Yeah, went back and rewatched it and the AI did move the general out in the open, BUT it already had a settler in the city so it was forced to move it. Although I believe it could’ve moved it south of the city where it was safer instead.
The AI also made another mistake earlier in the game when Monty moved its settler north to where Greg was advancing his armies on the first city. Now that could be because the AI didn’t “see” some of those units due to fog of war, but it still wasn’t the best decision for its unit to leave it unprotected like that. I’ve made similar mistakes taking risks killing barbs though.
I was impressed by the Inca flanking Greg and taking the two undefended cities behind him. They were pretty aggressive doing that, but I think we could’ve seen something similar in vanilla as well.
Other than that and Greg’s overall horrible decisions (partly because of chat), I really liked the little that I saw. Founding a religion and sort of customizing it to your playstyle looks like a lot of fun. Can’t wait to play (9 PM PST TONIGHT)!
I know Greg specifically moved his troops out of visual range of the city to entice Monty into moving his warriors and settler out of the city radius and into the north. I thought though that he had the settler and warrior stacked, I’m almost positive of it, and Greg killed the warrior and claimed the settler (which of course became a worker)? Or am I mis-remembering?
Giant Bomb gives the expansion 4/5! Now I feel like it was $20 well spent. :D
You’re right about Greg moving back to let Monty make a stupid move, but Monty moved his settlers ahead and kept his warriors back to (only) injure Greg’s scout. And then Greg moved in and finished them both off. The AI should probably put a greater emphasis on protecting the settler rather than being provoked by the scout.
I can see that, but, um, I never got to the airplane building stage in most of my games, so the issue never really came up!
I wonder when Amazon will get me my code…?
Well, they really tinkered with everything. My tried-and-true expansion formula is obsolete. So much new stuff, too. But I’m having a blast as the Dutch.
I’m happy to see that 140 turns in on Prince and I’m actually number 3 in the score, with 2 or 3 civs left to uncover even. France declared war on me and did a good job trying to take my neighboring city, but I held them off and they asked for peace. Japan and Spain are denouncing each other, so I was able to get Spain to agree to a joint war against them, which was fun.
Also, the AI has actually started contacting ME to swap resources, which I don’t recall happening before. Lots of little touches here and there that make an enjoyable experience even moreso.
Well, I ran a 4 hour Chieftain game just to see what it was like, and wow, did I win quickly. Played as Theodora, which meant that as soon as I got my first prophet out, I had essentially a mature religion to work with. I picked economic and production bonuses, and ended up with 5 cities before it got troublesome to expand further.
Near 1200AD, I settled at an economy pushing 300 gold per turn. That meant I made friends and allies with all the city-states without difficulty, and all my bonuses increased from there. It got really ridiculous. I ended the game with over 20k in my treasury, over 10k faith, and I won with a culture victory.
Is anyone else kind of annoyed that they have to pay an extra $20 for an expansion to get decent combat AI in a game they’ve already paid for? I don’t really care about having more Civs or any of the other stuff from the expansion. I just wanna play vanilla Civ V with AI that isn’t moronic. Is that so much to ask?
You sound surprised you won so easily on the second easiest difficulty setting. Review this chart for enlightenment!
Uh, youre playing on Chieften, it would be more troubling if you COULDN’T blow passed the AI. I would definately recommend upping your game to Prince now.
Not really? You aren’t wrong fundamentally of course, but why would I NOT want an expansion to a game I like enough to care if they fix the AI? I’m not annoyed, no, since I always planned on getting the expansion. I guess if you don’t want a ton of new content and JUST want a better AI with the existing game, I can’t blame you - but a lot of the changes brought about by the expansion are WHY the AI is better in the first place.
I’m not sure the expansion improves the AI that much.
It’s still flawed, but it’s MUCH better. For being such a complex game with a lot of systems, I’m quite pleased with the AI. I’ve seen it work with city-states, betray alliances, found religions, build wonders, expand and build cities at a pace just ahead of my own (on Prince even, where it has no special bonuses), and it assaulted my city with a force more than equal to the task. When I broght up reinforcements, it pulled it’s units back to its borders and asked for peace. I’m pretty happy so far.
Hmmm, well that sounds promising. I guess we’ll see how it bears out over the long term.
I’m fully aware of the difficulty levels. I’m comparing running a quick game on Chieftain in the context of the Expansion to running a quick game on Chieftain in the context of the game prior to the Expansion. I’m commenting on the overwhelming benefits of the Byzantine’s ability to grow a mature religion early in the game.
I’m pretty sure we already have. :)
-Tom
The two scenarios seem to reconstitute two of the better scenarios from Civ III Conquests.
Fall of Rome has an interesting reverse culture mechanic for Rome - culture policies add negative traits.
Medieval scenario has a rich and verdant custom hand made map of Europe with customized preset religious traits; it’s the only part of Civ V G&K that connects real religions to gameplay traits. And the traits are interesting enough I think - Orthodoxy had a “Third Rome” trait that will move the Holy City if Constantinople falls, for example. Unfortunately it’s a time limited scenario, but that awards VP for several objectives.
