Wolfshanze Mod = Dumb AI ?

[sorinache]

I've started my first moded game. Mind you, I wasn't too daring and chose a mostly esthetic mod : Wolfshanze (I didn't get to the modern era to enjoy the new units and the new leaders seem to be MotS).

First remark : I have graphic bugs. I run on an old desktop (P IV 2.4 from fall 2003 with an ATI Radeon 7500 graphic card) but the un-moded game displays everything correctly (albeit slowly). With Wolfshanze I see only parts of some units (e.g. : only the quivers of ennemy archers, only the beautifully waving capes of my horsemen, etc.)

More intriguingly, the AI seems much dumber than in normal BtS. I'm playing Julius Caesar (I wanted to try and be bad using legionnaires). De Gaulle chocked my expansion at 5 1/2 cities, yet I'm reluctant to dow on him since he has the same religion, he loves me (the only one to love me actually) and because I so much like to improve my cities and build wonders that my army is quite puny ...

Yet I'm far ahead of all the other guys in technology. This is the first time this happens to me. In all my previous games I noticed that I was scrambling to keep pace with them about the time they got to Feudalism / Civil Service / Machinery. About this time in my unmoded BtS games, I was often struggling to find ways to avoid falling behind. Such as getting first to Divine Right and then exchanging with three different AIs for the above techs or their close followers (Engineering, Guilds). Now I not only got first to Divine Right (I bulbed it though) but I was also easily first to Philosophy (never happened to me before in BtS) and to Music (ditto).

Not only I got first to techs I never managed to be first to in unmoded games before, I also get to build wonders I don't often manage to. Despite not being Industrious and having neither stone nor marble, I built Great Library although De Gaulle had Aesthetics and Literature long before I got to it and didn't want to exchange it. And I'm a couple of turns away from building the Parthenon too !

So was wondering whether other people with experience of both normal BtS and Wolfshanze have noticed something similar (AI apparently dumber in Wolfshanze) ?

[Blaupanzer]

What level are you playing? Below Prince, the AI is soft and unscientific, getting worse as the level lowers.

[AAHZ]

Wolfenshanze exposes a huge memory leak that makes the game unplayable on some platforms (namely mine) to the point that i eventually quit Civ altogether in frustration.

Good MOD but Civ 4 really does suck sometimes.

[wodan11]

You need to be playing Legends of Revolution or WolfRevolution instead. Phungus has fixed most of the problems with the Wolfshanze mod. (And if you don't like the Revolutions aspect, you can turn it off in the custom game start screen.)

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=292578

[sorinache]

You need to be playing Legends of Revolution or WolfRevolution instead. Phungus has fixed most of the problems with the Wolfshanze mod. (And if you don't like the Revolutions aspect, you can turn it off in the custom game start screen.)

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=292578

I've tried WolfRevolution but it crashes after a few turns on my machine. Besides, from what I've seen, it bends and twists the game far too much and adds too many things and somehow I get the impression I'm almost playing another game. For the moment I'm happy with BtS, I don't need another game.

Anyway, it doesn't answer my question. Maybe I was too shy and got in noman's land : playing with only Wolfshanze Mod ... Maybe there are only two categories of players : those that only play unmoded and those that MOD it all the way and play "Legends of Revolution DCM Wolfshanze"

[sorinache]

What level are you playing? Below Prince, the AI is soft and unscientific, getting worse as the level lowers.

I play Emperor but it's not very relevant : I'm comparing same with same. I'm VERY surprised to be already leading in tech in around 1100AD with only 5 serious cities. In unmoded BtS, playing same difficulty level I wouldn't become top tech dog until at least Assembly Line. I am also VERY surprised to be the first to discover Philo and Music (none of them with bulbing). It never happened in my admiteddly only about 10 complete emperor games on standard BtS. I am very surprised to be able to build the Parthenon without marble and without an industrious leader. Never managed to build the Parthenon in standard BtS because I do not consider it a priority (but hey, if nothing else happens, I have more fun building the Parthenon than training armies anyway).

[Jaybe]

Note that one game does not a fair sampling make. Try a few more games of it (if the graphics problem is not too much).

Of course, an even better solution might be to bite the bullet and get a better computer.

[sorinache]

Note that one game does not a fair sampling make. Try a few more games of it (if the graphics problem is not too much).

Of course, an even better solution might be to bite the bullet and get a better computer.

No, of course, and this is why I asked here. Still, it's intriguing.

Actually I realize the graphics problem is very annoying during a war : Kim Jong Il and Justinian just relieved me of a difficult decision (when to attack ?) by DOW-ing on me. Great, that way I can still think of myself as being the good guy. The problem is, most unit flags don't show : they appear white. It's very annoying to not know whether that big menacing stack is Kim's or De Gaulle's (mon ami).

