SO something happened with Patch Z and AIs....

[Kyroshill]

I have been playing at Prince level for a while (OK, so I'm not very good)....

But since I started playing patch Z.... I can't last past turn 125 without losing. It seems that no matter what civ I play I am going to have to beeline archery and/or BW and do nothing but spam military for about 300 turns.... crashing my economy long before that of course.....

The problem is twofold....

First.... every AI seems to seek me out right away.... when they find me... they all start founding cities RIGHT ON my border. Then they are always able to push my borders back very quickly... no matter what civ they are (The Clan was crushing my Kurio capital culture 100 turns in and they already had BW)

Second.... I tend not to heavily fortify my capital once it's borders have pushed out and I have other cities around it, looking to fortify borders instead. Trouble is the AI seems to know exactly what's in my capital despite having no visual contact with it ever. So suddenly AI after AI has DoW'd and in one turn has an SoD on my capital doorstep leaving me no time to fortify.

So.... do I really have to have 10 warriors in every city and two warriors guarding every worker before I can build ANYTHING?

EDIT: Just to clarify.... this is based on 5 games.... since 125 turns doesn't take very long

 

[Thunder_Gr]

Start to treat the AI as if it was human. This should solve your problems.

EDIT: OK, not exactly as if it was human. Giving some presents and adopting the religion of the most dangerous AI should be a good strategy.

 

[Kyroshill]

UPDATE: Went back to the start of my last failure (as the Malakim) and made sure that I kept a minimum of 5 warriors in each city. This slowed production of everything else a bit... but I didn't lose any cities. In short I have now made it to 2nd place (though I did get beat the the Mercurian Gate by my closest rival, so it may get real hairy real soon) at Turn 300, and have just vasslaized Charadon.

And I did give gifts to the leading Khazad once, and switched civics when asked twice (since I'm Spiritual it's no problem).

And oh yeah.... since I had buttloads of flood plains I tried my first ever Aristo-grarian economy.... and my teching was fine even though I had only two cities for the first 225 or so turns. This was huge, since I already had Radiant Guards when the Doviello started bringing big stacks at me.

EDIT: As a side note, I did refuse a change of religion, but had great reason.... I had JUST finished Chalid... so you want me to adopt FoL now? Yeah.... not gonna happen

 

[Gwythur]

First off, in FFH, never, ever allow your capital to remain unguarded. It doesn't matter if the AI has line of sight, open borders, or blissful ignorance. The AI knows, and it will DoW on you.

For advanced strategy, you might consider using this to your advantage. Remember, there is a diplomatic penalty if you DoW on them, but if they DoW on you, and you are winning, you can press for better diplomacy come peace time. In fact, it may be worthwhile to press yourself to overexpansion during wartime and gift the cities back to an AI for the added diplo bonus.

Remember that vassalization is much more important in FFH than in base BtS. Getting an enemy to capitulate and then give palace mana in tribute does wonders for your mages. Of course, you want decent diplomatic bonuses with any enemy you decide to vassalize.

Keeping 5 warriors in a city may be a bit of overkill. I typically keep 4 defensive soldiers per city, although I build to 6 before building a settler and sending it with 4. Your mileage may vary, but I find the archery line pretty useless, since the best defence is a good offense. I almost always use metal line (warrior, axemen, champion) for my main defense, but will attack any enemy approaching my cities in the field.

Keep in mind that all those support troops - hunters, adepts, disciples - that may be sitting around in your city count as defenders when the AI may be considering a DoW on you. Sure, I only have 4 actual defenders, but I have a couple priests sitting around gaining passive xp, and I have a couple adepts giving enchanted blades, inspiration, wall of stone, and the like.

Remember that troops in FFH are much more about quality than quantity. It's worth a warrior rush to make sure your troops have copper. It's worth a protracted war midgame to ensure your troops are equipped with iron. Once the endgame comes, it's worth an invasion force halfway across the world for mithril or reagents. And don't forget about the buffs.

