GoodMod = Excellent Mod

[ETB]

Yes, these AIs are no pushovers. Right now I am battling the Romans who are not the strongest AI out there (fortunately). Every time I turn a corner I see what is presented in the image below. I have been forced to slow down my attacks considerably and to consolidate my attack forces. I am making slow progress against them, but my loses are adding up to be far greater than in any CtP game I’ve played so far! So much for the days of just running right through the AI’s cities in just a few quick turns!

[TheArsenal]

Man, impressive AI force. I found the AI in GoodMod not to be a push over, but I've seen nothing like this. I'm curious, what level difficulty and map are you using? Have you run your cursor over those stacks to see if they're mostly tanks, or made up of tanks w/ older units?

[Martin Gühmann]

I wouldn't be surprised if they are mostly tanks or even all tanks. The army update concept is simple: Send the old units into the slaughter in order to make space for new units. With contact to other neibors directly over land and huge production bases, that isn't a problem. Maybe you should consider to cause an revolution in that city. Of course if you have enough money and if the spy wasn't considered already for this goal.

-Martin

[ETB]

Originally posted by Martin Gühmann
I wouldn't be surprised if they are mostly tanks or even all tanks. The army update concept is simple: Send the old units into the slaughter in order to make space for new units. With contact to other neibors directly over land and huge production bases, that isn't a problem. Maybe you should consider to cause an revolution in that city. Of course if you have enough money and if the spy wasn't considered already for this goal.
-Martin

They were about half tanks in those stacks at this point in the game. But it makes sense to me now – when I would first battle an AI I would sometimes see older units in stacks. As the war progressed I would see an increased use of modern units in the stacks. It was fooling me into thinking the AI is weak when I would see catapults and archers against my tanks and machine gunners. But then I was soon battling tanks and machine gunners as well.

No, the spies were scarce for me at this point so their missions were purely scouting. Plus, I adjusted the spies’ ability to cause revolts and steal technology to make it very hard to do. It takes about 5 spies and 10 attempts to steal one technology. Revolts are twice as difficult as stealing technology.

[ETB]

Wow, I finally finished my epic GoodMod/SAP/UL map game! It was tons of fun! I give a big THANK YOU to Martin and Dale for all of their hard work in producing the SAP and GoodMod mods. My computer had technical difficulties in the later stages of the game so I turned off trade routes, animations, and a couple of other things to keep it going. I think the map size (or number of players) is just too big for my machine to handle. I may try a smaller (100x200) size after the tournaments to see how that goes on my machine.

In the end, it came down to the Portuguese and me. We were the only players with more than 100 cities at the end. I beat them with a science victory. I was pleased that the Portuguese kept up so well in science during the late game and were even able to build more of the modern and future units than I did. They attacked me at about 15 turns before the end of the game and they were doing well mostly because I had only a few cities and units on their continent. I kept moving reinforcements in to battle them until the game ended, but I noticed that the Portuguese had built a lot more future/stronger units than I thought. This was a consistent theme among the AIs throughout the game probably because I adjusted the max_behind values for production, technology and gold to favor the AI. On the oversize map with lots of AIs, however, some of the AIs (and I) went through the latter half of the technology tree rather rapidly. I was able to trade, steal, or research advances much quicker, which reduced the costs of advances for the AIs even further – it became quite a cycle. At the very end, I was able to pass the Portuguese and become the first player to research everything. So I am not sure that reducing the AI max_behind technology costs helped the AI as much as it helped me. Giving the AI additional production discounts and gold bonuses definitely helped make the AI more formidable, especially in battle so I think I’ll keep those settings for future games. Perhaps having more units available allowed the AI to become bolder in attacking my units. For example, I noticed the AI would typically not attack my full stacks of 12 units except when they had 4 or more stacks within striking distance. Then the AI would typically bombard from an adjacent stack (but not do anything with the non-bombarding units in the stack) then attack with a full or nearly full stack. If I had any survivors after that, they would finish off my units with a third stack. I learned to be a lot more careful with my stacks!

I was very impressed with some of the AIs who had full or nearly full stacks in their cities! I would often send 4-6 units into cities because they were so often defended by 0-2 units. The Portuguese, however, had 8-12 units in every single city that I attacked. The Austrians had similar garrisons in about half of their cities along with some other AIs. Still, other AIs had very poorly-defended cities with an occasional well-garrisoned city. I could not figure out why certain cities were so well protected, but it sure caught me off-guard to be rolling along and suddenly attack a well-defended city. It was most likely due to the military strength of the AI – the more units it has the more likely it can afford to leave them to defend cities and the stronger AIs tended to have more protection in their cities.

