CTP too easy....

[VetteroX]

Sorry if im breaking the current discussion, but I have to say something. Ive been reading posts all over, and everytime I read one, especially the reviews of CTP2, everyone seems to play on beginer or the second easiest level. My question: WHY!!?? how is that fun? A retarded monkey could beat it on that level. I love the civ series I think CTP2 is great, but ALL the civ games share 1 problem: TOO EASY! I played my first game of CTP2 on hard, and won by a long way with increadable ease, with 7 other civs and barbarians on the second highest level. So, I start another on Very Hard. This time, 2 civs started right next to me, and I took them both with some struggle. Now, the computer controlled other 5 nations matched me in tech and military until the very start of the modern age, but I rushed to Corp Republic, and then FLEW by them in tech and $ and easily won again. Its just too easy. I want a challenge. I want to fight for my nations existance. I want a reason to rush through military tech for survival. I want a nation to stand up to my armines instead of having to fight 3 nations at a time for challenge. I GIVE my enemies tech to make them harder because they are always so far behind. In Civ 2 and CTP1 I turned on cheat and gave the AI units and enlargened thier cities to make it harder. Im going to try "impossible" next, and I hope its a challenge. What I want to ask is why everyone plays on such easy levels? I dont consider myself much above average inteligence, Im sure 1/3 of my words are misspelled. But I find civ games so easy, and nobody else I talk to agrees with me. Plz respond if you do agree, and if you think its a hard game, PLEASE tell me WHY you think so..... Also, in CTP1 I edited the units stengths to make it more like I think it should be ( like making so a machine gunner could actually beat a fortified pikeman.... 10 pikeman couldnt beat 1 macine gunner in real life... ) Is there any way I can edit CTP2 to make the comp better and more agressive?

[Bender]

I couldn't agree more, VetteroX. While I haven't played at the impossible level yet either, I have concerns that it will not live up to its name.

Regarding ways to manipulate the AI to be tougher, I usually play with a large land mass on a small map with many trade goods. Due to being on the same continent, the AI will be hostile towards my civ. Consequently I spend much of the game at alert or war status.

If these suggestions don't work, I guess we'll have to resort to multiplayer.

[jbs]

They are not that hard, but I don't think they are that easy. I played Chieftain than Prince, King, Emperor on Civ1. With Civ2, I started at King. Now, I would win most of the time on Emperor and about 50% of the time in Deity in Civ2. (and if I back up and make one or two critical changes I would then win the deity game I lost). CTP1 was very easy as I won almost immediately on Deity, but with various modifications, the AA is very good. Haven't tried CTP2 and probably won't for a long time, so I can't compare.

[Carrion]

Why do people always compain about AI in computer games. Don't people know that a computer can never out think a human being? I agree if you don't like the AI then play some multiplayer games with real humans. I myself find the AI hard and yet dumb at the same time.

I see lots of the same patterns that everybody complains about, and I saw the same patterns in CIV, CIV2, and CCTP. The only big difference is in CIV 1&2 there was no stacking of units so you were a bit more at a disadvantage. The CTP engine seems to not stack as big as a human player does. But still I'm having a dickens of a time killing 7 civs on medium difficulty.

I also agree that it has bugs but that, however unfortunately that may be, is the defacto standard for sofware companies now. I think we have a bit to do with that. We get so excited when we hear about a new title that is coming out and we hound the developers to let us know whats going on and when its going to get released. They feel pressured by their public to rush and release it to our grubby little hands.

Anyway those are my thoughts on this subject plus a few more.

[Atahualpa]

quote: Don't people know that a computer can never out think a human being?

Thats not the point!
If they know that their AI will suck then they should have not started developing the game!

Ata

[MarkG]

quote: Originally posted by Atahualpa on 11-29-2000 03:57 PM Thats not the point! If they know that their AI will suck then they should have not started developing the game!

i am afraid you are suggesting the end of single player mode in all strategy games

[Carrion]

I think you underestimate how hard it is to create an AI that will offer a good challenge to a human being. In every game I've every video game computer players in the start of the learning process have challenged me. However, I get use to the patterns the AI does and I plan my stratagies accordingly. Some games are designed to give the computer players extreme advantages such as blatant cheating. Heck 3D shooters have started to ship with no AI whatsoever. They are pure multiplayer, Quake 3 is as close as an example of this I can think of. I myself don't see AI becoming a replacement, or even coming close, to online gaming.

[MidKnight Lament]

quote: Originally posted by Atahualpa on 11-29-2000 03:57 PM Thats not the point! If they know that their AI will suck then they should have not started developing the game!

I think you're going a bit far there. I'm not even going to bother explaining why, because I think it's obvious.

