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EXPLOITS
*********
(List of Acknowledged Exploits you can choose to make use of in your games)
Lumberjacking (IFE): Chop down trees en mass, to gain the +10 shields. After researching “Engineering” you can replant those trees and repeat infinitely. Using sufficient numbers of slave laborers (free…no support costs), this will net you a VAST advantage in terms of shields produced, and note that these shields are in no was impacted by corruption. (Note – This ability to do this has been severely restricted, post patch. To the point that it can no longer truly be considered an exploit, but has been kept here for historical reference)
A Possible Use for Priveteers? (Bblue)
Stumbled across this in my last/current game and came in rather handy, granted this situation isn't that common, but this could be a handy tool in the CIV3 toolbox. One of my continential neighbors, the Aztecs, who I have/had a good relationship with and had no intention of fighting a long drawn out war with had only one supply of Saltpeter. with no saltpeter on the open market for trade this was thier only source. The deposit was on an island with one city and thier only navy was galleys. Thier city didn't have a harbor yet so it wasn't getting to thier mainland, so I had my spy...umm I mean 'tourist' visit the city and saw thay were building a harbor, I quickly built 4 Priveteers and proceeded to embark on a PEACETIME blockade of thier harbor for 30 turns or so (before a french armada of Galleons from half a world away sailed by and sunk them) this was 30 free turns for me to build up a gunpowdered military and... well... take care of the situation before it became a fair fight. Combine this with the 'cheat/bug' where you can stack other ships (ie. battleships) with the priveteer where the game allows units to attack the Priveteer's square, lets the battleship defend and no peace treadies are broken, and this becomes a viable stratagy even in late game. (although exploiting this 'bug' is up to the individual, personally I don't feel it was the way the game was intendend and will not use it unless I see the AI use it (not likely).)
Brother Kinjy’s Civ-Paralyzation Plan
If you find yourself positioned such that there is a narrows between you and a rival civ, you can easily thwart the AI's expansion, on all but Diety levels.
1) Build up a fair number of military units near the narrows.
2) Let the rival civ establish a city at or near the narrows.
3) Rush in and capture the city.
4) Raze the city to the ground.
5) Pull back your units.
6) Wait a short while, usually less than 10 turns and watch the rival civ establish another city at the same spot.
7) Repeat steps 3 through 6.
For some reason, the AI will invariably attempt to keep settling the same spot, to detriment of their expansion elsewhere.
Vel’s RoP Blitz
This will wreck your reputation with all other civs in the game, so think carefully before committing to it….you’ll be regarded as a total bastard and global pariah, but….sometimes you just gotta….you know?
1) Contact said Civ and trade luxury items and cash for a Right of Passage agreement, giving you access to his roads/rails (already have your army en route by the way...and preferably just off the coast!)
2) Land your troops and use his own rail system to position your forces exactly where you want them.
3) When you're ready, launch the attack! With enough force, you can take the Civ out in a single turn, or at least grab all his key cities and cut the roads and rails to them to prevent a swift counterstrike.
City Pairing (Vel):
This is an exploit designed to put you at least “on par,” if not superior to the AI’s production bonuses on the higher levels of play. In doing so, it also gets around the (currently too weak, IMO) side effects of making constant or long-term use of the pop-rush technique.
The general idea is that for every “real” city you found during the land grab phase of the game, you later (once your land grab has ended) go back and add another city to the mix, packing them tightly together so that each city has a temporary “training camp.” The sole reason for this city’s existence is to pop-rush regular troops of the best kind you can make, and do so until you have an army that rivals that of your nearest neighbors.
Once you have achieved military parity, subjugate your neighbors, and when the immediate threat to you is gone, peacefully disband the training camps (poof! No more discontent due to pop-rushing!).
Borg-Style ICS, as applied to Civ3
So you thought corruption killed ICS?
Nahhh….the Beast lives on, as I found out last night, playing with extreme styles.
Last night, my focus was on Despotism, and I began with a simple premise.
