Computer still dumb in Civ 2?
ACORN - Oakland
So there's a new version of Civilization, eh? Here's my question to all the
Civilization faithful, are the computer players any smarter in the sequal
than in the original?
I apologize if this sounds sacrilegious, but I got tired of the original
pretty quickly. I was never a great player, but it was so disappointing
to be agonizing over every little detail of my civilization, then claw my
way into a foreign city and find the computer has been building a bunch
of crap.
It sounds like the sequel only makes minor adjustments. More units? Who
cares about having more units? There's already too many units.
Ed
Joel Adams
In article <APC&1'0'7c9d8ce8'0...@igc.apc.org>, ACORN - Oakland
<caaco...@igc.apc.org> writes
I think they are a bit smarter. As I understand it one reason (with both
versions) that computer civs look stupid when you capture their cities
is that some buildings are destroyed when you march into the city.
With regard to military matters the computer still stupidly sends
unguarded transports across oceans. I did though have the nastly
experience of a surprise attack. The vikings declared war, used a
battleship to destroy the 2 riflemen in the city and then emptied a
transport full of troops into it, all on the same turn - I was
impressed. It has not happened again though.
--
Joel Adams
Carsten Engelmann
ACORN - Oakland (caaco...@igc.apc.org) wrote:
: So there's a new version of Civilization, eh? Here's my question to all the
: Civilization faithful, are the computer players any smarter in the sequal
: than in the original?
: I apologize if this sounds sacrilegious, but I got tired of the original
: pretty quickly. I was never a great player, but it was so disappointing
: to be agonizing over every little detail of my civilization, then claw my
: way into a foreign city and find the computer has been building a bunch
: of crap.
: It sounds like the sequel only makes minor adjustments. More units? Who
: cares about having more units? There's already too many units.
Probably you don't like CIV at all.
I think that the YI has become smarter but it cheats more in diplomacy.
Even many sneak attack don't hurt their fame.
I have seen also battleships in lakes which I haven't seen in CIV1.
They attack with insufficient forces. Due to the combat rule changes
you need more superiority to take a city because the units inside
a city immediately recover.
All the CP have too much money on the bank and if I attack they
should buy City Walls and Barracks for the attacked city.
That would be the minimum of AI I expect. That shouldn't be
difficult to program, either.
But as I read in this newsgroup Bruce Reynolds is already fired
at Microprose which means that he won't produce many patches anymore.:-(
-Carsten
Danno
Joel Adams wrote:
<snip>
> With regard to military matters the computer still stupidly sends
> unguarded transports across oceans. I did though have the nastly
> experience of a surprise attack. The vikings declared war, used a
> battleship to destroy the 2 riflemen in the city and then emptied a
> transport full of troops into it, all on the same turn - I was
> impressed. It has not happened again though.
>
> --
> Joel Adams
I can't tell you how many times I've seen the computer AI take out the
defenders of a particular city (regular or nuke weapons) and then follow
up with a few Paratroopers. I even saw once where the AI destroyed a
couple of dug in troops in a fort (guarding the only path to a town I
captured) with naval, air and ground units. Talk about a combined arms
approach to warfare!! And my bombers are usually mugged by the
occasional fighter the AI constructs.
I won't let ANYONE tell me that the AI hasn't improved. Those
coordinated attacks would impress just about ANY Civ player !!
Danno
Your Name
In article <318E86...@interserv.com>, dan...@interserv.com says...
>
>Joel Adams wrote:
> <snip>
>
Totally agree its improved but Ive still seen it take a transport
out of port move two spaces then dump its cargo one square away from
the city it just left.? Djf
SteamFax
I have seen also battleships in lakes which I haven't seen in CIV1.
On any maps that I play, I use the editor and FILL IN ALL THE LAKES. In an
upcoming version they should have that sea monster emerge from the lakes
now and then to rampage, then it would make sense for the AI to station
Battleships there.
William Greene
All Civ2 types,
I was playing a game with three other civs, Zulus, Persians, and
Spaniards. I am allied with the Zulus. (Can't beat them, join them)
Anyways, I have a city on an island with one Zulu city. There are
Zulu units swarming all over the island. All of a sudden all the
Zulu unit move away from all the squares around my city. Then it is
the Persians turn and they nuke the city. How on earth did the Zulus
see it coming? They are at war with the Persians too. The Persians
surely wouldn't have told them it was coming. That cheating!
