Civilization IV

[Deraldin]

Interesting. I've never had a single game where the enemy blockaded on of my ports except by some fluke where an enemy army retreated onto the land portion of my port.

 

Do you play with any mods?

[Rosbjerg]

no .. jus the regular game! I do admit it only happens 5-6 times during an entire campaign with a roman faction .. but as everyone else, both Roman and all other enemies do it! especially if I'm Greece (sorry .. Hellas)!

[Deraldin]

The strange thing is I've seen the computer do it to other computers but never to me, even if I am at war with every other faction on the map. I wonder if the patch will change this.

[Oerwinde]

The cheating AI made it nearly impossible to survive, and was so frustrating that I felt like throwing my computer out the window. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

My best cheating AI moment was when I was allied against the babylonians with the Americans and the americans were way behind in tech level. So I decided to share so they'd have a better chance. Well as soon as I gave them the new tech, all their units in the field upgraded. And so did the Babylonians.

 

Anyway, I thought Civ3 was fun, but at later years when you have a large empire its really hard to play.

[213374U]

The cheating AI made it nearly impossible to survive, and was so frustrating that I felt like throwing my computer out the window. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

My best cheating AI moment was when I was allied against the babylonians with the Americans and the americans were way behind in tech level. So I decided to share so they'd have a better chance. Well as soon as I gave them the new tech, all their units in the field upgraded. And so did the Babylonians.

 

Anyway, I thought Civ3 was fun, but at later years when you have a large empire its really hard to play.

Um, the units were upgraded in the field? Such blatant cheating really substracts from the game experience, if you ask me. But, alas it seems the only way to make the game challenging once you figure out how to win.

 

And about late eras, well, I don't really have a hard time playing. I have a hard time wiping the other civs from the map, but that's what space race and diplomatic victories are for.

 

I think however that early expansion has been placed too much emphasis on. It's really hard to keep an advantage over the AIs without building a thousand cities in the BCs. You can get the cultural and space race victories easily with few cities but in a small territory you will usually be hard pressed for resources. I often end up invading some fool to take their resources... but that's a whole mess. War is no longer an easy way to win unless conducted very early.

 

And why the hell does every worm in the map declare war on me when I nuke someone back to stone age? I mean, I would understand it if they established trade embargoes and signed MPPs, but declaring war on the guy with a thousand nukes? What gives?

[Rosbjerg]

well in rl if some nation started to nuke another nation I thing the rest of the world would react a little harsher than just trade embargos! (unless of course US did it .. grrr)

 

at what difficulty does the AI cheat, only the highest?? (I usually play at Monarch)

[213374U]

well in rl if some nation started to nuke another nation I thing the rest of the world would react a little harsher than just trade embargos! (unless of course US did it .. grrr)

 

at what difficulty does the AI cheat, only the highest?? (I usually play at Monarch)

In RL half of the world has nuclear and/or biological arsenals. I don't use nukes in mutual assured destruction scenarios, only when I'm the only one who has them. That's why it's stupid of the AI to declare war on such inferior conditions.

 

About the AI cheating, well... read this. There are somethings not listed there such as the AI knowing how useful a certain resource is to you when bargaining, trade worth adjustments, etc.

 

Suffice to say that the AI cheats. An awful lot.

[Rosbjerg]

thanks for the link ..

 

and about the nuke thing .. I know that was what you meant, but the game is designed to be like rl (or close) and in rl, the entire world would be pissed and declare war on you ..

[Cantousent]

Hell, forget the nukes. I've always found that the computer players were always more than willing to declare war on me no matter what. I've only played Civ 3 at Monarch and higher, but there are some things that I find frustrating.

 

First of all, as my numbered friend says, the emphasis for a successful late game must be early expansion. Did I say must? I mean MUST! I've heard of folks taking a small area in the middle game and winning in the late game. On the other hand, I've never seen it and I simply won't believe that the human player can accomplish this at higher difficulty levels.

 

Something else that chaps my hide, and I think someone referenced this earlier, is that you can get into the mid game and find out that, even if you have a relatively large land area, you don't have some vital resource. Oil, Aluminum, etc. That puts even more emphasis on early expansion as you're not only trying to make up for the computer players' production and food advantage, you're trying to obtain resources and deny the same resources to the computer who, in the mid game, will use the resources to destroy you out of hand.

 

Like I said, I want a challenging game, but the higher levels of Civ 3 are there for bragging rights only.

 

Even so, I think I might pull out the game and play a few more games. Maybe I was overly harsh in my assessment. At any rate, if a game is frustrating, it's no great sin to lower the difficulty. Unless you only play so you can boast of your Civ playing skills.

[213374U]

and about the nuke thing .. I know that was what you meant, but the game is designed to be like rl (or close) and in rl, the entire world would be pissed and declare war on you ..

Um, no, they wouldn't. Do you think that say, Mauritania would declare war on the US if they launched a nuclear strike against Korea? Think again. The small fishes would just try to stay out of the way and pray that they don't piss the guy with the WMDs too much. Cowardice works better at saving one's hide than high ideals.

 

 

Hell, forget the nukes.

But I like nukes. :'(

 

 

Like I said, I want a challenging game, but the higher levels of Civ 3 are there for bragging rights only.

I don't know. I've been playing on the easier levels now and I don't think I'll play harder than Regent. On that level you play more or less on equal conditions with the AI, and my idea of increasing a game difficulty != increasing the AI cheating level. Much less if the cheating is so inconspicuous.

 

However, if people do indeed get so hardcore that they actually need the dumb AI boosted to cheating levels, then let 'em brag.

[Ludozee]

Hell, forget the nukes.

But I like nukes. :'(

Spoken like a true Fallout Fan