SGOTM 07 - The Real Ms. Beyond

[Swiss Pauli]

Well I didn't get any ultra-early declarations with nothing built, so the warrior doesn't help any there. I got declared on once with barracks and one archer, and then with barracks and two archers, both around 1000BC, so I don't think an extra warrior makes any positive difference to AI war decisions.

One thing we should check is the War-Cautious/Pleased chances of our near neighbours, as this could influence our early choices quite a lot.

 

[ruff_hi]

I am not an expert in code 'decoding' to confirm that at 100%, but that is what the 'experts' SGOTM teams were doing in previous games, some players seems to know the code more than the developers

This is actually a weak part in our play. I don't think that we have anyone who digs around in the SDK looking at this stuff (do we?).

We should rope some of the RB experts in as consultants to cover this.

 

[Compromise]

This is the best researched SGOTM I've ever been a part of. In order to help facilitate the discussion, I've generated two more practice starts. Both are attached near the others in post #2 of this thread.

I haven't done more than glance at the SDK, and that was pre-Warlords, so I'm not much help there.

@Swiss: where are those War Cautious/Pleased numbers located?

 

[Swiss Pauli]

@Compromise - somewhere in the XML, but more commonly studied in Anion's reference guide for BtS (available in the downloads section of CFC). Not found the Vanilla ones, but here's a link to a post with the war-pleased % in Warlords: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5048587&postcount=143 Haven't compared them for changes.

@Team: I tried a Diplo win based on save 2, and it was a nightmare: I knew Fred would be my opponent, but then GW & Ghandi teamed up and, seeing as we were all Hindu, they gained the upper hand. After killing some annoying AIs on our Island, Hatty ended up being the opponent for a while, as she beat Mansa to Moscow, before Team GW came back to pop leadership. In short, we should only consider a Diplo win if there's a runaway AI on the other continent: in one game Ghandi had eliminated Capac and had 4 cities.

 

[LKendter]

I agree this game is doing much better for pre-planning and test games. The team has a much better chance if this keeps going.

I think at this point victory type will be too hard to call. Until the dominant religion is clear AP / UN can't be called. AP would be the fastest, and I predict at least one of the top 3 slots will win via AP.

At this point survival, early wonders, and locating our neighbors appears the key plans to work on.
If a military whacko like Boudica is nearby it totally changes the focus.

 

[Swiss Pauli]

I agree this game is doing much better for pre-planning and test games. The team has a much better chance if this keeps going.

I think at this point victory type will be too hard to call. Until the dominant religion is clear AP / UN can't be called. AP would be the fastest, and I predict at least one of the top 3 slots will win via AP.

At this point survival, early wonders, and locating our neighbors appears the key plans to work on.
If a military whacko like Boudica is nearby it totally changes the focus.

Errrm...it's a vanilla game Lee, so no AP and no crazy lady!

 

[sooooo]

Blimey, I've only just noticed our thread was up . Will read the discussion and play a test game.

 

[LKendter]

Errrm...it's a vanilla game Lee, so no AP and no crazy lady!

OK, I deserve on of these -

Still having an over agressive neighbor is a problem even if my example was bad.

 

[Compromise]

Okay, I found the place for the WarPleased info. It's in BTS's .../Assets/XML/CIV4LeaderHeadInfos.xml. The relevant tag looks to be "ATTITUDE_PLEASED". Good to know since I always thought you had to get the AIs to Friendly before they wouldn't attack you. Now I see this is true only with some leaders.

 

[Swiss Pauli]

I tried the two new maps and they're both quite tough: Capac stole the furs in 4 and in the other Liz, Sal and Ghandi were stealing tiles from our BFC. On map 5, an AI completed GLib in 775BC, giving us a target date of BC 800 to get this Wonder done!

There were a couple of tweaks needed to the save (prob with a crab in 5, and an extra tile of river in four, for example) so the edited saves are attached. I also attach the NoWarAttitude from the 1.61 Leaderheads in a rar file than needs unzipping to reveal the Excel chart.

Lee's right about aggressive neighbours, but that doesn't just mean AGG civs: Peter is as aggressive as Toku in the early going and is braver in battle (and thus more likely to suicide some units, then finish us off).

 

[Swiss Pauli]

Okay, I found the place for the WarPleased info. It's in BTS's .../Assets/XML/CIV4LeaderHeadInfos.xml. The relevant tag looks to be "ATTITUDE_PLEASED". Good to know since I always thought you had to get the AIs to Friendly before they wouldn't attack you. Now I see this is true only with some leaders.

The key to this is that the AI can't decide to go war at 100%, but it can declare at 100% if it had previously decided to prepare for war. There are other checks that will bring an AI out of WHEOOH (power, relations) but I think we'll be luck to spot an AI in WHEOOH in the early going: their power will be so much higher than ours that I think war will probably follow on the next turn.

 

[Compromise]

Thank you for the corrections, Swiss. I've updated our reference post with the corrected files. I've also added the NoWarAttitude .rar file to the "Reference" section in the same post. [I linked the files to your uploads, so don't delete them from your post above, Swiss.]

And welcome to the thread sooooo!

 

[Jabah]

I will try the last 2 saves tonight or tomorrow (need to play my LK142 turns first) and see how 'my' opening goes.

I think it might be a bit earlier to ask (because obviously it depends on the real map and opponent), but does anyone has an idea if Space is really faster than military.

