Effects of 1.21f changes?

[Theseus]

I've noted in another thread that the research and thus unit balance may be a bit off as regards Chivalry and Military Tradition... this seems to be related to the AI prioritization of techs to reach the next era.

I also concur that the AI's use of bombard units is not quite there, although I have been seeing interesting instances of a bombard and a defender setting up for attrition.

These are two big issues for me, although I am tremendously happy with gameplay post-1.21. This weekend I'm going into the editor for the first time to deal with them.

Hope they are addressed in the XP.

[jshelr]

AI Tech Trading

We've had a little time to play 1.21 now and here's a story that illustrates the state of tech trading perfectly. Playing Babylon on Monarch and the huge map with the smallest continents setting, I had two nearly perfect double rings of cities with minimal corruption and full size 12 population. Couldn't believe it. Had captured the Great Library and saved scads of gold while others researched techs. Used the some of the gold to beat the AI to democracy and military tradition. Shortly, I finished the era and got nationalism as a scientific civ. Moved into the new era as largest civ with number one GDP and a full out tech research rate, clearly leading in tech. The lead lasted exactly one tech. Midway through the next era I was already trailing by a full tech. It's exactly like its you against the AI civs. When there are 13 of them, you can't keep up without wars. It's still almost as bad as 1.17, more or less.

[Fidel]

as i said, editing out is inevitable. go for 115 or even 110

[Harovan]

jshelr: Do you have a fully developed terrain (roads everywhere) and libraries, universities, marketplaces and banks in your core cities? Do you have a well placed FP?

If so, and you put the science slider high enough and trade actively (and not only occasionally), you should be able to outresearch 12 AI's alone. Soon after 1.21 was released, I played a huge/monarch game with 16 civs without edited rules (I never do so). It's described earlier in this thread. I won by culture about 13 turns before the spaceship would be built, and the best AI civ was crawling around steel or so.

Tech trading has been nicely fixed in 1.21.

[jshelr]

Reply to sir ralph

Basically yes. I had built everything there was to build in some cities and was approaching that point in the final cities taken from Germany to the south. I put the FP in one of the northern German cities and it produced two great rings of cities, one around thel palace and the other around the FP. Low corruption, and f11 said a global GDP rank of 1. Roads everywhere and slave laborers aplenty. In fact, railroads taking shape. Good home luxuries and buying a couple from Egypt for very old techs -- she's all alone on an island, pity.

It's interesting that there is no consistent result on tech trading. I think you need to find a companion civ that is reseaching a different path than you are and trade with them to have any chance. Question is, will they ever give you a square deal if you are also ahead on the histogram, have 1000 gold in the bank to get the interest from Wall Street, and are the largest civ in the pack? Maybe they just don't like me?

[Aeson]

I think the key is to hamstring the AI's commerce through trading. Always sell everything to the AI that you can for as much as you can get. Exceptions would be Iron/Saltpeter/Rubber for military targets. The less gold they have the less they can fund their research.

[Harovan]

Yes, squeezing the money out of the AI is crucial, that was what I meant with "trade actively". In the game described above, I sold practically every luxury resource I had, and renegotiated the deals every 20 turns. Usually I got more, as the AI civs were growing. I didn't even hesitate to sell iron to the Germans. They were losing in the world war on the big continent, and I wanted to prolongue the war. They paid a nice price, IIRC 32 gpt, that was all they could afford.

This lead to a big trading income. I had industrial and modern techs coming every 4-6 turns.

[Shaka II]

Originally posted by 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.

Sorry to take so long to respond. I went back to that game last night and played a few turns past the point of the massive intrusion. I should mention that I only had Riflemen and not Infantry.

After the Persians used up their Cavalry and/or had to retreat back to barracks, the Infantry kept marching through my territory encircling cities. They attacked a size 12 city with 4 Rifleman defending. I think they lost about 4 Infantry to my 2 Riflemen. I defended the city with a few more Riflemen and the next turn the AI decided to move on to another poorly defended city.

So I guess the answer is yes, the AI attacks with Infantry, but only under certain conditions where the probabilities for success are reasonable (e.g., Infantry vs. Riflemen).

On a second test, I made MPP with Indians (they had Infantry) on the other side of Persians. After razing two cities they turned back, presumably to fend off Indians.

Since then I played two more games as Japanese with great results, my 2nd and 3rd best games (Emperor, Pangea, 8 civs). The last game I think would have been 1st, but I finished in domination a bit early (1778AD). In fact I have only won two games by domination instead of Space, but they are the highest scores.

The Japanese catch on late, but when the conditions are right for that Samarai GA, it's an amazing amount of fun.

But I haven't seen the stack up like that in either of the recent games. Got to watch out for that though.

[Txurce]

Shaka, Soren Johnson just said that, indeed, the 1.21 AI will attack with infantry, if that is the best offensive unit it can build. In the past, it defaulted to longbowmen.

My best scores are my only two domination wind as well. I think it has to do with finishing much earlier than I do in a space race.

I think you're right in pointing out that the age of the samurai is potentially awesome, but external conditions affect it more than, for example, they do the Babylonians.