New Gameplay Mechanics in 1.29f

[SpencerH]

I havent seen this "bug" yet but I can look since I'm currently involved in a border dispute with the Brits. I've seen another bug that seems similar to me. You're winning a war and the AI comes to you wanting peace. I demand a city for my generosity. AFAIK from previous patches, the AI wont go for it. Now though the advisor says its doubtful rather than no way. So you sweeten the pot with something valuable and the advisor changes to "they would never go for this". I've never seen this before with previous patches (its only my second 1.29 game) but along with this new "bug" it may point to an underlying flaw with the AI negotiations.

[vondrack]

Originally posted by SpencerH
I havent seen this "bug" yet but I can look since I'm currently involved in a border dispute with the Brits. I've seen another bug that seems similar to me. You're winning a war and the AI comes to you wanting peace. I demand a city for my generosity. AFAIK from previous patches, the AI wont go for it. Now though the advisor says its doubtful rather than no way. So you sweeten the pot with something valuable and the advisor changes to "they would never go for this". I've never seen this before with previous patches (its only my second 1.29 game) but along with this new "bug" it may point to an underlying flaw with the AI negotiations.

I do experience this, too, but I do not think it is a bug. IMHO, the "doubts" mean that the AI does not feel THAT strong. It will not give up the city you want, but it is less that 100% self-assured. The "no way" iteration means that it will never bargain about the city, so sweetening the deal is of no use... I think the initial "doubts" just give a clue how strong the AI considers itself.

[alexman]

SpencerH, what you are experiencing is intended behavior. The AI does not accept anything in return for cities, except for a peace treaty. If you offer a peace treaty plus something else, it never accepts. So when your advisor says he doubts that the AI will accept the peace treaty for a certain city, it means that the AI still feels strong enough to resist. Beat him up a little more and he will likely accept the same deal. But when you offer something else in addition to a peace treaty, the AI is programmed to never accept. It's just like when you try to offer more gpt than you currently make. The AI never accepts not matter what other sweet deals you offer along with it.

[Solver]

Increasingly odd... I'm positive I've NOT been able to do it before 1.29f. With 1.29, I haven't really checked... probably will fire civ up now. However, I can also remember Soren saying it, and possibly he even did twice.

And looking through the readmes, I couldn't find any mention of a change... so it's either a repeatable bug or an undocumented change.

And so: FIRAXIS?

[Arrian]

Curiouser and Curiouser... down the rabbit hole we go.

I am going to keep an eye out for this... though I normally just go and take the city(ies) that control the luxuries*, I can imagine situations where it would be better to simply get the luxury for peace... and in 20 turns, if they don't want to cough it up anymore, I can always use force again.

* - I like to make sure I get monopolies on luxuries so that I have the maximum advantage when I go to trade them. In the game I finished last night (well, this morning), though, this actually wasn't all that useful. When I had 4 luxuries of my own (my continent), the AI laughed at a 4 to 1 trade (insulted). Then they got all huffy when I planted a city next to a gems resource which was outside of anyone's cultural borders (sneak attacked by two different civs in 2 consecutive turns), so I had the opportunity to gain another luxury, bringing my total to 6. The AI then laughed at my 6 for 1 offer. After blatantly stealing a 7th luxury via culture bombing, it was still pointless (though they did call me up and generously offer me the 8th lux for one of mine + 104gpt). Finally, the AI commited suicide by attacking me even though I had (via a RoP) approximately 40 Tanks inside their territory, next to each of their major cities. Game over.

-Arrian

[Theseus]

Hey, I never thought of that... you were trying to use ROP to create a "sword of Damocles?" And the AI ignored it?

[player1]

Originally posted by Solver
And so: FIRAXIS?

Those of Firaxis staff which can help us, are probably at vacation.



















Or at least are not looking at these boards for the moment.

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Theseus
Hey, I never thought of that... you were trying to use ROP to create a "sword of Damocles?" And the AI ignored it?

