Diety weirdness

[Rufus T. Firefly]

I'm playing an SP game at deity, and I've seen more weird sh!t in this game than I ever have before. I'm wondering if others have seen stuff like this, and have an explanation for it:

1) This one might just be a straightforward AI cheat: the Americans have managed to put hydro plants in all their cities, regardless of whether of not there's a river in the city area. Is that a cheat, or is there something I don't know about building hydro plants?

2) Late in the game, I take Dover with a spy unloaded from a transport. Almost immediately, Barbarian dragoons show up. No big deal, I think; I'll just move the spy and the city defenders into the transport, let the Barbs take the city (I forgot this would cause the defenders to disappear, but anyway...), then bribe it back and get some dragoons. So I empty the city and the Barbs offer not to sack it in exchang for 2400g. The thing is, I don't have 2400g, though I'm close (maybe 2350); plus, I've never seen Barbs askfor more than half the treasury. Where did that number come from?

3) More Barb stuff: at one point I get a message: "Barbarians have taken the Japanese city of ____." Next Barbarian turn, I get the message: "Barbarians have discovered Masonry." They WHAT?!

4) Absolutely the winner: I'm on the verge of taking the Japanese out of the game. They're on a square penninsula w/3 cities; I've taken the cities in the NW and SW corners, and am going after their capital in the SE corner. To do this I move my cavalry (along rail lines) to the E to the NE corner, then S to Kyoto. So I sack Kyoto, the only city they have left (I have the UN and checked) -- and out pop partisans! Letting out a mighty "What the &$%*%?!" I call up my foreign advisor; the Japanese are still there, but clicking "Cities" on the Intelligence report does nothing. I end my turn and, indeed, the Japanese take a turn. Next turn I call up the foreign advisor again, and now I can see the "Cities" screen -- where Nara is reported to be the Japanese capital. And where is Nara? In the NE corner of the penninsula, on the very spot where my cavalry turned right in order to sack Kyoto. I repeat: "What the &$%*%?!"

Insights, anybody?

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Dig trenches, with our men being killed off like flies? There isn't time to dig trenches. We'll have to buy them ready made. Here, run out and get some trenches.
-- Rufus T. Firefly, the original rush-builder

[finbar]

1. From memory, you need to be adjacent to oceans, mountains or rivers to build a HP. So it's more than just rivers, so in this case the AI isn't cheating. For once.

2. I've occasionally had them ask for more than half. I think it's been when the sum is considerable. There might be some other explanation.

3. That happens occasionally. Probably a bit like when the barbs take one of your cities, the city grows in size, and when you move to attack the buggers, you get a dialogue box asking if you want to declare war on the barbs. Doh!

4. Mmmmmmmm. Sounds like one of their cheats. You've got to love the little buggers. The other day I bombarded an AI city with diplos trying to take out its walls. I knocked out everything but. Next turn, another wave of diplos, and they destroyed (or, at least, re-destroyed) at least 2 of the improvements I'd knocked out the turn before. How do they manage to rebuild 2 improvements in a single turn?

Still, they liven up a dull day, don't they?



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[East Street Trader]

1. The city (city square itself that is) must be next to a river or a mountain - not an ocean as far as I am aware, finbar. So if that precondition was not met this is another - previously unrecorded I think - A1 cheat.

It's a strange cheat because the A1 need not be concerned to control pollution - it doesn't get polluted squares and the received wisdom is that it doesn't contribute towards global warming. I doubt that the advances tree makes it possible but I suppose hydro may have been the only plant available.

2. I think I've had this too. I have been taking notice of barb offers early on. There is a period where the precondition for the offer is 50g and it then appears as though you get asked for 50 unless your treasury exceeds 100 in which case the demand appears to be calculated at 50 plus a proportion of the sum by which the treasury exceeds 50.

But quite quickly that changes and you must have 100 to get the offer - still apparently with the size of the demand over 100 linked to treasury size.