In Despotism, corruption doesn’t matter, because your people are your production. Kill ‘em off by the thousands to further the glory of your Empire.
By extension then, Food = Shields.
By further extension then, Granaries = Factories (same essential benefit, but you get them a LOT sooner, and on the cheap!)
So that got me thinking…..What If….
1) You founded as many cities as you possibly could (ICS Style), without regards to corruption, spacing, or any of the “usual” means and measures.
2) Your ONLY consideration for your initial city placement was the presence of a bonus food tile (game, cow, wheat)
3) You build cities with the notion that each gets access to ONE AND ONLY ONE of these tiles (meaning that if there are several bonus food tiles clustered together, you simply found several cities very close together there).
4) Every city gets a granary. EVERY city. This is akin to “powering up” after all. You’re not building granaries, you’re building factories.
5) Once all the food rich city sites have been taken, start expanding like a cancer. Again, corruption doesn’t matter, just grab as much land as you can, expanding relentlessly.
6) Research Iron Working and The Wheel to get a bead on those resources…founding cities to take them into your fold.
7) When you run into another civ’s borders, all stop to take stock of your game.
If you’ve done this, you’ll probably have something close to thirty cities (I was playing on a standard map, Monarch level, 8 Civs, Babylon). Some of those cities were all of two tiles apart. Almost all were growing like weeds.
Trapping AI Navies (cousLee)
Trapping the AI navies:
I control a section of water between my continent and a large island. At one end, there is a 1 coast tile choke point, at the other, the area can be choked off with 3 ships. I left one end open, and cruised around outside the trap with a privateer. the AI can see that unit, even from all the way around the globe, and hunts them with a vengence. I know they can, as I have watched them B-line for the privateer using other ships as spotters. I captain the privateer into the trap, and wait for the AI horde to come a running, which they do. I then pull the bait into a city with trap access, (to protect it) and seal off the AI ship that have entered into the trap. They of course want out, so I can open one end of the trap and they all move towards the opening, and close it again just before they can exit. Pull the privateer out of the base at the other end, and they B-line for the bait again. rinse, repeat. I was able to effectively trap the majority of the AI ships using this. When they got to the one end that was being closed, and when I pulled out the bait ship, I could open the other end, and suck some more ships into this trap. When all was said and done, I had about 20-25 AI ships from every civ in there. With the use of MPPs, I would have been able to kick-start a world war and watch the AIs massacre each other. The "doors" of the trap were compromised of stacked ironclads, and the AI would pick of the weaker ships of the other civs (I am sure of it). I didn't start that war, tho it was set up for it. The persians and the brits were MPPed, and myself and the other 4 civs are MPPed. Could have been nasty indeed. But even without warring, it took the competition (mostly) off the main seas, and allowed for oceanic superiority. Some might call that a cheezy tactic, but I look at it this way, if the AI can see my privateer from 20-30 tiles away and come running after it at every oppertuniy, I can use this to make him pay upkeep for a bunch of obsoleting units for a 1000 years. The Americans also had access to this trap area, and contributed a large number of ships to the pile. Should a war actually do break out, My many artty on stand by will have a blast (har har) shooting these fish in a barrel. But since this has gone on during a 2,000 peace fest, I used privateers to eliminate most of them. Battles would generally go, one turn I lose 2, they lose, next turn they lose two, I lose one. Since privateers are cheap and my bait cities will either produce privateers or wealth, it was not a debilitating cost on my end. and over the long term, one for one with privateers VS man-o-wars, frigates, and other masted ships was not too bad (imho). It took away from the monotony of working my lumberjack crews. And to boot, I had all the AI gracious. I would pull up the diplomacy and make the rounds about every 5-6 turns, ask them what they would offer for my world map, and accept whatever they gave. Usually, they gave token crap (5 gold, WM, TM, ect) but it kept them thrilled while I picked apart their navies. When the barrel got empty, all I would have to do is open the door, and here they would come en-masse. Probably cause they were chomping at the bit to get in on the action from the other side of the trap door. The most that came through at one time was around 8 vessels, and since one blocked the door from being shut, I had to wait an extra turn to re-close it, and 5 or 6 more came through on the end-turn cycle. It was actually fun to watch all these peacefull ships trying to dodge eachother moving around looking for the occasional appearance of the disappearing privateer. If the privateer got left in the trap after a battle, I would stack it with one ironclad. Most of the time, the AI only took bombard shots at them, but would occasionaly attack trying to sink the clad to get to the pirate. they almost never attacked if I stacked 2 ironclads. Since I didn't mind losing an ironclad or two (as I had many) to have a chance at getting an elite one, i usually didn't oreo the bait ship I think I lost a total of 4 clads, got 2 elietes, and sank who knows how many masts. All during gracious peace. If this was smac, I would have landmarked it the "bermuda triangle". I also ended up with 2 eliete privateers. Call it what you will, but it sure was fun.
