Evil, Evil AI ...

[War4ever]

changing the texts to make a real world history is kinda fun on the world map....but its for kicks....not for any kind of real game...

[sirsnuggles]

Yeah, I actually did something similar to that. I changed all the personalities according to how I thought they should be (I read the history of every single nation in the world). And added 15 new custom civs (14 of them real, one customized for me), replete with Leaders, personalities and cities.

I thought that Sid left out some real obvious peoples, so I added them in.

Among the new additions were: Scots (William Wallace), Turks, Mayans, Hebrews (David), Vietnamese, Siamese (Mongkut), and Byzantines. Perhaps I'll post them someday as a modpack. Not that they are all that special, though.

[Gatekeeper]

Heh. Must resist urge to go into RULES.TXT and turn all the AI civs into peace-loving, pot-smoking hippie societies ...

India usually expands in my games (which are usually on customized Earth maps, large), but it can be slow. Which usually means it gets carved up sooner rather than later.

Gatekeeper

[sirsnuggles]

Yeah, I can relate to you about India. I'm always amazed during the beginning of the game how India (for being peace loving) seems to continually demand tribute, and then declares war against me when I refuse. I think the most disappointing thing about India, however, is that it usually doesn't grow beyond a couple of cities. I've played countless games where Delhi is its only city.

Yeah, Babylon is the most easy to get along with. They seem to honor their treaties. I always like playing with Babylon. I'd have to say, though, that the personality Sid gave them doesn't really match they're historical reality. They are the only civ with the rational-perfectionist-civilized personality type. Which, in theory, should be the easiest to get along with.

[Gatekeeper]

^^^Hey, cool.

Speaking about India, though, I have crappy luck with them. Invariably, the little snots demand gold or knowledge when I first meet them, which usually leads to their destruction. For a "peaceful," civilization, India can be remarkably annoying early in the game.

Mongolia ... well, I try to avoid first contact with them until absolutely necessary (usually when I have a strong enough defensive force to ward off their probing attacks).

The best AI civ? Frankly, it's Babylon. I rarely have problems with them.

Gatekeeper

[sirsnuggles]

Gatekeeper,
I too abhor the barbarism of aggresive civilizations who nuke their own brethren from recently lost cities.

I think my own play-style resembles yours, because as a peacenik, I like to simply develop my isolationist civilization in peace; with caravans and embassadors as my only interaction with the opposing civs. I'll only go to war if some aggresive neighbor civ (like Mongols or Vikings) keeps harrasing me. Sometimes, if I see a small, helpless civ (like Gandhi) get attacked by some giant, ruthless neighbor, I will step in to protect them, or treat them to advances enabling a stiffer resistance. Although, I must say that I've played many games where the Mongols begin an alliance with me (usually within the opening turns), and try to eliminate the rest of the world. It sounds odd, but the Mongols are almost always my allies. It is not until the endgame that the "highlander (there can only be one)" rule takes effect.

As to the barbaric use of nukes...well for an age I couldn't figure out what to do other than to accept it as a necessity of modern war. For a season, I tried leaving buffer cities: capture the immediate periphery of enemy cities, then proceed to destroy all the units within the more distant enemy cities (all of this within one turn), yet leave them uncaptured. The ai seems to usually spend its resources refortifying the empty cities, and transporting its nukes to within striking range (perhaps shortening the movement points of nukes will help to facilitate this stratagem) for the next turn.

Yet the most effective method that I've employed is that when I've pounded a civilization into fear and submission by capturing a half dozen cities, they will almost always send me an ambassador suing for peace. I will, of course, accept their submission, build my SDI's, and simply break the treaty myself (or wait for them to), and pound them again until they submit once again. The only flaw with this stratagem, however, is that the ai often breaks its own treaty before the next turn completes my SDI's (which I consider makes them even more barbaric).

I've found that employing those methods (while making the game longer) usually work well at minimizing the nuclear fall-out.

