AU 100-A DAR 1: 4000 BC - 1520 BC

[chriseay]

Originally posted by Cort Haus Over and over in these DAR's I see the barbs founding a city on the exact same square in the SW tundra - with lots of resources around. That's consistency and quality! We all kept it. I think many of us also had AI settling crap spots down there that even the barbs wouldn't touch!

It seems to me that the barb cities must be based on something that is present in the initial scenario. It would be an interesting comparison to look at where outlying AI cities are in different games and see if the same thing occurs, or if it is just the barb city decision that is hardwired from the start of the game (land being available of course).

I would hope that though the barbarian AI might be locked in to certain spots, that the rest of the AI have some decision process built in to their city placement. Hopefully they can base it on how well the player (and other AI's) are doing in the game, and what the threats and goals are both in the short and long term. I have no idea how the AI city placement process works, so this might be way out there, but.....

[Cort Haus]

To be fair to the AI, it has to pick from the few lonely tiles outside the borders, while barbs usually have a large area to pick from. I'd expect the barbs choose city sites using the same criteria as the AI would.

[Fosse]

I played the game on Prince, using version 1.00 (haven't updated yet because of some long running MP games).

I'm putting my notes in the approrpiate DAR threads. I have over 150 pictures to sort through, and if I don't at least put these up I might never make a showing here... so forgive the lack of illustration for now (if anybody as questions I might be able to dig up relevant screenshots).


4000 BC
Map from barb hut shows a big desert to the east, and fertile land NE. I plant settler where he is, and see a food heavy, hammer poor starting location.

I start building a Settler... I want to stretch out quickly, and a worker wouldn't be able to do much for a while here... until cottages probably I don't need him. Start The Wheel to head for Pottery.

3880 BC
My warrior explores close to home (I decide not to run straight for the hut in the NE... might not get it anyway since it's so far, and might be another closer to home. I'd rather know the best spot for the first Settler. He finds cows and horses SE of Washington! Happy day.

3600 BC
Meet Isabella, scout appears NE of Washington.

3400
Discover POttyer, was going start mining. I'd like to see copper as I plant my first settler. Probably should have gone for bronze first since I wanted to see it. But, since I know I have horses I decide to go Hunting --> Husbandry. I could go straight for husbandry, but I'd like to send a scout or two out because it looks like a big world. The worker will be busy enough with a floodplaines cottage before he could build a pasture anyway.

3280
I pop a hut. Spain SHOULD hvae... and could have, with a scout. But didnt'. I get a scout from the hut... so decide to switch to mining. I'll finish the 2 turns of Hunting later on. get mining now, then husbandry... then...????

3080
Hut pop gives Mysticism. Nice. Cool mountain/valley configuration in the North. Warrior is heading toward home, uncovering bits of fog along the way. He'll stand on a hill to keep fog of war off of potential barbarian areas. The settler will walk one at a time, with no escort, to the SE to avoid barbs.

3000 BC
I'm 1000 years old. I discover mining, head to Husbandry. My settler finishes, and Washington starts a scout. I now pause to draw on the strategy layer where I want all of my cities. This will almost certainly not come to pass.

I plot three cities. One SE to get cows, horses, coast. One in the far NW, that's for GPP later on. Three food sources all in one radius, tons of coast. Merchants galore!

One straight North. It has lots of useless land, and overlap. I choose it though to take advantage of food and commerce in the area. It'll run specialists, so it won't ever need all of its tiles anyway. Late game it won't be my best city, but midgame it'll be a commerce powerhouse. What I don't have mapped out is a high shield city. The Cow/HOrse one will have to do that until I set up a proper town for it.


2920
Build New York, it starts a worker. Two workers being made. I met Germany the turn before, with his scout being NE of Washington. I need to get scouts and warriors out to uncover all of this fog... it's scary how vast this landmass seems. No sign of foreign cities yet.


2600

Still waiting on workers. The warrior is SW, heading toward the black area. Both units fight animals almost every turn. There are two lions east of washington. The scout defends in a forest tile against a bear! The warrior fights two wolves in two turns. Both units get Woods I. I discover Husbandry, and go for Masonry. I decide I can probably dedicate New York to the Pyramids soon. Stonehenge would be nice on this vast continent, but Pyramids will do more longer. I'm not going for an early religion at all.... probably shoot for Code of Laws soon, use artists to pop borders, and spread that religion out.

2280

Discovery masonry... need to get stone soon for Pyramids. New York builds Obelisk... I hate doing it but working that mine and those forests will matter. Meet Saladin... NE of washington again... Must be crowded up there.

Warrior in Washington... at least three barb warriors to my SW. Scary stuff.

Nothing too eventful until I discover Alphabet... so on to the next thread...

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Cort Haus


I don't recall getting any scouts - I think 2 warriors, 2 maps, 2 gold caches and then the 7th hut surrounded me with barbs, almost Civ-1 style.

Maybe better to distribute some inside info here, after discussions Aeson had with Soren.

Scenarios are possible in 2 varieties. A worldbuilder save is different from a python scenario. Simply taking the save without any editing means that every player will start with his initial units saved. Start the original game on Noble, and the AI won't get any free units. Use this save to start a new game on higher level, and the AI's units are already saved: they will start with the same units then on Noble. Only the bonusses they get productionwise are like they supposed to be.