And how did the Persians know that that one and only city of mine
didn't have SDI? There were many other cities that were closer.
In all the games I've played the AI has never nuked
a city with SDI. No Diplomats or Spies investigated ANY of my cities to
know which has SDI and which does not.
It's CHEATING! And its pissing me off...
Bill
P.S. What other CHEATING is the AI doing?
Perry Quan
In Article <news:31924A...@bnr.ca>,
William Greene wrote:
>In all the games I've played the AI has never nuked
>a city with SDI. No Diplomats or Spies investigated ANY of my cities to
FYI, I have had a Civ try to nuke an SDI protected city. They were the
French. Kind of appropriate.
Richard A. Brewin (2W0S)
William Greene (wgr...@bnr.ca) wrote:
: All Civ2 types,
: I was playing a game with three other civs, Zulus, Persians, and
: didn't have SDI? There were many other cities that were closer.
: In all the games I've played the AI has never nuked
: a city with SDI. No Diplomats or Spies investigated ANY of my cities to
: know which has SDI and which does not.
: It's CHEATING! And its pissing me off...
: Bill
: P.S. What other CHEATING is the AI doing?
This is exactly my number one gripe with Civilization II! Yes, that's
right, the AI can read your mind. They don't need spies to find out which
are your best (most undefended) cities. The same thing applies to SAM
missile batteries - enemies "mysteriously" attack the less well defended
cities ... tut tut.
Making this fair isn't "weakening" the AI at all - allowing AI to cheat
seems to defeat the whole idea!
Will the next patch address this rather annoying problem?
--
* Richard A. Brewin rab...@minster.york.ac.uk *
* *
Philip Stokes
On Thu, 9 May 1996 21:42:53 -0500, gu...@inforamp.net (Perry Quan)
wrote:
>In Article <news:31924A...@bnr.ca>,
>William Greene wrote:
>
>>In all the games I've played the AI has never nuked
>>a city with SDI. No Diplomats or Spies investigated ANY of my cities to
>
>FYI, I have had a Civ try to nuke an SDI protected city. They were the
>French. Kind of appropriate.
I've seen the AI players try and nuke a city with SDI - but instead
of giving up when the first attack fails, they waste all of their
nukes within range by trying again and again!
Carsten Engelmann
Richard A. Brewin (2W0S) (rab...@minster.york.ac.uk) wrote:
: This is exactly my number one gripe with Civilization II! Yes, that's
: right, the AI can read your mind. They don't need spies to find out which
: are your best (most undefended) cities. The same thing applies to SAM
: missile batteries - enemies "mysteriously" attack the less well defended
: cities ... tut tut.
: Making this fair isn't "weakening" the AI at all - allowing AI to cheat
: seems to defeat the whole idea!
I'm not that sure if the AI cheats this time(unlike CIV1) with SDI/Nukes.
What surprises me is the great success of CP spies. 5 out of 10 own spies
get captured meanwhile CP spies are always successful.
Anybody the same experience?
-Carsten
Christopher Jones
That's exactly what I've seen. I got into a war with the Americans (I was the
Vikings) and installed SDI into the city closest to their territory. The
Americans tried to hit the city at least 20 times, and never gave up. They never
even tried another city. Meanwhile, I was pounding away on their other cities
with miltiary units.
Still, it does irritate me that the computer can see every move I make and I can't
see everything he's done. Also, I noticed in my current game that the CP doesn't
need access to a river or body of water to irrigate his land. I took over a city
recently that was out in the middle of the continent with NO water squares within
6 spaces in any direction, and yet it was irrigated. Also, their were no
irrigated squares linking it to a nearby body of water.
Chris
Pekka Valve
William Greene (wgr...@bnr.ca) wrote...
>P.S. What other CHEATING is the AI doing?
Any AI unit can bribe enemy units, not only diplomats/spies.
No period of anarchy for AI switching governments.
Pollution never generated in AI cities.
AI triremes are never lost at sea.
AI settlers/engineers can irrigate any square, adjacent
water not needed.
--
Pekka Valve E-mail: Pekka...@hut.fi
Ray Kerby
Pekka...@hut.fi (Pekka Valve) wrote:
>William Greene (wgr...@bnr.ca) wrote...
