ok, I’ll ask.
Thanks, Soren! I realize it’s probably only applicable for “comp stomp” games, but that’s typically how I do multi in 4X games.
Speaking of which, had a game going with a friend (6 player, 2v2v2, huge seaside map) that we had to abandon around turn 130 or so due to turn times. The last turn we played, I think we waited 5+ minutes and it was still going. The game wasn’t stuck either, after a few minutes I got went from Team 2 to Team 3, then eventually a remaining tribe.
CPU usage, disk usage, and network activity were low, so I don’t think it was just crunching too much. I didn’t really see a lot of movement of units during this time either. This spike in turn times did happen after the AI teams declared war on each other, but it was getting slow even before that.
I don’t know, it almost had a feel of an issue we ran into with our own project where we would get these long waits due to synchronization issues between multiple threads where we were spending more time on that than we were saving by splitting the work off onto different threads/cores. I have NO CLUE how Old World is architected, just trying to explain how it felt and what the performance profile looked like. I don’t think I saw any core go over 12% usage while we were waiting.
I think I still have that save somewhere if that’s of use to a dev. Just PM me with info on where to send it and I’ll get it over.
I believe there is an AI infinite loop issue with mixed human/AI games (which aren’t tested very often). If you could post the save, it would be useful.
Making two tweaks to difficulty that you might want to know about. First, higher AI Development levels will increase the size of the map a bit, so that they will start with larger empires but there will be more empty space available to compensate for it. (This is in today’s patch.) Second, I’m adding an AI Advantage setting which defaults to off, which is basically the way AI bonuses have worked in previous 4X games (more civics, training, science, money…), so that you can start Development None but give the AI High Advantage, so it will start with one city but produce things faster. My opinion is that the former is better, but some might enjoy the older way. (Or do both!!!)
Man I am glad you made that off by default. Because it is one of the things that really tweaks me about the Civ AI. I simply hate the straight ‘give AI huge amounts of resources from thin air’. Bigger enemy that you have to smartly pick around until you can go toe to toe? I can dig that. But ‘you defeated their army, so they get another one for free’ irks.
So it will be possible to start on Great difficulty with AI Play To Win and AI High Advantage? Strictly for gaming geniuses or previously-unfulfilled masochists.
This just could be because I’m a bit rubbish at this one and love it nonetheless, but I’ll go out on a limb and venture to guess that at this point in the release cycle (pretty sure base game has been free more than once on Epic) that making it harder won’t change anything.
The people looking for a real challenge play each other, everyone else is already getting owned by the AI.
Cool that you provide options for both. Personally, the fact that the AI doesn’t rely on overwhelming resource advantages is one of my favorite things about the game. I distinctly remember one of the moments in Civ5 where I became really disenchanted with it early on. I was at war with an AI player and was making sure to raid/pillage their luxury resources as a way of hurting their Happiness/economy. It didn’t seem to have any impact which is when I looked at the settings and realized they got such large bonuses that knocking out a luxury here or there had absolutely no impact. They fundamentally were not playing by the same rules, and not in a fun asymmetric way.
Anyway, I love that the AI plays fair and can still put up a decent game. Very very rare in this genre.
Old World? I don’t think that’s true.
OH, another coffee moment. I was thinking this was OTC thread. Ignore me! I for some reason have an old timers moment with the name of this game.
Game of the Week - 7/25
As Babylon in a duel sized map against Persia, with a number of barbarian locations and two tribes.
Persia starts already controlling the West, and immediately begins Manifest Destiny’ing their way east. I was able to snag the south and the very eastern edge of the map.
Despite focusing on claiming as many city locations as quickly as possible, Persia held a significant city advantage throughout the game.
There was a brief period in the early mid game where Babylon seemed to hold a military tech advantage and might have tried to test quality vs quantity, but in the end Babylon won an ambition game around turn 150.
Peaceful relations with Persia (pleased) were maintained by sending trading caravans every 3-7 turns for most of the game.
I absolutely hate peaceful and/or tall games, but that seems to be the surest route to defeating the AI in most situations where they start with an overwhelming military advantage.
How did you handle this one?
Just a quick formatting note. That kind of spoiler tag used to work, but was changed a few years ago in Discourse. Now spoiler needs to be on its own line, just like end spoiler, otherwise it doesn’t parse it, unless both spoiler and end spoiler are in the same paragraph.
Thanks. I just assumed the system was showing me, the author, the spoiled version without blur.
Fixed.
I have just discovered by accident that you can reorder the next action buttons by dragging them about. This appears to change the keybindings to match.
Oh wow, that’s brilliant!
Ran into something I do not like.
For the first time ever, I took the option to make the captured child my ward. A few turns later I noticed that my heir was no longer my heir, the ward is.
Woa! Maybe I do not understand the meaning of “ward” or maybe I missed a warning somewhere, but I definitely did not see that coming, nor would I think that that is the way it would have worked historically.
However, the key is whether the game makes clear that that is the choice you are making. Unless I was blind to something, I did not. (And, of course, the game does not clarify the age of the ward, so you do not know whether this person will be the older than your own children.)
I’m not actually familiar with this - do you remember what the event was called?
Wow, I’m dumb. I’ve been wondering this whole time why my scouts never got the chop wood action no matter what, so I’ve tended to favor high discipline so I could always buy wood when I ran low or couldn’t get a trade deal. Workers. Wow.
I’m not familiar with this event either, but I’d be surprised if it changed your heir without telling you that was going to happen. Especially if it somehow did it several turns later. I’m curious to hear more details, since the game is always very specific about who’s next in line, as well as giving you the tools to manage your line of succession.
You even get wood from scrub tiles for free. You have to do it manually, but it doesn’t even cost an action to “harvest” it.
-Tom
Let me tell you, it’s going to be a golden age of sustainable wood-based construction in Egypt from now on. Stone is over.