OoO
Stat’s by Aeson
This is a table I put together on another thread.
4000BC - 2750BC 25 turns, 50 years each
2710BC - 1750BC 25 turns, 40 years each
1725BC - 750BC 40 turns, 25 years each
730BC - 250AD 50 turns, 20 years each
260BC - 1250AD 100 turns, 10 years each
1255AD - 1750AD 100 turns, 5 years each
1752AD - 1950AD 100 turns, 2 years each
1951AD - 2050AD 100 turns, 1 year each
540 turns overall, 10BC being the 126th.
Conquest scoring bonus = (2050 - Date) * Difficulty (approximation)
BC dates are considered negative
Difficulty:
1 Cheiftain
2 Warlord
3 Regent
4 Monarch
5 Emporer
6 Deity
This formula has been tested on Regent and Diety levels, the other diffuculty levels are complete guesses.
Maximum Score
3950BC conquest victory on Diety 36060
(pop of 1, area was 150 IIRC)
UNSOLVED MYSTERIES
*******************
Jumping Choya’s Question re: What prompts the AI to attack
What exactly does the AI take into consideration when declaring war on you? Is it an apparant opportunity, technological/numerical superiority, or sheer boredom?
I've played a number of games now, and of all the times an enemy AI declared war on me, they sent in a half-witted invasion force that either got marginal success or was swatted down like a silly fly. And every time after that there was hell to pay for them, believe me.
My first example - opportunity. The AI (Iroquois) noticed once that I was in anarchy. In my current game, I had all my forces at the opposite end of my empire preparing for an invasion of China - and along come the Japanese, all the way across the land, with a horseman who slays my lonely spearman and razes the city. Both of these attacks were initially frightening - "Damnit, under attack!" - but I found as I began to strike back that they did not follow up their initial attacks, and did not have very good defenses.
Fortunately, I've never found myself in a war against a technologically superior foe, and because of my tech advantage I've been able to overcome numbers.
And then the third, which can be credited to randomness, insanity, or boredom. In a game I played, I had battled the Germans early on after encircling all of their settlements with my own - hey, why leave a hole in your empire? So I battled them down and let them keep one last city, as later in the game I hoped to relocate the Germans to some other place and do some nation-building. One day, I notice that Bismarck deploys a few swordsmen into my rifleman and cavalry defended territory. I dozens of cities, he had one, and for every obsolete unit he had, I had...at least dozens of superior units. I give Bismarck a ring and say, "Hey, what're these guys doing? Sight seeing?" to which he declares war. Bismarck sealed a very quick deathnote with that.
Another time, the Aztecs - good trading friends, we had about the same status- landed a swordsman on my shores and declared war. I never ended up succesfully invading their continent - they had big numbers and good units. It baffles me as to why the sent an obsolete unit to me, and never bothered to invade me again during the rest of the war.
All of these times, the AI relied on the sneak attack - they gave no prior displays of angst towards me or my people.
I should point out, though, I've been playing only on Warlord (hey, I'm a newbie, bear with me...)
