The "Jungle Exploit" (sort of)

[Wlauzon]

OK.. I did a custom world last night, and chose "Tropical", which gives a lot of jungle. Noble difficulty.

Jungle takes a while to clear, so you need more workers than usual.

It seems that the AI only makes a set number of workers, not based on terrain much, but based just on unworked land area.

Now, not sure this will work all the time, but in that game I made about 2x the usual number of workers for extra fast clearing, and within 50 turns or so I was WAY ahead of the other civs for population. And it may work better for some leaders than others.

 

[Mujadaddy]

Interesting, Wlauzon...

 

[Pfeffersack]

Interesting find.Jungled areas already slowed the AI down in Civ3 and obviously this weakness was carried over.

 

[CrackedCrystal]

Hey, I never thought of that, but it works for me. I usually play tropical anyway because I like to have lots of grasslands to work with.

 

[Wlauzon]

A follow up on this.. It seems that one reason it works to some extent on Tropical is because of the negative health effects of Jungles.

You, supposedly being smarter than the AI, assigns a lot more workers to clear the jungles faster. This seems to be what is really bogging down the AI.

 

[Speciou5]

This really isn't an exploit, just lack of intelligence on the AI's part. I guess the same might apply to the New World map style with a large land mass continent with barbarians, which the AI probably does not realize exists (but you definitely do ).

 

[remconius]

Wonder how this works out on high levels.

 

[Pentium]

Yeah, anybody remember Archipelago with Seafaring?

They said there won't be such things in Civ4, but apparently there are. Bye bye, smart AI!

 

[Wlauzon]

This really isn't an exploit, just lack of intelligence on the AI's part. I guess the same might apply to the New World map style with a large land mass continent with barbarians, which the AI probably does not realize exists (but you definitely do ).

Yes, that is why I titled the thread "sort of". It takes advantage of the AI not adapting to changing conditions from the "normal" default map and player conditions.

To some extent, that is also why I turn off Space Race - aside from being a boring way to win. The AI without the space race available, still seems to favor going for techs and wonders that enable or speed up the space race. This is a relatively minor advantage, but it all adds up against the Evil AI.

I am sure there are other holes in the AI's tactics and strategies, it will just take a while to figure them out.

 

[Wlauzon]

Wonder how this works out on high levels.

Just for grins, I made a medium Large map, with raging barbarians, at the highest level and stuck a few mech armor in my city with worldbuilder just to watch.

Within 60 turns or so, about half the AI was taken over by barbs

Pretty boring just hitting Enter so did not play much more, but it does seem that having a lot of jungle definately slows the AI down at all levels. Since the barbs don't build cities as soon as the AI does, they are not affected by the negative health problems apparently - at least until they build cities.

Not sure that alone is enough to give you much of an edge though, since even on a tropical world there is still a lot of non-jungle area.

 

[fightcancer]

From the Civ IV manual, p. 174:

'Game and AI SDK
In early 2006, we will be delivering this incredibly powerful
tool that will allow experienced programmers to “get down to
the metal” and tweak the AI or how the game functions.'

I can't wait!

 

[TheDuckOfFlanders]

Shields for clearing forests/jungles can be great early on to speed up progress considerably.

Note that for clearing forests you need bronze working and for jungles you need iron working ,thus youll be able to clear forests sooner than jungle's.

Forest/jungle shields also add to settler production ,you can rush settlers with it. (providing also food in the city)

When you start the game in forest filled enviroment ,it can be highly advantagous to research bronze working first (rather than agriculture or Aimal herding) ,then build a worker at size 2 fast ,to let it chop woods for building a settler rushed ,and thus expand very fast. (faster than anyone else)

Clearing forests needs 4 turns ,jungle's a bit more i think.Better to use the clear forrest button first ,even if you builmd agriculture or mine later.

Forests can regrow.You can leave a little cluster of forest and a few empty squares for the forests ,usually in area's on youre border wich only cultural borders cover.They also tend to add up to health ,deffinatly if you start to industrialize later on.

Lumbermills are great ,leave some forests to be able to build them later on.

as to wonder building ,given that workers only take 4 turns to clear a forest for about 45 worth of shields ,10 workers can build you a wonder like the pyramids or hanging Gardens in only a few turns ,provided a minor city wich musn't produce much yet just has to have lots of forest around it.

Definatly smaller wonders like stonghenge are easy to build ,in addition a same forest surounded city can be great to pump out a stack of unit's.

 

[Kazak]

I wasn't aware that jungle produced any shields???

 

[RoddyVR]

it doesnt.

and i think a big reason for why the jungle slows the ai down as much as it does is this:
the AI probably calculates how much "work" its workers can do, and builds new workers based on that (the more work to do the more workers to build)
but untill the AI researches Iron working, it CANT clear jungle, so it doesnt count it as "work" in that calculation, and so doesnt make more workers.
and the AI doesnt go for iron too early.

i think the "fix" the AI needs for this, is that hte more jungle there is, the more it should head for IronWorking.

ofcourse this is all guessing, so i'm probably wrong.

 

[m15a]

oh! you need *iron working* to clear jungles! that would've helped so much in the game i was playing. mali on the earth map . . .

 

[Wlauzon]

If I play on a tropical world, I make a beeline for Iron Working. I also build a LOT of workers early.

The AI does not seem to realize that it has a lot of jungle - as someone noted above, it does not have Iron Working yet. So it seems that you can get a pretty decent head start on the AI if you play it right.

The AI will always go for NON-jungle area first, but on a tropical map that is often limited, so what seems to happen is that they expand normally at first, but then slow down a whole bunch when they have only jungles left to occupy, as they have a severe worker shortage.