stronger AI

[Lambiorix_be]

Is it me or is the AI more powerfull (or should I say smarter) in BTS then before. I play most of the time at the warlord level and I had never had the need to use nuclear missiles to subdue the other civs. I just finished my last game, I was always the most advanced and the biggest civ but when at war with other civs their units where always strong (even when I had more modern units).

I was forced to go nuclear to sudue their vast armies. So much even that I received a message that if I continued to explode nuclear bombs it would destabilize the core of the earth and destroy it. (Off course now I wanted to build more nukes just to see this happening but received diplomatic victory just after).

I observed that if I attack with a percentage in the range of 70% till 93% I lost more then I won although it should be the other way round... (this happened to me on many, many occassions). I was wondering if it was a bug? Now I will not attack unless my chances are above 95% Does anyone else has observed this? If not it is probably me

[HoldSteady]

uhh. How can one see this attack percentage? and how do you improve your attack percentage, other by fielding better units and not attacking on enemies with defensive bonusses like hills and rivers? 95% sounds like a lot!

[Lambiorix_be]

by using the alt-key you can see the odds of winning. they depend on your promotions and on the terrain.

[Jaybe]

Lambiorix_be, your "horrendous" combat losses should be expected SOME of the time. If you have a long streak of losses at good odds, then know that it will be balanced out in time (whether in the same war or not until next game is up to the RNG gods).

When you go to war, you will have losses. To restrict yourself TOTALLY to 95+% odds is going to be frustrating, and will deprive you of the thrill of winning the lower-odds (even (gasp!) less than 50%) battles. I have learned to accept 70-80 percenters for non-critical or desperate battles. Even warlord-led units are not meant to last forever (unless you never use them).

There have been countless threads of people complaining about losing at "good" odds. All arguments of incorrect percentage display or cheating have been countered (countless times).

Enjoy your wars.
Or not.

[LzPrst]

I had an axeman fortified in a city. barb swordsman attacked. according to the combat log the barb swordsman had a 3.4% chance of victory. guess what happened. I also seem to lose a lot of 80% battles. attack 3 times at 60-70% odds you will lose 2/3 not the other way around. there should be some tweaking to the combat system to make the odds a bit more correlated to the actual results I feel. too often I am astounded by the sheer inconceivability of battle outcomes.

[Jaybe]

Oh, CURSE you cup-half-empty-ers!
Why don't you record EVERY battle and see the TOTAL record, not just the ones that disappoint you!

That's why the AI will sometimes make a terrible-odds attack: to "experience" the occasional surprise win ... and for you to gasp in horror.

[Crossfire]

In order to see the odds, grab your unit like you are going to attack but never let go of the mouse button and the odds will show. If you don't like them, put the cursor back over your own troops and let go. Very easy and intuitive.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by LzPrst
there should be some tweaking to the combat system to make the odds a bit more correlated to the actual results I feel

The odds are perfectly correlated with the actual results.

I would say a lot more, but Solver only recently unbanned me.

[Asmodeous]

The only time I ever get annoyed is when I lose 3-5 75%+ odds battles in a row. I realize that odds say that I'm going to lose 1 out of every 3, which means for every 6 in a row I win, I've gotta lose 2 somewhere... but come on... When a single archer kills off 5 swordsmen at 75%, 83%, 89%, 94%, and 99.9% odds?

That just makes you rage.

Though that archer should seriously get a free warlord. I mean, really. Any unit that wins at less than .1% odds should get SOME major bonus for having been lucky. If that happened irl with something then that person, especially in olden times, would become the talk of legends... you know, kinda like Achilles...

Me.

[alva]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


The odds are perfectly correlated with the actual results.

I would say a lot more, but Solver only recently unbanned me.

* gently nudges Kuci *

Oh go one, just a little...Surely Solver won't ban you again.

Kuci is right though, you get the odds you are seeing on screen. As Jaybe said, you remember the bad ones and forget the lucky ones, that's just how humans work.

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by Asmodeous
The only time I ever get annoyed is when I lose 3-5 75%+ odds battles in a row. I realize that odds say that I'm going to lose 1 out of every 3, which means for every 6 in a row I win, I've gotta lose 2 somewhere... but come on... When a single archer kills off 5 swordsmen at 75%, 83%, 89%, 94%, and 99.9% odds?

Just goes to show that your sword commander made a stupendous blunder, or the archer commander had a stroke of genius!

Though that archer should seriously get a free warlord. I mean, really. Any unit that wins at less than .1% odds should get SOME major bonus for having been lucky.

They DO! They get some humongous number of experience points, which (at least) contribute to your next great general.

Question: what are the functions of iXPValueAttack & iXPValueDefense (in Civ4UnitInfos.xml, usually "4" & "2" respectively)? I'm pretty sure they are not the maximum attained in those situations, I THINK I've seen units get more.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by alva
Kuci is right though, you get the odds you are seeing on screen. As Jaybe said, you remember the bad ones and forget the lucky ones, that's just how humans work.

Actually it's even worse, humans don't ever fight those impossible battles so they never win them.

[Asmodeous]

I have been known on occasion to fling units into those odds all the time... especially siege engines. Makes me feel good and become placated for all of the bad rolls I've gotten when my arty retreats from combat that it had .1% odds on.

I wish it would get a free warlord added to it though.

Hehe.

Me.

[Risa]

Question: what are the functions of iXPValueAttack & iXPValueDefense (in Civ4UnitInfos.xml, usually "4" & "2" respectively)? I'm pretty sure they are not the maximum attained in those situations, I THINK I've seen units get more.

Maybe it is xp gained in a 50-50 chance combat? Not sure, though.

[Lambiorix_be]

Originally posted by Jaybe
Lambiorix_be, your "horrendous" combat losses should be expected SOME of the time. If you have a long streak of losses at good odds, then know that it will be balanced out in time (whether in the same war or not until next game is up to the RNG gods).

When you go to war, you will have losses. To restrict yourself TOTALLY to 95+% odds is going to be frustrating, and will deprive you of the thrill of winning the lower-odds (even (gasp!) less than 50%) battles. I have learned to accept 70-80 percenters for non-critical or desperate battles. Even warlord-led units are not meant to last forever (unless you never use them).

There have been countless threads of people complaining about losing at "good" odds. All arguments of incorrect percentage display or cheating have been countered (countless times).

Enjoy your wars.
Or not.

Maybe my thread start was not that clear I didn't want to start a new thread about the correctness of the battle odds (I've seen the threads and the emotions unleashed by them ) The battle odds where just as an example (in hindsight a bad example) about my feeling that the AI has become stronger in BTS. The fact that I have to turn to massive nuclear launches to hold back my neighbours is something I never had to do in the past.