Still later I think the basic sum has continued to go up (triggered by year or power graph considerations I expect) but the link to treasury eventually goes. That or the real calculation is in fact different and it is coincidental that the sum demanded in the early years appears to have the size of treasury link.

Anyway, later on it all gets academic because I have never seen a late offer worth taking.

3. Yes, it is well documented that barbs can make advances - I've seen it once myself. I'd just love to see "Barbarians discover Code of Laws" . Come to think of it "Barbarians discover Monotheism" would be good too.

Conceivably what happens is that when the first city falls to the barbs they inherit some beakers and a beaker count from the civ from whom the capture is made. The position of the barb civ on the powergraph may then make the number of beakers sufficient for one advance. (That is predicated on the assuption that they don't ordinarily accumulate beakers for themselves.)

4. How about they had a NONE settler? It would have survived the fall of the last city, kept the civ alive and could then have moved into the square you vacated and founded.


I caught the A1 out the other day. Gunpowder was stolen from me by a civ without Leo's. Very next turn I bribed one of its cities, only to find four (count them, four) musketeers in residence. Now no one gets to build four units in a single city in one turn and I do not believe that they could have been built in four cities within the fragment of the move left after the theft and moved in before I bribed. So the A1 either got the benefit of Leo's without owning it or it cheated up a pile of units.

[Adam Smith]

I have had #4 happen too. IIRC, if you destroy the last AI city, but they still have a settler or engineer hanging around, the AI civ still has the ability to found a city and so stays alive. One game I chased one of the little buggers half way across the continent before I finally caught him and killed the civ. If the new AI city popped up on a railroad line, the relevant settler or engineer could have come from almost anywhere on or adjacent to the railroad system.

edit: EST is correct. That would have to be a NON settler.

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[This message has been edited by Adam Smith (edited May 11, 2001).]

[drake]

Yeah, but the chances of them having an unsupported settler arent all that good are they AS?

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Responses to responses:

1) My mistake; I didn't know about founding next to a mountain. The documentation on how hydro plants work in ToT is really shabby.

3) Actually, I have a new theory of the barb advance. I just finished the game in question (new high score -- woo-hoo!), and went back to find the Barb city in question. I checked a whole bunch of saved games -- no barb city, not even a sign of where it might once have been. Theory: the barbs actually wiped out the city, and so got an advance instead. just a thought.

4) Serendipiously enough, I saved my game just before Kyoto fell, and I went back and checked. Sure enough, the Japanese had a NON engineer running around! Now, given that they didn't have Leo's to upgrade a NON settler, and that they didn't bribe him off me, where the heck did he come from? So I guess its still a cheat, but not the one I thought it was; probably the one EST mentions, the "perpetual Leos" cheat.

[War4ever]

actually its my belief and i thought this was documented that the ai needs no water or mountains to build hydro plants.... kind of how it builds irrigation wherever it likes

[Gatekeeper]

quote: Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly on 05-12-2001 05:57 AM 4) Serendipiously enough, I saved my game just before Kyoto fell, and I went back and checked. Sure enough, the Japanese had a NON engineer running around! Now, given that they didn't have Leo's to upgrade a NON settler, and that they didn't bribe him off me, where the heck did he come from? So I guess its still a cheat, but not the one I thought it was; probably the one EST mentions, the "perpetual Leos" cheat.

Rufus:

What are the odds that the Japanese bought the engineer from another civilization? Or is your civilization the only one that has explosives to create engineers?

I ask because if the Japanese bought their engineer, it would be a NON engineer unless the bribe happened really close to one of their own cities.

CYBERAmazon

[Dry]

quote: Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly on 05-11-2001 03:30 AM 3) More Barb stuff: at one point I get a message: "Barbarians have taken the Japanese city of ____." Next Barbarian turn, I get the message: "Barbarians have discovered Masonry." They WHAT?! Insights, anybody?

