Thoughts on New Patch Strategies

[King Patrick]

Attacks are more coordinated, AI tries to run away with wounded units, attacks ranged units with horses, in short behaves as it should in many cases.

Oh, this is a great point. I saw this in my Egypt game, too, defending against waves of attackers - the AI has gotten very good at rotating damaged units away from the front lines. Also at defending ranged units & targeting your exposed ranged units. At one point I made a mistake in setting up my defensive line & left a gap between pikemen - a knight slipped between them and wrecked my catapult.

 

[KevinMiles90000]

Let me reiterate how much I HATE having civs declare war on you for absolutely no reason. They are halfway across the map, it's turn 83 and all that is going to happen is that they are going to mess you up a little bit, lose some units, and then get steamrolled by another civ and create a breakaway civ. I'm all for the AI acting more aggressively, but they should do so when there is something to actually be gained.

 

[snarzberry]

I'm thinking that it's now more important to get yourself on to a 'team' via diplomacy and really work to make you and your two buddies relationship stay friendly. Early attacks seem to be more common so it kinda draws the line in the sand and if you want long term trading and RA partners you have to think carefully and sometimes even invest resources via requests in diplomacy.

 

[Civsassin]

Let me reiterate how much I HATE having civs declare war on you for absolutely no reason. They are halfway across the map, it's turn 83 and all that is going to happen is that they are going to mess you up a little bit, lose some units, and then get steamrolled by another civ and create a breakaway civ. I'm all for the AI acting more aggressively, but they should do so when there is something to actually be gained.

There is always a reason. You just don't see it.

 

[KevinMiles90000]

There is always a reason. You just don't see it.

No I really don't think there is a reason. Oda was sitting halfway across the map (pangea). He was bordering Washington, Askia, and Wu Zutian. Thrown in between us was also Darius. For some reason I got a DOW. I never saw any units, but it was enough to get the other civs around him to denounce and then gobble up his cities as they ganged up on him.

This isn't just Civ 5, it's a problem in all Civs as well. It doesn't make any sense from a realism standpoint or a gameplay standpoint.

 

[Architect]

Also, about your emperor game that was war-free, do you mind me asking what map you were playing?

It was a continents map, standard size and standard conditions. I was kinda isolated in a corner of a snaky continent but made it a priority to get contact with everyone in the game as early as possible. I still faced some coveting of my lands from the Chinese during that game but luckily I was able to convince America to attack them and eventually they were wiped out. China only had 2 cities so they were probably going for a cultural victory.

One thing I forgot to mention about the AI is it doesn't use its money well still especially in the late game. Sitting on 3000g is just a waste. The AI should use more of its gold to ally with city states if its going to try. It was too easy for me to leverage Patronage for science and when an AI would take one of my states I could usually throw 250g or maybe 500g at them and take it back.

 

[Hustapha Thool]

I started an emperor game as usual, nc start, I had a couple of warriors, plenty of cash...
I built my second city, got a territory warning from Sulieman ( he was still in the clouds) and a few turns later he showed up with 3 archers and six warriors, that was quite a surprise.

 

[Pazyryk]

Let me reiterate how much I HATE having civs declare war on you for absolutely no reason. They are halfway across the map, it's turn 83 and all that is going to happen is that they are going to mess you up a little bit, lose some units, and then get steamrolled by another civ and create a breakaway civ. I'm all for the AI acting more aggressively, but they should do so when there is something to actually be gained.

They were probably bribed by another civ. I've seen this too, but DOWs from neighboring civs is much much more common (based on my 8 or so failed starts at Immortal difficulty post-patch).

Let me just reiterate how much I LOVE getting my ass handed to me playing at a difficulty level that I thought I had mastered. If they can force me back to King difficulty with AI tweaks only (no additional boosts) then I will be a happy civver.

 

[Nyanko]

I am thinking they accidently triggered the raging barbarian tag in this patch, because they are so raging. I have also noticed while playing (on prince) that while the AI don't have many cities, it doesnt mean they're not trying... Almost every barb encampment I ran into had a captured settler under it. Anyway, the barbarians have been the biggest change, and have forced me into changing my start stratergy, else be overrun.

 

[Deau]

Let me just reiterate how much I LOVE getting my ass handed to me playing at a difficulty level that I thought I had mastered. If they can force me back to King difficulty with AI tweaks only (no additional boosts) then I will be a happy civver.

Exactly what I said either here or in another thread, with the latest AI changes, I really don't see the ******ed opening buff working. On turn 1 AIs already have a significantly higher soldier value and thus use their 2 cities and mass gold to spam more units.

