Is the AI protecting the space race?

[xxFlukexx]

I read a couple of posts about people taking a spy or two and dismantling spaceship production. It takes a lot of wealth per spy operation, but once you have all of the spaceship techs you can go with 100% gold and cover the costs easily.

In my recent game I sabotaged the enemies spaceship capabilities with one spy for about 25 turns until I won a domination victory.

Is this a problem with the AI? I mean if I was playing in MP or vs any decent AI I would definetly keep at least one spy in my main spaceship producing city. Actually I would probably have like 3+ spies guarding as I would be pumping out lots of spies to disable enemy spaceship attempts. Does the AI do this? I think this is a pretty big hole in the AIs final game plan, I mean what is the AI thinking "Geez, that spaceship engine keeps taking more and more turns, wonder whats up with that, ho-hum"

Also I think that the space race victory is way too easy, at least on prince and noble difficulties. Winning by domination is much harder and takes about 3 times as long(real time wise) because when you go for a space race victory you mainly just hit end turn. The AI also does not make a beeline for the Apollo program when it's in range and doesn't seem to build it once it's available(or maybe it's just slow at building, I dunno)

Space race victory is probably the weakest part of Civ4 and I hope it gets revamped in a expansion pack, or patch hopefully. The space race needs to get back the excitement it had in Civ2 without the whole "lucky AI builds a fast, cheap spaceship and wins off of a 10% chance to land"

[art_vandelai]

Funny, in the games I played, the AI doesn't seem to have any difficulty with the space race, itn fact it prioritized the techs needed for Apollo Program, and refused to trade them to me.

I've also had an occasion where I beelined for Rocketry before getting many techs that would have been useful for civics or military, had a lead of about 2 or 3 techs, and yet an AI civ still llaunched the Apollo Program one turn before me, I think he might have rushed it with a GE or something. I won that game, mostly because I set my self up to enter a golden age a soon as any AI civ started the space race, the GA helped me build the first set of parts, and research the techs needed for the rest. Eventually, 4 AI civs were all very near completion at the time I got the victory.

Where the AI seems to fall behind is in production. Remember that some resources (copper, aluminum) halve production time for
spaceship parts, so winning the space race requires that you have these, or deny them to your rivals. I was able to deny copper to one of the AI civs, which was also a big help.

[HarvestTime]

I just won a space race against Mansa Musa.
He had two sources of aluminium and traded one of them for 39 gold per round so i could get the +50% bonus, too.

I had my spies patrolling his cities for spaceship parts, but he changed his production to military units after entering war with some stoneage civ. It had been a close race before this decision.

[Quillan]

I think you can only have 3 spies at any time. They are limited like missionaries, but I'm not positive of the precise number.

[Addled Platypus]

4 spies max

[Monjawi]

I just won a space race on noble. It was pretty easy, because the other civ's was fighting each other. But none of them attacked me, even though they could see that I would soon win the game. Of course they wanted tribute and stuff, but not that much..

[MasterDave]

Every game I have played to completion so far on Noble and Prince has ended with the space race. Either I get the ship or they do. In the last game I played on Prince level I was ahead of everyone else by over 1000 score with a massive Indian Empire, but I had a brain fart and forgot to start the SS Engine for about fifteen turns and China wound up winning (they were in fourth place scorewise).

I might take out the space race victory in my next game as it makes any other kind of victory nearly impossible, and it also tends to make the modern era somewhat boring IMO. Also with most of my cities making SS parts, it is hard to build up and use many of those fun modern units like tanks, mech infantry, and stealth bombers. Maybe the end game will be more fun if there is no space race dominating my attention for the last forty turns or so.

[BgT]

I disabled space race victory in every game I played since Civ II. I don't like it. That's no win. I don't think a civilization can "win" at all, except by destroying all others. But domination and cultural victory are close to it.

[krytonix]

I just had a scarily close space race victory (prince level). By the time i started producing SS parts, Roosevelt already had 4 ship parts complete. As soon as i completed the Apollo Program, I triggered a golden age and produced all the parts I could. Research was going great (2-4 turns per tech). Then, Mao and Isabella decided to declare war on me so i mass produced mech. infantry and destroyer/battleships with my non-SS cities just in time to repel their attacks.

Anyway, the punchline is I finished my spaceship in 1974 (2 parts simultaneously for the win) 1 turn before Roosevelt finished his last part! Phew! Who says space race isn't fun or competitive?

[Arkalius]

I was playing on noble and ended up winning the space race, though it wasn't my intention to do so. I noticed the Indians were going for the space race victory so I had to go for it to beat them. I sent spies out to keep their productions sabotaged. In the end I won the race.

I usually turn off space race victories now as I don't really like winning that way.

[krytonix]

Re: Is the AI protecting the space race?

Originally posted by xxFlukexx
In my recent game I sabotaged the enemies spaceship capabilities with one spy for about 25 turns until I won a domination victory. Is this a problem with the AI? I mean if I was playing in MP or vs any decent AI I would definetly keep at least one spy in my main spaceship producing city.

By the way, it could be that they simply hadn't built Scotland Yard yet, so they didn't have spies.

[LzPrst]

AI is stooopid. i think we need to start playing MP ASAP....

[astreeter]

Here's a weird thing I noticed though - the AI apparently can start producing SS parts before they complete the Apollo program. In a game I just played on Noble level the Persians finished their Apollo program, and then the very next turn they completed an SS Casing, and within the next 5 turns or so they had completed all of the 4 other SS Casings.

Could be a bug, or maybe this is an AI cheat?

[Byelotsar]

Originally posted by astreeter
Here's a weird thing I noticed though - the AI apparently can start producing SS parts before they complete the Apollo program. In a game I just played on Noble level the Persians finished their Apollo program, and then the very next turn they completed an SS Casing, and within the next 5 turns or so they had completed all of the 4 other SS Casings.

Could be a bug, or maybe this is an AI cheat?

If they were lagging in the space race, perhaps they hurried the construction. Whips/shinies can make a big difference after all, and the AI really plays to win.