Your post is not the first one that makes me think the AI plays the barbarians as a 8th civ; a kind of virtual civ.
The next question is: are they in despotism? anarchy?
I would say anarchy, but then, they should have no money and no research.
Their only way to get research beakers is to have a caravan reaching destination, but I never saw a barb caravan...
Now, let me think... what if a caravan from - ley us say the romans, send 3 turns ago - reach destination: the barbarian city... I don't think the barb receive any beaker...?

[Blaupanzer]

Following EST's reasoning, the barbs with city would reflect other aspects of civilization including governments. More than one of us have played as the barbs, so the "eighth civ" solution is not out of the question. However, capturing a barb city, even one making dragoons, will not give you an advance (such as Leadership in this case). Even if they discover one, you can't steal it or capture it.

[East Street Trader]

Dry

It is the notion that, after they have taken a city, the barbs count as an eighth civ which leads me to propose that they get some beakers when the city is taken. The point is that at that moment the computer would need to give them a number of the appurtenances of a civ. Thus, after they have a city, you can ask a dip or spy to open an embassy with them. So they need some of the stuff that goes on the diplomacy screen. And they need some advances so as to fulfil the rules as to what can be built in a city and what can't. And, like other civs, they trigger the part of the programme which results in messages getting displayed.

I reckon it turned out to be convenient for the programmers just to have told the computer to give the barb "civ" some beakers and a beaker count (along no doubt with other attributes) rather than to bother to put in programming which deals with lots of things to do with barbs after they have a city in a more one-off way.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

quote: Originally posted by CYBERAmazon on 05-14-2001 03:37 AM Rufus: What are the odds that the Japanese bought the engineer from another civilization? Or is your civilization the only one that has explosives to create engineers? CYBERAmazon

Odds are really slim. Japanese were a restart civ (I'd taken the Babalonians out early, and were thus very small, confined to a small island. At one point they had shared that island with the English, but I had taken the English city well before explosives. In order to get a non engineer, they would have had to sail to another land mass, bribe an engineer, and bring him back. I've done that (in OCC), but I've never seen the AI do it. I'm convinced its a cheat.

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Dig trenches, with our men being killed off like flies? There isn't time to dig trenches. We'll have to buy them ready made. Here, run out and get some trenches.
-- Rufus T. Firefly, the original rush-builder

[East Street Trader]

I quite often find a couple of settlers wandering in the arctic/antarctic. They are a re-started civ. (A nice cheap buy and often with a unit in tow - I figure from tipping an arctic hut).

Anyway, that leads me to suggest that after the re-start there was only room for the Japs to found one city and the NONE engineer is left over from their re-start. I suppose that begs the question of whether a re-start can arise as late as it needs to be for the starting units to be engineers not settlers? If not then we are back to a mysterious upgrade from settler to engineer. But if they can re-start that late then that might explain it sans cheat.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

EST - interesting theory, but we're back to the mysterious upgrade; I took out the Babylonians very early -- can'e remember exactly when, but I was using elephants, so it sure wasn't after explosives -- and the Japanese showed immediately. Beyond that, though, the Japanese had enough room to put down four cities -- and did. The more likely scenario is that he popped out of a hut closer to the English than to them. But do engineers ever come out of huts, or is it only settlers? If the latter, then it's an upgrade -- but then why did they still have chariots in the 1800s? It's all too confusing.

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Dig trenches, with our men being killed off like flies? There isn't time to dig trenches. We'll have to buy them ready made. Here, run out and get some trenches.
-- Rufus T. Firefly, the original rush-builder

[East Street Trader]

I have never seen an engineer come out of a hut - which doesn't, of course make it impossible for it to happen. Late huts in my games seem to yield 100g mostly, with the occasional unit (inconvenient when, as it usually is, it's supported and you're in representational gov.t - curious how what you hope for from a hut changes over time), a developed advanced tribe or, also rare I think, barbs.

I think we're down to a cheat as the front runner, or a one off glitch.