Opening moves

[DavidC]

Ai Tech trading : One of the things I noticed is that the AI will NOT trade techs with you if you are the tech leader, which is a really good improvement from Civ3.

The RB1 SG at CFC reminded me of the first time Civ3 came out : it took the whole community 6 months to really understand the game and to be able to win regularly on Emperor and Deity. Sirian founded RBE which means Realms Beyond Emperor which at the time was like *real* hard !
People are now so used to wiping the AIs ass at any level that they require to be able to win at any level 3 weeks after the game is released
I think the levels are really well designed in Civ4 and its good that we cant beat Emperor regularly. Also the game needs some fine tuning to be really good yet. lets all be patient

To come back on topic : the opening moves are important of course in Civ4 Emperor level or higher, however they are less important than in Civ3 because the way to win regularly on Civ4 is to resist and defend a long, long, long time before finally building a stronger economy than the AIs and winning in the late stages of the game !
And that really how it should be, if your objective is to outgrow the AI by 1000bc then forget it, there is no miracle solution for that.
I have played 10 times on Emperor (standard and large/continents) never re-rolling a start and I have won 6 of those times and mostly in the very late stages of the game by diplo, space or even time. Only in 2 cases (out of 10) was I overwhelmingly in front of the AI so that the game was wrapped up by the Classical era.

[akots]

I have yet to get to that stage of playing against many AIs, still experimenting with duel size map. Unfortunately, I could not finish the Gandhi against Genghis Khan game because all my autosaves disappeared (I have Russian version of Windows XP so that is not uncommon; it should be fixed with a patch).

Another experiment was mad Praetorian rush. The goal was to test how stupid indeed the AI is. Must say that the experiment went rather well. Human was Caesar, AI was Masa Munsa (set to random). I have not build many improvements (only barracks) and only 2 cities, and researched straight to Iron Working. Then built 2 more settlers (assisted with forest chop) and fully switched to Praetorian mode. Turned on governor but did not automate workers. Then also upgraded a few warriors to Axemen (yes, I had both copper and iron) and assembled SOD of about 6 units and started the war. Advanced onto Masa and killed him. It was not easy, he resisted bitterly. I had to pillage his resources and improvements and for some time run a zero income budget. But plunder money obtained from capturing cities helped a lot and also building a few cottages. I have not revolted and have not researched much and whole game on normal game speed took about 2 hours total. I have really screwed a lot, attacking with 2 Praetorians a city defended with 4 skirmishers, moving wounded instead of healing, etc. etc. IMHO, if played well with micromanagement and careful planning, I could have finished around 200AD or so. Instead, game lasted to 760AD. I have not used any known exploits obviously and played it as a single session.

Now, again said, I hope they fix a few things in the patch but AI is doing many things completely wrong imho. Of note was horrible war weariness in the end, some cities were even starving because of this.

For interested, see the attached save.

Download Attachment: [img]icon_paperclip.gif[/img] Caesar-MM-EmperorDuel-AD-0760.zip
37.54 KB

[akots]

quote:Originally posted by DavidC
... And that really how it should be, if your objective is to outgrow the AI by 1000bc then forget it, there is no miracle solution for that. ...

IMHO, with forest chop it is rather easy, no big deal. The problem is then what to do with these cities. Maintenance starts to be horrible and even though you have grabbed many possible resources and lots of land, it would basically mean inability to develop further.

I've tried a chop strategy in 5 or 6 games and had 9 cities by around 500BC on Emperor small map with lots of resources and luxuries. But then every time your science halts even before you can reach Alphabet and some AI declares on you and starts capturing these poorly defended cities.

That is apparently intended way of game development. So, seems that overexpansion is extremely dangerous tactics.

[DavidC]

I really dont understand your point akots ???

First you say the AI is major stupid because it could not resist to a Praetorian rush on duel tiny map ??? Whats the fucking point ? Nobody could resist that, the fact it did resist until 760AD is actually quite good and I think it proves the AI did a good job
Where are the arguments "proving the AI is stupid" ?

Then you say you can outgrow the AI by 1000BC which you were complaining was not possible at the beginning of this thread. Then you say actually gameplay was intended so that you do not overexpand
I understand you are just fooling around with the game right now but all your posts have an after taste of rant and (misgiven) complaints, even before you actually had the game you were jsut super negative about it and are now trying to find a posteriori justifications.
Have you ever liked Civ3 ? Were you part or do you remember how vanilla civ3 was behaving on version 1.00 ???? The game was just totally BROKEN !
Civ IV is far, extremely far from that here at this stage.

[akots]

Yes, and it is frustrating. I cannot believe I can beat Immortal level with governor set on in all cities building only barracks and Praetorians.

Check this thread at CFC and take a look at the saves... It all speak for itself. Winning at Immortal level in 450AD? Don't know what else can be there. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=141919

Still game is fun but only trying to compete with other humans either in GOTM or in PBEMs/MP. What had been expected is not there.

Now about rant. I had a very high exectations from this game especially when it comes to AI. I sincerely believed that AI would have been improved and would behave reasonably. That is a big disappointment here. However, the game is a great fun but only when there are other humans around.

I'd be happy to play a PBEM with you on a duel size map. You play Rome and don't build anything but barracks and Praetorians. (OK, that was rude, never mind, you can build whatever you want.) And I play as Mali. After the patch comes of course.

[Kemal]

Simply put, most map scripts were never written to play against the AI. Duel/Tiny, maybe even small maps, were not written with a SP battle vs the AI in mind. Play the AI from standard upwards with max number of opponents if you want a real challenge. Believe me, you will be tested a *lot* more on these settings, since the AI was designed to function under these settings.

Btw, update on my emperor game, going very well now after a shaky start. Still middle of the pack both in techs and score, but confidence is growing.

[Loulong]

I only play the beta yet but my favorite start is a coastal one with maritime resources. Building a working boat does not prevent your city from growing while providing bonus in food and health. Of course it is rare and completely random !
I think they have done a good job in avoiding the "one strategy beats all" since the early "winning" strategy depends a lot on the civ you have (with its initial techs for instance) and the environment. This was made to allow for an initial more environment-linked researh and specialization.

[akots]

quote:Originally posted by Kemal

Simply put, most map scripts were never written to play against the AI. Duel/Tiny, maybe even small maps, were not written with a SP battle vs the AI in mind. Play the AI from standard upwards with max number of opponents if you want a real challenge. ...

Thanks for advice, I will sure try that!

Indeed, after some clear thought, it looks like the map is OK though. It is just that AI is doing something wrong. May be indeed the map size is important. Certainly, the continents map would be way more difficult for example.

I'm still pretty much sure I have not used any exploits, even hidden ones. It does not come down to game mechanics. These games on little maps are really somewhat weird and remind me of boogaboo's "Sid Conquest" tales in Hall of Fame at CFC. He did it around 1000BC iirc with Aztec a couple of times after lots of trying.

[killercane]

Did the AI make any attempts to cut your iron?

[akots]

quote:Originally posted by killercane

Did the AI make any attempts to cut your iron?

They did not have iron working until almost the end of the game. The AI though made some attempt to defend their copper and horses (with an archer). And I think at least in a duel game the AI indeed tried to cut it down, however with a single unit (axeman iirc).