Explaining The Difficulty Levels Of Civ 3
Vložit
- čas přidán 5. 09. 2024
- I'll be streaming an AI vs AI sid game! / suedeciviii noon EST, Sunday the 28th of July. There will be a prize for the viewer who picks the correct winner :)
I forgot to mention, goody hut results are worse on higher difficulty levels
Things not affected by difficulty level: AI playstyle/programming, and combat results between players. Despite getting a million free units, the combat results themselves are fair.
If you want to access debug mode, go to the map editor (civ3QEdit), then click on scenario properties. Turn it on, save as a new scenario, and load the scenario through civ content.
An AI only game on Sid difficulty would be fun to watch
That's a good idea for a stream one day when I'm too lazy to play
Ok, I'm doing it. Tomorrow, noon EST on my Twitch stream :)
Ill be at work but I’ll definitely watch it after if you upload it to youtube
@@drrichybanks1396 You can watch the replay on Twitch, and if something especially fun happens I'll post clips on youtube :)
And if the idea is popular I'll just straight up record something similar for youtube too.
@@suedeciviii7142 I loved this game i want well functional civilization III
First thing I noticed when jumping from Chieftain to Warlord was that it was nearly impossible for me to complete any wonders before other civs.
You still get a big bonus to production and growth on chieftain. So make sure your macromanagement of your empire is tight and you should still be able to stomp in the wonder race.
Not sure if I missed it, or it wasn't in the video. Thankfully civfanatics helped me out. To enable debug mode, go to scenario, then scenario properties in the editor. Then next to the tab for barbarian activity, there's a flag for debug mode. You want that checked for debug mode.
What is a debug mode?? Is it that mode in the screen? That he can see all map?
I've been playing this game for years on lower difficulties because I'm mostly a casual player and don't want my boat rocked too hard, this was very informative. I'll probably start trying Monarch from now on. I enjoy having a challenge while still feeling like I'm progressing well, and this video cleared up a lot of my misconceptions. Thanks!
Hey how are you doing on the harder difficulties two years later?
750 years ago when I played the game for hours and hours, I'd ALWAYS set the workers to auto. Figures they'd program the auto to fuck you up. Just like C&C leave the units to auto target you'll get rocket squads targeting infantry or infantry and snipers targeting tanks.
I've guessed that there's some consistent correlation, across all games, between the list of the AIs in the spaceship launch screen, and their move order. Using debug mode, the order of their moves on the first turn was the Inca, Portugal, Byzantines, English, Egypt, France, and Maya. On the spaceship launch screen they are listed from bottom to top as Inca, Portugal, Byzantines, English, Egypt, France, and Maya. This suggests that their move order can get predicted from the F10 screen. That could be useful as follows: You want one civ to attack someone. So, you try to get the lower civ to be at war with one of the upper civs. Or if you want a civ to counterattack another then, you pick the civ above the other one on the F10/spaceship launch screen. I don't have a good read on whether the AI attacking civ tends to win the war, or if the counterattacking civ tends to win the war. Assuming that them equivalent in units and resources, it might also vary with where each civ lies in the tech tree. I also don't know how much that affects them given them both as equivalent.
Oooh, good observation. I'll use that spaceship trick from now on.
If you preselect your opponents, the order of the civs in the F10/spaceship screen also matches the order in which you preselected your opponents. So, if you put the opponent that you want to win wars and thus eventually become a superpower you might just manage to cajole that into happening by putting them at the bottom of the opponent screen. If it's someone that has an early UU, I would guess it a rather safe bet to make that they win in their first war. Arabia, I think makes for an interesting example, at least assuming that they didn't have an early golden age via wonder building. Putting them on the bottom of the opponent list or the top and getting them to fight one of their neighbors in the middle ages has them becoming large, but they would probably be the weakest large civ you could hope for. America makes for another one, since I think them most likely to get trounced by someone else. If trying to get people to fight in the middle ages, France can probably go at the top killing more AI units on average than anyone else in defensive and counterattacking mode. Greece, Sumeria, Carthage, and Rome near the top also helps to kill off more AI units early.
