Best AI I have ever seen hands down!

[player1]

THERE ARE NO TELEPORTING GALLEYS.

[player1]

But, YES.

AI knows more about location of units.

It knew in CTP1 & CTP2 too.

And nobody complained.
Since it's not realy a big AI advantage.

And can be used against it.

And there is always easiest level.
For those who are afraid of AI.

[Gen.Dragolen]

Coracle,

If you need some evidence that the Computer Civ's aren't cheating here's a beauty: the Romans found me expanding towards them after I located some nice gems in some mountains, at around 2600 BC. Within 20 turns, the Romans sent 5 settlers and Legionaires in my direction. The way they did this was that Rome had 4 Food bonus squares (game) and Veii had 3 plus 2 luxuries. In the same location, I could have done the same. They had mines on all of them and that was all it took for them to out REx me.

Just remember, you can always use their strengths against them. I was Egyptian and would have used culture to take most of those new cities.


D.

[Coracle]

Originally posted by Gen.Dragolen
Coracle,

If you need some evidence that the Computer Civ's aren't cheating here's a beauty: the Romans found me expanding towards them after I located some nice gems in some mountains, at around 2600 BC. Within 20 turns, the Romans sent 5 settlers and Legionaires in my direction. The way they did this was that Rome had 4 Food bonus squares (game) and Veii had 3 plus 2 luxuries. In the same location, I could have done the same. They had mines on all of them and that was all it took for them to out REx me.

Just remember, you can always use their strengths against them. I was Egyptian and would have used culture to take most of those new cities.


D.

Maybe it's been a long day for me, but why does that prove the AI is not cheating in that particular case at that particular level?

Taking cities "by culture" remains a figment of Soren's overactive and PC imagination. It happens so rarely in History it is not worth considering, but taking cities BY INTIMIDATION based upon the strength of your MILITARY DID happen historically.

[Theseus]

Are you on drugs?

Ancient Greece.

The Italian city-states.

The unification of Germany.

The proto-empires in the Pacific.

Hey, look, I'm as much a warmonger as the next guy, and sure, each of those examples had military / dominance aspects as well, but culture is cool.

When I kick your ass in MP, you can come and appreciate my culture as a vassal.

[Mark, lemme have some fun with this... not trying to be difficult]

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Theseus
The unification of Germany.

That's an incredible good example. Basically a whole country flipped back from pro-russian to pro-western culture. Well, it's a country and not a city, but in Civ3 terms and if you compare the area a city covers to the real world, it's ... a city and not more.

Yea, Coracle, this culture flipping happened, at my own doorstep. Btw, despite of roughly 500,000 russian soldiers, located in Eastern Germany. Not to forget it's own army (about 170,000) and numerous forces in police, border guards, secret service etc. These troups got assimilated. Well, you point is only, that the half million russian soldiers weren't "lost". But remember, it's just a game and can't simulate all circumstances.

[Sinapus]

Originally posted by player1
THERE ARE NO TELEPORTING GALLEYS.

What about R.O.U.S.?

[player1]

Originally posted by Sinapus

What about R.O.U.S.?

???

[Ethelred]

R.O.U.S.

Rodents Of Unusual Size.


From the highly overated Princess Bride.

[Shaka II]

I have seen a few R.O.U.S.'s, but only in the wee hours of the morning. They usually just claim a few Settlers.

Not overated IMO.

[Ethelred]

The movie or the book?

The story telling gimmick worked much better in the movie. Having Peter Falk tell the story helped too. When I read the book I just kept thinking William Goldman just didn't have the will to write a real fairy tale. It was a gimmick that harmed the story as far as I was concerned for the book. I guess thats the sort of thing that can happen when a screenwriter tries to write a novel.

[Jymkata]

In order to effictively counter the enemy AI, Read "Sun Tzu's art of war". Here are some suggestions to defending yourself in the pre-industrial era.

