Effects of 1.21f changes?

[Harovan]

Joan undergoes some sort of transformation in the Modern Age. She stops being peacefull and begins to start wars. Not a good choice for an MPP if you don't want a late war. I suspect the picture of her for the Modern Age influenced her behaviour.

It didn't really bother me. I had chosen Joan as ally not only for her low aggressivity, but mainly because she shared a continent with only Russia. I had a continent alone. So I knew, if there would be a war, it probably would be with Russia, who were puny and backwards and barely got out of the medieval age while I was researching Fission.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Ethelred
Joan undergoes some sort of transformation in the Modern Age. She stops being peacefull and begins to start wars.

I'd noticed that too - but are AI personalities hard-coded? Joan's Aggression slider is on 'Less' in the editor, so what else is there?

IF Civ=France and Era=Modern THEN AttackSomeone = TRUE

I hadn't noticed Ghandi exhibiting this sort of behaviour. Maybe Joan has a ceremonial mustketeer with an eye on a late Golden Age.

[Arrian]

Theseus,

Umm... I don't wait for Chivalry to warmonger, where did you get that idea? My "serious" warmongering is done with horsemen, and I sometimes never actually use my Samurai. I was just saying Samurai are nice units. The extra defense means that they have the advantage over Knights on both offense and defense.

My warmonger strat is built around a chariot -> horseman upgrade, with a dash of warrior -> swordsmen upgrades, a sprinkling of spearmen and then a full-out attack on my neighbor of choice. Then I move on to the next, and the next. I can't always gain control of the whole continent with horsemen - eventually I have to stop and do some building - but that's the ideal.

Last night I got an odd start (geographically speaking) in which I was on a laarge continent with 4 other civs. The geography slowed my attack down, and I had to settle for destroying India and China, while allowing America and Aztecland to live. I only got one leader, and it was early, so I rushed the Pyramids, hoping I'd get another to rush the forbidden. No such luck. I eventually did get another leader, but that was in a brief spat with the Aztecs, and he rushed Bach. So I had to actually build my forbidden. I must say, though, that a 100% corrupt city, with a courthouse. jumped to 3 or 4 shields once I got it into WLTKD. I actually got more out of it for a while, due to a golden age. It's noticeably different than 1.17. Still, my forbidden palace is only nearing completion (8 turns, I think) in 1090AD, when I quit and went to bed. Man, what a difference an extra leader, or lack thereof makes! Ah, the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune!

-Arrian

[dojoboy]

Originally posted by Dom Pedro II
Well, I think the Restart Players feature will make the game certainly more enjoyable for me personally. I always found the end of the game rather lonely when more than half of the old faces were cleared off the map. The plus side is now I can keep those old faces around as little one or two-city vassal states that will never threaten me ever. Plus, in the Diplomatic Victory game, you can make all those mini-civs your buddies and use their votes to sway victory in your direction... I mean, how can you lose? If you give them Gunpowder while you're building the Space Ship, who cares really? But THEY will love you for it!

Will the civ remember how they were treated? Will gunpowder be enough to convince them to vote the "right" way? This could make the UN even more valuable to build to prevent a vote. I rarely want to risk a vote unless I'm engaged in a war involving MPPs and I'm allied w/ the majority. I've been burned. Do not want to blow a game I've been playing for weeks.

[Shaka II]

I tried the Japanese last weekend with V1.21 (game adjourned, Emperor, standard size, 8 civs, Pangea average density). First time I have gone past the Ancient era with them. I got off to a pretty slow start, very few luxuries and alot of jungle slowed me down. No decent goodies either.

Is it correct that cultural grouping is always on? I never really understood exactly how it works. Anyway, I defeated the Zulu first and then the Egyptians to gain a sizable territory, but still smaller than the Persians or Indians. Even after conquering 2 civs my luxuries were pitifully few. They haven't modified these have they?

I did get a few leaders, one to build FP and one to build Wall Street.

I did notice that Egyptians were a bit stingy in peace negotiations, given that they only had two cities left. Good thing (for them) they were on a far away island.

Well as I was rebuilding/upgrading my forces and catching up on building in a peaceful Industrial era, the neighboring Persians attacked, parking 190 units in 1 turn around my border cities (100 veteran infantry, 60 vet rifleman, 30 cavalry, and maybe an immortal and a couple longbowmen). Wow! I had to concede at that point. I went back a turn and made an MPP with them for 30 gold (small price for survival). Next time I will know better than to let myself get caught like that.

I have seen big AI military stacks before, but this is about twice what I have previously seen.

So, the game is viable again as Persia is nicely situated between India and me, so that if war breaks out (and it will), it won't be on my front, and I can only hope that Persia will lose most of those infantry. Hoping that when India is about done, I might be in a position to take on Persia directly.

Those Samarai are pretty nice, and the later Golden Age works well, I just had to play catch up most of this game.

I still like the Zulu and Iroquois better, although I will give the Japanese a few more tries after this game.

[Arrian]

Shaka,

Sounds like a tough start, compounded by Emperor difficulty. Give it another shot with a better start. Also bear in mind that my love of the Japanese is based on games at Monarch level. It may be that Emperor really does favor a powerful ancient UU.

Cultural grouping is an option at startup now. I play with it on.