Theseus,

I was insanely far ahead in tech (a full era), and had 75 Tanks at my disposal when the best AI opponent had a few riflemen. I also had infantry, artillery, elite cavalry, and couple of bombers over there. I had a RoP. So I was thinking... I know the AI will eventually attack me. I KNOW it. I've crippled the Aztecs and Chinese (1 city, actually alive because I surrounded it and prevented the Greeks from finishing it off) and the Romans are a joke. The only quasi-viable AI civ was Greece. I was a democracy, and was thinking about milking this game for all it was worth. I didn't want a long war.

Therefore, I decided to prepare for the inevitable Greek attack:

16 Tanks on a mountain next to Athens. 12 Tanks on a mountain outside Corinth, 4 more plus cavalry outside of Thermopolye, and 8 more tanks next to their next biggest city. Plus, infantry on all of their resources/luxuries. I also had 35 more tanks in my cities on their continent. The Greek empire, such as it was, lasted 2 turns (except for 2 outliers which would have taken 4 more turns for me to get, had I not won via domination). Had I really wanted to, I could have positioned troops to wipe them out in 1 turn, but for some reason I didn't bother.

The save game one turn 1 of the war, prior to me making any moves, is "Grecian Suicide." I mean to load the autosave at some point and see if they were trying to switch governments or something. They were a Monarchy (which is why I had the obscene tech lead), had about 50 bucks, and were paying me 30+ gpt for luxuries. Hence, revolution = bankruptcy = must attack. It was either that or deliberate suicide... they had already had their GA, they had NO hope of victory, and they were "polite" with me. Of course, I did steal that one silk resource...

-Arrian

[Solver]

Just tried it... no, couldn't ask for resources.

[Theseus]

Arrian, you GOTTA start putting up screenshots. That games sounds awesome...

[Arrian]

It worked out pretty well, Theseus. A friend of mine challenged me to try and beat his score using Egypt on a standard, continents, 60% water map. He used a war chariot rush for continental domination and went from there. He milked it to 1950, and ended up scoring over 8K. Not bad. So after several aborted starts, I got one with promise, and tweaked his strat to use swordsmen for a bit first to cripple 2 civs and hopefully get a leader, while researching toward monarchy. It happened to work out so that I was a monarchy with a FP and a couple of surrounding cities when I triggered my GA. Meanwhile, I found out from the replay that the other four civs were fighting each other while I was thrashing Lizzy, Cathy and Hiawatha. Once I showed up on their continent with my gems city, the fighting was renewed and intensified. I saw China coming for me, so I bribed the Aztecs, Greeks and Romans to attack them. Then the Aztecs hit me on the next turn. Heh. I felt like a guy who brought a machine gun to a fist fight. By the end, I was researching my 3rd tech of the modern era (computers) while the Greeks hadn't gotten past nationalism, their free tech. China and Rome were still in the middle ages.

I don't have time to do screenshots this weekend... perhaps next week (the game's on my computer and I will be at my GF's this weekend).

-Arrian

ps I didn't come close to my friend's score, because I just can't deal with "milking" Domination in 1720AD, score of 6182, as opposed to 1950, score over 8000.

[beorhtwulf]

Just a thought -- if we assume that the reason people are sometimes able to offer deals and sometimes not isn't due to demonic possession or other hardware quirks, then it must have to do with the game state, for instance the computer deciding whether trade routes are available.

Could it be that until the treaty is signed (not just on the table), the computer counts belligerent units as blocking trade routes? Or maybe land vs. sea routes are treated differently? If this is the case, it'd probably count as a subtle bug that Firaxis could fix.

[Theseus]

Nope... under all sorts of conditions, including a range of trade route cirumstances, I have never ever seen an ability to trade resouces in negotiating for peace.

One of my cats freaks out every day at about 8pm, wild-eyed and jumping around. We call it the ghost...

This is the ghost of Civ3.