Spains' sick early gold from wonders scouting makes it so she can wreck a war with 6 warriors + 6 archers @turn 20-25 (I'm still stubbornly playing Deity to try and find a way to open and get a decent game rolling and getting my ass handed over and over)

Even when settling a lux and using the gold to buy warriors, playing very safe with my initial warrior and pulling him back home and altering my early building prod. to snag in a warrior or 2, I get DoWed and from there I've blown so much on early survival that even with tech sling shotting to steel, chances are I'll be at best even-teched in late medieval.

and it's not like even-teched wars go without casualties anymore... esp not in very early game w no exp on units

 

[dubrown]

I've only played through half of an emperor game with the new patch so far. With china on a pangea. I've noticed a few things that I don't think would've happened pre patch.

I did the cho-ku-no strat (ie beeline for the UE and then launch my war campaign. I had inca to the south of me, greece to the east, egypt and germany distant in the north and only coast to the west. Inca to the south was friendly with me, greece to the east as usual annoying. I was ahead in tech (the rest only had warriors/spears/archers vs my chu-ku-no and swords.

Greece and inca where at war, I decided to go for greece and started moving my troops, leaving my hometurf with a lone unit to take care of barbs. Inca declares war out of the blue from friendly relations (I still hadn't declared on greece so I don't think they where bribed and also, they where at war with greece at the time). I think it was because they got their army of 3 warriors close to my borders and I had little to no defense there and thus the new opportunistic AI took a shot and declared war. Well, I doubt that would've happened in the old version. Still 3 warriors is easily repelled by a city and a lone archer...)

Other than that I've just rolled over the AI in the wars so far, granted, having a clear tech advantage does that, so far greece and inca obliterated and germany on the way to the same destiny. Perhaps I've noted a bit less suicidal tendencies from the AI and a bit more strategical sound decisions on where to place their units. So I guess the patch has improved things a bit atleast.

 

[Deau]

I'm thinking that it's now more important to get yourself on to a 'team' via diplomacy and really work to make you and your two buddies relationship stay friendly. Early attacks seem to be more common so it kinda draws the line in the sand and if you want long term trading and RA partners you have to think carefully and sometimes even invest resources via requests in diplomacy.

This has been the only way I have found yet to avoid getting multiple DoW spam...by almost spamming declaration of friendship (especially early in the game before AIs start denouncing each other so that you almost only get the relation buff from DoF)

It is definitely not as stable as prepatch where i could do turns 1-100 w no DoW for so long as I didn't risk settling near an AI or played bad diplomacy accepting DoFs. It's kind of awkward but I finally have a winnable deity game by turn 150 atm, leading in tech, only scare is Ghandi's culture. I spent 2k bribing wars on him and he's still as strong as he used to be.

As much as I used to avoid combat-CSs, I also changed my CS rally by beginning with those as they kind of field my weak army. 2 CSs have done enough to feel like "I'm safe"

 

[Drachen]

I'm thinking that it's now more important to get yourself on to a 'team' via diplomacy and really work to make you and your two buddies relationship stay friendly. Early attacks seem to be more common so it kinda draws the line in the sand and if you want long term trading and RA partners you have to think carefully and sometimes even invest resources via requests in diplomacy.

This is what I’m going to test next as well. I just had a DOW from across the continent which negated a RA and wrecked my Chivalry push. As the war started my advisor rated them as “war is not going well.” I’ll be looking at ways to supplement a RA path which is less stable than it was in previous patches.

 

[Louis XXIV]

I also noticed that I was able to go on the offensive and take cities from a Civ that had declared war on me and was denounced by everyone else with no diplo penalty. I got lots of "hope your war is going well"s and no one called me a warmonger. Actually, out of everyone, I was the closest to looking like the irrational one as I started being actively aggressive towards and considered denouncing a Civ that had been friendly with me for most of the game because he started coming close to winning.

 

[fromar]

This is what I’m going to test next as well. I just had a DOW from across the continent which negated a RA and wrecked my Chivalry push. As the war started my advisor rated them as “war is not going well.” I’ll be looking at ways to supplement a RA path which is less stable than it was in previous patches.

I'm seeing the same thing. In one game, the friend-blocks held together well. In my current game, every AI has been at war on and off with every other AI for a hundred turns. I get "Cathy denounced Oda", then "Oda has declared war on Elizabeth", then I attack Oda, and Cathy and Elizabeth both denounce me. Cathy attacks Askia, so Askia attacks me and destroys our research agreement.