[Gatekeeper]

Originally posted by Six Thousand Year Old Man
2183!

How do you manage to finish those games? I confess that once I have a big lead, and it's a sure thing that I'm going to win, I lose interest. On gigamaps, I don't reach that point as quickly as on smaller maps (that's why I play on them) - but I usually stop playing and start a new game anywhere from about 1750 to 1950. What do you do to keep the micromanaging, the moving 100s of units at a time, from becoming tedious?

Serious question, btw - I've always wanted to find ways to make the endgames less of a chore.

Oh, I know how you feel, 'cause I get the same feeling most of the time. But this time was different: After my starship arrived at Alpha Centauri, I just got this incredible itch to *smash* the world-straddling Carthaginian Empire (probably because if they weren't ignoring me, they were insulting me and launching the occasional surprise attack).

About halfway through that endeavor — and watching the Carthaginians self-destruct into multiple civil wars that gave birth to Mongolia, China and Germany — I was wishing I had been bored beyond belief at the start of the campaign and simply quit when I won the starship victory. But I stuck it out, started this thread, and went on to conquer all of Earth.

That aside, a practical way to avoid endgame boredom is to simply switch most of your cities into Capitalization after building anywhere from eight to 32 offensive combat divisions in each of your most productive cities. That way, you have a military with which to wreak havoc (and safely stored away in properly defended cities) when the time comes.

It's rare for me to go to 2183, but this was an Emperor level game that I wanted to completely beat, even if it took me 150 years longer than the scoring allows for.

Gatekeeper

[Gatekeeper]

Originally posted by rah
2183

Lesson learned for the future.

True, but at least my Alpha Centauri colonies grew strong during that time period from 2017 onward (at least they did in the "mini-story" I was weaving into the gameplay).

Gatekeeper

[Scouse Gits]

Originally posted by Six Thousand Year Old Man
Serious question, btw - I've always wanted to find ways to make the endgames less of a chore.

With MPGE do what needs to be done then Ctrl + N. Place cities out of the front line into Capitalisation.

--------------------

SG(2)

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by Gatekeeper

Too bad the year was 2183.

2183!

How do you manage to finish those games? I confess that once I have a big lead, and it's a sure thing that I'm going to win, I lose interest. On gigamaps, I don't reach that point as quickly as on smaller maps (that's why I play on them) - but I usually stop playing and start a new game anywhere from about 1750 to 1950. What do you do to keep the micromanaging, the moving 100s of units at a time, from becoming tedious?

Serious question, btw - I've always wanted to find ways to make the endgames less of a chore.

[rah]

2183

Lesson learned for the future.

[Gatekeeper]

Heh. I finally won after using a mixture of amphibious shock troop assaults and barrages of cruise missiles on Mongolia's Indonesian provinces/cities. Even a city defended by SDI Defense and anti-missile batteries has to give way under a repeated cruise missile attack, followed up by invasion from the sea.

Too bad the year was 2183.

Gatekeeper

[rah]

Yep. When people first started making scenarios, there was a lot of discussion about the differences.

[Gatekeeper]

Originally posted by rah
Some things seem to be different when scenerios are used. We'll see what you find in a normal game.

RAH

My theory was literally blown out of the water last night.

I left two AI partisans next to a just-conquered city and the AI attempted to sacrifice them when it fired *four* nuclear missiles at the city. Fortunate for me, at least one square of the city's environs was w/i the SDI Defense shield of another city, so the nukes didn't get through.

Gatekeeper

[Elephant]

Originally posted by Gatekeeper
Hmm ... well, maybe I can put the howie sound file in place of the elephant one to at least keep up part of the illusion.
"FIRE!" **thump, thump**
"What's this? Howies that produce dung?!"

Think of it as another form of ammunition:

"Sir, the catapults are out of rocks!
Run over to the pachyderm lager and gather all the pachy paddies you can find!"