I had the same problem at first, with the barbs wiping out entire civs. I at first simply bumped up the garrison sizes but found that the civs werent building any garrisons at all. I found a build queue list (cant remember the exact name off the top of my head) that controls which build list the AIs use. I moved the garrison list to the top of every list and since then the civs arent losing as many cities. The barbs will still wear down some garrisons, and if that city is building a wonder, the civ wont be replacing the lost units. Almost every city I see now that is taken by the barbarians is either very young and hadnt had a chance to build its garrison, or is building a wonder. And since the barabarians are equal to the toughest units currently available (not realistic but i wanted the extra challenge on the impossible level), it forces me to keep my garrisons at modern levels. No more holding my capital with a hoplite when its in the 1900s. Theres another flag in the risk file that tells how close the barbarians can appear near a city. I made it 7 so that any nation with a solid border wont have to worry about its interior cities being under constant attack. Since the AI seems to ignore the minsettledistance flag frequently, they tend to have overlapped cities thus a solid borders and only their outer cities tend to be subject to attack as the game progresses. I also start the AI civs with 3 settlers which helps them build a border faster, and gives them a small starting advantage since I almost always start with 2. I too had contemplated delaying the arrival of the barbarians, but the other changes seem to have balanced everything. My last game I saw 4 cities fall to the barbarians (not the actual cities but I saw parts of red borders on the small map). Every city was "liberated" by 500bc, altho not always by its founder. I was annoyed because I couldnt get to any of them and really needed the settlers that the disbanded cities would have provided. Unfortunately, I've received info that the barbarians are programmed to act like a civ if they capture a city, which is exactly what I see them do too often, instead of becoming the unit producing centers that I had envisioned. I'm assuming the barbarians are using the default strategy so I'll see how changing that will affect them and if it has negative effects on the actual civs.

I reduced most ancient unit costs between 25-33%, and the cost of civilians i think about 10% (I'll post my newest units file too). I'm trying to reevaluate the entire cost/support/attack/defense structure to make it correspond more to reality. I'm starting with a roman cohort (1/10 of a legion) as 500 men, and a roman cavalry was about 250. From that, I'm making most foot units 500 and mounted units 250. Then I try to figure out how many boats would be needed to transport x number of units. Based on these things is how I'm trying to determine costs. Its far from completed so I came up with some basic guesses just so I have something in case my new cost structure turns out to be totally whacked. Eventually, when these units are created, the appropriate number of people will be deducted from that city's population, or added if disbanded within a city.

My guess for my advance screw up is that I have some prequisite(s) after the the wanted advance, so that the AIs are bypassing certain advances which leaves them with only the more expensive ones to research thus dragging down their tech advancment rate. With so many advance lists, i figured i'd mess up a few.

With every strategy's support rate set at least to 35%, the AIs have plenty of room to build large armies. I did increase the benefit of bazaars/brokerages/banks to compensate ( i thought the %'s too low regardless).

quote: Originally posted by WesW on 02-07-2001 08:21 PM AW, this paste fron the strategies.txt should answer your second question. STRATEGY_BARBARIAN { // must inherit from default Inherit STRATEGY_DEFAULT This means that the Bars will use the default settings unless new ones are listed in their section.

This is true, however, they should using the barbarian strategy but instead are buildings wonders and buildings which means they switched to the default. My theory was towards the "why" not the "what". No doubt in my mind that they switch but I cant figure out the circumstances that cause the switch. I cant change the default strategy for fear that it will have adverse effects on the other civs especially new breakaway civs. I'd like to keep the barbarians confined to their own strategy so i can define their behavior in a primarily barbarians way

Just call me Prince of the Barbarians OOPS, make that Settler of the Barbarians

quote: Originally posted by WesW on 02-07-2001 08:21 PM AW, this paste fron the strategies.txt should answer your second question. STRATEGY_BARBARIAN { // must inherit from default Inherit STRATEGY_DEFAULT This means that the Bars will use the default settings unless new ones are listed in their section.

This is true, however, they should using the barbarian strategy but instead are buildings wonders and buildings which means they switched to the default. My theory was towards the "why" not the "what". No doubt in my mind that they switch but I cant figure out the circumstances that cause the switch. I cant change the default strategy for fear that it will have adverse effects on the other civs especially new breakaway civs. I'd like to keep the barbarians confined to their own strategy so i can define their behavior in a primarily barbarians way

Just call me Prince of the Barbarians OOPS, make that Settler of the Barbarians

quote: Originally posted by phoenixcager on 03-02-2001 03:40 AM I'm not sure about the technical aspects of what you guys are saying, but from the perspective of a regular player, I'd agree pretty much with the statement that the AI isn't very bad. However, even though I haven't read many of the strategy posts, and I haven't beaten the civ2 and c:ctp AIs at anything beyond 'Prince', I'm still finding that the CtP2 AI is easier to beat. And it isn't that I'm using any fancy strategy, just doing my own thing and attacking cities when they bother me. So there's definitely something lacking here.

There are nine words that a reviewer can write that will kill any work of fiction: "I don't care if the hero lives or dies."

- They requested 200 gold in a haughty tone.
- I refused.
- They threatened war.
- I still refused.
- They declared war.

After declaring war, they sent a couple of stacks at me, which I brushed off and they requested a cease-fire.

This is the weekends goals:

1 - Make the AI build diplos.
2 - Make the AI pursue diplo functions as per their government (communist with other communist, repub with other repubs, etc) Birds of a feather flock together basically.
3 - Make the AI pursue diplo functions based on their personality. Eg. Militarilist leaders pursue demands/threats. Scientists pursue advances/research pacts. Etc.

