The "Why is the AI Outpacing Me?" Thread

[Dale]

Well, the most emphatic feedback that should be taken to heart stems from the legibility issues. I now actually have a blister on my stomach from all the leaning in I have to read the tiny, tiny text on my 15" laptop lol (yea, TMI, sorry...). No matter how exquisitely refined the rest of the game is, physical discomfort is a serious obstacle to sustained playability.

I am sure a lot of the advice I'm asking for stems from the physical difficulty in spotting it for myself. Adjusting resolution doesn't seem to make a difference. I was encouraged to see an accessibility tab under Options, but they're limited to color contrast settings. Fonts need to scalable, or at least some way to make them bolder and more distinct.

My eyesight's pretty bad, but I can't be the only person in that camp. I hope some improvement's are in the works.

Yeah one of the big ticket items we've learnt this last week is the tutorial/encyclopedia is very lacking. We have a number of things in the works to address these, some of which are already in the current Test branch.

 

[Dale]

My issue isn't about visibility. It's about forced marches affording units bank-check movement. Attempt to screen ranged units with melee, and enemy units will just swing a wide arc around the screen thanks to effectively unlimited movement.

Try to move a wounded unit off, they have the capability to run it down as long as they keep dumping those orders (and they're not fatigued already). Like I said, focused fire (that is to say, dogpiling attacks on a single unit until it's dead) is a rather annoying aspect of turn-based combat, and modern games need to have proper counters. In RTS, it would be harder to get away with this because opponents can react and intercept. Zones of control mean little when units have the ability to teleport every other turn, which is what forced marches tend to amount to.

Just to say, it's not REALLY unlimited movement. It's opportunity cost. Sure you can force march your unit, but at the cost of 2 orders per move. That means you are taking away double the amount of orders from other units/actions.

Religion is completely opaque to me. The tutorial has nothing to say about it. Is there a dedicated panel for religion somewhere?

I'm getting a disciple every 20 turns from the temple, but after building that temple my disciples ideal with nothing to do thanks to a menu of greyed-out actiions. I founded Zoroastrianism in the capital, but my cities have flipped to Greek Paganism or Judaism. I have no idea where the push-and-pull, what forces are causing different cities or individuals to convert.

I try to use the disciples like apostles in Civ to spread the religion, only to find that the religion has already spread to whatever city I march them up to. But the city is following some other nation's religion, so something is causing Zoroastrianism to peter out that the disciple cannot influence . I can only guess that there is not much to off-the-shelf religion without certain techs, laws, or leader traits.

On the religion/family tab if you click the religion you get the action panel. The hover text also includes quite a bit about the religion too.

From the sounds of it, you haven't established the religion as your state religion, and that's why the disciples have no actions. Click the religion in the panel, then on the action panel select Adopt state religion. It'll cost 400 civics. Then you can improve your religion, build the buildings etc.

More good intel on something I wouldn't have figured out easily. So, you're referring to urban specialists. What is the impact of rural specialists on this overcrowding and discontent?

All specialists counter over crowding by using an idle citizen. Idle citizens are the ones that count towards over crowding. EG: Your city has 4 urban tiles. You have 4 idle citizens and 2 specialists. Your city grows to 5 idle citizens and over crowding happens. So you can either build another urban improvement increasing your city to 5 urban tiles, or build a specialist to reduce idle citizens to 4.

 

[rlw33]

One of the biggest surprises of the game was how difficult the lowest level actually is.

 

[steveg700]

On the religion/family tab if you click the religion you get the action panel. The hover text also includes quite a bit about the religion too.

From the sounds of it, you haven't established the religion as your state religion, and that's why the disciples have no actions. Click the religion in the panel, then on the action panel select Adopt state religion. It'll cost 400 civics. Then you can improve your religion, build the buildings etc.

Zoroastrianism is the state religion. I got two beliefs (veneration & dualism).

