GENERAL: CTP2 Source Code Cafe

[Peter Triggs]

A question for you guys who play Super Apolyton Pack.

What difficulty level do you play on and what do you think of the difficuly levels?

I'm in the process of converting SAP to a scenario, and looking at the difficulty database I'm surprised at how much the AI is given, especially at higher levels. I know it's not really 'cheating' but I wonder about how much fun it can be to play the game in those circumstances.

[Maquiladora]

I know it's not really 'cheating' but I wonder about how much fun it can be to play the game in those circumstances.

Have you been reading the AI cheating thread in civ3 general?

Ive always played at Impossible and Marauders, i know the AI gets bonuses (not sure how big) and it doesnt bother me much.

But one thing that DOES bother me though is that its so far ahead in science sometimes, but this is a problem with the unit values. Even one tech can mean a hugely more powerful unit to build.

[Tamerlin]

Originally posted by Peter Triggs
A question for you guys who play Super Apolyton Pack.

What difficulty level do you play on and what do you think of the difficuly levels?

I'm in the process of converting SAP to a scenario, and looking at the difficulty database I'm surprised at how much the AI is given, especially at higher levels. I know it's not really 'cheating' but I wonder about how much fun it can be to play the game in those circumstances.

I am playing at Very Hard difficulty level with the updater2 but I will soon play at the next higher level also with the updater2 (I can't play without it now ). I have tweaked the original APOL_pw_cheat.slc file and reduced the amount of gold given to the AI to 2 as I found the original setting excessive (I hate this kind of cheats, whatever the game).

I have changed some values in the APOL_strategies.txt so that the AI is a bit more aggressive instead of lingering around your cities without attacking you.

I have also lowered the Science costs (though they remain higher than in the original game) in order to reduce the time needed to end the game as it can become boring when there are too much turns between each advance and AI civs that are no more able to hurt you anymore. I have also made these changes for the Science Victory to be more likely within the time limit of the game.

[Peter Triggs]

Maquiladora
Have you been reading the AI cheating thread in civ3 general?

I have now .

Sir Ralph
I'm comparing an AI (artifical intelligence), that heroically defends its cities (even though it often overdos the rushing and drafting), with an AI (artifical idiot), that moves all defenders out of a city in danger and leaves it undefended.

This is just one of the reasons why we have to get rid of FrenzyAI. It can over-ride the game's real AI and make dumb moves. One of Civ3's developers once said "The trick is to keep the AI from looking stupid, 98% of the time." FrenzyAI seriously compromises that goal.

[Maquiladora]

I do agree FrenzyAI isnt a solution and you can show up the AI if you get free of its stacks of death, you can often find unguarded cities. But dont take what the civ3 developers say too seriously I would hate to see CtP2 stripped down just so the AI never looks stupid.

[The Big Mc]

If it beats me 1/2 the time I will be happy

[Tamerlin]

Originally posted by Peter Triggs
This is just one of the reasons why we have to get rid of FrenzyAI. It can over-ride the game's real AI and make dumb moves. One of Civ3's developers once said "The trick is to keep the AI from looking stupid, 98% of the time." FrenzyAI seriously compromises that goal.

I have already suppressed the FrenzyAI from my SAP2 configuration and added Martin's BetterAI... but I have not yet tested a SAP2 game this way.

[Solver]

Feel free to congratulate me, guys, I am now in every way and respect a citizen of the European Union !

[Tamerlin]

Congratulations and welcome...

[J Bytheway]

Congrats . So now you have no excuse (well, one less excuse...) for not going to European 'Poly meets .

[Locutus]

Welcome

Originally posted by J Bytheway
So now you have no excuse [...] for not going to European 'Poly meets .

Indeed August 14, Paris. Be there! (That goes for all other European posters as well )

[Solver]

Hehe, Paris, that's surprising .

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Peter Triggs
I'm in the process of converting SAP to a scenario, and looking at the difficulty database I'm surprised at how much the AI is given, especially at higher levels. I know it's not really 'cheating' but I wonder about how much fun it can be to play the game in those circumstances.

You should take a look on Cradle and also on GoodMod, that are levels that could be a little bit too exeggerated. But you have to keep in mind that these values were taken, because the AI was not able to use such boni in an effective way.

I think we should drop the pw cheat, that can be done through the DiffDB.txt. I think that these kind of cheats are ok, as long as we tell the user, that if he plays on Impossible that he can expect that the AI is granted a lot of boni. And I think on impossible you can't exeggerate it with giving boni to the AI.

-Martin

[Maquiladora]

Hex made an interesting comparison to civ3 on AI cheats/bonuses.

Originally posted by hexagonian

Because Ralph asked nicely about our so-called 'crap' game and by implication, my so called 'crap' Mod, here's the info...

CTP2 Cradle Very Hard Bonuses (default CTP2 Impossible)
(version 1.30b, posted April 8, 2004)

To start the game...
- Starting Human Advances: 3
- Starting AI Advantages: 8
This works out to 2.66x1 starting advantage. Cradle's tech tree is approx. 2x the size of civ3's tree, making this gap less drastic.
- Number of extra AI type (settlers): 1
- No additional bonus AI miliary units

Gold and Commerce - AI Unit Support Bonuses
- Free Unit Upgrades
- AI Gold Generator: 1.15 (player is 1.00)
- Gold Bonus for each city: 1 per pop point (via SLIC)
Note: CTP2's gold setup is (5x) of civ3's setup. (1 gold in civ3 translates into 5 gold in CTP2)

- AI to AI trade rate: no AI Bonus
- AI max government transition in turns: no AI Bonus

Cost
- AI Science Cost (player is 10): 6.5
- AI Food Cost (player is 10): 6.5
- AI Production Cost (player is 10): 7.5
- AI PW Advantage: +05-15% - Based on government type (via PW SLIC)

- AI only sees what it has explored and also has the same FoW effect as the human


Civ3 AI Bonuses - Deity
(Pulled from civfanatics site)

To start the game...
- AI Number of extra type (usually settlers): 1
- AI Number of extra type 2 (usually workers): 2
- AI Number of extra defensive units: 8
- AI Number of extra offensive units: 4

Gold and Commerce - AI Unit Support Bonuses
- Additional free support for each AI civ: 16
(Pulled from thread at civfanatics) 'This gives the AI civs the ability to have a lot of units without paying for them. At Deity level it's 16 free units to start and 4 extra for each city it has. A large percentage of the time the AI never even has upkeep costs at this level, even once it's a great sprawling Democracy.'
- Bonus for each city: 4

- AI to AI trade rate: 160
- AI max government transition in turns: 2

Cost
- AI Science Cost (player is 10): 6
- AI Food Cost (player is 10): 6
- AI Production Cost (player is 10): 6

- AI sees the entire map

I'm comparing these two settings (CTP2 Cradle Very Hard and civ3 Deity) because they are the next-to-highest levels in both setups (with the release of CtC) and I haven't been able to locate 'Sid' level settings.

Realize that since there are different bonuses, we cannot get a fully accurate comparison. But it looks like there isn't much difference - in fact, it can be argued that CTP2's setup offers less bonuses than the civ3 setup. (Maybe I need to get our SLICers to mod in some of those 'fat' civ3 AI bonuses.)

Thanks to civfanatics for the interesting info... It certainly opened my eyes
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showth...threadid=37490

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=2942837

and welcome Solver The celebrations in the new countries were certainly bigger than i was expecting

[Locutus]

Very interesting quote, Maq (and hex, of course)

Maybe that'll finally shut up Solver about how the CtP2 AI can only compete with the Civ3 AI because it cheats so much (then again, knowing him, it probably won't)