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**Whoha** · February 25, 2002, 01:02

play archipelago with no galleys(ai galleys can cross oceans somehow...), that slows down the ai's tech development.

**John Paul Jones** · February 25, 2002, 01:13

...or ferment war between your rivals

**Terser** · February 25, 2002, 01:44

My solution (playing Japanese):

Turn off spaceship victory
Turn off cultural victory

Both of these are usually obtained via a strong lead in research, which, post 1.17f, tends to be held by the AI. Since these two victory conditions suck anyway in CivIII I don't really miss them.

Wage war against the first civ you encounter. Let the war continue till you hit republic or you are on the verge of wiping them out. Offer (or be offered) peace and accept only if you are given every tech the defeated civ has (this has usually been three or four in my last three games).

Result:
-Strong military (with vet or elite units and typically at least one GL)
-Extra cities and/or more land. At the very least you have prevented a potential rival from expanding.
-It has always seemed to me that other civs respect you more when you have successfully prosecuted a war.

This basically sets you up for a win by score. That may or may not be your thing, and it does kinda suck being forced toward that vic condition. But it is possible to win that way (this is how I won my last two games) and it somehow feels more satisfying (and real) than just seeing a box popup saying you just won a cultural victory.

**watorrey** · February 25, 2002, 02:50

These are my complains as well.

In a post by Soren, he mentioned that they are very concerned about the technology progressing too fast. Heck... they just compounded the problem not made it better.

Someone... forget who... sugggested giving the human a research disadvantage instead of giving the AI an advantage at higher levels. This makes alot more sense, but would NOT fix the tech trading problem.

The AI is so busy trading between itself, it has no money to trade to me. So i end up taking a world map and 5 gold for Free Artistry just so no other civ gets something for it. And that is before the theater is built!!

**watorrey** · February 25, 2002, 03:01

These are my complains as well.

In a post by Soren, he mentioned that they are very concerned about the technology progressing too fast. Heck... they just compounded the problem not made it better.

Someone... forget who... sugggested giving the human a research disadvantage instead of giving the AI an advantage at higher levels. This makes alot more sense, but would NOT fix the tech trading problem.

The AI is so busy trading between itself, it has no money to trade to me. So i end up taking a world map and 5 gold for Free Artistry just so no other civ gets something for it. And that is before the theater is built!!

**kimmygibler** · February 25, 2002, 03:33

Yep this is the biggest problem with the game. I hope they fix it.

There needs to be some incentive for the ai and human to research their own techs rather than trade for all their techs. I think any tech you develop yourself should give you a culture bonus. (or something) Like inventing your own alphabet should be somehow better than just using another civs alphabet.

**notyoueither** · February 25, 2002, 04:04

You ask the AI for something, the AI will ask for ridiculous things back, initially.

Remove 2 or 3 of the 4 techs he was asking for. He'll probably still accept.

Salve

**Jaguar** · February 25, 2002, 04:09

I think the AIs should not be able to distinguish themselves from human players. That would fix most of the problems.

Also, when the AI offers you something, he tends to ask for a lot, but he will except you removing quite a bit.

**Jaguar** · February 25, 2002, 04:11

damn, beaten by 5 minutes. Anyway, methinks this is a case of not trading as intelligently as the computer. On Monarch, I keep up by trading. I view trading as my chance to fleece the computer, not get cheated.

**notyoueither** · February 25, 2002, 05:19

Always good to beat a dragon to the punch.

Salve

**Sphinx2000** · February 25, 2002, 07:20

Stinginess

Always try to be as "width-stingy" as possible.

Give/sell as many of the same/similar techs as possible,

and never,ever sell any techs which advance 2 directions on the tech tree...

Sphinxy
--------------------------------------------------
I rode a tank
Held a general's rank
When the Blitzkrieg raged
And the bodies stank

Hope you guess my name...
Sx2000

**Random Passerby** · February 25, 2002, 09:55

This works both ways. Three of the four 1.17f games I've played I started out alone on an island, and made first contact with the AI civs when I had no ancient techs other than my starting techs and the line to Map Making, and they were in the early-to-mid Middle Ages... in all three of those games, by the time the industrial era rolled around, I had a slim tech lead and crushing dominance over all financial matters.