I was a little let down by the lack of Navy battles, but this is most likely due to me. I held much better diplomacy with the AIs throughout this game than normal so I was at war much less than normal. Still the AIs produced few Navy units and very few stacks of them. I have seen many Navy stacks in other SAP games, but they also had more water and many more turns in the late game. I watched the AIs fight each other at sea after I got GlobeSat, but it was almost always single-ship combat. Perhaps the AI had more Navy stacks that I didn’t see before getting GlobeSat.

This game gave me MANY hours of fun, strategy, and frustration! I thoroughly enjoyed it all. Now I’m off to play my very first Cradle game in the SP tournament…

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by ETB
They were about half tanks in those stacks at this point in the game. But it makes sense to me now � when I would first battle an AI I would sometimes see older units in stacks. As the war progressed I would see an increased use of modern units in the stacks. It was fooling me into thinking the AI is weak when I would see catapults and archers against my tanks and machine gunners. But then I was soon battling tanks and machine gunners as well.

Yeah the bloody way of upgrading, but somehow realistic. You attack an unprepared enemy with a not so good army, as the war goes on the enemy has the opportunity to arm hisself.

Originally posted by ETB
No, the spies were scarce for me at this point so their missions were purely scouting. Plus, I adjusted the spies� ability to cause revolts and steal technology to make it very hard to do. It takes about 5 spies and 10 attempts to steal one technology. Revolts are twice as difficult as stealing technology.

Actual I also considered it to make teach stealing and causing revolts a lot more expansive but I decided to drop this.

Originally posted by ETB
Wow, I finally finished my epic GoodMod/SAP/UL map game! It was tons of fun! I give a big THANK YOU to Martin and Dale for all of their hard work in producing the SAP and GoodMod mods. My computer had technical difficulties in the later stages of the game so I turned off trade routes, animations, and a couple of other things to keep it going. I think the map size (or number of players) is just too big for my machine to handle. I may try a smaller (100x200) size after the tournaments to see how that goes on my machine.

Thanks

Yeah I usually play without trade route, unit and good animations, it just makes the game faster. By the way I developed for the next version of GoodMod some new scripts ok actual I rewrote one another one was heavily modified and a third one was slightly improved, to reduce the AIs turns time. But it will be ever true that you need for a huge map more computer power than for a small map, and also more time to move your units and administrate your empire.

Originally posted by ETB
In the end, it came down to the Portuguese and me. We were the only players with more than 100 cities at the end. I beat them with a science victory.

Well a lot of thanks for the feedback that will make me to keep the default APOL_advance.txt from ApolytonPack, even if I only made very "conservative" changes.

Originally posted by ETB
This was a consistent theme among the AIs throughout the game probably because I adjusted the max_behind values for production, technology and gold to favor the AI. On the oversize map with lots of AIs, however, some of the AIs (and I) went through the latter half of the technology tree rather rapidly.

I modified these values, too, better values for the later (more gold, more production, faster reseach). Yeah it helped a little bit the AI unfortunatly I tested that on the island map of the tournerment game, therefore the effect was only small but there.

Originally posted by ETB
So I am not sure that reducing the AI max_behind technology costs helped the AI as much as it helped me.

From my observation you have to be much bigger than the AI to keep the lead, or steal again. But it should be possible to reach a point in the late game when you can say: "I have won." So you got the lead but you still had to do something to win.

Originally posted by ETB
I was very impressed with some of the AIs who had full or nearly full stacks in their cities! I would often send 4-6 units into cities because they were so often defended by 0-2 units. The Portuguese, however, had 8-12 units in every single city that I attacked. The Austrians had similar garrisons in about half of their cities along with some other AIs. Still, other AIs had very poorly-defended cities with an occasional well-garrisoned city. I could not figure out why certain cities were so well protected, but it sure caught me off-guard to be rolling along and suddenly attack a well-defended city. It was most likely due to the military strength of the AI � the more units it has the more likely it can afford to leave them to defend cities and the stronger AIs tended to have more protection in their cities.

I thing the garrision thing has to do something with the AI personalities, there are peaceful ones and agressive ones. But I also notices a problem with the unit not wake up fix I posted in the tournerment thread. It prevented AIs to move stacks of size 12 from moving out of the city the result was the city was full of old units, I hope I fixed now the part of the code.

Originally posted by ETB
I was a little let down by the lack of Navy battles, but this is most likely due to me. I held much better diplomacy with the AIs throughout this game than normal so I was at war much less than normal. Still the AIs produced few Navy units and very few stacks of them. I have seen many Navy stacks in other SAP games, but they also had more water and many more turns in the late game. I watched the AIs fight each other at sea after I got GlobeSat, but it was almost always single-ship combat. Perhaps the AI had more Navy stacks that I didn�t see before getting GlobeSat.