Metagaming and trying to be in the SGOTM staffs mind, 3 months is quite long for a 'basic' OCC race to Stars even trying to optimise everything (given that some of you have roughly managed that with our tests game in a few hours ), while trying to take down 16 deity AIs might need more RL time but less Civ4 years.

Regarding Military, has anyone try to go after an AIs before PA (when having metal vs a not metalic, backward, close AI ?


I think culture is almost out, as it means our capital, our PA capital AND 2nd city need to be competitive.

Jabah

 

[LKendter]

I think it might be a bit earlier to ask (because obviously it depends on the real map and opponent), but does anyone has an idea if Space is really faster than military.

I think space vs. military will depend on your PA partner. If allied with a builder civ, I don't think military will happen. You need a very aggressive civ to pull military off.
This IMHO will be hard to figure out until such point that you know your nearby neighbors.
In addition, if you have multiple islands the AI won't take over the other side of the world.

I think culture is almost out, as it means our capital, our PA capital AND 2nd city need to be competitive.

I agree with this one. It wasn't until BTS that the AIs became a real culture threat.

 

[Swiss Pauli]

I think it might be a bit earlier to ask (because obviously it depends on the real map and opponent), but does anyone has an idea if Space is really faster than military.

Metagaming and trying to be in the SGOTM staffs mind, 3 months is quite long for a 'basic' OCC race to Stars even trying to optimise everything (given that some of you have roughly managed that with our tests game in a few hours ), while trying to take down 16 deity AIs might need more RL time but less Civ4 years.

It's tough to get the Vanilla AI to fight a competent war on your own landmass, esp a low unit trainer like Mansa: I've had him mass suicide SAM Infantry (to which he regularly downgrades real infantry ) against Rifles, and had to wait several turns for him to send units against Japan's last catapult. Butting heads with an AI of equal tech didn't go at all well: typical vanilla AI war stalemate, in fact.

If the stars align correctly, we may be able to PA with a more military minded civ, so I wouldn't rule this out altogether, but it won't be easy to pull off.

(I think the length of game is more the 'house standard' these days, rather than being tailored to this game.)

Regarding Military, has anyone try to go after an AIs before PA (when having metal vs a not metalic, backward, close AI ?

Note sure why we'd want to try this when any city will autoraze if we take it. If you mean get the target AI involved and take the city then I'm not sure whether the shared war will add to DP time to trigger the PA, or not.

 

[TheArchduke]

Guys the amount of testing you put into this game this time around makes me feel good about this SGOTM. Reading every post and waiting patiently! for the start.

 

[sooooo]

OK, I'm just going to spout some random opinions. I used to play quite a lot of OCC, and also played a few games with PAs enabled. PAs enabled is a completely different game of course.

Due to the need for defence, we can forget any of the early wonders. This means no pyramids and no representation. Therefore, we will get our hapiness from hereditary rule, so monarchy is a priority. Conveniently it is also a pre-requisite for feudalism. Monarchy can gain us more than enough hapiness for our needs, therefore we should delay building the globe theatre for as long as possible to prevent great artist point dilution.

Any win condition we choose can be safely left until after the PA is formed. It's best not to PA with your immediate neighbours, but more important is simply finding someone to do it with. Ideally they will be teching strongly to get military tradition (for defensive pact) and communism (PA) quickly. To get to friendly we will probably need to have either shared fave civics or religion. Religion will be random for the initial spread, but is more likely to be missionaried to us by civs with a shrine, so bare this in mind when dealing with diplomacy. Fave civics is most likely to occur from the hereditary rule guys: Hatty, Huayna, Louis, Catherine and Kublai. Alexander does have this fave civic but he will not enter a PA under any circumstances (same with Napoleon and Toku IIRC).

All non-war demands and requests from AIs should be automatically given. War requests should be thought about very carefully. Before a turnset is taken we should consider what we should say if someone asks to declare war. Getting into a war with an AI on your side will be a massive boost to getting to friendly, so should definitely be considered if the enemy civ is some distance away.

All of our first great people will need to be scientists. No dilution at all until we want to build the national epic. I am not sure about the great library - it would be nice but we will have to wait and see. We shouldn't chop too many forests for it because forests are our lifeblood (health). We start with an excellent 12 forests in our BFC - that's 6 free health.

Will discuss tech order and builds another time.

Links:

Weekend OCCs: 1, 2, 3, 4
An SG I was in with PAs (immortal)

 

[Kodii]

All non-war demands and requests from AIs should be automatically given.

How about stop trading requests?

 

[sooooo]

How about stop trading requests?

OK mr nitpicker , consider diplomacy for these.

 

[Swiss Pauli]

How about stop trading requests?

For these, the simple rule of thumb would be to agree to stop trading with an OCC AI when a multi-city AI asks and, conversely, refuse the demand of an OCC AI to stop trading with a multi-city AI. These penalties do fade over time anyway IIRC.

More difficult to guage is 'Traded with our Worst Enemy' (WoE). This can be awkward on our continent if the religions are split as the WoE might switch around a bit/lot, and we need to think carefully when it comes to interacting with overseas civs. If both civs have closed borders with a third civ then there's no diplo penalty for trading with the third civ, even if it is the WoE.

One idea I'd like to float is the possibility of a PA with a civ from the other island: highly unlikely, but with an easy-to-befriend civ like Mansa or Ghandi it might be possible.