Since I usually get stuck with island and other very-limited-territory starts anyways, this is pretty much how I've always seen the game go. The only difference seems to be that things are ahead a couple centuries.

**Azrikam** · February 25, 2002, 10:19

But now the A.I. has been tweeked to "aggressively trade". This means that I am no longer competing with seven other civs. I am now trying to out-research a single globe-spanning super-civ with six Forbidden Palaces and all the resources that single entity can bring to bear.

I completely agree. Some people may not think this is a problem, but to me it seems like a huge problem.

The AI asks for incredibly lopsided trades against the human competitor. That would be fine, but they obviously cannot use the same trading logic against other AI Civ's, or no one would ever trade. So, this bias is dead-set against the human player, meaning that his/her resources are less valuable than other Civ's.

Now, I'm all for competitive AI, but all this does is force the player to treat all Civs as a single enemy, and increases the ever-increasing need to "fight fight fight" to succeed in Civ III. It seems that the tradeoff for getting more competitive AI is a greatly simplified game with less strategic options. And that, in my opinion, is a huge step backward from Civ II/SMAC.

**Tarquelne** · February 25, 2002, 14:37

Originally posted by Azrikam
The AI asks for incredibly lopsided trades against the human competitor. That would be fine, but they obviously cannot use the same trading logic against other AI Civ's, or no one would ever trade.

When I started playing civ I was struck by how similar the AI's trading strategy seemed to be to my own. And I play like trading games.... tooting my own horn here, but I almost always win board games with a strong trade element (Advanced Civilization would be a good example). And no, the people I play with aren't stupid. I _like_ the fact that the AI - rather than being a clueless wimp, like most AIs - is a ruthless and self-serving bastard sometimes about trades. (Civ3's AI is just a PC-game AI, of course, it's still sometimes quite "clueless".)

So, this bias is dead-set against the human player, meaning that his/her resources are less valuable than other Civ's.

I've never ever ever seen that in a Civ3 game. Never. I've seen the AI try to take advantage of the fact that I'm "flush", I've seen the AI try to take advantage of the fact that I'm weak, I've seen the AIs start to all dislike me because I keept attacking other civs and break treaties, I've seen the AIs start to dislike me because I always negotiated to get the best possible deal (for me).... all things I do in the AI's place.

Directly addressing the "resources are less valuable than other Civ's" part:
The AI, like me, is playing a game, and wants to win. It looks to what it thinks you can afford to pay. It seems that, unlike me, the AI will develop a "grudge" during a game and want more out of you. But I think that's OK too, I have a friend that makes it part of his strategy in most games to _explicitly_ state that he holds grudges... it's a deterrent.

Now, I'm all for competitive AI, but all this does is force the player to treat all Civs as a single enemy, and increases the ever-increasing need to "fight fight fight" to succeed in Civ III.

I don't, and I win reasonably consistently on Emperor and Deity. (But I agree that fighting (with military units, not just trying to screw over someone via trade) is too often the way to go in Civ3. I've made some changes to the game that make going on the offensive, militarily, more difficult. Seems to have helped.)

It seems that the tradeoff for getting more competitive AI is a greatly simplified game with less strategic options. And that, in my opinion, is a huge step backward from Civ II/SMAC.

But, I submit, the game is far deeper tactically. (Esp since many people - not necessarily you - seem to define strategic depth as "lots of techs") You don't have a wide variety of relatively easy "grand strategy" decisions (like which branch of a wide tech tree to follow), with Civ3 your choices are relatively limited as far as "grand strategy" goes, but you have a host of good (difficult and interesting) "tactical" decisions to make. A step in a very different direction from Civ II or SMAC, certianly, but not a step _backward_. Hey, it's not the game I wanted to go buy either, but I've come to appreciate Civ3 for the game it is, not become frustrated because it keeps failing to be the game I expected it to be.

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