1. Let your enemy come to you and fight on your terms. You will never know which opponent will declare war on you. Are they adjacent to your nation, or will they have to cross another nation to attack you? Are there any choke points you can use to delay their offensive until you can get reinforcements down there? Can you use any diplomacy to get other nations to declare war against that nation?
2. If they are bearing down on a city that you can't defend adequately, retreat and abandon the city to deny him from taking it. Try to keep one defensive and one offensive unit in each city.
3. Switch every city you can to producing offensive attack units. Start moving all your attack units toward the front line (usually a city near the front line but in the interior of your nation). I also designate one of my first 4 cities as a military builder. I build a barracks in it, and then that city produces nothing but military units. This allows a nation to maintain a good military that is ready to defend itself against outside threats.
4. Position units in good, defensible areas. This includes mountains and fortresses. Keep a cheap defensive unit, like a spearman, to take the brunt of the force and counter with the strongest attack units you have (at least swordsmen, find iron and get a road to it as soon as you can!). Do you have any obsolete units? They make great cannon fodder and slow the enemy down.
5. FORCE CONCENTRATION! You need to mass your forces and then plan a strong counter attack. You need to face his 15 attacking units with 30 units. You will be much less effective if you keep sending one swordsman at a time to help defend a city, instead mass a group of 5 at the next closest city and then move them all to the front line together.
6. Slowly attack and kill units in your territory and push them out. Be careful not to overextend yourself!
7. Once you have pushed the attacker out you need to go on the offensive. Using your massed forces lay siege and attack his border cities.
8. At this point I try to significantly reduce that players ability to wage war on me. I work on reducing the number of cities he controls to 6 or less. If you have devastated him enough, he will give you just about everything you want in order to declare peace. I had one opponent give me every city he had left except for his 4 biggest. He never threatened me again.

Once the industrial age begins and you've gotten railroads, you can keep your massed "army" of units in one central city. If any trouble breaks out you can have all those units deployed at the border of any nation that wishes to attack you.

[Txurce]

Maybe the best historical example of culture-flipping is China, which was conquered by the Mongols/Manchurians, but literally absorbed them due to its stronger culture. Part of the problem here may be the use of the word "flip," when "absorption" is historically more accurate; because we're playing a game, it seems to happen overnight, although that's not really the case.

[Coracle]

Originally posted by Txurce
Maybe the best historical example of culture-flipping is China, which was conquered by the Mongols/Manchurians, but literally absorbed them due to its stronger culture. Part of the problem here may be the use of the word "flip," when "absorption" is historically more accurate; because we're playing a game, it seems to happen overnight, although that's not really the case.

Not really.

The defenders of Soren's Culture Flipping idiocy are really grasping for straws.

China had one of the great CULTURES in world history in the 13th century. The Mongols were little more than savage barabarians. In Civ 3 terms, the Mongol towns (those they had) should have flipped TO CHINA. But the Mongols conquered China. Why?

China was divided, and politically and militarily weak. It was culturally strong, with many scholars, a revival of Confucianism, and various arts. BUT CULTURE DIDN'T SAVE THEM.

The Mongol MILITARY at that time was dominant. And it conquered China, in parts.

Why were the Mongols eventually kicked out of China? REVOLTS and MILITARY action:

The 1330s and 1340s were marked by crop failure and famine in North China and by severe flooding of the Huang He. Chinese uprisings occurred in almost every province, and by the 1350s several major rebel leaders had emerged. One of these leaders, Zhu Yuanzhang, was successful in extending his power throughout the Yangtze Valley in the 1360s. In 1368, while Mongol commanders were paralyzed by internal rivalries, Zhu marched north and seized the Yuan capital near Beijing. The Yuan dynasty in China ended, but the Mongols continued to make raids into China from their base in Mongolia.

http://encarta.msn.com/find/concise.asp?mod=1&ti=761573055&page=14

Towns/cities sometimes SURRENDER and beg for mercy from a powerful invading enemy in history; they do not change allegiances and abandon millennia of REAL culture because the stupid bean-counting AI added up some formula concocted by Soren, or because of the number of libraries and opera singers the other guy has.

Culture Flipping cities and borders is non-historical, stupid, screws up game play, is illogical, and is braindead.

[Mark_Everson]

Originally posted by Coracle
Culture Flipping cities and borders is non-historical, stupid, screws up game play, is illogical, and is braindead.

Other than than, Mrs. Lincoln, what did you think of the play?

Flipping does seem like a real boneheaded idea, one of the reasons I never got Civ 3 although I'm a true civ addict Maybe now a slightly-reformed civ addict...