Thus, if you play Prince, you expect the AI to start with a worker. It didn't in AU 100 A. Which explains the slow starts we're seeing: no early rushes, the players expanding faster than the AI, early research being hampered (the AI will probably start building either a worker or a settler, thus does not grow), early wonders falling late on high difficulty, AI scouts only meeting you in 1500 BC, etc.

This also partly explains why people on higher levels are doing so well: normally they should have gotten a higher initial threshold to take to get even. On Prince and above, the AI starts with a worker (and a scout?). On emperor and above (may be immortal), the AI will start with an extra settler. On deity, the AI will start with several scouts, 2 settlers, 2 workers, and several military units. Except in this game: none of all that happened. On noble, the game is probably the same as normal, and on prince there won't be much difference (although it will be noticeable). On Monarch and above this becomes quite apparant, and Aeson on Deity saw some very strange things compared to normal games.

To fix this, normally it would be enough to delete the units, and put only the starting locations in the WBS (I have no idea what I'm saying here, mind you, just rephrasing Soren. But I'm sure there are people who will understand what he means)

--------

For the scouts thing: It's been properly identified, in a reproduceable bug. Which makes solving it easy. On higher levels, going to 'Custom game' first before going to the scenario (as you were looking for the file, or simply because you made a mistake and clicked the wrong menu option) will give you an identical seed. As luck would have it, if you do this with this map, you will be getting a scout in 4000 BC. Stay away from custom, and it's random like it supposed to be. This also has implications for the identical-map bug people have been reporting but wasn't catchable.

Thank Aeson for figuring this one out. It might not be apparant from the very small comments posted here by him, but one of the bigger issues this game still had just got identified properly.

PS: noble players won't get a scout in 4000 BC, as they never get a scout from huts (it seems).

DeepO

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
To be fair to the AI, it has to pick from the few lonely tiles outside the borders, while barbs usually have a large area to pick from. I'd expect the barbs choose city sites using the same criteria as the AI would.

Blue dots algorithm... I suspect it gets reused for about anything. If you defog one blue tile, barbs will go for the next one. I didn't get the SW fur city, simply because I was patrolling the area, and wanted to build my own city on the spot I liked, and not the one the AI liked...

AIs are similar: they will go for the blue spots too. By the time they can run out of place to settle in this game, you will have expanded as well... leaving only the more crappy locations to pick from. With their penalties (on Noble), the AI are not always making a bad choice either: pure fisherman villages are in most cases worth it. It's because we're getting penalized that we will never consider building there, but for the AI it won't be that bad

(there are always exceptions: tundra with ice will get settled as well, and takes hundreds of turns to become viable. But the settling algorthim gets constant attention for what I can tell. Improving this will never stop.)

DeepO

[Aeson]

I'm not sure of the exact formula for unit support costs, but it's tied to population. (As is the bonus from Feudalism.)

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Aeson
I'm not sure of the exact formula for unit support costs, but it's tied to population. (As is the bonus from Feudalism.)

That's the handicap bonus, right?

DeepO

[Aeson]

The handicap is in addition to it. You definitely get more than 1 free unit on Deity for instance. How many is dependent on population (and Feudalism).

[Makahlua]

I'm still breaking about 50/50 on Noble, so that's where I'm staying fro this one

4000 BC - I popped the hut, actually hoping for a map, but humm, hills. I decided to settle one E of the start. I picked up Vel's settler first strat from that thread, and it's been wotking nicely for me We'll be starting with an early religion and then see if any one's close, needing bw/iw/mc beeline.

3280 BC - no sign of neighbors yet, but I did get hinduism Nothin' but coast to the N and W and SE - looks like I can use culture blocking to grab a chunk to backfill. Going to grab mining/wheel for now, unless I meet someone. Maybe hunting after if this continent looks much bigger - need map data to plan with!

3240 BC - Hello! I spoke too soon - here's bismarck coming from the ne germans= panzers = die bleeper, die! will chung up the bw/ iw path asap

2920 BC - Well here's the initial expansion plan - swine and wine! And although it's part hidden I have plotted a city on the N coast too, right in that right angle turn


And oh joy - Saladin (also probably coming from the ne). Aw crap. Lions ate my settler ;_;

(somewhere in between) And Isab****a. rrr. ... -And- Ghengis? ;_; Time for a quick diversion to hunting - think I need a scout or 2

1600 BC - built Napa w/o incident, and iron? You'll have to wait for the next DAR ^^

[Arrian]

Aw crap. Lions ate my settler

Unescorted, I presume?

-Arrian

[Makahlua]

Yes, I was too busy poking about with my lone warrior I figured they'd be fine, only going a short distance from the border, but noooooooo!

It's worth noting that for the dozen or two games I've played and used Vel's "Settler First" start, that's the -first- time I've had that happen. Come to think of it, it's never happened in earlier games either.. AU games hate me!

[Rhothaerill]

It almost happened to me too. I had two lions and a bear surrounding my unescorted settler right before I settled. It's definitely a risky strat. Of course I've only tried it once though.

[Arrian]

This game was definitely animal-heavy. Bears ate my starting warrior, and I saw lions & wolves all over the place. America was a wild kingdom in the beginning.

-Arrian

[joncnunn]

In Civ IV, it's a really bad idea to have a unescorted settler outside your cultural boundary for more than one turn.

But if you slow down your settler builds a bit, the capital culture will grow and wild anamals never cross into player owned terriory and in fact get an instant kick out if you found a city that places them within your territory.

Not to mention that a size 3 to 4 city can spit out a settler much faster than a size 1 or 2 city can.

[Dubhghlas]

Another reason that "settler first" sucks.