Sometimes the game gives some solid stability, but once grudges are made, they are kept. The results look like total insanity.

 

[Deau]

DoF really seems like the current way to go for early survival at higher difficulty levels. My biggest issue with it atm though is it pretty much obliterates warmongering games. Sure I can try and get as many DoFs out so I can have a peaceful NC+HE or NC+REX opener and get a decent LS push...but if I attack any of my friends, I am bound to being unable to do any viable trade for hundreds of turns to come.

I finally managed to get a good diety game rolling after toying with DoFs. I had a single DoW on me in early game from Greece accross the map. Bribed friends to DoW him and bought peace ~50 turns later. Blew about 1000g on that but it was well worth it.

I kept spending to bribe wars between my various friends (even at the cost of one telling me not to be friends with another) in order to slow their expansion and tech progress from building so many units. Also because I have not had any unit until my 2 early allied CSs (both combat CSs) started to provide me units.

Ghandi kept taking a tech lead over my 4 city setup (played as france to avoid having to build monuments and save those precious early hammers). Luckily, playing in such peaceful lands with 2 combat CSs granted me about 14 units, mostly swordsman and crossbowmens. Seeing as Ghandi was in line for both a science AND a cultural victory before I could win science, I power-upgraded my units to the french legion (UU - infantry) for a very late game war. I had had mongolia-babylon-america bribed to attack Ghandi 10-15 turns before I could bubble the infantry tech.

I tried denouncing ghandi 2-3 turns before I would DoW praying it would reduce the impact of the war on my other relations (for further trades/RAs and just because I'm going for science and not for domination). Poped infantry tech through a GS at turn 175, spent 3 turns upgrading units, DoWed on turn 180. Went straight to his capital since he was my immediate neighbor and it was open. Took it by turn 187, on turn 190 he offered me 2 of his remaining 3 cities and some spare change for peace .

After suffering 18 turns of ******ed unhappiness and -50GPT, cities were back to production and I'm techlead @ turn 210 with 2 GS lying around and 4 or 5 RAs that I had to pay the era advance for :s.

What's going to be hard now is that war put me at Guarded with 3 civs that I was friendly with before and babylon just won't renew a DoF. They are #2 in techs and I am affraid they might DoW on me. Sure they are friendly, but they also have an even-teched army that's 3 times the size of mine. Hopefully the stolen Hejmi castle from Ghandi will help me survive if my nightmare occurs!

 

[LAnkou]

Is it normal that some civ have only 2 cities in 1000AD + (with a lot of room to expand...)?

 

[KevinMiles90000]

Is it normal that some civ have only 2 cities in 1000AD + (with a lot of room to expand...)?

Yes. My preferable way to victory now is Siam with 2 cities. Get those aquaducts up fast and keep RAing and moving towards scholaticism and you should be on pace with the other civs or even ahead of them. The advantages of only having 2 cities is:

-Less time wasted initially building settlers and limiting growth in the capital
-Much less happiness issues, you can completely cover happiness with only city states and maybe a coliseum or two, allowing you to sell all your luxuries
-Other civs are much more friendly towards you because you get less requests to not settle in their lands, allowing you to focus less on military and more on building
-Cheaper/faster national wonders, both in building cost of the actual wonder and the time it takes to build their respective buildings in all your cities

In the long run horizontal empires have an advantage, but games are usually over before then.

 

[LAnkou]

Yes. My preferable way to victory now is Siam with 2 cities. Get those aquaducts up fast and keep RAing and moving towards scholaticism and you should be on pace with the other civs or even ahead of them. The advantages of only having 2 cities is:

-Less time wasted initially building settlers and limiting growth in the capital
-Much less happiness issues, you can completely cover happiness with only city states and maybe a coliseum or two, allowing you to sell all your luxuries
-Other civs are much more friendly towards you because you get less requests to not settle in their lands, allowing you to focus less on military and more on building
-Cheaper/faster national wonders, both in building cost of the actual wonder and the time it takes to build their respective buildings in all your cities

In the long run horizontal empires have an advantage, but games are usually over before then.

no problem for the player, but let me rephrase my issue:
Is it normal that the AI civ only have 2 cities in 1000AD?

 

[neilkaz]

Is it normal that some civ have only 2 cities in 1000AD + (with a lot of room to expand...)?

This happens sometimes, and I strongly suspect that the AI civ is going for a cultural victory. When this happens, you'll often see that AI bidding for alliances with cultural CS and making landmarks etc. Check and see how many SP's he's completed and which ones.

.. neilkaz ..