Yeah I saw in the replayed tourny game an AI that attacked me with a size 12 water stack of 9 transports and 3 military boats. I think here I have still to do something, but that is too much for the next version of GoodMod.

Originally posted by ETB
This game gave me MANY hours of fun, strategy, and frustration! I thoroughly enjoyed it all. Now I�m off to play my very first Cradle game in the SP tournament�

Yeah and please review Cradle as you did it with GoodMod. I am shure Dave will appreciate it as do. (the first time I said this, but I did it voluntary )

-Martin

[Dale]

ETB:

Thanks for the comments. It helps us modders going, and your comments also help in future developments.

[ETB]

Originally posted by Martin Gühmann
Actual I also considered it to make teach stealing and causing revolts a lot more expansive but I decided to drop this.
-Martin

You probably made a good decision. It is a more personal choice when units are tweaked and I didn’t like the ease at which I could steal technology or cause revolts by using the default values in spies. I think the real world is more difficult. But then it also makes it harder for the AI to do the same to me! I was really pleased with my diplomacy and my ability to trade technologies (since it was hard to steal). I would often trade for something with the Americans, then trade my newly acquired technology with the Austrians and so forth. With more AIs come more opportunities for such trades. I am sure the AIs were trading technologies among themselves as well.

Originally posted by Martin Gühmann
Yeah I usually play without trade route, unit and good animations; it just makes the game faster. By the way I developed for the next version of GoodMod some new scripts ok actual I rewrote one another one was heavily modified and a third one was slightly improved, to reduce the AIs turns time. But it will be ever true that you need for a huge map more computer power than for a small map, and also more time to move your units and administrate your empire.
-Martin

I saw that in the other thread. I am looking forward to the streamlined changes that you have made! Maybe I’ll go for a larger map and more players after all….

Originally posted by Martin Gühmann
Well a lot of thanks for the feedback that will make me to keep the default APOL_advance.txt from ApolytonPack, even if I only made very "conservative" changes.
-Martin

You are very welcome! I think that it is well balanced indeed. I was rather amused after I had finished the tech tree that I was able to research the Apolyton Pack!

Originally posted by Martin Gühmann
I modified these values, too, better values for the later (more gold, more production, faster research). Yeah it helped a little bit the AI unfortunately I tested that on the island map of the tournament game, therefore the effect was only small but there.
-Martin

I don’t know how you guys do it! It’s a tough call to change these numbers without upsetting the game balance. I am looking forward to trying out your changes.

Originally posted by Martin Gühmann
From my observation you have to be much bigger than the AI to keep the lead, or steal again. But it should be possible to reach a point in the late game when you can say: "I have won." So you got the lead but you still had to do something to win.
-Martin

I agree!!!! I was actually glad that I won through science because the Portuguese were really coming after me with their units at the very end. I would look at their stacks and see a machine gunner, but when they attacked I would see way too many Hover Infantry and Fusion Tanks in the stacks! I almost lost some obelisks and cities so I used my units to just keep what I had for the final few turns and breathed a big sigh of relief when the victory movie played. I think that’s just harder to do on smaller maps with fewer players. But then the games go faster on smaller maps…

Originally posted by Martin Gühmann
I thing the garrison thing has to do something with the AI personalities, there are peaceful ones and aggressive ones. But I also notices a problem with the unit not wake up fix I posted in the tournament thread. It prevented AIs to move stacks of size 12 from moving out of the city the result was the city was full of old units, I hope I fixed now the part of the code.
-Martin

I will try to pay a little closer attention to this in my future games. I recall some cities with older units in them, but I also recall many cities with modern stacks in them.

Also, in playing the 4th SP tournament and I saw many empty (or single-garrisoned) Persian cities (and LOTS of Persian attack forces) but almost every Greek city was well garrisoned with good units. The Greeks had some good units in their attack forces as well so I don’t know what happened to their old units – maybe they were lost in their war with the Persians. I have been through most of the Greek and Persian cities, so they are the only ones that I have seen. Egypt just went to war with me and I easily took 3 of their fringe cities with only one garrison in each but these were new or nearly new cities and Egypt isn’t that strong in my game. So I deployed most of my troops to defend against the mighty Etruscans and Celts while leaving a huge opportunity for Egypt to invade me, but I am counting on them being too weak. Time will tell if I made a wise decision….

The bottom line is that the AI is harder to predict than before your mods. I consider that a huge plus because now I have to do a lot more contingency planning for invasions. Or I can just suffer the consequences of sending in too few units during an invasion or leaving too few units to guard my cities!

