Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhh. How to keep ai from building wonders?

[Apolex]

You guys chill out, dang. The guy can play the game however he wants! This is not "Civ College", or some training facility to make everyone a civ genius. The guy paid his good $$ for the game so has the right to play it in ANY MANNER HE CHOOSES. It's not hurting you at all... and it's not hurting him if his goal is to just have fun and not get a Civ Ph.D. This sanctimonius BS I hear with you all telling him he should be just like you is clearly being a jackass.

His question was :

Does the ai not have to "build" wonders, they just get them based on some sort of equation?

Either answer that question constructively or quit being jackasses and go to the Civ Strat discussion with your 'my way of doing things is better' stuff.

[Arrian]

Cheating doesn't really help you learn a game. Trial and error does. So does coming to places like this and discussing strategy. I suggest playing the ancient era over and over until you feel you have got the hang of things. If you make a strategic decision and things go badly, go back to an old save and try a different course of action. Reloading for the purposes of testing strategy and just generally learning the game is far, far more likely to teach you something than using a cheat program. There was a thread set up by Theseus with a listing of threads that newer players would find useful... I forget the name of it. I'll dig it up and post a link. Check out some of those threads, because they may help you out.

Oh, and definitely patch the game to version 1.29.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

His question was :

Does the ai not have to "build" wonders, they just get them based on some sort of equation?

Either answer that question constructively or quit being jackasses and go to the Civ Strat discussion with your 'my way of doing things is better' stuff.

This has been answered already by Todd Hawks:

The AI has to build wonders normally.

That is the correct answer. Unlike Civ I and CivII, the AI actually has to build wonders in CivIII. They put a high priority on wonder building, and thus often succeed. One thing that is often frustrating is the "wonder cascade" which occurs when a wonder is completed, and the tech is available for other wonders (for example, the Pyramids are completed, and literature is out there.. resulting in a mass switch to the Great Library).

How to prevent them from building wonders? It depends on what level you play on and some other factors, but my response (on Monarch) is to beat the snot out of them and rely on great leaders for many of my wonders.

-Arrian

[Soren Johnson]

Originally posted by Apolex

His question was :

Does the ai not have to "build" wonders, they just get them based on some sort of equation?

The AI has to build wonders just like the human in Civ3. (this is apparently different from previous versions of Civ in which the AI got wonder for free...) If you see the AI get a wonder quicker than you expected, it probably was because of cascading (changing production because another wonder was just finished) or a Great Leader.

[wvfoos]

exactly

I had a big post typed up, and my power went out.

Yes, i've patched to 1.29f (duh). Not everyone who is a newb to civ3, is a complete newb to pc games.

Second, i ONLY used the powerbar thing to go back and SEE if I could disrupt the WOW, in furtherance of my exploration about how the ai builds the wonders. Am I supposed to just go blindly about, and not worry about how the AI does things? I see lots of threads here about how the ai acts/reacts, especially in diplomacy. I guess we should not try and figure out how they work on diplomacy, because that would be cheating too? Figuring out how the AI works, imo, can make a difference in how I approach the game.

I swear, some of you people see the word "cheat" and automatically assume "oh, he's just giving himself 10000' s of gold, and jacking his production and all sorts of similar things." Do you honestly think, if I was just giving myself gold and and jacking my production and god knows what else, I would even care about a stupid assed wonder? Hell, I could just ramp my tech through the roof to get education (i think thats the tech that ends the GL) and kill the wonder. C'mon, use your head.

To those two or three individuals who understood this in this thread, I appreciate the response, and the ability to understand the original question. The "he doesn't have all day to sit an play civ3" theory is dead on. I get about 2 hours a night, maybe three if I'm lucky. About 3 days a week. I don't have the time to start umpteen million games, and see which starting position is the best after 100 turns. Or play 100 turns just to see if my new peace strategy works. As I stated earlier, I see that a great leader may be used by the ai to accomplish what I was concerned about, and now understand that the ai doesn't just "get" wonders as it did in civ1 (and maybe civ2, i forget).

[One_Brow]

Originally posted by Arrian
That is the correct answer. Unlike Civ I and CivII, the AI actually has to build wonders in CivIII.

Actually, that would be "unlike Civ I and like Civ II", since in Civ II wonders actually needed to be built by the AI.

[SpencerH]

In a follow-up to my post and others.

I think that the AI uses leaders quite a bit now to generate wonders (it never used camels for wonders in civ2) and it may even start or join in wars in order to generate GL->wonders (just like we do).

In a recent game, another civ who was behind me in tech and whos wonder was 20-30 turns behind mine suddenly joined in a war against a weak civ that I was demolishing. The AI generated a GL, marched him across my territory, and built the wonder 1 or two turns before me .

Having seen it directly, there was nothing to ***** about........................... except why cant GL be generated through peaceful means?

[Arrian]

One Brow,

I stand corrected. I haven't played CivII since CivIII came out, and it appears my memory is starting to get fuzzy.

Soren, thanks for chiming in! I guess you still check out the forums occasionally, huh?

SpencerH,

Yeah, I watched the Iroquois do that to me once - generate a leader and rush Bach. I would have easily beaten them to it otherwise. Annoying, but fair.

-Arrian

[mattcj]

Re: exactly

Originally posted by wvfoos
The "he doesn't have all day to sit an play civ3" theory is dead on. I get about 2 hours a night, maybe three if I'm lucky. About 3 days a week. I don't have the time to start umpteen million games, and see which starting position is the best after 100 turns. Or play 100 turns just to see if my new peace strategy works.

Here Here While it would be nice to be able to start lots of games and just play ancient eras over and over again, it's just not reality for most people (I'd wager).

Not that I cheat or anything

[Theseus]

Let the guy play however he wants. I never used the powerbar thing, but when I was starting I certainly re-loaded from 10 or 20 turns before to understand what I needed to do to build a GW.

That said, the best way to learn is to play, and to learn from other players. Why re-invent the wheel? (Oh, we do that... )

Here's the thread Arrian mentioned:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=59216

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by Arrian
One Brow,
SpencerH,

Yeah, I watched the Iroquois do that to me once - generate a leader and rush Bach. I would have easily beaten them to it otherwise. Annoying, but fair.

-Arrian

Yeah its one thing to believe it happens and to use the idea to explain how the AI gets an "unexplained" wonder and another to actually see it happen before your eyes. Its rather enlightening!