Another thing that has baffled me is the signing of the Mutual Protection Pacts. Like others have said, stay out of them - they're the causes of many world wars (in fact, the only cause it seems...I've never seen the world descend into warfare prior to MPPs). If you go to the foreign relations screen and click to display MPPs, you'll see this spaghetti-string tangle of lines, and the truth of the matter is that you don't know who your allies will be if you have multiple alliances. Sometimes the AI makes alliances with the mortal enemy of another civ they have an alliance with. So basically, when it comes to war you could find that you have to betray several of your friends in order to fight for two or three other dumb countries. And forget any ideas of building a coalition that'll last for centuries, fighting all evil - in my experience, the other civs sign around too much and eventually they're forced to declare war within your little coalition.
This slightly relates to the above, but have any of you noticed that the AI is very forgiving to each other? The last game I played, I was dragged into war with the Aztecs again because the Brits went to war with them (but I didn't really commit any forces to it). After a while I noticed a message that they had signed a Peace Treaty with the Aztecs. A while later, while mucking around in the foreign advisor screen, I found that the British and the Aztecs had signed a mutual protection pact! Madness!
Also, I've noticed that the AI has some uncanny exploration abilities. This game, the Germans just edged me out for the Great Lighthouse. Later in the game I trade for his World Map, and I see something a little surprising. Germany had sent out a ship in a straight line that lead directly to a small island in the middle of the ocean upon which they founded to cities. No variation in course or signs of searching around whatsoever.
Anyway, I hope I'm not coming off too negative here - I dearly love this game and it's been the joyful cause of many hours of lost sleep recently. I'm merely curious about what makes the AI tick, as I'm sure most of us are. Knowing thy enemy is the best way to thwart thy enemy, right?
(PS: To Jumping Choya! Damn…I can’t believe I missed your question about the sixteen civ game! Sorry ‘bout that! And I’m afraid my answer is a sad one! I was bitten by the corrupted sav. File bug!!!
My game was fine until I put it to bed and saved it off…after that…I could never get it to open!)
***END OF FILE***
-=Vel=-
*********
(List of Acknowledged Exploits you can choose to make use of in your games)
Lumberjacking (IFE): Chop down trees en mass, to gain the +10 shields. After researching “Engineering” you can replant those trees and repeat infinitely. Using sufficient numbers of slave laborers (free…no support costs), this will net you a VAST advantage in terms of shields produced, and note that these shields are in no was impacted by corruption. (Note – This ability to do this has been severely restricted, post patch. To the point that it can no longer truly be considered an exploit, but has been kept here for historical reference)
A Possible Use for Priveteers? (Bblue)
Stumbled across this in my last/current game and came in rather handy, granted this situation isn't that common, but this could be a handy tool in the CIV3 toolbox. One of my continential neighbors, the Aztecs, who I have/had a good relationship with and had no intention of fighting a long drawn out war with had only one supply of Saltpeter. with no saltpeter on the open market for trade this was thier only source. The deposit was on an island with one city and thier only navy was galleys. Thier city didn't have a harbor yet so it wasn't getting to thier mainland, so I had my spy...umm I mean 'tourist' visit the city and saw thay were building a harbor, I quickly built 4 Priveteers and proceeded to embark on a PEACETIME blockade of thier harbor for 30 turns or so (before a french armada of Galleons from half a world away sailed by and sunk them) this was 30 free turns for me to build up a gunpowdered military and... well... take care of the situation before it became a fair fight. Combine this with the 'cheat/bug' where you can stack other ships (ie. battleships) with the priveteer where the game allows units to attack the Priveteer's square, lets the battleship defend and no peace treadies are broken, and this becomes a viable stratagy even in late game. (although exploiting this 'bug' is up to the individual, personally I don't feel it was the way the game was intendend and will not use it unless I see the AI use it (not likely).)
Brother Kinjy’s Civ-Paralyzation Plan
If you find yourself positioned such that there is a narrows between you and a rival civ, you can easily thwart the AI's expansion, on all but Diety levels.
