" AIs always seems to have enough ships for a good fight - and they surely knows both how to cover and to launch a serious naval invasion (I have posted screenshots from earlier games, that proves this, latest here in this forum in a post dated 12. June 2022).
JohnCarterOfMars
Chieftain
- Joined
- Jun 28, 2021
- Messages
- 90
I'm still playing on Noble, but on huge random maps with 40 total civs.
I don't know how much this might affect other civs building large SoDs, but I always try to build up a lot of vassals by friendly trading, having the same religion, and having similar civics. The AI will not attack an empire of many vassals unless it is at least equal in strength or the leader is just crazy. In my games, several blocs of civs eventually form, friendly amongst themselves but enemy to the civs in other blocs. The civs within each bloc trade amongst themselves, and seem loathe to start a world war.
One strategy to slow the rapid military growth of an enemy civ is to periodically review your own vassal civs and ask them to stop trading with other civs in enemy blocs. This encourages them to trade only within your own empire. It triggers the enemy master civ "You have declared a trade embargo against us", but they're already enemy to me. Cutting off trade may slow down the enemy's rate of growth.
I don't know how much this might affect other civs building large SoDs, but I always try to build up a lot of vassals by friendly trading, having the same religion, and having similar civics. The AI will not attack an empire of many vassals unless it is at least equal in strength or the leader is just crazy. In my games, several blocs of civs eventually form, friendly amongst themselves but enemy to the civs in other blocs. The civs within each bloc trade amongst themselves, and seem loathe to start a world war.
One strategy to slow the rapid military growth of an enemy civ is to periodically review your own vassal civs and ask them to stop trading with other civs in enemy blocs. This encourages them to trade only within your own empire. It triggers the enemy master civ "You have declared a trade embargo against us", but they're already enemy to me. Cutting off trade may slow down the enemy's rate of growth.
Walter Hawkwood
RI Curator
Sorry, I won't be replying to y'all individually this time; I made a small patch for 3.6 that fixes some actual errors that were reported (mostly unit anims and interface), and introduces some smaller balance tweaks. Should be savegame-compatible. You should probably not expect anything more done on RI by me in quite a while (or ever - but I am not a fan of categorical statements). I don't feel any real urge to work on RI anymore at this time.
Realism: Invictus 3.601 patch
Requires 3.6 version to be installed first. Change log: - Fixed some unit animation errors - Fixed plotlist at 1024x768 resolution - Carrack unit class no longer called "Caravel" to avoid confusion - Exploration and Expert Pilot promos now...
forums.civfanatics.com
TheBirdMan
King
I appreciate your work very much Walter - without it I wouldn't have played this game for quite some time.....
I hope you now take the time to enjoy for yourself with your great work from the year 4000BC to 2015AC.
P.s.: It's a very nice canal you've made for me.....it only works with 2 tiles - I kind of knew it before I had my workers build this 3tiles version - but I had to try anyway.
I hope you now take the time to enjoy for yourself with your great work from the year 4000BC to 2015AC.
P.s.: It's a very nice canal you've made for me.....it only works with 2 tiles - I kind of knew it before I had my workers build this 3tiles version - but I had to try anyway.
Last edited:
Well, then, before the break (?) must make the necessary statement
. I really liked the latest update and spent a lot of time staring at the new units, as well as fully appreciated the graphical reform of artillery. And in general, the mod is, of course, very visually beautiful, and, for example, the mutual influence of units in the stack is a must-have
Alekseyev_
Prince
- Joined
- Jul 18, 2014
- Messages
- 371
Thanks for the update!
And take your time off.
And take your time off.
AspiringScholar
King
That's always sad to hear, but thank you for all of your tireless work on this mod, which seems to me like a beautiful, complete final product (3.6 itself already feels like a much better version; a packaged deal without any significant rough edges whatsoever). It was a lot of fun for me personally to have followed the development and participate in discussions (both historical and gameplay) on the final stretch, as well. While real life and other concerns ought to take a higher priority of course, I still think that this will be my go-to game for several years to come.
Cheers, and enjoy whatever's next!
Hmm, well, in Walter's absence, it's time to slide into the offtop and talk, if not about kings, then about sealing wax and cabbage
. That is, the realities of army supply, for example. But that's in a week or more.
TheBirdMan
King
Or that it isn't enough, that you kind of "have access" to ressourses "somewhere" within your nation. But that you actually have them on hand for that specific building (stable/arsenal/shipyard to mention a few).....
TheBirdMan
King
Which bring me back to this: No, maybe you can't buy a ressource you already have - but you can certainly sell it to the AIs....... As you can see below, I'm already selling iron to the French - but I can sell more (and I did) and more after that (didn't make a screenshot). That this was a mistake.... well, that showed up later in the game.......The Turks and the French at the same time..... I resigned.
Do you mean the transportation range limit for resources - at least "automatic"? Yes, a topic for a fair amount of thoughtfulness - considering that for a very long time they traded mainly luxury goods over long distances, and then... a race has begun between transportation capabilities and the growing needs of the industry. Moreover, transport has won by historical standards recently. For example, the transportation of iron ore to Europe from South America became a banal operation after the Second World War. That is, the same French bought up Latin American deposits back in the 1930s, but their own production (with very dubious efficiency) was quite "alive" in the 1960s. Аnd it was gradually replaced by imports only in the next 20 years
Last edited:
Mus_musculus
Chieftain
- Joined
- Mar 21, 2021
- Messages
- 7
I'm experiencing a graphics bug since installing 3.6: all land tiles are black. This also occurred after installing the latest patch. I don't use Steam for running CivIV.
I'm new to RI. I wanted to try out RI 3.601. The word map scenario seems to work, but custom games lead to an immediate CtD, no matter which map or civ I choose. I have the original DVD-version of CIV4&BTS installed under Win7 64bit. I switched to English language, but this did not help. Are curstom games not supported by this mod, or what I'm doing wrong?
Snowygerry
Deity
If everything works as it should, custom games are definitely supported yes.
And for most of us here it does work as it should, although tbh. I've not yet installed the last patch.
And for most of us here it does work as it should, although tbh. I've not yet installed the last patch.
Walter Hawkwood
RI Curator
Known, if strange, issue when running the mod for the first time. Use Play Now! once and after that it usually goes away.
