Wars easier in later years

[obsolete]

It used to be if I couldn't keep up with the race, then i'd get slaughtered by the AI in wars near the later years. Fighting early wars was the easy part.

However, I've noticed it just seems too easy to win wars in the later years now, despite it should be the opposite. I couldn't figure out why this was so, and thought maybe I was just too good. Last game I built a lot of spies and move them about to see what was going on.

I then noticed that, for example, Napoleon who is very aggressive early and builds tons of units, suddenly turns extremely dossile once he starts the apollo project. He just stops building units even when he hardly has any. I was able to take his cities with ease, and he STILL just sat there building stupid space ship parts, even in his last 4 cities when I was closing in with an overwhelming army.

I could swear, at one time the AI used to imediately stop space ship parts and switch to military units when at war. I think perhaps they changed this so that people couldn't just declare war on a nation to prevent it from making space ship parts and winning the race.

Ever since the patch came out I was alarmed at how many space ship parts get made when in the middle of wars. Now I see why.

 

[Seafroggys]

Actually, wars should be much easier in later years. It took the US several weeks to march into Baghdad. How long did it take the Germans to march into Paris in WW1? Exactly, they didn't.

 

[Mr. Civtastic]

How big was Iraq's army compared to how big the French army was (and then include their British allies). Its really not that close of a comparison.

 

[tycoonist]

mr.civ
yeah but the schlieffen plan meant that with proper logistics, the Germans would have made it to paris before the French army which was focused on Alsace-Lorraine even attacked them. And the BEF was just a token resistance. Seafroggys is right that due to new transportation armies no longer have to march everywhere, they can be airdropped, tanked, or just moved by army trucks quickly from one place to another

 

[Winston Hughes]

Actually, wars should be much easier in later years. It took the US several weeks to march into Baghdad. How long did it take the Germans to march into Paris in WW1? Exactly, they didn't.

Talk about missing the point... Not only is a historical example irrelevant here - obselete's not talking about whether it's realistic, he's suggesting that it's far too easy for the player - but your historical example is completely backwards as well: he's talking about a LESS technologically advanced nation strolling in almost unopposed to conquer a more advanced neighbour.

The US invasion of Iraq was a cakewalk at first because you were looking at a technologically advanced superpower with support from numerous allies invading a backwards international pariah state whose leaders were widely despised by its own people, and whose military infrastructure had already been bombed to hell over the preceding 12 years. (That the country has since gone into an ever escalating revolt against the invaders shows that, even with the almost incredible military force at the United States' disposal, conquering a foreign country is by no means as quick and clinical as the doctrine of 'overwhelming force' suggests.)

For a scenario more in keeping with the situation obselete's talking about, imagine Egypt invading Israel and meeting only limited resistance because the Israelis were more interested in their space program than the defence of their nation.

 

[Seafroggys]

Okay, I guess I understand the point now.

The fact remains, though, is that wars should be the easiest to fight in the modern era.

 

[obsolete]

The fact im trying to get at is.... it seems they tried to fix one problem.. but then created another.

What nation is worried about working on space parts when they will die before they even get their booster off the ground? I always considered the french in this game to be nuts. But going from one extreme to the other, is quite peculiar.

 

[Winston Hughes]

The fact im trying to get at is.... it seems they tried to fix one problem.. but then created another.

What nation is worried about working on space parts when they will die before they even get their booster off the ground? I always considered the french in this game to be nuts. But going from one extreme to the other, is quite peculiar.

Maybe, in accordance with the typical Anglo-American view of modern France, they're too cowardly to fight, and so are hoping to escape your wrath by leaving the planet altogether...

Lame jokes aside, I agree that it's pretty dumb. As much as the 'anti-spacerace war' thing needed attention, the player really doesn't need any more wartime advantages against the AI, especially at that stage of the game.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

In game terms, early wars are easier because you don't suffer from the 4-6 war wariness nonsense that you get during the renaissance. But after railroads, wars become easier again.

 

[Sisiutil]

Well, we all know the AI is programmed to go for a space race win. It also seems programmed to rarely see the worth in completely conquering another civilization, since this happens so rarely. As a result, the AI does indeed stick to its space race plans, even in the face of obliteration.

This isn't anything new; in the very first ALC game on vanilla Civ IV, I was playing as Montezuma and conquering Gandhi when my spies revealed he was still working on the Apollo Project even as his cities fell under my control. A human would have switched completely to military builds under those circumstances.

Blake has improved the AI in certain regards, but admits himself that it just isn't very good at war. He's working to improve it in that regard, which is both encouraging and scary. Suffice it to say that an AI is a complicated piece of programming and is bound to have blind spots. I'm impressed, frankly, that the Civ IV AI is as good as it is.

 

[obsolete]

Well Ghandi is an extreme case. He beelines for space race and is crazy about it. Every AI has it's (trends). I noticed Monte doens't really care too much about those, and this makes him a big problem when trying to fight. But of course, he is always a problem to tight. I usualy win the sapce race most easily when Monte is a big leader, because he trails so slow behind the space-race. I imagine he has to pay a lot of gold for all his units as well, which also factors in.

Come to think of it... Isabella seems to always be a minor nation in most my Monarch games.

 

[Warspite2]

I am not sure about this. To me, every war I fight is completely different and sometimes it is easier in the early ages, other times its harder in the later ages.