First question - yes, there is an option for Aggressive AI if you start a custom game. It makes the AI produce more units, and declare war more often.
As already mentioned the Aggressive AI (AAI) option could be selected. In BtS, this does not in itself cause the AIs to attack more often or even cause a diplomatic malus that may cause an AI to plot war. It does indirectly cause AI Civs to declare War, because they have built more units and thus have a higher Power rating as a result. It causes the AI to build more units and oddly enough, agree to Cease Fires sooner. With AAI on, the AI will give better Peace Treaty terms if one or more of their cities are threated by one's military units within 2 plots of the city center.
Ty, I never noticed that there was such an option. The description seems like it will make the game go the extreme opposite (TOO MUCH war) or it will make too easy for me to go ahead in culture/science, but I will give it a try.
Bare with me, as I tend to be rather blunt with new players asking advice with long histories, as described, of stagnant and stubborn playstyles.
They will often tell new players to play these "normal" game settings to improve, despite the fact that new players have often clearly defined the type of game they play and want to continue playing. In contrast, I believe we should help new players play the types of games they tell us they want to play.
In my opinion though, we are all entirely missing the full richness of all possible types of BtS games, where game speed varies between Quick, Normal, Epic, and Marathon speeds. Quick speed games can be particularly challenging. Map size varying between Duel and Huge also greatly changes the character of the game. Non-Ancient Era starts are a typically untouched Treasure Trove of games that one rarely sees discussed on Strategy and Tips. I believe it is good and fun to beat games with all possible combinations of attributes (game speed, map size, map type, climate type, starting era, difficulty) and even some options (one city challenge, permanent alliance, raging barbarians, no barbarians, aggressive ai).
The concept of a stubborn player is a very elastic one. One of the things I mostly like about the civilization series is that it fits well with many different styles of gaming. So, what may look as stubbornness of playing in a "inferior" way might be style of play which is more entertaining to a particular player.
Personally, even if I already have my own way to play (and probably won't change it abruptly), I try to keep myself open to other possibilities. The richness of the civilization series is in allowing so many different ways of playing. That is why I never got tired of this game and I can imagine myself playing civ 4 until 2015. Even after that you'd finally depleted a style of playing, there is always a new way to play and have lots of fun. And I am not even considering the infinite additional possibilites which mods give us...
First, to be clear, my general assumption is that you want to improve your game. I may be wrong but that is what I go by.
Well, my primary goal right now is indeed to improve my game. But, by that, it doesn't mean that I just want to play better. To be honest, I've always considered the concept of winning totally unnecessary in any game of the civilization series (just like it is at the simcity series). Of course that some tips are welcome and I can easily imagine myself in a few months (after getting tired of my actual style of playing) having a lot of fun, focusing at winning the AI at increasingly higher levels of dificulty, but my primary goal right now is to optimize my gaming experience at my current style of playing: enjoying civilization IV as a simulator of alternative historical possibilities, without focusing at winning.
Second I usually ignore advice regarding extremely late game scenarios, especially without saves or screenshots. I can assure you your problems date 6000 years ago.
So, my recommendation, once this thread is moved to the S&T forum, is post new games and get advice. I highly advise playing normal settings (not quick) . Civ IV is a highly satisfying game on normal settings plus you get the satisfaction of completing and winning more games. It's a very complex game with lots to learn.
Normal games are fine, but they lack the "epic" feeling that I get when playing marathon games. I felt in love with marathon games while I was still playing civilization 3 and, since than, regular games were never that satisfactory anymore. :-(
As for DOWs there is a simple solution, move up in difficulty.
Yep Lymond is right, it's important understanding that Civ4 AIs are weak on Prince.
Game has so much depth, without bonuses from higher diffs. their random decisions (worker movement i.e.) put them far behind what players can do. So they are peaceful cos they cannot keep up without wars already
I am not ready for higher levels. Even at the "prince" level, which gives some small advantages to the IA, I find it challenging to keep it up with them. I guess I am just too stupid
As for naval, not sure what maps you play but there are plenty of maps where naval is of import.