Originally posted by Martin Gühmann
Yeah I saw in the replayed tourney game an AI that attacked me with a size 12 water stack of 9 transports and 3 military boats. I think here I have still to do something, but that is too much for the next version of GoodMod.
-Martin

I have seen the discussions about improving the AI Navy play. I would have said that it is fine before my last game because I would spend much of my games hiding from the AI until I got subs or battleships, or aircraft carriers. Then I would have great battles with AI ships until I achieved dominance. Even in the current SP tourney game I am running and hiding from the AI’s ships because they are stronger than mine are. Maybe I don’t develop the Navy technologies as fast as other players…

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by ETB
But then it also makes it harder for the AI to do the same to me!

That was the reason why I dropped it. The problem is everytime you make it harder for the human you will make it more harder for the AI.

Originally posted by ETB
I am sure the AIs were trading technologies among themselves as well.

I think even with DiploMod the AI-AI-Diplomacy is a little bit underdeveloped, this issure is addressed by Peter's new Diplomod.

Originally posted by ETB
You are very welcome! I think that it is well balanced indeed. I was rather amused after I had finished the tech tree that I was able to research the Apolyton Pack!

Well I have to be more precise which the statement you quoted. I will use my "conservative" version only for the small map setup and the Apolyton version for the gigantic map setup. I think you were actual never supposed to research the ApolytonPack, by the way did you build the ApolytonPack wonder.

Originally posted by ETB
I don�t know how you guys do it! It�s a tough call to change these numbers without upsetting the game balance. I am looking forward to trying out your changes.

Well it needs some time to understand thise in the DiffDB.txt, but finally I used the Cradle version as an example, the values are a little bit more in the favour for the human, but more in favour for the AI in the later game, except on the beginner level. So I used in the end proven values.

Originally posted by ETB
Also, in playing the 4th SP tournament and I saw many empty (or single-garrisoned) Persian cities (and LOTS of Persian attack forces) but almost every Greek city was well garrisoned with good units. The Greeks had some good units in their attack forces as well so I don�t know what happened to their old units � maybe they were lost in their war with the Persians.

The many up to date units and the absent of old units is caused by the unit updater script the human has to pay to update units, the AI gets them for free. That's also helps the AI, but I think it is more realistic that the old units go into the slaughter, of course this makes the AI weaker but as you said it can also fool you. And that the AI isn't perfect creates also some atmosphere and gives you the feeling that it is possible to win.

Originally posted by ETB
Maybe I don�t develop the Navy technologies as fast as other players�

I would go firts for better governments and then to the necessary war stuff. At least you need some ships to secure your cost from pillaging.

-Martin

[SMIFFGIG]

Bout diplomod (sorry for Straying off topic)

I know this is straying to diplomod, but i find that the AI are to unresponisive in diplomod

They can adore you and trust you to the highest degree, yet the do not accept any of your agreements eg share map, swap tech and make alliance

Then they hate you later on for no reason and that will be the civ that you have given gifts to. Which originally made them like you

The rest of the civs that u havent payed attention too hate you anyway.
I find at times its almost pointless even trying to talk to the AI for any reason and just concerntrate on my own things and attack when it suits me.
Note i havent tested the mod loads and have only got to the classical age with it. But i cant see the AI changing later in the game for no reason.



Normal unmodded CtP2 is crap in my opinoin. But I did find the diplomacy more logical eg they all had different opinions about you each civ (now there all disliking you) and it was possible to gain one ally and a couple of peace treaties throughout the game and early on. Although much else in the diplomacy was poor. I feel now that even if i did by miricle even manage to get an ally now that he would just start hating me like 2 turns after the alliance then eventually attack. It doesnt matter what personallity the Civ is, they still seem to be un-cooprative in all situations

Maybe i should play on medium or something. It would be nice if I could gain a few peace treaties and at least one ally. Specially since I like playing on Gigantic with 16 civs. For now I will probably just ignore diplomacy as they end up hating me anyway. I have heard that if your weak they hate you and I am pretty week out of the 16 maybe if I was near the top I would have an alliance and some peace treaties and maybe even some gifts (have never even dreamt of having them) last time I got one was in CtP1 lol

Another little thing, sometimes if I ask for exchange map for map they counter with the exact same deal (weird but doesnt really bother me) And some times when I do the same they reject, then 2 or 3 turns later offer the exact same deal ??


Edit: Just a quick note, all this testing was with MM2 and the diplomod thats with it. Not that its of conciquence

[SMIFFGIG]

Should I have posted this in the diplomod thread?
Is there a diplomod thread?

[Pedrunn]

SMIFFIGS, Try the NewDiplomod by Peter Triggs. it does what it says re-writes almost all diplomacy. It is in the topped thread.
PS: i have done some small modification specially regarding the AI-AI diplomacy that is too easy in the code. They get plenty of treaties together and always love each other.
I wrote regard prerqs to limit their chance of making treaties to each other. decreasing the love a bit. Here is the modified version

[SMIFFGIG]

Cheers pedrunn