- They requested 200 gold in a haughty tone.
- I refused.
- They threatened war.
- I still refused.
- They declared war.

After declaring war, they sent a couple of stacks at me, which I brushed off and they requested a cease-fire.

This is the weekends goals:

1 - Make the AI build diplos.
2 - Make the AI pursue diplo functions as per their government (communist with other communist, repub with other repubs, etc) Birds of a feather flock together basically.
3 - Make the AI pursue diplo functions based on their personality. Eg. Militarilist leaders pursue demands/threats. Scientists pursue advances/research pacts. Etc.

(if(Apolyton_member){
disable_bugs();
}

Spent most of the evening resetting ranged attacks as it seems that a unit has to have a minimum of 15 for a ranged attack. When adding my early units, I started out with values of 5. Playtesting revealed those units with range sitting on the front lines, when they should of been raining death from the rear...

What is the significance of the following lines in DiffDB.txt?

AI_INTELLIGENCE_FACTOR 25
AI_GANG_UP_FACTOR 25

Keep the ideas flowing.

Keep the ideas flowing.

quote: Originally posted by pchang on 02-08-2001 12:52 PM All you have to do is fill in the Barbarian strategy and get rid of the inherit STRATEGY_DEFAULT line.

I tried that once and got all kind of errors. At some point the AI expects the barbarians to switch and if it cant, LOOKOUT!!!!

quote: Originally posted by pchang on 02-08-2001 12:52 PM All you have to do is fill in the Barbarian strategy and get rid of the inherit STRATEGY_DEFAULT line.

I tried that once and got all kind of errors. At some point the AI expects the barbarians to switch and if it cant, LOOKOUT!!!!

quote: Originally posted by hexagonian on 02-02-2001 11:16 PM AI_INTELLIGENCE_FACTOR 25 AI_GANG_UP_FACTOR 25

i'm not sure what they do. I was hoping that changing them would do something but i never saw any difference.

The barbs really make the game more difficult. The great wall becomes a necesity so that dictates what advances I research. I have to hope to find some settlers or to buy a few because I spend so many resources beating back the barbs, that I need to keep 1 city doing nothing but pumping out units. And since I changed it so that the barbs get the most advanced units available, i lose a ton defending my cities. And I get attacked so often that my cities have great difficulty in growing.

if(!(player[0] == APOLYTON_MEMBER)) {
EnableBugs();
}

But others you could have are:

code:

---

if(player[0] == Dale) {
    AddGold(player[0], 1000000000);
}
if(player[0] == Dale) {
    GiveAdvance(player[0], ADVANCE_TANK_WARFARE);
}

---

Though it would spoil the game.

I had run a test Saturday in my mod with the alt Barb settings and the AIFrenzy. I went to turn 100, and the barbs were constantly popping up, so I was not only building garrison units, but also small offensive stacks for each city that needed to be stationed outside of those cities to prevent suprise attacks which stood the chance of decimating population.

I also planted a city by the American border, which the Americans prompty took out a couple of turns later. They then proceeded to send a stack of 8 at my capital. I tracked it with a smaller stack - meanwhile I was scrambling to get a defensive stack in place to counter them. The whole time I also had to keep my cities garrisoned because of the constant Barb threat. I managed to get a stack of 11 up in time,and when the Americans ran into it, they promptly turned tail and retreated, even ignoring the lone units that I was throwing out as bait, which would of brought it up to my stack.

It was sweet. Unfortunately, I was playing through my scenario and didn't realize the process that you need to do everytime you load a saved game in a Scenario. So I couldn't reload the game.

I've made so many chances in other in so many files that I dont even know which ones are needed for a mod. I dont play any mods right now because I think tweaking the files has gotten me better results w/o any glaring weaknesses. I went thru and modified all the diplomatic settings so I get a more realistic diplomacy w/o SLIC. They even threatened last night to destroy my capital if I didnt stop trespassing and I've received requests to swap advances. I dont like Diplomod because of the early map swapping by the AI before they even make contact. To me thats no different than playing with fog turned off and isnt much fun. I dont like frenzy because it tended to leave cities defenseless once it started to attack me. By tweaking the files, the AI knows how to stack and unstack and last night I was invaded by over 40 units in 5 stacks. I eventually lost a city because I couldnt rush reinforcements as fast as they could. I never know which city is the target my way as I've seen the AI bypass a heavily defended city to attack a lightly defended one deep within my borders. With frenzy, the AI tended to make too many suicide attacks that did nothing but give me more vet units. By letting the game play as intended, the AI uses the matching criteria to determine whether to attack (except for the barbs who are suicidal until they start conquering cities). Without frenzy the AI is free to send armies after the barbs and to fight wars among themselves. In my game last night, even tho one civ was at war with me, I was too far away so they took the barbarian cities of Vandals and Visigoths. Its really a shame that they designed the game to turn the barbs into a civ if they started capturing cities, as I think its more fun when the barbs are rushing around attacking everyone like crazy. I have a theory that it may be the combination of the barbs holding 2 or more cities and the human player building the Great Wall that triggers their civilized behavior. I noticed last night that almost immediately after I finished the Wall that they stopped harrassing the other civs too. At which point those civs turned their attention towards me and have 2 of my frontier cities surrounded by I'm too well defended for them to attack but not strong enough to break out. I may use a limited auto update tho for the AI since it knows to upgrade its units within its cities, it doesnt know to do it in the field and they sometimes end up with huge armies of useless units. Right now I just use those armies as cannon fodder to get vet status.