Actually, I was more kind of expecting economic consequences like disturbances at overseas trade. Blocades are not good enough. Not sure if I (and also the AI) am not smart enough to use it properly, but I always felt that the whole concept of trade routes should be improved in order to deal well with such things. [/QUOTE]
Lastly, if you open up to improving, trying different playstyles , and using more normal settings , the CIV IV Forums offer lots of fun stuff to get involved with, like GoTMS, SGOTMS, HOF, and the varied forum games going on over in S&T.
Base BTS has plenty of stuff to experience and learn without mods, although BUG/BULL and BAT mods are recommended for unaltered gameplay enhancements.
LOL, so many acronyms, I felt like reading a technical text. I have to research more about mods to find out if BUG/BULL/BAT works well under linux (I am playing through wine).
Your last question suggests you got a bit bored, and i think if you consider the options you used you will see why that's no surprise.
2) You want the AI Civs to attack you, and you are building enough units (Power) to discourage their attacks.
As already mentioned the Aggressive AI (AAI) option could be selected. In BtS, this does not in itself cause the AIs to attack more often or even cause a diplomatic malus that may cause an AI to plot war. It does indirectly cause AI Civs to declare War, because they have built more units and thus have a higher Power rating as a result. It causes the AI to build more units and oddly enough, agree to Cease Fires sooner. With AAI on, the AI will give better Peace Treaty terms if one or more of their cities are threated by one's military units within 2 plots of the city center.
The real reason the AI Civs rarely attack you is your Power rating is too high in comparison to their own Power. You need to lower your power rating; 2/3 of their power should be enough. You can achieve this by stop building military units, march military units to your potential opponent and give them away via Open Borders. You want to appear weak while really being strong (one of the real Sun Tzu's Art of War rules). One way to appear weak and be strong, is have several prewhipped yet not completed military unit of different types in the queues of as many cities as possible; After the AI declares War, assuming you are as weak as your Power rating shows, complete these builds one per turn and optionally draft the maximum number of units per turn, rotating the drafting cities to spread the drafting unhappiness; your Power rating will rocket up, but its too late for the poor AI. The AIs still need to desire attacking you though; appearing weak or really being weak is not enough ...
They will also not likely attack you, if your Diplomacy with them is Pleased of Friendly, though some AIs will plot against you at Pleased and some even at Friendly I believe. If your Power is significantly lower than their's and they don't like or hate you, they are quite likely to declare War on you.
Well, I am not into wars all the time, but at least the fear of war should be there. At my current game, most of the time I was slightly behind my immediate neighbour (the Spanish) in science, so I have always tried to keep enough military to not look such an easy target to them. Together with that, I made consistent efforts to be friend, I even made a pact of defense (that is how my war against Genghis Khan started: he attacked the Spain while I was her ally). But, still, it was too easy, there were some moments in which I was quite behind, so I should be attacked.
Marathon means slow gameplay and is imo only interesting for Hall of Fame games but not for challenges against AIs (in HoF your speed against other players dates matters), and you also combined that slowness with a low difficulty level.
+ huge maps which drags games out further, if you would play let's say Emperor on normal speed you get a totally different game.
Your desire to avoid attacking AIs will be a major issue in winning. Even the Peaceful Victories are often best achieved through some War. Why do you want to avoid declaring War on the AIs, yet you want them to attack you? Well, you can beat Prince AIs peacefully, if you want, but War is quicker and starting Wars at the time of your own choosing is best, thus you should start the War yourself, unless you really desire a defensive war instead.
At Prince level, it is usually easy to gain an insurmountable advantage early in the game via War ...
At Prince level, the AI Civs do not start with Archery in Ancient Era starts and thus have only Warrior city defenders. In my experience, the AI will defend a city with a single Warrior up until about turn 25 in Normal/Epic speed. Spamming 3 of more Warriors as fast as possible starting at turn 0 can gain one a nearby AI capital very early or at least capture several AI Workers. One should attack an AI city with at least 4 Warriors and preferably 5-6; there should be no more than 2 Warrior defenders. The attacked AI Civs at Prince Level will quickly agree to a Cease Fire (preferred so they can be attacked again in less than 10t) or Peace Treaty (assuming they give more that say 50 bars of gold or a technology) a few turns after the Declaration of War. Spam more Warriors and one can capture additional AI capitals. After taking at least one AI capital, one should have no problem keeping ahead of the AI Empires and winning any Victory one chooses.