1) Build up a fair number of military units near the narrows.
2) Let the rival civ establish a city at or near the narrows.
3) Rush in and capture the city.
4) Raze the city to the ground.
5) Pull back your units.
6) Wait a short while, usually less than 10 turns and watch the rival civ establish another city at the same spot.
7) Repeat steps 3 through 6.
For some reason, the AI will invariably attempt to keep settling the same spot, to detriment of their expansion elsewhere.
Vel’s RoP Blitz
This will wreck your reputation with all other civs in the game, so think carefully before committing to it….you’ll be regarded as a total bastard and global pariah, but….sometimes you just gotta….you know?
1) Contact said Civ and trade luxury items and cash for a Right of Passage agreement, giving you access to his roads/rails (already have your army en route by the way...and preferably just off the coast!)
2) Land your troops and use his own rail system to position your forces exactly where you want them.
3) When you're ready, launch the attack! With enough force, you can take the Civ out in a single turn, or at least grab all his key cities and cut the roads and rails to them to prevent a swift counterstrike.
City Pairing (Vel):
This is an exploit designed to put you at least “on par,” if not superior to the AI’s production bonuses on the higher levels of play. In doing so, it also gets around the (currently too weak, IMO) side effects of making constant or long-term use of the pop-rush technique.
The general idea is that for every “real” city you found during the land grab phase of the game, you later (once your land grab has ended) go back and add another city to the mix, packing them tightly together so that each city has a temporary “training camp.” The sole reason for this city’s existence is to pop-rush regular troops of the best kind you can make, and do so until you have an army that rivals that of your nearest neighbors.
Once you have achieved military parity, subjugate your neighbors, and when the immediate threat to you is gone, peacefully disband the training camps (poof! No more discontent due to pop-rushing!).
Borg-Style ICS, as applied to Civ3
So you thought corruption killed ICS?
Nahhh….the Beast lives on, as I found out last night, playing with extreme styles.
Last night, my focus was on Despotism, and I began with a simple premise.
In Despotism, corruption doesn’t matter, because your people are your production. Kill ‘em off by the thousands to further the glory of your Empire.
By extension then, Food = Shields.
By further extension then, Granaries = Factories (same essential benefit, but you get them a LOT sooner, and on the cheap!)
So that got me thinking…..What If….
1) You founded as many cities as you possibly could (ICS Style), without regards to corruption, spacing, or any of the “usual” means and measures.
2) Your ONLY consideration for your initial city placement was the presence of a bonus food tile (game, cow, wheat)
3) You build cities with the notion that each gets access to ONE AND ONLY ONE of these tiles (meaning that if there are several bonus food tiles clustered together, you simply found several cities very close together there).
4) Every city gets a granary. EVERY city. This is akin to “powering up” after all. You’re not building granaries, you’re building factories.
5) Once all the food rich city sites have been taken, start expanding like a cancer. Again, corruption doesn’t matter, just grab as much land as you can, expanding relentlessly.
6) Research Iron Working and The Wheel to get a bead on those resources…founding cities to take them into your fold.
7) When you run into another civ’s borders, all stop to take stock of your game.
If you’ve done this, you’ll probably have something close to thirty cities (I was playing on a standard map, Monarch level, 8 Civs, Babylon). Some of those cities were all of two tiles apart. Almost all were growing like weeds.
