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I know people have had success with giving the palace the ability to generate an army every 15 turns or so.
But I am looking for a method to play random maps and give the AI armies but not give the player extra armies.
Here is what I tried.
I made a unit, 0/0/1, 1 bombard, 1 range, 0 rate of fire, cost 998 sheilds. (You need some way to give them a strategy, if you dont the AI will ignore them, and artillery is the strategy that protects them best) I set them to artillery strategy and removed the option to disband them. They are not buildable by anyone.
I set it so all AI players start with 5 of these units., under player set up on the scenario menu. The human player doesn't get these extra units.
The AI sticks the units in the capital and ignores them, just like I want.
These units are set to upgrade, when writing is discovered to a unit with the same stats, shield cost 999. Writing is easy for testing, it could be any tech. This second unit is set to upgrade to an army.
This allows me to set the exact tech when these units can be upgraded to armies at almost no cost. Yet you can still get normal armies before these units are upgradable. Additionally, by making other copies of these units you could, in theory give the AI 5 armies on discovering chivalry, and 5 armies on discovering military tradition, or whatever, just by making a couple versions of the units and setting the AI to start with them. The units are quite weak and don't do anything until they become armies. They could also be made invisible.
The player would get no extra armies.
I am sure you can see the benefits of this. What I am wondering is if anyone has tried this idea out before? I am not a big Civ 3 modifications guy, and if I am wasting my time, I'd like to know.
Unfortunately, this isn't working as well as I expected, for a couple reasons.
1) The AI only rarely upgrades the units, even though the cost to upgrade is very small and they have a barracks. I have seen him upgrade them and form an army, but often they just sit there unupgraded.
Is there a way to make the AI want to upgrade the units more?
2) Even though the units have their disband command turned off, and they cost zero maintenance, they will sometimes vanish from AI cities for no apparent reason.
In one example, I left the AI on a small grassland island. There were no other AI civs and I was on my island fortress where the AI could not get at me. There were no barbarians or huts. When I checked if the AI had upgraded them after several turns, they had just vanished. No armies and no units. The AI must have disbanded them even though disbanding them is not allowed.
3) In order to be allowed to upgrade to a unit, you have to be able to build it. So the second 0/1/1 unit and the army are both buildable at 999 shields and 1000 shields. (Palace has the "allow building armies without leaders" flag checked)
The AI sometimes will start building these units, which would take forever.
Is there a way to get the AI to not build these units, at least until it can do so in a reasonable amount of time?
I am basicly just wondering if this idea has been examined before, and if it's problems can be overcome .
If this is an old idea that doesn't work, I apologize for wasting your time.
I did get the AI to upgrade the units to armies when it didn't disband them and it even killed me with a horsemen army once.
But I am looking for a method to play random maps and give the AI armies but not give the player extra armies.
Here is what I tried.
I made a unit, 0/0/1, 1 bombard, 1 range, 0 rate of fire, cost 998 sheilds. (You need some way to give them a strategy, if you dont the AI will ignore them, and artillery is the strategy that protects them best) I set them to artillery strategy and removed the option to disband them. They are not buildable by anyone.
I set it so all AI players start with 5 of these units., under player set up on the scenario menu. The human player doesn't get these extra units.
The AI sticks the units in the capital and ignores them, just like I want.
These units are set to upgrade, when writing is discovered to a unit with the same stats, shield cost 999. Writing is easy for testing, it could be any tech. This second unit is set to upgrade to an army.
This allows me to set the exact tech when these units can be upgraded to armies at almost no cost. Yet you can still get normal armies before these units are upgradable. Additionally, by making other copies of these units you could, in theory give the AI 5 armies on discovering chivalry, and 5 armies on discovering military tradition, or whatever, just by making a couple versions of the units and setting the AI to start with them. The units are quite weak and don't do anything until they become armies. They could also be made invisible.
The player would get no extra armies.
I am sure you can see the benefits of this. What I am wondering is if anyone has tried this idea out before? I am not a big Civ 3 modifications guy, and if I am wasting my time, I'd like to know.
Unfortunately, this isn't working as well as I expected, for a couple reasons.
1) The AI only rarely upgrades the units, even though the cost to upgrade is very small and they have a barracks. I have seen him upgrade them and form an army, but often they just sit there unupgraded.
Is there a way to make the AI want to upgrade the units more?
2) Even though the units have their disband command turned off, and they cost zero maintenance, they will sometimes vanish from AI cities for no apparent reason.
In one example, I left the AI on a small grassland island. There were no other AI civs and I was on my island fortress where the AI could not get at me. There were no barbarians or huts. When I checked if the AI had upgraded them after several turns, they had just vanished. No armies and no units. The AI must have disbanded them even though disbanding them is not allowed.
3) In order to be allowed to upgrade to a unit, you have to be able to build it. So the second 0/1/1 unit and the army are both buildable at 999 shields and 1000 shields. (Palace has the "allow building armies without leaders" flag checked)
The AI sometimes will start building these units, which would take forever.
Is there a way to get the AI to not build these units, at least until it can do so in a reasonable amount of time?
I am basicly just wondering if this idea has been examined before, and if it's problems can be overcome .
If this is an old idea that doesn't work, I apologize for wasting your time.
I did get the AI to upgrade the units to armies when it didn't disband them and it even killed me with a horsemen army once.
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