A risky, but still effective start is beelining Animal Husbandry, then The Wheel, connecting Horse and spamming Chariots. If you have to build a settler to gain access to Horse, (pre)build roads to Horse and consider settling on Horse or settle next to Horse and quickly build a Pasture and spam Chariots. You can easily overrun any AI that has not yet built anything more advanced than Warriors. If all AI Civs have Archers, research Horseback Riding and Archery to build Horse Archers. The Prince AI will never be able to defend against Horse Archers, if one beelines Horseback Riding (diverting only for 1-3 Worker technologies like Agriculture, Hunting and Mining). Build Horse Archers faster by next beelining Bronze Working to enable Chops and Slavery. Consider building Stable in the capital or other cities where many Horse Archer builds will be completed for a second promotion. One should use exclusively Combat promotions, until the AI Civs have stronger defenders than Archers or large Cultural Defense or Hill Defense; when this occurs, some flanking promotions might be better versus tough defenders, but the Horse Archer will likely be lost anyway, even with Flanking II. To deal with Spearman defenders, promote the attacking Horse Archer with Combat I and Shock; he will most likely be killed, but should cripple the Spearman, which should be killed by the next Horse Archer that attacks it. It is often better to bypass Hill cities and any city with high cultural defense, unless the defenders are few in number or weak. These can be tackled latter with Catapult support and optionally War Elephants via Ivory access.
Less effective are Axemen and Swordsmen rushes, because they move half as fast as mounted through flat, unforested terrain. They are still quite effective though. Build a few Spearman, if potential enamies have mounted units for stack defense against these units. Optionally, use a Great Prophet to bulb Theology (Meditation, Polytheism, Monotheism and Writing are required to do this bulb); Spread Christianity and adopt Theocracy to get a second promotion in all cities with the state religion. An alternative is settle the first Great General in the city with the best combination of largest base hammers and most remaining forests; units built in this city will get a second promotion.
The Classical Era war to end all wars: Beeline Construction, build Catapults. Beeline Horseback Riding. Acquire Archery from the AIs or just research it and then spam War Elephants and Catapults. If the AIs have not been crushed/crippled/tamed by the rush types above, the Elepult (War Elephant and Catapult) rush will finish the task. The power of this rush is in the Catapults as much as the War Elephants; build to maintain roughly equal numbers of War Elephants and Catapults and note that there will be large numbers of Catapults lost and few War Elephants lost, assuming one attacks with Catapults first as one should. War Elelphants can usually fight Spearmen in cities at really good odds with the Combat I and Shock promotions, when the Spearmen are targeted by Catapults first. Other then occassional Spearman when one has not replenished the supply of Catapults, the combination of War Elephants and Catapults are unstoppable versus Classical Era armies and that's all they are likely to meet, assuming the required technologies are researched early, enoungh cities are built or captured and most production is devoted to War Elephant, Barracks, Stables for WE without Theocracy, and Catapults. A Great Prophet bulb of Theology, religion spread and Theocracy is a huge boost for this rush and obviates the need to build any Stables too.
All of the above rushes should be very effective against Prince Level AI Civs. Many cities will be captured and the economy will start to crash. Before that happens, beeline Currency and set some cities to Building Wealth to maintain some research. Capture the city with The Pyramids, adopt Representation and run some Scientists, Spy specialists, Merchants and other specialists for representation Flasks (Beakers). After Currency, Code of Laws is the next best economic technology, since it allows the construction of Courthouses which reduces city maintainence by -50%. Courthouses are really the best economic building one can built, especially when building a huge empire. Moderate sized empires can manage by building the number of Courthouses (usually indistant cities) needed to unlock Forbidden Palace; Building it and the Versailles world wonder in two locations such that they and the Palace are equidistant may be sufficient, such that additional Courthouses aren't really needed. Smaller Empires can easily win without any Courthouses, since their city maintenance is already quite low.
