Sucking after the patch

[eric_]

So...I've dispensed with my "not cleaning up on Noble anymore" problem. Last night I achieved my first ever "Augustus Caesar" rating as a leader. I won a conquest victory in the late 1800s after getting infantry in the late 1700s. My army was just absurdly massive. My final score was 24K and change. I've never even come CLOSE to such a decisive victory before, pre-patch, pre-xpack, or otherwise.

I had been playing through to the medieval times over and over on random leader and would quit when I'd end up looking at a peaceful victory (most of which I've won many times). I guess all that practice paid off. One thing I noticed, though, is that up until this last game, I never had a good, obvious candidate for a production city. Lots of grassland hills, almost no plains hills. This time was different. I had two extremely productive cities (3 - 4 plains hills, food resource, grasslands, iron), one of which was my capital, and two extremely lucrative commerce/science cities (which I took from Huyana).

Anyway, I got the hang of commerce and food maximization, dealing with happiness and health, etc, long ago. But it seems I still need work on alternate strategies for a production city when there is no obvious (i.e. plains/hills heavy) candidate. Any advice? I'm thinking I just need to remember that 2 farmed grassland tiles (or one farmed floodplain) allows me to workshop one plains tile or two grassland tiles. 1 farmed grassland (or one cottaged or unimproved floodplain) allows me to workshop a grassland tile. I figure I want to use watermills as much as possible and probably windmill most or all grassland hills.

Am I on the right track?

 

[Eggolas]

Sometimes, the best production cities have hills. More often it's a cleared jungle area with workshops and enough food to grow ... State Property is your friend.

 

[mice]

When the computer gains "more intelligence" by doing eg. deeper tree searches, it's fairly easy to set up different levels by limiting the search depth.

Is it possible (or rather, reasonable) to have at least two levels of intelligence in the AI in cIV? That could allow for "low-IQ" AI for lower difficulty levels, "high-IQ" AI for higher. Remove all ishuman() bonuses, then start assigning bonuses to human on the lowest difficulties with no human bonus and "stupid AI" at eg. Noble, no human bonus and "smart AI" at Prince, and then start assigning suitable bonuses to the computer at higher difficulty levels.

This quote is from the better AI thread post 663.

Next patch needs to be along these lines. Levels of AI ability, which sounds like it's possible, not just an idea, and revamping of the ishuman() bonuses.

The question is, is firaxis thinking along these lines? I believe the game has lost some integrity beause people dont know where they stand with the AI.

It's natural to have a period of getting used to the new AI, but it seems that the game is just unbalanced and needs to be changed as per the quote above. Why get used to a game that needs changing.

New patch please Firaxis, and soon.

 

[Twiglet]

Sometimes, the best production cities have hills. More often it's a cleared jungle area with workshops and enough food to grow ... State Property is your friend.

Also check out Sisiutil's notes on Riverside Ironworks in his general gambits thread for another approach which works well (for me, anyway).

 

[Naismith]

I'm entirely with aelf here - I think an intermediate level between Prince and Monarch and another one between Monarch and Emperor would both be a Good Thing as from reading these forums those are the transitions most players find themselves at (for a long time post-patch I could totally pwn Prince but have the AI wipe the floor with me on Monarch - I'm still significantly <50% win rate on Monarch). I also think de-emphasising the necessity for warmongering on higher levels would enhance the game significantly; in particular making beeline-for-early-war less of a must-do strategy and more one-of-the-many-options.

I agree completely. I would like to believe that improvements to the AI's warmaking abilities will bring some balance back to the game. I can sympathize with Firaxis for not wanting to do all the work and testing necessary to rebalance the game for this patch, when further AI improvements are in progress. It's too bad improvements to AI warmaking didn't come first. I just hope we don't have to wait too long for the next patch.

In my personal opinion, the game was tilted towards warmongering too much before 2.08.

 

[aelf]

In my personal opinion, the game was tilted towards warmongering too much before 2.08.

You don't mean to say it's better in that regard with the new patch, do you?

 

[eric_]

Thanks for the tips regarding a production city with few or no hills. I've just started a prince game that will feature some of that.

As for the need for early war, isn't that just a product of limited space early on? If you had a game with few civs on a large map, it seems like the need for early war would diminish significantly.

 

[aelf]

As for the need for early war, isn't that just a product of limited space early on? If you had a game with few civs on a large map, it seems like the need for early war would diminish significantly.

We're talking about the standard number of civs here.

Anyway, the need for early war arises from the need to stifle the AIs early. Otherwise, with their now overwhelming bonuses, they would just cruise to victory.

 

[Naismith]

You don't mean to say it's better in that regard with the new patch, do you?

No - just the opposite. I was trying to say that it was tilted towards warmongering too much before the patch, and now it's even worse.

 

[aelf]

No - just the opposite. I was trying to say that it was tilted towards warmongering too much before the patch, and now it's even worse.

Couldn't agree more with that. It's becoming the new REX.

 

[Charles 22]

cabert:

- unit upgrade price is only 25% for the AIs

Yes, I was wondering why I had seen what seemed to be an entire civ's worth of units upgrade at one time! I never have that kind of money, and frankly doing that to all the units at once is a waste, as you would figure a lot of them won't ever see battle. I have my most remote city or cities always staffed with axemen and the like. There gets to be a point where upgrading those really old units is a bit on the foolish side. I would much rather upgrade the 3 or 4 times promoted grenadier or rifleman to infantry rather than the two times promoted lackey axeman in the middle of the empire.