Trapping AI Navies (cousLee)
Trapping the AI navies:
I control a section of water between my continent and a large island. At one end, there is a 1 coast tile choke point, at the other, the area can be choked off with 3 ships. I left one end open, and cruised around outside the trap with a privateer. the AI can see that unit, even from all the way around the globe, and hunts them with a vengence. I know they can, as I have watched them B-line for the privateer using other ships as spotters. I captain the privateer into the trap, and wait for the AI horde to come a running, which they do. I then pull the bait into a city with trap access, (to protect it) and seal off the AI ship that have entered into the trap. They of course want out, so I can open one end of the trap and they all move towards the opening, and close it again just before they can exit. Pull the privateer out of the base at the other end, and they B-line for the bait again. rinse, repeat. I was able to effectively trap the majority of the AI ships using this. When they got to the one end that was being closed, and when I pulled out the bait ship, I could open the other end, and suck some more ships into this trap. When all was said and done, I had about 20-25 AI ships from every civ in there. With the use of MPPs, I would have been able to kick-start a world war and watch the AIs massacre each other. The "doors" of the trap were compromised of stacked ironclads, and the AI would pick of the weaker ships of the other civs (I am sure of it). I didn't start that war, tho it was set up for it. The persians and the brits were MPPed, and myself and the other 4 civs are MPPed. Could have been nasty indeed. But even without warring, it took the competition (mostly) off the main seas, and allowed for oceanic superiority. Some might call that a cheezy tactic, but I look at it this way, if the AI can see my privateer from 20-30 tiles away and come running after it at every oppertuniy, I can use this to make him pay upkeep for a bunch of obsoleting units for a 1000 years. The Americans also had access to this trap area, and contributed a large number of ships to the pile. Should a war actually do break out, My many artty on stand by will have a blast (har har) shooting these fish in a barrel. But since this has gone on during a 2,000 peace fest, I used privateers to eliminate most of them. Battles would generally go, one turn I lose 2, they lose, next turn they lose two, I lose one. Since privateers are cheap and my bait cities will either produce privateers or wealth, it was not a debilitating cost on my end. and over the long term, one for one with privateers VS man-o-wars, frigates, and other masted ships was not too bad (imho). It took away from the monotony of working my lumberjack crews. And to boot, I had all the AI gracious. I would pull up the diplomacy and make the rounds about every 5-6 turns, ask them what they would offer for my world map, and accept whatever they gave. Usually, they gave token crap (5 gold, WM, TM, ect) but it kept them thrilled while I picked apart their navies. When the barrel got empty, all I would have to do is open the door, and here they would come en-masse. Probably cause they were chomping at the bit to get in on the action from the other side of the trap door. The most that came through at one time was around 8 vessels, and since one blocked the door from being shut, I had to wait an extra turn to re-close it, and 5 or 6 more came through on the end-turn cycle. It was actually fun to watch all these peacefull ships trying to dodge eachother moving around looking for the occasional appearance of the disappearing privateer. If the privateer got left in the trap after a battle, I would stack it with one ironclad. Most of the time, the AI only took bombard shots at them, but would occasionaly attack trying to sink the clad to get to the pirate. they almost never attacked if I stacked 2 ironclads. Since I didn't mind losing an ironclad or two (as I had many) to have a chance at getting an elite one, i usually didn't oreo the bait ship I think I lost a total of 4 clads, got 2 elietes, and sank who knows how many masts. All during gracious peace. If this was smac, I would have landmarked it the "bermuda triangle". I also ended up with 2 eliete privateers. Call it what you will, but it sure was fun.
Stat’s by Aeson
This is a table I put together on another thread.
4000BC - 2750BC 25 turns, 50 years each
2710BC - 1750BC 25 turns, 40 years each
1725BC - 750BC 40 turns, 25 years each
730BC - 250AD 50 turns, 20 years each
260BC - 1250AD 100 turns, 10 years each
1255AD - 1750AD 100 turns, 5 years each
1752AD - 1950AD 100 turns, 2 years each
1951AD - 2050AD 100 turns, 1 year each
540 turns overall, 10BC being the 126th.
Conquest scoring bonus = (2050 - Date) * Difficulty (approximation)
BC dates are considered negative
Difficulty:
1 Cheiftain
2 Warlord
3 Regent
4 Monarch
5 Emporer
6 Deity
This formula has been tested on Regent and Diety levels, the other diffuculty levels are complete guesses.
Maximum Score
3950BC conquest victory on Diety 36060
(pop of 1, area was 150 IIRC)
UNSOLVED MYSTERIES
*******************
Jumping Choya’s Question re: What prompts the AI to attack
What exactly does the AI take into consideration when declaring war on you? Is it an apparant opportunity, technological/numerical superiority, or sheer boredom?