>>P.S. What other CHEATING is the AI doing?
>
>
>Any AI unit can bribe enemy units, not only diplomats/spies.
>
>No period of anarchy for AI switching governments.
>
>Pollution never generated in AI cities.
>
>AI triremes are never lost at sea.
>
>AI settlers/engineers can irrigate any square, adjacent
>water not needed.
then set your settlers to 'auto'.
More AI cheats:
More content citizens at the higher levels.
Production bonus on deity.
Now here are the *player* cheats (aka AI limitations):
1. We are much smarter. We know how to:
-- properly attack cities en masse
-- stack defensive units with attack units
-- properly irrigate/mine lands (making auto-settlers unnecessary)
-- quickly establish a network of roads/railroads to effectively
maneuver troops.
-- not repeatedly attempt to nuke a city with SDI
-- expand rapidly in the early stages of a game when there is minimal
chance of contact with the AI civs
-- strategically locate cities to effectively block the AI civs from
expanding into our 'uncolonized' territories.
-- stock up on caravans for later wonder-building
-- not build the Lighthouse on large continent worlds
-- build the Great Library and focus on economic advances (get the
military from the AI)
2. We are not affected by the U.N. (I'll just switch governments and
attack anyway...)
3. We get a big production bonus on lower levels
4. We can reload the game and retry those last few moves...
5. We can *cheat* and then call the game a 'scenario'.
Conclusion:
The AI civs need *more* cheats! If you can't beat the
AI, then move down to an easier level until you figure
out how!
Me, I'm monkeying with the rules.txt file in order to
make the game harder. Someone also posted another great
suggestion: select your advances randomly. This makes
for much more interesting games. If you are winning
on Deity, then you should try this!
Ray
Pekka Valve
Ray Kerby (ke...@anet-dfw.com) wrote...
>Pekka...@hut.fi (Pekka Valve) wrote:
>>AI settlers/engineers can irrigate any square, adjacent
>>water not needed.
> **** THIS IS NO LONGER A CHEAT! **** If you want this behavior,
> then set your settlers to 'auto'.
Well, yeah, OK... I never use auto-settlers...
> ...
>Now here are the *player* cheats (aka AI limitations):
>1. We are much smarter. We know how to:
> ...
> -- stack defensive units with attack units
The AI can do that too (sometimes).
> -- build the Great Library and focus on economic advances (get the
> military from the AI)
-- Crash build wonders from scratch in one turn. Just throw in the 3000$.
The AI always seems to spend at least a few turns building wonders,
regardless of available cash.
>4. We can reload the game and retry those last few moves...
>5. We can *cheat* and then call the game a 'scenario'.
I never do those two. B-)
> The AI civs need *more* cheats!
Awww c'mon, you are not serious... B-)
>If you can't beat the
>AI, then move down to an easier level until you figure
>out how!
I just had an interesting game at deity level (medium map size,
normal rules, "raging hordes" barbarians). Most of the time, I
was leading in tech race! I did have Marco Polo's Embassy + Great
Library and made extensive use of the caravan-hordes strategy,
though. The AI still managed to beat me to Alpha Centauri. I got
too greedy and wasted a few more turns to put 20,000 colonists on
my ship instead of 10,000. That just made my ship slower and gave
the AI the time needed to finish a 10,000 colonist ship, launch AND
catch up. Nevertheless, my score was 134%...
Joel Adams
In article <4n6i3m$u...@nntp.hut.fi>, Pekka Valve <Pekka...@hut.fi>
writes
>William Greene (wgr...@bnr.ca) wrote...
>>P.S. What other CHEATING is the AI doing?
>
>
>Any AI unit can bribe enemy units, not only diplomats/spies.
>
>No period of anarchy for AI switching governments.
>
>Pollution never generated in AI cities.
>
>AI triremes are never lost at sea.
>
>water not needed.
>
Has anyone noticed that when they exchange maps with one of the computer
players that their triremes or whatever seem to have headed in a line
straight for you. The seem to know (at least roughly) where other
players are and send the exploring units towards them.
--
Joel Adams
SteamFax
>Someone also posted another great
suggestion: select your advances randomly.<
And along with that, should your get a government advance, SWITCH to it
until you randomly discover another one, then switch to that. Much less
predictable games!!!