Bizzat! Solver 'n' Blake have made my BTS game, along with the dedicated fans behind the "Extra" and "Expanded" mods, plus Gengis Kai's GIANT Earth Map (which I have converted to BTS from Warlords), and the 40 civ .dll updated to include Solver/ Blakes's work. Snap!
Solver's Unofficial BtS Patch
- Thread starter Solver
- Start date
DrJambo
Crash-test dummy
I created several colonies using Solver's latest patch, and none of them declared renounced me. Is this affecting only AI-created vassals? Or am I just that good?
Only happens with the AI. My colonies have never renounced my rule either. Sorry to shatter your dream.
To be perfectly honest it could be a vanilla BtS problem. I can't remember if this problem occurred before Solver's unofficial patch or whether it was introduced by Solver's patch. My initial belief is that it's the latter, but only because my last game was littered with AI colonies leaving their founders (3 out of 3) and my current one is going down the same route (2 out of 2).
DrJambo
Crash-test dummy
You're welcome.
Looking forward to the update. To be honest, my current, rather precarious position, in my present Monarch game (agg AI on), really needed the help of the top AI civs losing their colonies... The recent updates seem to have made the AI more challenging.
I'd still like to see AI conduct espionage a little better. There's nothing wrong with investing in espionage per sé, just that the EPs tend to be wasted on rather trivial missions. For what it's worth, 8 turns poison water or foment unhappiness is ineffectual at epic speeds and the AI will never combine them. I'd much rather it was more expensive and more effective so that it rewards putting the effort into conducting the mission and investing in espionage.
Looking forward to the update. To be honest, my current, rather precarious position, in my present Monarch game (agg AI on), really needed the help of the top AI civs losing their colonies...
The recent updates seem to have made the AI more challenging. I'd still like to see AI conduct espionage a little better. There's nothing wrong with investing in espionage per sé, just that the EPs tend to be wasted on rather trivial missions. For what it's worth, 8 turns poison water or foment unhappiness is ineffectual at epic speeds and the AI will never combine them. I'd much rather it was more expensive and more effective so that it rewards putting the effort into conducting the mission and investing in espionage.
Roland Johansen
Deity
In case Blake happens to read some of what is posted here...
The poison water supply and forment unhappiness are most effective when used on cities with a low food storage (and close to their health/happiness limit) because it will result in population loss. Because of this effect, these missions are most effective (on the slower game speeds) when used multiple times in rapid succession on the same city. The first missions will empty the food storage, the second will kill population. Maybe the AI has to be made aware of this. Without such awareness, the missions will not harm cities a lot (on the slower game speeds) and the espionage points will indeed be used ineffectively.
The poison water supply and forment unhappiness are most effective when used on cities with a low food storage (and close to their health/happiness limit) because it will result in population loss. Because of this effect, these missions are most effective (on the slower game speeds) when used multiple times in rapid succession on the same city. The first missions will empty the food storage, the second will kill population. Maybe the AI has to be made aware of this. Without such awareness, the missions will not harm cities a lot (on the slower game speeds) and the espionage points will indeed be used ineffectively.
DrJambo
Crash-test dummy
Kalimakhus
Emperor
- Joined
- May 8, 2007
- Messages
- 1,249
First of all Thanks a lot for Solver and Blake for such a great effort to make this patch. It is for sure much needed and a must have for any of us.
Now, my problem. I am trying to merge many modcomps for my personal use and possibly for later release as a modpack. As this patch is essential I always merge it in. However the patch is changing everyday. I am not complaining as it brings new needed fixes and features. I only wish that there is some version scheme any number or date in the downloaded file name. It would also be nice if there is some plan for the coming changes or some estimation of future targets for the patch. So I can sync my work with important changes and skip some intermediate releases.
Now, my problem. I am trying to merge many modcomps for my personal use and possibly for later release as a modpack. As this patch is essential I always merge it in. However the patch is changing everyday. I am not complaining as it brings new needed fixes and features. I only wish that there is some version scheme any number or date in the downloaded file name. It would also be nice if there is some plan for the coming changes or some estimation of future targets for the patch. So I can sync my work with important changes and skip some intermediate releases.
I'm quite sure that players will be annoyed if the AI uses espionage more actively. I may later make more changes to make the AI, in some circumstances at least, use espionage more vigorously. At any rate, making it prefer poisoned cities for unhappiness mission and vice versa is quite possible.
Kalimakhus, I quite understand your concerns. However, I am keeping the filename the same all the time on purpose. You can look into each zip file to see its modified date if you need that.
And no future estimates are possible, largely. If they are, I say so - like now I said that the colony bug will be fixed for the next update.
Kalimakhus, I quite understand your concerns. However, I am keeping the filename the same all the time on purpose. You can look into each zip file to see its modified date if you need that.
And no future estimates are possible, largely. If they are, I say so - like now I said that the colony bug will be fixed for the next update.
Roland Johansen
Deity
The AI shouldn't start producing more espionage points, but it should use the ones that it produces now in a more useful way. One poison water supply mission or one foment unhappiness mission will only empty the food storage on the slower game speeds. 2 subsequent missions would actually reduce the city size. With 2 subsequent missions, I do not mean a foment unhappiness and a poison water supply mission at the same time. I mean that it should poison the water supply directly after the previous poison water supply mission has ended. In that way, the food storage has no time to regenerate and the city will lose population.
Combined poison water supply and foment unhappiness missions will of course hurt more, but the AI should of course realise that at some point, the city will not shrink any further because the maximum damage has been reached and the city has enough surplus happiness and health to ignore the effects of these missions.
By the way, the foment unhappiness is generally considered more damaging because you will lose more food per turn from citizens not working than from health loss. So it should have a higher cost.
LordGek
Prince
- Joined
- Aug 22, 2002
- Messages
- 521
This is the official way Firaxis has decided to handle this (if any consolation, the price of these missions doesn't scale in Epic and Marathon Speeds, so while pretty wussy now they're relatively cheap) not necessarily Solver's call. To have his patch now do it differently wouldn't make a lot of sense.
DrJambo
Crash-test dummy
Yes, if it AI espionage was incessant then I'm quite sure it would be annoying. However, at the moment, it's entirely possible to completely ignore espionage, leaving the slider at 0 % for the entire game. In fact, some might argue that one is often better off in the long-term by doing just so. Sure the AI might arbitrarily poison one of your cities' water or destroy a farm... big deal, it doesn't really prevent the machine from rolling on.
One thing that would be nice is if spies had a more active role to play in defence (outwith scope of this unofficial patch I agree). For instance, if they could spot spies, and then be actively moved to target them to increase the chance of their capture. Right now, capturing spies just seems like playing the lottery - sometimes you do, sometimes you don't, have you guessed the correct city to leave your spy in for instance...? Therefore, one can feel somewhat helpless when defending against them (other than the counter-espionage option of course). Didn't civ 2 have a way of actively defending against enemy diplomats and spies using said unit?
player1 fanatic
Fanatic
If, at any time, commerce to "EP for stealing tech" conversion is better then commerce to "science to research tech" ratio, then AI should be able to actively pursue such steal tech missions, for some time.
DrJambo
Crash-test dummy
lol
I still can't work out from your posts whether you were actively (and dare I say passionately) for or against the ... you know what ...
Kalimakhus
Emperor
- Joined
- May 8, 2007
- Messages
- 1,249
I full heartedly agree with DrJambo and Horace ..... Not gonna mention it however.