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[Dissident Aggressor]

the point is clear. Surely they must know how weak their ai is. That is no excuse to say that no ai can be intelligent or good. I don't expect big blue (or whatever that supercomputer chess thing was). I just expect an ai comparable to civ2's and I have yet to see that.

[AI_Scripter]

quote: Originally posted by Dissident Aggressor on 11-30-2000 02:06 AM the point is clear. Surely they must know how weak their ai is. That is no excuse to say that no ai can be intelligent or good. I don't expect big blue (or whatever that supercomputer chess thing was). I just expect an ai comparable to civ2's and I have yet to see that.

Is Civ2's AI really better? I have never played it and so I'm curious. What made it better? How does it compare to SMAC's AI? Could it launch larger attacks?
[This message has been edited by AI_Scripter (edited November 30, 2000).]

[Dissident Aggressor]

I wouldn't say it launches larger attacks. I have yet to see a tbs that can do this, the same goes for amphibious and/or overseas invasion. the AI is incapable of this. But it does launch many more offensive attacks than ctp2 does. At sometimes there will be a continuous stream of units heading my way. Now there are ways around this. Many conquerers have learned early to smack the ai up early with knights. don't let them build up uncontested. But if the ai in civ2 has the resources they will use them.

The one major flaw I see with the ai in ctp2 is it seems to think the best defensive is a lot of defensive units. What better way to knock out an invasion force than with a mobile offensive force of your own? A good civ game that has military as a central part should have an ai that uses an offense as the best defense. At the very least an ai should be able to defend itself (so far I've yet to see this in ctp2). And of course an added bonus would be the ability to take more than 1 or 2 poorly defended cities (although I don't expect this in civ3 or in the next 3 to 4 years. possibly never with multiplayer taking center stage).

Now I would like to run some tests to verify this. Anyone who has played the red front scenario in civ2 can verify the ai has the ability to take even well defended cities if given the proper resources. I'd like to create similar events in ctp2 giving the ai tons of offensive units and test it's ability to use them in an offensive manner.
[This message has been edited by Dissident Aggressor (edited November 30, 2000).]

[Tilemacho]

VetteroX: My review was after my first game in CTP2 and it was played on the third level, which I consider logical...

Until now I have played 2 games in impossible and they were both an easy win....(I did not even bother to complete those games)

CTP2 IS EASY IN IMPOSSIBLE LEVEL...!!!

BUT...the AI in CTP2 is much, much better than in CIV2! The reason why the game is so easy is that in CTP2 the AI cheats much lesser and because it's much easier for the human player to develop:

1. In CIV2 I remember that from size 2 my cities revolted unless I built temple. In CTP2 I had size 6 cities with no happiness problems!!!

2. The capitol distance unhappiness is not a problem even in giga maps!

3. the first 6 workers work on 9 tiles! That makes the development of a city much easier than in CIV2

4. I think that if the AI is far ahead in CTP2 then it is more difficult for him to discover new advances...this prevents the AI to become very,very strong early in the game

5. the AI in CTP2 could be much more aggressive...


MY CONCLUSION...is that the game is not balanced very well and that it could become a real challenge for everyone with some minor changes...e.g (impossible level) you could start with happiness 73 and not 75, the AI could start with 3 settlers and more gold and should be able to find new advances easier.....

you see I am not talking about complicated things to make AI better...unfortunately I tried to change this settings and then I had this "corrupted saves" problem

so now I am waiting for a mod or the patch to start playing the game again.............

[MarkG]

tilemacho, check out the diffdb.txt in the gamedata folder

you can set many thing about the difficulty levels there(including unhappiness, starting settings, etc)

[Dalai Lama]

I started to play my first game at a huge map, 5 civs, and at the Very Hard setting; well, as a Civ2 and Ctp veteran I didn`t have the slightest trouble become the world nr 1 in all areas. There was no challenge anymore so I stopped with that game. I started a new one at the impossoble level, again with 5 civs, and I find this more of challenge. However, economically and scientific i`m the best, only my military is quite small but effective. With an attacking force of only 5 tanks and 5 artillery and a couple machine gunners i easily took control of 3 scottish cities, size, 4, 13 and 19!!! And by the way the year is 1400AD...
But anyway, at least I have some opposition from the Americans and the English in this game. I`m sure that if I play with 8 civs, the challenge will again be a lot bigger!!!

[CyberGnu]

Sorry to disappoint you Dalai, with more civs the game gets easier... They fight more with each other, and compete madly for space.

In civII this wasn't much of a problem, since as soon as you were number one, they would all gang up on you, sharing research as much as they could. I have not seen any such behaviour in CTP2. In fact, in one game on impossible I kept happy relations with four civs, while killing the fifth, then reduced them one after one... The remaining civs apparently never caught on that I was a warmongering bastard. It felt like fighting a world led by Chamberlains...

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