Woo-Hoo! It installed! My thoughts....

[D4everman]

Now that I've managed to get CTP installed again, I gave it a whirl last night. First time in probably 9 or 10 months that I've played it...but I was really itching to play civilization. To be honest I really enjoyed it. I've come to a few conclusions from my few hours last night. I'm sure all of you experts have already come to them, but please indulge a poor newbie...

Unconventional Warfare: Granted, I had the game set at Warlord level, but I needed to get my feet wet...I don't see how one can play without building slavers early in the game! The AI civs don't have any problem with using them, even if you're on nuetral terms with them. So I built a slaver in pretty much all of my cities, so I could not only catch any AI settlers wandering about my territory (and in any civ game my territory is basically whatever continent I start on!) but so I could see their slavers coming at me! Whether you like enslaving or not, it seems that you need to make slavers just to be wary of other civ slavers. (and this of course goes for lawyers and corporate franchises in the later game)

AI tactics: As I said, I'm playing on an easy level and I share an island with the english. (I'm the spanish) The english have a pretty silly strategy to me. They just keep throwing slaver after slaver at me. I'm almost maxed in slaves in some city because I keep killing them with my combination knight/ slaver. I'd think the AI would get a clue and send some troops in that could at least destroy my wandering slave capturing knight. (I may be speaking too soon however...I've noticed a few stacks of 3 phalanxes each moving around their cities...maybe they are going to strike and my arrogance is blinding me to it!)

Time: I read somewhere (probably here) about the way time seems to pass to quickly in the early game. I have to agree. One thing that is keeping me from fielding a large army is that I don't one made up of obsolete units. I expect to have musketeers soon, and I don't want to have a giant force of phalanxes, legions and archers to maintain while trying to created a force of musketeers and cannons. But disbanding the units as I create more leaves me feeling vulnerable. Especially when I'm at war with the english.

Wonders: I took the advice that I've seen given on this site several times in the past. I didn't even worry about most of the early wonders. With the exception of the Sphinx I made no real effort to build any of them since they'll be obsolete before I get any real use out of them.

I've read about some of the modifications people here have made to the game. Is there a place to download them on Apolyton? What I'd like is an AI thats a little smarter, a chance to actually use some of the early units before they become obsolete and an easier way to keep peace with other nations beisdes always having to give them stuff. (The last one though, is probably not going to happen.)

Just my thoughts and queries. Thanks for indulging me.

D4

[TheLimey]

Now play it with the med mod.

The big downside to AI vs. human slaving, is their lack of slavers in their attack stacks.

I never bother with using slavers the regular way, since they only have a percentage chance to succeed, and if they do then they can't do it again at that particular city for 5 turns, and hence only get 1 slave, and the computer is very good at building improvements, like the slaver stopping city walls.

I'm not surprised that the AI is only throwing piecemeal units at you; the AI isn't that aggressive when its not 'done' with the build plan commensurate to its power level, and since you've been effectively slavering, you've probably got bigger and better cities which equates to a bigger and better civ.

N.B. If you disband units in a city, you get the 1/2 the production value back for them.

BTW.. the last bit about diplomacy is all dependent on your power level, and improves with the improved diplomacy in AwesomeAIPs or MedMod (which includes all the latest 'stuff' for CtP); if you are leading every civ, then they are going to have a dislike factor set up against you, otherwise, you could just win by default when you were in the lead. The leading civ=my enemy (especially when I am only a couple of places behind him) was set up for game challenge.

All that remains necessary is to give the AI a chance of an even playing field, and perhaps the opportunity to overtake the human player, to give him a thrill ride. These concepts are something that we're discussing here in the 'Wonders of the World... the root o' all evil' and More roots of evil and their solutions over in the CtP2 General forum.

They'll probably be more implementable in CtP2, than in CtP1, because of the improved customization language, SLIC.

[TheLimey]

Holy Sh!t

Look at the highlighting box on the smiley face in the second link in my previous post. I never saw a link look like that before.

[D4everman]

I did speak a bit too soon, The Limey...

During my lunch break I snuck home (I live about a block away from where I work) and palyed a few turns.) The AI actaully did suprise me. Yeah, the english kept throwing the slavers at me (and I kept zapping 'em with my slaver/knight combo's) but suddenly a stack of 8 phalaxes and 1 slaver came out of the 'fog of war' towards my closest city. I'll admit I was impressed, because the city only had 1 phalanx, 1 archer and one slaver in it for defense. Luckily for me, I had a stack of two archers, two knights, four legions and a slaver that I was building so I could launch an attack on the english. I had to defend my city so I moved the defenders out and my big stack in. Another shock! The english stack turned around and left! (So the AI isn't stupid enough to waste an army on an attack it would probably lose!) The english stack did return though after I had moved my stack out of the city and placed the original defenders back. I had to attack it directly and even though I won the only survivors in my stack were the archers and the slaver. *sigh*.

I'd like to add the mods if they balance the game out a little, but it'll have to wait until I get my replacement disk, Since I can't reinstall the game with my damaged one. I'll probably look for a No CD program though.

D4

[WesW]

You shouldn't have to re-install the game to use the med pack. Check out the Public Release thread (which has fallen to the second page), where I have pasted the Intro and Install readme and the 1st readme. They detail exactly what you need to do to use the mod package.