 

[Thunder_Gr]

In fact, it may be worthwhile to press yourself to overexpansion during wartime and gift the cities back to an AI for the added diplo bonus.

Or, you could gift the cities to a relatively distant AI(provided that they would accept them, of course), to cripple their economy...Nasty but doable. You shouldn't gift one at a time though, because they will not let themselves become crippled that way. You should gift them all at once.

 

[Kyroshill]

but if they DoW on you, and you are winning, you can press for better diplomacy come peace time.

That is never true in any of my games....

What ALWAYS happens is they DoW.... if I decimate their SoD on the first turn and am outproducing them unit for unit.... any attempts at diplomacy, all they want is whatever city they targeted. If I then counterattack and take or raze a few cities.... then they want all my techs to end the war (plus any cities I may have captured).

Maybe if I can run up their WW... they'll eventually let me just pay them cash to quit fighting.

So... I end up having to build military until I can finally force them to capitulate


EDIT: I am actually thinking about turning off Aggressive AI so I'm not in full blown war from turn 50 in every game... but then I'm afraid that the game will be all butterflies and picnics

 

[JonathanStrange]

I play Deity/Immortal. In the early game, just after the city's founding, attacks come in so fast and so strong, that I usually queue up 5-6 warriors on turn 1 (true, they're also intended to be escorts and garrisons for newly built settlers and cities). I used to think that was excessive because virtually everyone else seemed to be building settlers and workers and defeating the barbarians or enemy civs with ... ? It's not clear how Orthus, or enemy civs with ten axemen or more (usually more) by turn 25 are defeated by workers but apparently others can do so, build improvements that aren't pillaged immediately, etc. Perhaps my definition of early game (about 150 turns at most) is too short?

OTOH, the enemy AI does do us the favor of often attacking the same city obsessively and rarely makes a point of pillaging all improvements. When we add the XP gains we make, early attacks aren't all bad news. I have found that unlike BTS, FFH2's early game is far more challenging and fun. I still wish, sometimes, I knew how to get away with settlers and workers as my first builds. Except on rare island or peninsula type maps, I queue up the warriors.

(BTW, the Archery line is very valuable for the Ljos, however less optimal it may be for the other civs. The Elves' +1 Attack (from Dexterous trait), Forest Attack autobonus, easy access to Archery tech, +1 Strength (Flaming Arrows via Enchantment spell), and the not uncommon bowyer event (free Combat I promotion) make Elven archers very worthwhile.)

 

[Ribusprissin]

Flaming Arrows is pretty far away from Archery tech, right? Alteration -> Sorcery, an enchantment node, a mage to visit each archer -- seems like a lot of work.

 

[slowcar]

i play deity, usually with worker first. random civ. not much of a difference with patch Z.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

I used to think that was excessive because virtually everyone else seemed to be building settlers and workers and defeating the barbarians or enemy civs with ... ?

I never see the people who say they do this also say "...and I always survive when I build like that." I assume that they don't. Lots of FfH players mention getting raked over the coals early, be it by barbs or by frisky AIs, so I put 2 and 2 together.

People who don't build a respectable force of warriors early get killed early. Not always, but sometimes.

 

[Thunder_Gr]

People who don't build a respectable force of warriors early get killed early. Not always, but sometimes.

This is very true in monarch and above...And the not always is there just because the player may start isolated. Especially in Erebus, big and small or archipelagous maps.
I would be quite surprised if someone could get away with that in a pangea map...

 

[Breunor]

This is very true in monarch and above...And the not always is there just because the player may start isolated. Especially in Erebus, big and small or archipelagous maps.
I would be quite surprised if someone could get away with that in a pangea map...

Yes, this is a good point. Map type can have a huge impact on strategy.

Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[JonathanStrange]

Flaming Arrows is pretty far away from Archery tech, right? Alteration -> Sorcery, an enchantment node, a mage to visit each archer -- seems like a lot of work.