The game doesn't explain why other state religions are spreading to my cities and peeps, sometimes like wildfire, and sometimes right after the religion is founded. And meanwhile my religion never spreads to other cites.

And it's every turn. Cities convert. Citizens convert. Families convert. I mean, what the heck??? I just passed the law Divine Rule. Lemme see how that cuts out the noise.

Metaphysics gives me the ability to spend 3 years flipping one citizen to my state religion. That doesn't even begin to be an effective counter.

And I don't know how to flip a city to my state religion. Am I supposed to be doing this to my governors? I would guess not, since firing a governor doesn't stop the +1 Discontent from an upset religion accruing. I see an option on foreign cities to launch a religion flip mission via an agent, but nothing on my own cities.

On the tangent of agents, I just started using. Once they're assigned, are they permanently gone? They seem to vanish from the family menu. They do die, but what about recalling them? Is it like using a scout to establish a network where they eventually come back?

 

[Dale]

Zoroastrianism is the state religion. I got two beliefs (veneration & dualism).

The game doesn't explain why other state religions are spreading to my cities and peeps, sometimes like wildfire, and sometimes right after the religion is founded. And meanwhile my religion never spreads to other cites.

And it's every turn. Cities convert. Citizens convert. Families convert. I mean, what the heck??? I just passed the law Divine Rule. Lemme see how that cuts out the noise.

Metaphysics gives me the ability to spend 3 years flipping one citizen to my state religion. That doesn't even begin to be an effective counter.

And I don't know how to flip a city to my state religion. Am I supposed to be doing this to my governors? I would guess not, since firing a governor doesn't stop the +1 Discontent from an upset religion accruing. I see an option on foreign cities to launch a religion flip mission via an agent, but nothing on my own cities.

On the tangent of agents, I just started using. Once they're assigned, are they permanently gone? They seem to vanish from the family menu. They do die, but what about recalling them? Is it like using a scout to establish a network where they eventually come back?

Focus on the Family Heads. The higher up the family the character is, the more influence they have on the family overall. This goes for all opinion mechanics. And you don't have to flip everyone either.

Agents are replaceable. Click on the A icon under the city widget.

 

[steveg700]

Ever run into a situation where someone cannot be imprisoned? The chancellor spends the time to perform the arrest, and then when the time's up nothing happens. No arrest notification, no notification of failure.

I've been trying to arrest an angry lunatic off and on for thirty years. She went on to become the head of a family. Now I'm just waiting for her to die of old age.

 

[nolegskitten]

Ever run into a situation where someone cannot be imprisoned? The chancellor spends the time to perform the arrest, and then when the time's up nothing happens. No arrest notification, no notification of failure.

I've been trying to arrest an angry lunatic off and on for thirty years. She went on to become the head of a family. Now I'm just waiting for her to die of old age.

That sounds strange. Like, bug territory strange.
You should at least get a failed attempt result, maybe an exile or a strong opinion penalty, whatever, but these things do have effects.
Haven't jailed anyone recently so I don't have experience here but probably something to report. You're on the OW discord as well ?

 

[Dale]

Ever run into a situation where someone cannot be imprisoned? The chancellor spends the time to perform the arrest, and then when the time's up nothing happens. No arrest notification, no notification of failure.

I've been trying to arrest an angry lunatic off and on for thirty years. She went on to become the head of a family. Now I'm just waiting for her to die of old age.

If it's reproducable, send me a save where the mission is about to end. dale 'at' mohawkgames.com

 

[ThunderLizard2]

Great thread and tutorial/advice from Dale - on my third game and can appreciate the tips on offer. Really liking the fact that AIs can play the game and getting butt kicked at next to lowest level.

 

[steveg700]

Great thread and tutorial/advice from Dale - on my third game and can appreciate the tips on offer. Really liking the fact that AIs can play the game and getting butt kicked at next to lowest level.