So, basically, that explains why I find "prince" challenging enough. The hardness comes from this roleplay of keeping only defensive wars, this refusal of expanding earlier by declaring wars to other civilizations. As the AI is obviously weaker at managing wars than at managing workers/production/science, if the game has more of the second than of the first, even the small bonus given to the IA at "prince" is enough to keep a balance.
There is a huge difference between destroyers and frigates, should be bigger
3) How to destroy enemy Artillery?
There are no ways to directly attack Artillery in an enemy Stack of Doom (SoD) or in an enemy City without first decimating the other defending units in a stack. The best option is attacking with 2 or more Tactical Nukes; 2 Tactical Nukes will usually completely destroy all units in a SoD, especially Artillery which will often be the weakest unit in such a stack. If the enemy has SDI, you just need 60% more Tactical Nukes, since a Tactical Nuke's success versus SDI is 62.5% = SDI 25% failure + SDI 75% success -50% TN's evasion chance = 25% + 37.5%.
Alternatively, large numbers of cheap missiles can degrade the defenders in a SoD until Artillery becomes a target for your Infantry, Marines, Paratroopers or stronger units. Then you can take out the Artillery with these normal Modern Era units.
Fippy's suggestion of hitting the AI SoD first with your seige, presumably your Artillery or Mobile Artillery, will more effectively degrade the SoD's defenders, eventually leaving the Artillery to defend themselves and then that can be taken out by any Modern Era gunpowder unit (Infantry or better).
Artillery = one weapon generation higher than Cavalry, so Cavs are not really supposed to be counter units for them.
Siege are dangerous when they can attack stacks first, but are weak on defense.
So strategies against Arti for example can involve avoiding being hit, and attacking the stacks they move with yourself first.
(you can also cause collateral damage, and then attack with for example Infantry which would be closer to their level).
Thinking about what exactly was bothering me about destroyers and artillery, I've got what the issue is. In marathon, if you are behind in tech, you've got plenty of turns to transform this advantage into a winning military campaign. It even gets worst in the case of major technological breakthroughs (like destroyers and artillery). So, in marathon, even getting slightly behind/ahead in tech is enough to win/lose the whole game, without any chance of defense. Haven't you never felt that way?
I wonder if I should try to learn a little bit about modding/XML edition. I've always enjoyed programming and probably would enjoy editing the game as much as I love the game itself.
I hope this post useful to you.
It definitelly was. Ty.
BTW, your English seems fine to me; I would not have guessed it is a second language for you.
(I did not even notice OP was not native speaker)
Thank you, you are all very kind. BTW, what is the acronym OP is supposed to mean? Owner Post?
(I did not even notice OP was not native speaker)
I would like to clarify though in contrast to Wu's suggestion, that I do recommend playing on normal settings for now simply for the purpose of learning and improving your game. It will open you up to more advice as normal settings are more commonly used. Furthermore, you will be able to get more games, experiences, and victories under your belt. Once comfortable with your progression and advancement, if you so choose, you can translate that learning to other settings. HOF offers the opportunity to play games of all settting types and combination, and occasionally other games like GOTMs are offered at different settings, although usually not marathon.
You will learn many things by following her games here; they are usually Deity level, but most of the information gained can be applied to Prince Level, as long as one remembers that Prince Level AIs are much slower at everything compared to Deity Level AIs.
BTW, I have just fixed numerous typos in my previous post and added significant content as well. I really like the new forum software; it is far more flexible, saves drafts periodically and especially there is no size limit! I probably would have had to break my previous post into several parts to avoid the pointless 30k character limit the previous software enforced.
Unfortunatelly, I don't have much free time to play as I would like to have. But I plan to try it your suggestions. As civilization VI sucks, it means that I will probably keep playing civ4 until 2025, so there are plenty of time to try all different styles of gaming
I support Lymond's last post especially and again all other previous posters. This type of constructive sharing is what makes CFC forums such a great place to interact with fellow Civilization players!
Again, Fippy is a really great player and is always willing to help other players.
I am really enjoying this community so far. I know about this board since years and the latest days I've read a lot of threads in here (BTW, what was that cuthair prices things in the middle of the civilization vi expectations thread?! lol). I wonder why I never created an account before. You guys (and ladies) seems to be cool people. Ty you all for replying to this thread
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