-Arrian

[Vetinari]

The biggest strategic change for me has been the improved blitz ability. Not since tanks can blitz all the time, but since armies of mounteds can blitz. China is really awesome now. An army of Riders gets 3 attacks, IN THE EARLY MEDIEVAL ERA!!! An army of three riders easily takes a city defended by two spearmen or a pikeman and a spearman in one turn. My rider armies was even valuable in the late industrial era when used together with art +inf. Just shell the defenders down to 1 hp with artillery, and kill all the defenders with the same army. This also makes it worthwhile to have a city constantly producing armies with the military academy.

[Txurce]

Shaka, if the AI is building armies that have to be taken seriously... and springing them on you all at once... then we'll have to devote a few shields to defense, hmm? That'll slow the human research rate down! (By the way, my understanding is that cultural groupings is always on in v. 1.21.)

Vetinari, what do you mean by "blitz"? That a fast unit or army can attack more than once in one turn? How did this change?

[lockstep]

Originally posted by Txurce
Vetinari, what do you mean by "blitz"? That a fast unit or army can attack more than once in one turn? How did this change?

Until v1.17f, if a unit couldn't move forward after a successful attack (because of a second defender on the same tile), this was counted as an additional movement point. Therefore, e.g. a knight army was almost never able to attack twice in a turn. IIRC, korn469 pointed this out to Soren Johnson, who declared that it was not a feature but a bug. In v1.21f fast units work as intended, and the blitz ability is really worthwile.

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by Txurce
(By the way, my understanding is that cultural groupings is always on in v. 1.21.)

No. The setting was moved out of the preferences where it didn't belong and put in the new game setup. Its with the victory conditions along with the choice of keeping or not keeping the random number seed in saved games. Now there are eight items instead of six in that box.

[planetfall]

abandon city option

This option just removes the city.
aeson - sorry no settlers if above 2 pop

arrian - not a way to create workers

dominae - city size does not matter, just conquered metros can be abandoned

fitz - no preceived dip hit, but they are already either annoyed or furious by the time I am abandoning their cities.

What I use for:
1-- moving a city over 1 tile
2-- seeing what is inside a freshly conquered city. No more inherited draft weariness. I went thru one era with inherited draft weariness with 1.17, just to see if it ever ended. Nope. Now rather than raze, I accept city. Check list of improvements and decide if really want to keep a few turns. If too much draft weariness, abandon and resettle. Now here is an interesting question: if rather than razing, I accept new cities and then abandon does this mean A) less of a reputation hit, and B) less decreasing AI ww because I am bad and raze all their cities? Huh?
3-- opening a planned geography hole which the AI can't avoid settling and moving into. Welcome to a neat maze, said the spider to the fly.

[Shaka II]

Originally posted by Txurce
Shaka, if the AI is building armies that have to be taken seriously... and springing them on you all at once... then we'll have to devote a few shields to defense, hmm? That'll slow the human research rate down! (By the way, my understanding is that cultural groupings is always on in v. 1.21.)

I certainly agree, but I was busy fighting a war on another front, so I was getting pretty thin and I had not advanced as much as Persians, who had the benefit of 1,000 years of peace, etc.

Like Arrian says, I got off to a bad start, but I will try a few more games. Also, (as Arrian suggests) it may be that the ancient UU civs have benefits at higher levels. Never played Deity though.

Thanks Ethelred for clearing up the cultural grouping setting.

[Theseus]

Arrian,

Sorry, I somehow got it into my head that you were building a large reserve of WCs, and then upgrading directly to Samurai... I didn't understand the avoidance of Horseback Riding, I guess. I now mostly concur with your strategy.

BUT, being as bloodthirsty as I am, how about this:

1. I would still build more Warriors, for exploration at first.

2. Then, when your Horsemen have first extorted funds, I would upgrade those to Swordsmen... first as stronger defense (don't bother with Spearmen yet), and second for the next oscillation where the relative strength of a 3 attack is required. Extortion again.

3. When you upgrade to Samurai, leave your cities very strongly protected with vet defenders, and vet / elite Swordsmen.

Lastly, I find it UNFORGIVABLE not to wage wars of aggression with the Samurai!!!!!!!!!!!! Relative strength for forward projection is too great to ignore! I know you want to build at this point... fine, go ahead. But don;t leave these guys just sitting around... it leads to boredom, drug use, abuse of the local women, bar fights, etc. Neigboring AI civs laughing at you, calling them pretty-boy sissies... it's embarassing. Please give'em a chance to demonstrate their warrior spirit.

[Theseus]

What I find interesting about Shaka's confrontation with Persia is the two, MAJOR changes in the AI's attack strategy.

Soren hinted at this a lot in the last chat and in some other threads.

First, obviously concentration of force. Actually, let me take that back: more like massing of force. I would be interested, Shaka, as to the approach of the attack, i.e., big stacks? encirclement? points of concentration? Any differentiation between the move capabilities of fast-movers versus ground-pounders?

Second, notice the preponderance of vet infantry... clearly, this is in the industrial age but prior to Tanks, so the AI picks Infantry, which had previously been weighted toward defense, as the primary offensive unit.

Smart, very smart. Hell, I haven't even done that yet.

I do wonder why the Riflemen hadn't been upgraded... not enough money, I guess.

[Txurce]

Theseus, it would be terrific if the AI were indeed using the infantry as an offensive force. Shaka never actually got attacked by them, however, and I wonder if the 1.21 AI has shaken off the coding that seems to prevent any defensive unit from attacking, no matter how much stronger its offensive rating is compared to rthe enemy? In my games, it seems that the standard defensive unit - from spearmen through mech infantry - only attack red-injured units, no matter how much stronger. A coding change in this alone would make a huge difference.