Heh. It is far away, but it's not out-of-the-way: the Elves are going to get mages at some point, and having a mage with the Enchantment spell promotions of Enchanted Blade and Flaming Arrows is useful, even if Archery comes far earlier.

It's no big deal to then have one centralized mage in the military production city cast Enchanted Blades or Flaming Arrows on archers/swordsmen as they're trained. It's not hard to have a mage traveling to previously produced archers or swordsmen either to increase their power (+20% strength or +1 strength is worth a little work). It's even easier to send out the newly trained and enchanted archers/swordsmen out while un-enchanted troops cycle in for magical buffing.

Anyhow, it was just an example of how Elven archers and longbowmen could be made even more useful - not a claim that that it's necessary or wise to do "a lot of work" and prioritize Alteration and Sorcery. Maybe, since magic is generally not an early game item, I might have left Flaming Arrows out so as not to confuse anyone.

 

[slowcar]

building a worker first and training a respectable force of warriors do not exclude eachother. i ususally play large pangäa and, of course, have the usual AI knocking and barbs bringing free XP issues

the AI did change during some patching, it is much harder to rush them now. exploration is king, if they walk with their first settler it is a good point to jump at their capital most of the time.

 

[Emptiness]

The problem is twofold....

First.... every AI seems to seek me out right away.... when they find me... they all start founding cities RIGHT ON my border.

Second.... [snip] the AI seems to know exactly what's in my capital despite having no visual contact with it ever.

The AI in Civ cheats. This isn't a FFH2 thing, you can see the AI doing this in BtS and in older versions of Civ as well.

 

[Lone Wolf]

The AI in Civ cheats. This isn't a FFH2 thing, you can see the AI doing this in BtS and in older versions of Civ as well.

These two examples are wrong. The AI has no mofidier that encourages aggressive setting to the player or knowledge of player's cities production.

 

[JonathanStrange]

I think he was referring to the AI knowing what garrison troops there were, if that makes a difference.

 

[Lone Wolf]

I think he was referring to the AI knowing what garrison troops there were, if that makes a difference.

While AI doesn't automatically know the garrisons of cities, it has an increased vision on its units.

 

[Emptiness]

You can witness the AIs tend to settle toward a player when viewing the replay after games. Generally speaking, the closer an AI is to a human player the more likely it is to settle near the player. A neighboring AI will deliberately place cities to block your expansion, even when there are better city sites available. Early civ is a land grab, and the AI treats human players as their primary opponent in this land grab.

You can witness the AIs knowledge of the units you have in cities by closing your borders with all the AIs and then moving all of the units out of one of your core cities, well removed from the "normal" vision radius of any AI. The AI will sense the defenseless city and will begin to look for any excuse to declare war. Those that go to war will then send units to take that defenseless city. Depending on what other opportunities present themselves to the invading units you may be able to witness those units traveling directly to that city, ignoring other targets. Move even a single unit into the city and the AI units that were trekking across your lands to get there will look around for closer targets.

 

[Lone Wolf]

You can witness the AIs tend to settle toward a player when viewing the replay after games. Generally speaking, the closer an AI is to a human player the more likely it is to settle near the player. A neighboring AI will deliberately place cities to block your expansion, even when there are better city sites available. Early civ is a land grab, and the AI treats human players as their primary opponent in this land grab.

You can witness the AIs knowledge of the units you have in cities by closing your borders with all the AIs and then moving all of the units out of one of your core cities, well removed from the "normal" vision radius of any AI. The AI will sense the defenseless city and will begin to look for any excuse to declare war. Those that go to war will then send units to take that defenseless city. Depending on what other opportunities present themselves to the invading units you may be able to witness those units traveling directly to that city, ignoring other targets. Move even a single unit into the city and the AI units that were trekking across your lands to get there will look around for closer targets.

Most of that is paranoia.

Actually, if the AI behaved that way, it would harm them more then it would benefit them.