Maybe if you want to win a war with a huge deficit of units, you want to put China on the bottom and try to fight with them against some opponent in the middle ages. If you want to win an ancient age war, you put the Iroquois on the bottom or maybe Rome and use them as the help to take more territory.
Thinking more I'm inclined to use more of the approach of having the defending civs on top and working with them. Maybe Greece as your friend (I can't tell who would be better between them and Sumeria) or France on the top. Then you fight wars with them against the target AI, who hopefully attack their regular defenders instead of your veteran defenders (though I'm not sure how that works exactly). No, that's not right. You want to have equivalent defenders to your helper AI. So, Sumeria would be the best choice as help killing off while attracting the AI units to attack them instead of you.
Ugh, but who wants to have Sumeria as an opponent on a high difficulty level, when the AI actually can play them somewhat well.
Hmmm... if your neighbor is Greece or France and they are at the top of the list, and the opponent your stand at war with doesn't have borders in common with you, then more of the AIs units can get killed. Probably France at the top ends up the best choice.
They need to do a definitive edition of this game. Update AI and a few graphics and keep everything else the same.
That's basically 4. I like the non demanding graphics like this just add more civs and map options
A god darned colosseum in Philadelphia.
The disrespect, right? "Hey I'm just gonna dump this 100 shield build in this 1 pop city I captured from you"
I wish i saw this video 15 years sto when i bought the freakin game! -.-‘
yep same for me
Little old me back in the day decades ago could only beat Warlord, but Im on Regent now doing pretty well with your advice. Hope to get decent enough to beat monarch.
Fun fact: Civ 1 gives you a extra startint settler on chieftain, sometimes (yeah not always as far as i remember)
You get a free settler in Civ 1 and Civ 2 if your starting capital location is considered "bad" by some internal game logic. Since it doesn't require support it's way better as a free worker.
@@iiiiiifggffggffgfgfg yes you're right, pretty sure i booted up emperor once and i got that free settler
Lesson learnt: always take advantage of the AI's stupidity
I've never used debug mode before. I feel surprised to learn that the AIs apparently run maximum science initially (if someone sees something different, I've looked at Sid level). That implies that they do adjust their sliders. My question is when and why. Is it always a unit support issue? Do they ever raise it if unit support is low? I think they rarely to never use their luxury slider.
It might be a good idea to set up a map with one tile island where you can plant a city and not worry about it getting captured until marines to observe AI behavior. At least, that's quicker than playing yourself and also observing AI behavior, though seeing how they play when you do might give more information as to how your playstyle influences their behavior... though the issue ends up that you know more about them than in a non-debug mode game.
Do you know how does the AI calculates how strong you are militarily or how high of a threat you are?
Maybe depends on how many units you have, what type of units, your tech, your goverment, maybe it sums the attack and defense combined of all you army, and so on?
Maybe its good to know to try to deter the AI of declearing war on you by having a very large and advanced army and so on
Maybe a video covering this mechanic would be amazing !
thank you very much
It's the same factor that determines what the military adviser tells you. "Compared to them we're weak!"
It's not a perfect calculation. IIRC, it focuses more on quantity than quality, but it does take quality into account.
@@suedeciviii7142 Awesome !! thank you xD l
@@suedeciviii7142 It's a variation on "health x stat" where stat is attack/def/movement but IIRC attack is overvalued, defense is undevalued, and movement is marginally even considered. It should work relatively well other than the over-valuation of attack, but doing your bomber meme thing, I noticed bombard is also vastly under-valued. Other than that, from that civfanatics thread, I remember the threshold being 20% (that is, your military size is "comparable" if you're within 20% strength difference, be it above or below).
Sometimes you get conflicting information from the military advisor and the foreign advisor. The military advisor may say we are weak or average, but the foreign advisor says they fear our Knight.
Your strength also determines whether enemies will try to extort you.
