Space Race Victory, too easy to reach ?

[Nelis]

I think all these bonuses should be documented and optionnal.

It seems even in the difficulty level where it should not be the case, AI have alot of hidden facilities.

Maybe it will be easier for us to see what are the AI bonuses when the SDK will be out

[Volstag]

If it weren't for the space-race, the AI would rarely win a game. Maybe it's a personal thing, but I'd rather play against opponents who have a modest shot at victory -- even if it's via the ubiquitious space-race. On a broader note, most AI space-race victories occur, IME, in the 20th century. There's usually not that many turns left. Personally, I'm either on my way to winning, or in a strong position to win by then. If I'm not, I don't know how often another 50 to 75 turns would allow me to do so.

But, to each his own.

[marvinkosh]

My favourite strategy to foil an AI space race victory is to send in spies and blow up improvements around a city that is constructing either the Apollo Program itself, or one of the parts. So far what I've seen is that the AI doesn't switch the project to a better city, it just sends workers in to build new improvements.

Of course, one drawback with this little scheme is that you have only four spies at once, tops. Plus, it's expensive.

[Son of David]

Well you *would* have to be ahead by the time the AI is building the spaceship parts, because if you took on the computer in a straightforward competition to build the parts you would lose - the AI can build everything more cheaply than you at the higher levels!

At monarch and above the AI has usually owned me well before the renaissance, and at Prince I usually secure a domination victory once cavalry are available. There doesn't seem to be a 'happy mean' between stomping the AI into the dust and having a genuinely 'gentlemanly' competition with it.

[Volstag]

In my experience they tend to pull this magic upgrade stunt only if they really feel like it - ie you are approaching their archer-defended city in their pillaged-ravaged civ and suddenly all the archers are longbows.

Well, it's possible it's happening, but I've yet to see it. In the game I'm currently playing I witnessed my French neighbor deploying longbow/spear from his interior out to his "frontier" towns. Additionally, I scouted some of his cities... declared war a few turns later. When my armies arrived outside his cities, they still contained the same units I saw 5 or 6 turns before. You'd think that impending doom would trigger the "free" upgrade. I'll keep a closer eye on it.

Another suspected undocumented AI bonus is unit support. They can easily have 3-4 units per city, plus several dozen extra in border cities and the capital, at a stage in the game when the human would be crippled by support costs for that many units.

Could this be a product of the AI's predilection for spamming cottages? They easily construct 2x to 3x as many as I would.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Volstag

Well, it's possible it's happening, but I've yet to see it. In the game I'm currently playing I witnessed my French neighbor deploying longbow/spear from his interior out to his "frontier" towns. Additionally, I scouted some of his cities... declared war a few turns later. When my armies arrived outside his cities, they still contained the same units I saw 5 or 6 turns before. You'd think that impending doom would trigger the "free" upgrade. I'll keep a closer eye on it.


Could this be a product of the AI's predilection for spamming cottages? They easily construct 2x to 3x as many as I would.

If the AI really does pay for its unit support and upgrades through its cottage-heavy approach, then fair play to it, and I humbly retract my allegations. It's just that pillaging all those towns doesn't always slow it up as I'd expect if that's where the money was coming from.

[Dis]

yeah right. The AI couldn't even finish the Apollo program until 2035 in one of my games. I had no hope of finishing the space ship. This was on Noble level btw.

[Bhruic]

<iAIUnitUpgradePercent>30</iAIUnitUpgradePercent> 

That's the cause of the AI's ability to upgrade cheaply. That's the value for the Noble difficulty level, btw. Even on Settler, the value is only 45%.

Bh

[CrapFactory]

- Time : easy as crap.

- Cultural Victory : never done it yet.

- Diplomatic Victory : easy as crap.

- Conquest Victory : too time consuming on maps bigger then small maps or lots of players. I played an 18 player game and kiled off only 6 before I won by a different victory.

- Domination Victory : if i have time and space race turned off i usually win with this one.

- Score Victory : never done it.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Bhruic

<iAIUnitUpgradePercent>30</iAIUnitUpgradePercent> 

That's the cause of the AI's ability to upgrade cheaply. That's the value for the Noble difficulty level, btw. Even on Settler, the value is only 45%.

Bh

Thanks for that, Bh.

I can only imagine that the AI had problems knowing when to upgrade, and how to plan for it. Perhaps the only solution they could go with was to make it so cheap that it didn't matter when - any time would do. Perhaps they ran out of time after spending so long on the GP generation, which the AI seems strong at.

[marvinkosh]

It would be an idea to just get the AI to do what we human players can do - replace existing units with better ones. Isn't that the whole point of building Barracks? To train new soldiers?