PTW - New Stuff, Mysteries, and Thoughts

[vmxa1]

twilight , not wanting to be rude, but turning off bonus for deity and tossing in mods makes your game not relevant. It just has no baring on the normal game. It my be fun, it maybe any number of things, but it can not be compared to a std game. I can not use your experiences to draw any conclusions.

[vmxa1]

Sir Ralph you are correct it does not require any change to the difficulty levels. In the early part of the games I have played, it seem as if I am doing worst than normal, but I am not. I am not sure what the reason is. I suspect that is they are often using less units that in the past. All I know so far is I am able to to run over them and not face the massive counts of troops that I had been used to. It is too soon to say for sure as it could just be getting a slightly better start than normal. I do not think that is it as they are nothing like some I have seen. Maybe I am playing smarter, nay that can;t be it, if anything I am more likely to be play less well.

[Robber Baron]

I don't know if this has been discussed before, but the barbarians are a much bigger factor in PTW than they were before. They used to head right for the cities; now they pillage roads, seek out horse/iron tiles, and lurk much more effectively around the outskirts of cities. Still manageable, ultimately, but I find I need more military more evenly dispersed in my territory -- an effort that definitely diverts key energy during those critical early turns where every shield and every gold piece counts so heavily.

[Master Marcus]

Originally posted by Robber Baron
I don't know if this has been discussed before, but the barbarians are a much bigger factor in PTW than they were before. They used to head right for the cities; now they pillage roads, seek out horse/iron tiles, and lurk much more effectively around the outskirts of cities. Still manageable, ultimately, but I find I need more military more evenly dispersed in my territory -- an effort that definitely diverts key energy during those critical early turns where every shield and every gold piece counts so heavily.

PtW 1.04f: barbs are smarter, AI is smarter. A bit more aggressive, and also more eager to be at war with multiple ennemies at the same time - you should see the incredible late Industrial world war they're ALL involved into in my actual game - BUT, it's easier I think ( so far ) to make peace ( 5- turns war and generally they accept peace and you can even extort tech/city after a 8-10-turn war, a bit tuned down I think). I like it. And barbs units act more like civ units, that's clever

[Theseus]

MM, any screenshots of the Industrial war worth posting?

[dac]

This is only anecdotal, but so far, the best answer I've seen to the "smarter" barbarians is to put out a settler with a spearman escort. The barbarians come a runnin'. Have a few horsemen or something else lurking nearby, and you don't really need to even risk letting the barbs attack your spearman.

[wilbill]

dac, I've noticed the same thing. But I'm playing Carthage so with the heavy-duty mercs I can just let them attack. They are different/smarter in their behavior, but they're still barbarians and not likely to win many battles.

[Master Marcus]

euh, worth posting, no , but you can easily imagine all the spaghetti lines in F4 screen: the 9 survival civs ( 15+me at the beginning ) have each an average of 4 enemies, so I'm not really surprised to see such an entangled world war since how much regularly the AI makes MPP in PtW( and I was partly responsible when making a military alliance 10 turns before, as soon as my iroquois ally has convinced the aztecs to attack our enemy the carthaginians, then a strong domino effect I have never saw before in vanilla Civ III...). 15 turns later, I was the only one to be at peace, reswitched to democracy thus having a leading edge for the space race.

[ducki]

Speaking of F4 spaghetti, if I could wish for one thing to be in a patch, it would be for a better diplomacy screen for when you have more than 8 civs in a game.

Patch an F4 screen into PtW that can handle the 32 civs that the game itself will allow and I'd call PtW "ultimate" instead of just "great".

Another thing I've noticed:
Barbarians not only running away from stronger units, but going across rivers, onto hills or mountains, and into the forest or jungle for a tactical advantage - not merely running away, but repositioning before attacking my exploratory warrior.

Very nice, IMO.