I've played a number of games now, and of all the times an enemy AI declared war on me, they sent in a half-witted invasion force that either got marginal success or was swatted down like a silly fly. And every time after that there was hell to pay for them, believe me.
My first example - opportunity. The AI (Iroquois) noticed once that I was in anarchy. In my current game, I had all my forces at the opposite end of my empire preparing for an invasion of China - and along come the Japanese, all the way across the land, with a horseman who slays my lonely spearman and razes the city. Both of these attacks were initially frightening - "Damnit, under attack!" - but I found as I began to strike back that they did not follow up their initial attacks, and did not have very good defenses.
Fortunately, I've never found myself in a war against a technologically superior foe, and because of my tech advantage I've been able to overcome numbers.
And then the third, which can be credited to randomness, insanity, or boredom. In a game I played, I had battled the Germans early on after encircling all of their settlements with my own - hey, why leave a hole in your empire? So I battled them down and let them keep one last city, as later in the game I hoped to relocate the Germans to some other place and do some nation-building. One day, I notice that Bismarck deploys a few swordsmen into my rifleman and cavalry defended territory. I dozens of cities, he had one, and for every obsolete unit he had, I had...at least dozens of superior units. I give Bismarck a ring and say, "Hey, what're these guys doing? Sight seeing?" to which he declares war. Bismarck sealed a very quick deathnote with that.
Another time, the Aztecs - good trading friends, we had about the same status- landed a swordsman on my shores and declared war. I never ended up succesfully invading their continent - they had big numbers and good units. It baffles me as to why the sent an obsolete unit to me, and never bothered to invade me again during the rest of the war.
All of these times, the AI relied on the sneak attack - they gave no prior displays of angst towards me or my people.
I should point out, though, I've been playing only on Warlord (hey, I'm a newbie, bear with me...)
Another thing that has baffled me is the signing of the Mutual Protection Pacts. Like others have said, stay out of them - they're the causes of many world wars (in fact, the only cause it seems...I've never seen the world descend into warfare prior to MPPs). If you go to the foreign relations screen and click to display MPPs, you'll see this spaghetti-string tangle of lines, and the truth of the matter is that you don't know who your allies will be if you have multiple alliances. Sometimes the AI makes alliances with the mortal enemy of another civ they have an alliance with. So basically, when it comes to war you could find that you have to betray several of your friends in order to fight for two or three other dumb countries. And forget any ideas of building a coalition that'll last for centuries, fighting all evil - in my experience, the other civs sign around too much and eventually they're forced to declare war within your little coalition.
This slightly relates to the above, but have any of you noticed that the AI is very forgiving to each other? The last game I played, I was dragged into war with the Aztecs again because the Brits went to war with them (but I didn't really commit any forces to it). After a while I noticed a message that they had signed a Peace Treaty with the Aztecs. A while later, while mucking around in the foreign advisor screen, I found that the British and the Aztecs had signed a mutual protection pact! Madness!
Also, I've noticed that the AI has some uncanny exploration abilities. This game, the Germans just edged me out for the Great Lighthouse. Later in the game I trade for his World Map, and I see something a little surprising. Germany had sent out a ship in a straight line that lead directly to a small island in the middle of the ocean upon which they founded to cities. No variation in course or signs of searching around whatsoever.
Anyway, I hope I'm not coming off too negative here - I dearly love this game and it's been the joyful cause of many hours of lost sleep recently. I'm merely curious about what makes the AI tick, as I'm sure most of us are. Knowing thy enemy is the best way to thwart thy enemy, right?
(PS: To Jumping Choya! Damn…I can’t believe I missed your question about the sixteen civ game! Sorry ‘bout that! And I’m afraid my answer is a sad one! I was bitten by the corrupted sav. File bug!!!
My game was fine until I put it to bed and saved it off…after that…I could never get it to open!)***END OF FILE***
-=Vel=-
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