1.29f PATCH README

[FrustratedPoet]

Thank you very much.

[Nubclear]

Originally posted by Soren Johnson Firaxis


cities and metropolises get an _additional_ extra commerce or two and the "Optimal # of Cities" is increased by 25% instead of 12.5%.

This question has been asked plenty of times:

Will you be able to edit diplomacy in the editor? This is essential for scenarios.....

[rflagg]

re: scripts necessary

I'm guessing Soren doesn't know whether that's been implemented or not, and I also assume most firaxians are home for the evening, but still hoping they'll check in, and answer regarding the diplomacy editing abilities.

On a side note, I disagree about scripts. If I remember correctly, it was *years* before that was available for civ2. Plus, you must remember, this is an all new beast of a program - completely different from civ2. For all we know, they could've had scripts/events planned from the beginning, but it took a back seat to things like culture, better ai, etc. And, after being released, it took a back seat to fixing bugs and dealing with the *many* complaints as well as praises and suggestions - not many other games have quite a tightly knit group of hardcore fans as the civ series. So, PTW is now well in front of events scripting as far as priority goes, and that's fine with me. Scripting is good, but I couldn't imagine the amount of work that had to go into creating a programming language for civ2, let alone for civ3. Relax, there will still be plenty of good scenarios. Understand they want it as much as you want it, but they just don't have the time and resources and extensions on deadlines to be able to pull it off in a patch.

On a different note, anyone hear anything about the diplomacy issue? Please let us know Firaxis, I promise even if it's not available, I won't yell at you.

-rflagg.

[sabrewolf]

Re: re: scripts necessary

Originally posted by rflagg
On a different note, anyone hear anything about the diplomacy issue? Please let us know Firaxis, I promise even if it's not available, I won't yell at you.

i reckon no answer means "no"

but please prove me wrong

[Theseus]

Hooray!!!

Knights and Cavs and Tanks... oh my!!

[FrustratedPoet]

Re: Re: re: scripts necessary

Originally posted by sabrewolf


i reckon no answer means "no"

but please prove me wrong

Anything (even complete silence) is better than "No Comment".

[FrustratedPoet]

Originally posted by Theseus
Hooray!!!

Knights and Cavs and Tanks... oh my!!

This should make a few of the AU games even more interesting.

[Jon Shafer]

Yes, Soren, the question of the moment seems to be whether or now we can modify diplomatic relations between civs in the editor. Can you confirm that this is or isn't possible for us? Pretty please?

[Daniel Frappier]

Great Patch.

Pardon my ignorance but is it possible to create a scenario with a different number of turns that of a full game and at a different year (4000 BC) ?

[Flinx]

Re: "renegotiate every 20 turns"

Originally posted by Soren Johnson Firaxis

well, I am pretty sure that "renegotiate every 20 turns" will only benefit the human over the AI. The reason is that if you had a lopsided deal with the AI, IT would decide to renegotiate the deal. In other words, there will never be a situation in which you would benefit from "just being quiet" about the deal expiring because the AI will always ask to renegotiate if it doesn't like the deal.

I beg to differ. I have initiated many a renegotiation of a deal I made a lot more than 20 turns earlier thinking oh this civ must be willing to pay more only to be slapped in the face with something much worse than I had. Sometimes you do get more, sometimes you get just a gold or two less per turn but my rule of thumb now is unless I am willing to give up the deal completely I do not initiate renegotiation. Alternatively I cheat: I save the game initiate a renegotiation and if the result is horrible, re-load the save game. Maybe I'm crazy but I think "renegotiate every 20 turns" will benefit the AI over the human player on many deals.

...Unless of course the AI had a bug and was not renegotiating lopsided deals before, and that bug is now fixed so the AI will now renegotiate after 20 turn if the human player does not.

[DilithiumDad]

Well, the boost to commercial just became my favorite new feature! I already thought the trait was underrated by most players. Expansionist really sticks out as a weak trait now.

The fortify all/wake all right-click commands will see a LOT of use by me!

[Thrawn05]

* Removed compression from auto saves.

EVIL!!!


Can we at least have an option to turn this on/off?


If not... I'm might think twice about this patch.

[Jaybe]

AUTO saves are no longer compressed. You can designate how many auto-saves there are (new in 1.29). The time taken in compressing the auto-saves was drawing complaints since they were automatically happening every turn. You still have the option (I think?) of whether to compress your manual saves.

[Spock]

minimap in the editor

patch sounds really great....THANKS Firaxians!!!

ummm...is it Friday yet???????????

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Mike Breitkreutz FIRAXIS

Yes. For example, the Rifleman has both the offensive and defensive strategies. When the AI builds a rifleman, it will build either an offensive rifleman or a defensive rifleman. Likewise, when you place a rifleman on the map in the editor, you need to tell the AI whether it is an offensive or defensive rifleman (or set it to random and it will choose randomly when you play the scenario).

I can see this being a MAJOR weakness if the offensive/defensive flag is locked in permanently. Consider the following hypothetical example. An AI civ doesn't have saltpeter, so it uses offensive infantry rather than cavalry as its primary offensive forces. When it reaches Motorized Transportation, it has 50 offensive infantry and 50 defensive infantry. It now wants to add ten more units to its military, five offensive and five defensive.

Given that its offensive forces are already overloaded with infantry, the logical move would be to build ten tanks and convert five of the offensive infantry to defense. (There might be exceptions if a city can build an infantry in two turns but a tank takes three, but even that seems iffy given how much better tanks are for offense.) That gives it both extra offense and extra defense, and, in the process, makes its offensive forces a lot more mobile. In contrast, if the AI is blind to the possibility of converting offensive infantry to defense, it might very well keep building infantry even though it already is overbalanced toward infantry to begin with.

Similarly, the AI really ought to be able to shift units from offense to defense or vice versa if game conditions call for a different balance of forces. If an AI is struggling to hang onto its cities, wasting "offensive" infantry in near-suicidal attacks on enemy infantry can be really stupid, especially if the attacker doesn't have lots of artillery to negate infantry's defensive advantages. Conversely, if the balance of power shifts heavily in an AIs favor, that may free up some units previously committed to defense for use in supporting an offensive.

And there's one other strategy that such a flag could easily get in the way of. If I got in a war and half my offensive riflemen were on the wrong end of the nation (without railroads for instant transportation), I would have my "offensive riflemen" trade places with any "defensive riflemen" in cities along the way across my nation. That way I could get two units' movement in a turn instead of one. But if the flags are locked in, that would get in the way of the AI's doing such role swapping, and would thus slow down its ability to bring forces to the area where they are needed most.

I really hope the actual design is more complicated than Mike makes it sound. Otherwise, key opportunities to improve the AI's strategy are almost certainly being missed.

Nathan