Seek and Destroy Trick - Exploring a Flaw

[MightyGooga]

There is a easy way of finishing off the competition without actually cheating. In my opinion this is a flaw, and for a good game play it shouldnt be used. But here it is, I hope people will correct this in later versions because it takes the fun out of the game.

When you star a standard map, use your caravel (Soldier and Pioneer) to explore all the coast. When you do that, you end up finding where your european rivals are.

All you have to do is park your caravel right by the enemy settlement and use your soldier. In the next turn you use it to capture the opponents pioneer. When you use this strateg early in the game, the computer seems to go crazy, it doesnt o back to europe to get new colonits, it just keeps wondering. You can do that to the other opponent and the its going to be only you and the natives in this new world, the thing is that you will then make use of 3 pioneers, and 3 soldiers.

1 - Why the AI always uses its soldier for settling?

2 - Why the pioneer doesnt run off when you take the enemy city? It just sits there...

Conclusion: Im not sure this is becouse of the difficulty level, im playing the second one, but it just seems stupid.

 

[r_rolo1]

1- Because if they settled the pioneer they would take forever to improve land ( atleast it seems the less stupid explanation I could find )

2- They sometimes run away, but it happens 1/20 of times top

In fact you can do better. You can get a very good idea of where do you start in latitude by simply looking at the land, so you also have a very good idea of the direction you need to take to find the other AI. if you move fast you can get a nice empire fairly soon and warrant a European free continent ( toggle score to see if someone has landed after that )

And copying what me and another poster said in another thread, it works at any dificulty level, at any speed , at any map size ( well, it will work better in some combinations than others, but atleast is almost assured that you can get atleast a city from the other europeans and a nice stream of colonists with tools if you cant capture the cities.

 

[MightyGooga]

I imagined that at other difficulty levels the problem would be solved by adding an extra soldier.

How could they let this pass. I dont think this is a real trait in the game core. I mean, France would send more man, they wouldnt let this go down like that.

Despite of the fact that the game still is a lot of fun, this little thing kind of takes the magic out of it... I cant never start without going after some european... That means they always choose the initial settling spot. If ou raise the city you are not able to get the weaponery.

 

[Refar]

Got to love the French beeing my neighbour. They get a Hardened Pioneer as starting unit

Killed them a few times, and let them respawn - dumbly settling the same spot, right next to my Dragoon.
Got more hardened Pioneers than i ever could afford in europe at this point.

Not to mention the XP...

This respawning got to be the most pointless thing in the game.
After they got squashed the first time, why would someone assume giving them another Caravell+Soldier+Worker @ Turn n+x will do them any good ?!
More so making them respawn at exactly the same spot over and over again.

 

[Mutineer]

On revolutionary they some times keep 50 guns, so when attacking you suddenly attacking soldier and can loose. When declare war AI starting ruhing stokades, making you need to have 2 dragoon to garanty taking city.

 

[MightyGooga]

Well, even then... The mechanics should be better thought of. All they had to do is, start the colony with the pioneer and then wait for the first colonist to arrive from europe. This is what the human player would do if the game was for real. I always leave my soldier to defend the settlement. I mean i used to leave the soldier there. In the early game there is no threat.

How could they solve this?

1 - They could add pirates, but we learned that the privateer could unbalance the game

2 - They could set some natives to be agressive from the start

3 - They could randomize the decision to start the colony with the soldier

Well thats my two cents.

 

[obsolete]

Relax folks, you can win this on deity easy without even attacking a damn settlement, (or even building anything). I think we are worried about stuff that needs not worrying about at this point.

 

[tour86rocker]

This respawning got to be the most pointless thing in the game.

Maybe one way they could make it harder to re-squash AI's would be to make them respawn on the west side of the map. Something to consider, I guess.

 

[r_rolo1]

I haven't saw the code of respawn yet, but i would not be surprised if it is similar to the mesoamerican mod Spanish spawns: they have pre-determined spawning sites and pre-determined landind sites in there ( in here probably it is not so hard coded , but the main idea should be the same )

My observations ( that are pretty much in line of Refar ones ) point to the fact that each game has a preset of landing sites and spawning spots and they only change any of them if the tile is ocupied. Adding some randomness in both would seriously help

 

[Refar]

Maybe one way they could make it harder to re-squash AI's would be to make them respawn on the west side of the map. Something to consider, I guess.

Or just give them something to respawn with... Like double the units they get on every respawn... if squashing them for the 15-nth time would make them respawn with 2^16 units, i would concider to just let them live...

Tho personally i would prefer them not respawning at all.

 

[tour86rocker]

Well, you could let them live by just leaving them a single colony. But with your idea you'd be creating a pretty considerable INCENTIVE for losing all of your units to Indians.

 

[Refar]

The Human of course shouldnt respawn at all.
but you are right... Loosing a few times to natives, so the king give you enought units to just beat the REF sonunds fun.

 

[kingofbirds]

I noticed that if I left their caravel alone, the ship sort of "got lost" eventually and just wandered around the map. I was not required to continually destroy a respawn. I am not sure what stopped them from getting more men off the docks, but I guess they eventually ran out of money after I destroyed enough settlements. You might want to let one ship each survive and see if they stop bothering you. It worked for me, I had no worries for at least a century. My privateer / scouts were on sentry.

 

[Refar]

I noticed that if I left their caravel alone, the ship sort of "got lost" eventually and just wandered around the map.

I use Dales patch. It solves the "AI does not settle" issue, which is good for scenarios and random maps, but bad for respawning

 

[utberguy]

Love this flaw. If there's a domination victory I'd have won already!

 

[Andraeianus I]

The AI using the soldier to found a city is a good thing I think. That means there are still 50 guns inside the city and when you sneak attack the soldier will still defend, although without any fortify bonus.

Usually I try to buy some military help from the king early on and use this to capture the nearest AI settlement. The game focuses on chasing the AI off the map as soon as possible. I think it would be an improvement if the AI would start with a couple of extra soldiers which he would use to defend it's settlements. It is too easy/ too simple now in the beginning.

But maybe there is a penalty in the late game that they won't help you to fight the king?

 

[r_rolo1]

The AI using the soldier to found a city is a good thing I think. That means there are still 50 guns inside the city and when you sneak attack the soldier will still defend, although without any fortify bonus.

That only works if the city pop is above one. That is the essence of the search and destroy tactic hole: move fast, patrol tirelesslly ( knowing the spawn points help ). That way you'll get to the cities before they reach pop 2

 

[player1 fanatic]

Civ4 solved this issue nicely, on higher difficulties, by adding extra units to the AI.

It's kinda strange something similar isn't done here.

 

[Refar]

The Handicap XML does indicate additional AI units on higher difficultie...

From Revolutionary:

			<iAIStartingDefenseUnits>3</iAIStartingDefenseUnits>
			<iAIStartingWorkerUnits>1</iAIStartingWorkerUnits>
			<iAIStartingExploreUnits>1</iAIStartingExploreUnits>

However there are no extra ships, and a caravell can only take 2...
I wonder if these extra units are waiting in Europe... Or maybe those are just "dead" XML entries left over from civ...

 

[SerriaFox]

the twenty turn of enforce peace pretty much ensue there is a least two in the colony by the time your allow too attack. (playing patchmod)