Yep--too hard to beat!

Can't beat the AI? Is it too tame? Discuss the best strategies!
zorn
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Re: Yep--too hard to beat!

Post by zorn »

Caedo wrote:If you make sure to nat have any contact and not crossing the AI's border after the first cease-fire treaty has been made, they'll usually accept a peace offering.
It's hard to avoid all contact if they have a legion parked beside one of your cities. The game is much easier if you start on your own island and can make some peace treaties, however.
zorn
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Re: Yep--too hard to beat!

Post by zorn »

cazfi wrote:Nothing saves 2.3, and 2.4 receives only improvements that are considered bugfixes, but I'm quite pleased with some AI improvements I've managed to implement lately. I'm battling against myself - can I make AI good enough for it to challenge me as a player? Of course, improvements to one thing often comes with weakening of something else, so if you didn't know how to strike AI's weak points before but were overwhelmed by its strong points, it's in theory possible that it's getting easier for you...
It sounds interesting. If you observe an AI during the initial game, it doesn't seem very competitive. It researches techs that it needs for city walls, barracks etc., and then usually builds them in every city (later port facilites also). It usually switches to monarcy instead of republic. If it wasn't for the 100% science, I don't think they'd be competitive with a human player at all. But it would still be interesting to make it an option. Perhaps allowing choice of different cheating options would give a wider range of AI difficulties.
zorn
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Re: Yep--too hard to beat!

Post by zorn »

These settings are fun, if you think the AI is too easy:

/set generator fractal
/set huts 0
/set barbarians disabled
/set diplomacy disabled
/hard

Any good strategies on how to win this one?
ipilowe
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Re: Yep--too hard to beat!

Post by ipilowe »

Finally, I have win my first game by waging war. It was GREAT! :lol:

But, may I ask how you upgrade your cities? You build city wall ofc. but anything else? When I checked my alliance's cities after game in edit mode, every city got only city wall, barracks III and war harbour(did I write this right?). Is it profitable to make markets, arenas(circus?) etc?

Edit: I had to do some arenas becaus of unhappy people, AI didn't had unhappy people :?:
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Alien Valkyrie
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Re: Yep--too hard to beat!

Post by Alien Valkyrie »

Wall of text, appear below!
Depending on where and how big your city is, it is profitable to build more buildings. The Aquaeduct and sewer system improve how big your city can grow, market/bank/stock exchange increase trade(I think), factories increase production etc... You can always select the building from the right list and click the help button to show you what it does.
Of course I always build things like city walls, coastal defense etc., but if I don't have to fear one of my cities being attacked(because it's already defended very well), I usually build barracks, harbor and airport first, then workers/engineers(to remove potential pollution), aquaeduct and sewer system (because I like all of my cities to be big), then production stuff, then food stuff, then trade stuff and some happiness always inbetween. In the end, when I have everything, I either go at unit produciton(if I'm at war), at money(if I want to prepare for the future), at caravans/freight(if the city's on the same continent as another one) or at a spaceship(yeah, f*ck you, allies!).
I usually have exactly five cities(because then traderoutes are used perfectly). These cities are, like, huge, because I make the land around fit perfectly. Then, when I go at war, depending on the settings, I either destroy the enemy cities, or, if I capture them, I use them as a troup supply outpost first(via airport), and then disband them(via building settlers). Every city less is a city less to potentially get captured by enemies. Though, If I know that I'll lose some city, I sell the buildings that will help the enemy the most(like defense stuff).
The way I think might be a bit strange, I mean, only 5 cities, but if I want to build ideally, no city areas may intersect, and I usually play island games, so there's not that much space.
Of course I could try to build multiple complexes, but... I have better things to do than to try that out right now.
My playing style is crazy, but I hope you can still use my advice :)
~ AVL
cazfi
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Re: Yep--too hard to beat!

Post by cazfi »

zorn wrote:Perhaps allowing choice of different cheating options would give a wider range of AI difficulties.
Currently you have the option of giving cheating effects in ruleset. See default/ai_effects.ruleset that's included to effects.ruleset of most rulesets distributed with freeciv for example how "Cheating" level AI is implemented.
cazfi
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Re: Yep--too hard to beat!

Post by cazfi »

ipilowe wrote:Edit: I had to do some arenas becaus of unhappy people, AI didn't had unhappy people :?:
1. There's many ways to deal with unhappiness - buildings (& wonders), martial law (military units inside city - defenders help in this role too) under some governments, entertainer specialists, setting part of global tax settins to luxuries
2. Some buildings get destroyed when you conquer a city. I have to admit I don't know how exactly the probability is determined, but I've noticed that very often even after I've seen Temples, Colosseums, or Cathedrals inside a city when investigating it with diplomat just before conquering it, it no longer has them once I get it under my control - other buildings are much more likely to remain.
cazfi
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Re: Yep--too hard to beat!

Post by cazfi »

ipilowe wrote:Is it profitable to make markets, arenas(circus?) etc?
- Marketplace increses gold (and lux) output by 50%, and has maintenance of 1 gold. So, in theory it pays for its maintenance when you already have output of 2 gold in the city. In practice you want to build something with higher priority until the city has much higher gold output, and thus the 50% increase provided by marketplace is higher.
- Colosseum makes 3 people content with maintenance cost of 4, so it's not very cost-effective way to maintain happiness. Sometimes you need to use it, but often you have better alternatives.
cazfi
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Re: Yep--too hard to beat!

Post by cazfi »

One possible problem for newbies is AIs doing active diplomacy between them - trading technologies in particular. There's server setting 'diplomacy' that can be used to disallow AI diplomacy. However, I found the setting a bit lacking for use like this (especially in single-player games): when you disable AI diplomacy, you cut also human player from doing diplomacy with AIs. For that I just created new feature ticket targeted to freeciv-2.5: patch #4213 is about adding two diplomacy restriction values, one of which would disallow diplomacy only when both parties are AI players, humans can always do diplomacy. Do you think this would help at all?
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Alien Valkyrie
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Re: Yep--too hard to beat!

Post by Alien Valkyrie »

cazfi wrote:patch #4213 is about adding two diplomacy restriction values, one of which would disallow diplomacy only when both parties are AI players, humans can always do diplomacy. Do you think this would help at all?
Yeah, that might be useful for new players.

Meanwhile, here's the quick how-to guide on Player-AI diplomacy:
  • When first meeting the AI, they'll usually offer you a cease-fire treaty. You should accept that.
  • During the cease-fire, make sure you don't have units on their territory.
  • If they don't offer a peace treaty, offer one yourself when the cease-fire is about to end.
  • If no peace is made, ask for another cease-fire. If they don't want that, prepare for war.
  • If you're at peace with them for a while and don't do anything unfriendly, they might offer you an alliance after some time. If you're already allied to one of their allies, you might offer them one yourself after a short amount of time.
That's pretty much all for the easier AI types, I don't know what it's like when playing against hard AIs. Hopefully this can help the newbies.
~ AVL
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