Heh, the AI is a threat mainly because unit spam is not curtailed. So while a player might be looking to have a nice balanced empire with lots of specialists, the AI will just happily fill up every tile in a city with units. There is a maintenance, but it's clearly manageable. It's a problem in all 4x games, and TOW thinks it has it licked by virtue of orders limiting actions. My jury is out.

Here's a city Persia has had for a couple of generations now. Lots of units, no improvements. Keep those slingers coming!

I'm four generations in, so slingers, warriors, and chariots can't really stand up to archers, phalanxites, horsemen, etc. I assume my quality units could take it, but it's pretty much a nothingburger city. Guess I could always use few more mines, but not exactly a jewel worth going to war over.

Still have the basic problem with unit spam, which is that the mob can just pour in from anywhere and bog their into a neverending war of attrition, orders be damned. quality units are made while at peace, as they take way too long to build in the hear of war, so along war will have quality abandoned.

 

[nolegskitten]

Well, OW is a bit more biased toward war/combat than most 4xs. And when at war, units are better than lumbermills... It also seems to be a city on the border with a strong neighbour (you). I don't consider this a "problem" per se, I don't want to be able to stomp the AI any time the fancy takes me. If someone is going for no military/full eco, making units and taking their stuff is actually the right move.

Units can also be upgraded instantly, so quality units don't necessarily have to be made in peacetime. Maybe the difficulty settings you're using are a bit easy for you ?

 

[steveg700]

Well, OW is a bit more biased toward war/combat than most 4xs. And when at war, units are better than lumbermills... It also seems to be a city on the border with a strong neighbour (you). I don't consider this a "problem" per se, I don't want to be able to stomp the AI any time the fancy takes me. If someone is going for no military/full eco, making units and taking their stuff is actually the right move.

Units can also be upgraded instantly, so quality units don't necessarily have to be made in peacetime. Maybe the difficulty settings you're using are a bit easy for you ?

It's really not an issue of ease or difficulty, just a desire for civilization games to have enough checks on different strategies that there's not a house strategy where you only value one aspect of the game--in this case, building units in lieu of anything else.

Also, I just find it annoying to see limitless units on a map, and not just because it makes for interminable waits between turns. I prefer there to be strategic placement of units, defensively and offensively, not just a map teeming like ants at a picnic. Space lanes are a dominant feature in space 4X games for this very feature.

Instead of building another slinger, why not build some defenses, get a garrison up, some barracks, some officers, get a governor in that garrison with some military value? If those infrastructure elements are trifles that don't merit the effort when compared to just building units non-stop, then we have a lot of options without meaningful choices.

 

[Dale]

It's really not an issue of ease or difficulty, just a desire for civilization games to have enough checks on different strategies that there's not a house strategy where you only value one aspect of the game--in this case, building units in lieu of anything else.

Also, I just find it annoying to see limitless units on a map, and not just because it makes for interminable waits between turns. I prefer there to be strategic placement of units, defensively and offensively, not just a map teeming like ants at a picnic. Space lanes are a dominant feature in space 4X games for this very feature.

Instead of building another slinger, why not build some defenses, get a garrison up, some barracks, some officers, get a governor in that garrison with some military value? If those infrastructure elements are trifles that don't merit the effort when compared to just building units non-stop, then we have a lot of options without meaningful choices.

That's a border city, so sorta makes sense. I'd be interested to see what the AI is doing with a core city that's not near anyone else.

 

[steveg700]

Well, my very argument is that a border city would be a suitable place to build fortifying infrastructure, but in this case it was more of an island city than anything. If there was culture-bombing or loyalty-flipping (which maybe I just haven't found on the research tree), this city would be a goner.

Persia did eventually take out Carthage by way of unit-spamming, so I'm not saying it's not effective, but rather that should be checked from becoming too effective.

I wouldn't mind some optional mechanism for preventing unchecked city growth, as discontent currently seems localized. I know maintenance ramps up if cities are unconnected, but again not currently a consideration makes one hesitate.