About getting a better computer ... this one suits my needs pretty well. I might look around to see if I manage to upgrade (are there AGP graphic cards yet ?). Other than that, given the poor performance of the AI I'll probably rather revert to playing standard unmoded BtS

[rah]

What, no accompanying add or link. I'm surprised.

[Blaupanzer]

There's a link on the line right below his sentence. Highlight to see its presence if you wish, but DO NOT click. My company's filter says it has viruses AND is graphic pron. The filter is very prudish on s*x, but excellent on virus detection. Post should be deleted.

[Jaybe]

Ah, you reported it then, didn't you Blau.

[Blaupanzer]

No. I forgot that rah is "Just another peon" now. Give me a couple minutes and I will.

[Blaupanzer]

Okay. Sent to the mod (and owner) Robert Plomp.

[rah]

Yep, just another peon that killed poly

[Blaupanzer]

Not dead yet, he says unaware that the background noise is hospital monitors demanding attention.

[Robert Plomp]

Thanks, it's the newest form of spamming, together with sig-spam.
Anyway, let's get back on topic!

[Blaupanzer]

Did we beat the subject of the OP to death? Fact is, I'm not a player of mods, but dumbing down the AI in such would seem counter-productive. Does that sound right? Would some of you want the AI to be less effective in return for some new techs and units? I would want it smarter, bless Blake's heart.

[rah]

So would I. But we have to stay more standard due to MP.

[Blaupanzer]

Can the MPers play a mod as long as they all have it? As I said I am not into those, most appear to be free. Just load it down and start it up with appropriate tweeks.

[sorinache]

Can the MPers play a mod as long as they all have it? As I said I am not into those, most appear to be free. Just load it down and start it up with appropriate tweeks.

I'm not a big fan of MODs myself - fact is, it's simply too easy to screw a delicate game balance so I expect the vast majority of mods to be inferior to the original game. But still I wanted to try one that appeared to bring only minimal (mostly graphic) changes to the original.

With hindsight, the AI might not be any dumber than in the standard game : I finished the game and I reckon the starting locations might have been a bit cramped : they spent most of their time and resources fighting each other for vital space because the AI likes so much to expand. Me being able to thrive on 5 - 6 cities didn't suffer that much. At some point though Justinian started growing bigger and bigger and gradually subjugated everybody else except me and Kim Il Jong. He had Asoka, Mansa Musa, Boudica and De Gaulle as vassals. He then DOW-ed on me. The best thing for him was that he had his minions do his bidding - we had no common frontier, instead my neighbors were De Gaulle and Kim. So he suffered no direct consequences from the war and kept his military production capability intact after losing the first war (where I destroyed the French civilization).

Back to the MOD itself : ok it somewhat improves on graphics. But it's also confusing because some icons remain the same and then I have trouble connecting the little guy on the map with the icon. Aside form this it adds (at least) two new wonders which are pretty cool and not very disruptive : Brandenburg Gate which gives the owner the "twice great general generation speed" bonus and Trafalgar Square which does the same as the Colossus (and it's additive with it, which leads to coastal tile producing 4 commerce for a non-financial and 5 commerce for a financial, wow ...). It also adds naval and land units which makes a much smaller tech advantage show immediately on the battle field. In the original, you have for instance Tank and Modern Armor. If for instance you have Plastics and your oponnent only just got Industrialisation, you both fight with equal stregth units. Wolfshanze introduces Early Tank and Heavy Tank before and in-between.

The bigger error IMO has to be the alteration of the tech tree : Artillery gets more weight and becomes necessary much earlier. As someone said, in strategy games "one choice means no choice" - in the original I do play games when I don't even research artillery but instead get it from free from The Internet.In wofshanze you can't, every research path goes through artillery

[Felch]

The requirement for artillery reminds me of a plot point from Lawrence of Arabia. T.E. promised the Arabs artillery, but the Brits back home wouldn't allow it. Giving them anything more than small arms would make it possible for them to resist British rule after the war.

Artillery really should be more important than it is in the main game. How can you expect to have a real tank without the knowhow to make breach loading cannons? Like you, I skip it most games. The modern artillery units just don't have the impact on the game that they should

[wodan11]

By the way, with the Wolfshanze mod, all you have to do is delete the DLL that comes with it. From then on when you load the mod you'll use your main BtS DLL, along with any BetterAI you have installed. But you'll still get all the "meat" of Wolfshanze such as the units and buildings.

(The main/only reason he put a DLL in was to get the 34-civ mod.)

[prelynmax]

Wolfshanze Mod = inbalanced mod.

[wodan11]

Nice troll. I would have thought you'd have learned from that other thread.

[prelynmax]

Nice troll. I would have thought you'd have learned from that other thread.

I live to please.