wicked idea

[Lady Wandbender]

*she had a terrible, aweful grynchy idea*...

It would take a little work, but would solve some of the problems some civ's have with the AI, that players exploit too easily. Get rid of them. make 2 civs with the same name, 1 player only the other AI only, so it will <seem> like a human player is playing against all possible civs, and with the AI civ's you take out the things which hamstring the AI so badly (like multi building prereq's) you could also jive with the "Palace numbers" (since I think everybody gets their own special palace) for weaker (dumber) ai's and cut it back for the stronger ones, all without having to worry about ruining the human player(s).

Sorry I get giddy, I tried to explain it to my live-in and she was *shrug* so I had to come here and tell it to someone who'd care and then punch holes in the idea.

 

[smjjames]

huh? it might work in MP, in theory, but I have no idea how it would work in SP.

 

[Lady Wandbender]

ok, in single player, the AI does dumb things, like not build longbowmen (as soon as they can) because they don't priotize the Boyer needed to build them so when they get attacked you end up eating warriors rather than longbowmen, making things a cake walk, but if you took the building-need away from the AI when they got the tech they'd start churning out longbowmen and it wouldn't make everything just a mop up mission.

For Quest for the Crown, I plan on using a Village, town, City idea, (village has 1square radius, town has the normal fat cross, and cities iwll have the triple fat cross (like from the Slums are playing the little boy civ) (sorry can't think of the name this second), the AI will never get this (as you use buildings to upgrade to the next level) so the AI-only civ's don't need to bother with this requirement, it gives them a cheat, but it's balanced by the basic dumbness of the AI. (in my opinion)

and in at least my games, the AI doesn't seem that aggresive in new MANA spawns, so you could cut out/down some of the needs that way as well.

 

[loki1232]

Yeah i understand this. its basically just a way of letting the ai cheat.

 

[Kael]

Yeah, you dont need to make 2nd civs to do it (though that would work too). You could just apply bonuses only if the civ is ai controlled. The best place to do that is in the handicap settings.

 

[Lady Wandbender]

oh that's great, I hadn't looked at that file yet, I had written it off to being simply the settler -> sid settings, see ya learn something new everyday.

and it would be nice balance the games toughness with something more than cheats, but I don't honestly see a way to do even with a better basic engine than can be proivded....if you set up strat. scripts, they'd be learned and gone around (we all learned to send a fient attack in one end of an empire in civ2 then launch our real assult from the other side) if you used turn to turn reactions (which is more or less what it seems like now) the AI won't advance since using three horsemen and raiding will always have them reacting to you.

The one goal I have with Quest for the Crown, is to create a game I can't beat. so when somebody does honestly beat it without tweaks or cheats, they really did something.

 

[Tarquelne]

with the AI civ's you take out the things which hamstring the AI so badly (like multi building prereq's)

The units and buildings have "AI Weights" assigned to them. The weights can be lowered for anything the AI doesn't well or over-builds. And raised for units/buildings it should create more frequently.

It seems other factors - probably the AI scripts - are quite often more important. But you can sometimes see considerable improvements after altering an AI weight.

 

[Lady Wandbender]

nod, It's a very good point Tarquelene, I hadn't put that much weight into how it was handled simply because much better game designers both at Friaxsis and with Heaven, than I will ever be, didn't see to hit that sweet spot (often enough at any rate) to play both a good offensive and defensive game, they are really good at raiding, but you can't win only raiding but as it stands now, if you protect your perrimeter and protect your capital (both inside the city and with a flying defense (old british term for mobile infantry to plug up any holes in the wall, not Aiir combat) unless you just pick one more fight than you should or get a dreadfu streak of luck you can't lose. And if you are not going to lose you can only win.

 

[BeefontheBone]

The "AI no building prereqs" option does part of what you were asking, there.