One thing I like to try to do is get a horseman unit and use it as a mop-up unit on catapults and that 4pt strength artillery unit (can't remember the name). I can get him up to like 6 or 7 regular fighting promotions (no, I don't give him anymore artillery promotions than what he starts with). Of course he is pretty useless once the cannon comes out, so then he really has to be mop-up to succeed on something. If you can ever afford to then get the money up to promote him to helicopter, he will make a severely deadly unit (with a blitz promotion of course ).

From what little I've used of a unit being dragged over and over through the ages, it seems the horseman may be the most versatile in deliberately not promoting him to keep the experience and still find some easy victories against artillery pieces.

 

[cabert]

7 combat promotions???
what kind of game are you playing?
top one is combat 6, and frankly i take march or commando over combat 5 anytime.

 

[§L¥ Gµ¥]

I'm having some serious problems post-patch myself.

I used to dominate on Prince, on epic speed and on huge maps [continents, pangea, inland sea, and terra], and was probably a competitive Monarch player [I'd never tried it out, but I stalled moving up to try for attaining all different victory types before doing so], but since the patch I'm falling into all kinds of trouble. It seems as tho I have to optimize my cities very early on, which means I need to pour resources into workers and worker techs, just so I can balance my city growth to compete with the AI with their happiness and health bonuses.

But that dulls my military, slowing my early expansionist wars, which we all know is key to keeping pace with the computer in tech, especially when handicapped against the AI.

So what are my options?

Normally my early wars would be a rush to the enemy capital, trying to take that second sweet city spot away from an enemy with all those necessary resources, giving me at least 2, usually 3 or 4 gems of cities to play with. It'd sink my economy with maintenence for a while but I always reasoned that it takes longer to grow a good city than capture one, so I'd always keep the capital [usually between size 6-9 when I got there], lose 2-3 pop from starvation still leaves me with a decent sized town to start with. Should I adjust this idea? I'd also have a tendancy to keep several cities I capture along the way, for cultural border purposes, and because not all of them appear in terrible spots anymore [I find the computer is a little better in placing their cities now as long as they have room to work with]. Should I just raze an pillage? Settlers cost a fair number of hammers, but on the upside, I could use all the extra workers to build farms, grow it quickly, then change the landscape to something more useful almost immediately after. Are there other options I'm overlooking?

Another problem I'm having is with the rediculous tech speed. Trade mongers like mansa and cyrus fly so far ahead in tech it's not even competitive anymore. It's almost a foregone conclusion you're going to lose to them if you start too far away from them, as without a means of attacking them there's no way to slow down their tech trading. And it's damn near impossible to set up triangle diplomacy if you've got nothing to offer in the way of trade. Combine that with the fact the AI does now research alphabet, it that much harder to set up for me.

 

[Charles 22]

7 combat promotions???
what kind of game are you playing?
top one is combat 6, and frankly i take march or commando over combat 5 anytime.

I just mis-spoke. I was referring to 6 or 7 promotions total. These are mostly raised by getting experience in combat, therefore I call them combat promotions. As far as promotions go, I'm not sure there is any limit, unless that would be limited by all the promotions that are available as certainly there isn't an infinite amount. Either that or by virtue of hitting some wall such as the experience perhaps not allowing for triple digits.

 

[kikos18]

I agree that the post-patch difficulty extremely favors warmongering. I've tried different strats on Monarch and I always end up losing because some civ declares war on me and thereafter (1) I can't compete militarily; or (2) Another civ decides to declare war on me a couple turns later.

The AI's combination of (1) out-teching me, (2) trading amongst themselves, and (3) only tech trading with me when it's overwhelmingly advantageous for them is overbearing on Monarch. If I try to keep up with tech, eventually I fall behind in military, declared war upon, and game over.

The final problem I see is that of vassalage. The enemy will capitualate to me when they are all but worthless. However, they will capitulate to other AI at point where they could still be put to good use as vassals.

I have no problem winning on Prince and can occasionally completely dominate on that level. However, the difficulty between Prince and Monarch is extreme and should be adjusted by either making Prince more difficult, or Monarch less difficult.

 

[Naismith]

I agree that the post-patch difficulty extremely favors warmongering. I've tried different strats on Monarch and I always end up losing because some civ declares war on me and thereafter (1) I can't compete militarily; or (2) Another civ decides to declare war on me a couple turns later.

The AI's combination of (1) out-teching me, (2) trading amongst themselves, and (3) only tech trading with me when it's overwhelmingly advantageous for them is overbearing on Monarch. If I try to keep up with tech, eventually I fall behind in military, declared war upon, and game over.

The final problem I see is that of vassalage. The enemy will capitualate to me when they are all but worthless. However, they will capitulate to other AI at point where they could still be put to good use as vassals.

I have no problem winning on Prince and can occasionally completely dominate on that level. However, the difficulty between Prince and Monarch is extreme and should be adjusted by either making Prince more difficult, or Monarch less difficult.

Some more difficulty levels between Prince and Monarch (for me personally) and between Monarch and Emporer would probably be nice. A friend of mine looked at the handicap XML file where the various levels are sort of defined. Since the AI now develops its economy more intelligently, how could Monarch be adjusted to tone that aspect down, especially at the beginning of the game, where you can quickly get buried? My friend modified Monarch so that the AI no longer gets a free worker. (That's one of the many differences between Prince and Monarch.) I'm trying that out now, and I think it might be an interesting level to play for you.

Given the AI's tendency to place a higher priority on Alphabet, you might want to consider doing the same. I'm not saying this will solve your problems on Monarch, but it might help.

As for Vassals, I am coming around to the idea that I prefer playing with Vassals turned off.