HEY, has anybody ever run into an unarrestable citizen? I had one crazy, angry lady married into the family who I could not imprison for the life of me. She actually became head of one of the families and I went through multiple chancellors before she eventually died....in her sixties, unlike all my favorite governors who seem to always keel over before they can turn thirty lol.

 

[nolegskitten]

HEY, has anybody ever run into an unarrestable citizen? I had one crazy, angry lady married into the family who I could not imprison for the life of me. She actually became head of one of the families and I went through multiple chancellors before she eventually died....in her sixties, unlike all my favorite governors who seem to always keel over before they can turn thirty lol.

Possibly there was an issue/bug ? To be honest I would advise against jailing a head of family or something like that, they hate you even more and they're still considered Head of family by the family members, so that opinion penalty is not going to look better. Also, this might have changed during EA so I'm not 100% sure, maybe the game now prevents you from jailing a family leader.

I wouldn't mind some optional mechanism for preventing unchecked city growth, as discontent currently seems localized. I know maintenance ramps up if cities are unconnected, but again not currently a consideration makes one hesitate.

unchecked city growth is most often worth the discontent, you can also just delay city growth by using the growth for something else (training civilian units like workers, settlers, disciples...).
City discontent feeds back into family discontent, so it's not purely localized. I think you can also block city growth as you seemed to be requesting, but I never use the feature so I'm not sure about the button/shortcut to do that.

 

[nolegskitten]

It's really not an issue of ease or difficulty, just a desire for civilization games to have enough checks on different strategies that there's not a house strategy where you only value one aspect of the game--in this case, building units in lieu of anything else.

Also, I just find it annoying to see limitless units on a map, and not just because it makes for interminable waits between turns. I prefer there to be strategic placement of units, defensively and offensively, not just a map teeming like ants at a picnic. Space lanes are a dominant feature in space 4X games for this very feature.

I think there's a matter of taste here regarding large unit numbers. OW is a lot more competent at using many units than civ; and units are more mobile as well so there's more strategy than appear to the eye in the way unit are positioned, even when in large numbers (definitely something important in MP for instance). Regarding turn time, that might be something I missed as I've been playing with fast unit movement and only check units from factions I'm at war with. Haven't tried other options, so you might have a point there.

Instead of building another slinger, why not build some defenses, get a garrison up, some barracks, some officers, get a governor in that garrison with some military value? If those infrastructure elements are trifles that don't merit the effort when compared to just building units non-stop, then we have a lot of options without meaningful choices.

From a pure strategic standpoint, units are better than forts etc. Not saying this specific AI is doing the best it could, but I'm trying to explain what leads to what you see on your screen.

 

[steveg700]

Possibly there was an issue/bug ? To be honest I would advise against jailing a head of family or something like that, they hate you even more and they're still considered Head of family by the family members, so that opinion penalty is not going to look better. Also, this might have changed during EA so I'm not 100% sure, maybe the game now prevents you from jailing a family leader.

Well, what's going on behind the scenes of the game is still fairly oblique, but I figure the imprison action exists for a reason and that people who are angry with the leader could be triggering negative events.

The one thing more annoying than notifications of characters inexplicably switching to foreign religion is the abrupt death of characters with zero details that suggest causality and it's natural to wonder what factors might have contributed. Especially when multiple deaths break out like rashes. I think it's worth some experimentation, especially when their anger comes from sinister traits.

unchecked city growth is most often worth the discontent, you can also just delay city growth by using the growth for something else (training civilian units like workers, settlers, disciples...).
City discontent feeds back into family discontent, so it's not purely localized. I think you can also block city growth as you seemed to be requesting, but I never use the feature so I'm not sure about the button/shortcut to do that.

By "growth" I was referring to taking cities (whether by camping the site or through conquest) for the sake of having, not because the location has any specific characteristics of value (e.g. resources, luxuries). Another perennial issue of 4X games. Perhaps "expansion" was a better word to use.