To correct your ai happy level.
Ai always get regent happy elvel on monarch and higher. So they always get 2 base happy citizen.
Same is for combat bonus to barb and ocn. Ai max at regent, and they don't lose any more.
Interesting, I was unsure of that. Thanks for the info :)
Learning how the AI plays has really helped my game. Baiting them into moving their troops certain directions, I've even learned to identify where undiscovered resources are thanks to the way they plant
Going from Chiftan to warlord seems to be a bigger jump in cost factor then any other jump going up 1 difficulty it's a 40% reduction in cost, even going from Deity to Sid is only a 34% reduction.
number of citizen born content is based on per player difficulty. this cannot be set in the game normally, but the save files contain that information. i dont know about singleplayer, but in multiplayer all AIs have player difficulty regent set, while humans have the difficulty that was set in the difficulty setting. with savegame edits you can use this fact to give weaker players a handicap bonus
5:00 AI progress by difficulty.
14:00 Civ AI was always stupid.
This guy is the foremost expert on Civ 3 in the world.
I tried regent and got wrecked :) i have so much to learn
Lol same. I can only have fun on Chieftain
@@doscaminos204 dude. Its been 6 months and now i can survive on emperor
Its been 7 months. I can win emperor. Demigod is a nice challenge
@@doscaminos204 but honestly i agree that chieftain is fun. Even i play it sometimes just to have fun. I tried 60% water pangea with max amount of other civs on chieftain and tried to win domination without going to war. Chieftain is a challenge if you challenge yourself on it
@@eetuthereindeer6671 what are some tips you give to play the higher difficulties competently?
I was playing a late game on Demigod difficulty. I couldn't defeat an AI in the industrial era so i waited till modern, then I find out it has around 1800 units waiting to attack (had to turn off the animations as it was taking forever). He wiped out my whole civilization in a single turn, only one city survived (the one i had my army on). Is this a bug? There is no way they could have as many units, we both had half of the map (tiny), but i had more citities. There is no F$%& way he has so much unit support with 15 cities to get 1800 units.
Do you have the save files? Doesn't sound too farfetched. This is why you don't let games go late.
I like this video a lot. One thing though. It's not actually all that difficult to win with one city on monarch level, if you can just avoid getting conquered. I've done it without having a freshwater bonus by 20k before.
I do agree with the part about expanded rapidly as most powerful though. But also, there exist things like having combo settler factories where you produce units and settlers. That way you expand your population, and your military at roughly the same time.
Oh yeah. IIRC emperor is the part where OCC becomes super difficult.
But from the save files new players have sent me, generally if they can't win on chieftain the issue is that they just let the AI take more land than them. Still a winnable spot, but compounded with all the other errors they make, it's fatal.
I've always leaned towards just getting settlers out once I hit 3 population, instead of getting too fancy with a bunch of granaries. Personal preference definitely. But while granaries are arguably even more useful at lower difficulty levels, it a good exercise. Because if a player is building a settler when they hit size 3, they don't have time for all the other useless/situational stuff that might slow down their expansion.
These videos are great and really helpful for my play
I have a question:
When you have finished researching every technology, you can research "Future Techs", but what do they do?
They only increase your score
@@suedeciviii7142 Okay, thank you
Future Tech 32 is rocket boots
Hey suede is the AI still limited by the maximum tech speed on sid?
Was it ever possible to mod the AI behavior, i.e make it play more as a decent human player?
No, afaik it's hard coded. The only things you can change are like, what programming style their units are. You could get them to treat spearmen as offensive units for example.
How'd you get widescreen without scaling?
I explain it here:
czcams.com/video/njNmtfIPRSE/video.html
Need to dust this game off I guess! Played it tons as a teen, but pretty much always on chieftain I guess. Then steamroll the AI with conscript mech Inf when I finally got it :D
Good information. Just what I was looking for.
Can you explain again how to activate debug mode?
I go in editor and load a scenario but i dont have debug radio button in scenario properties.
It should be near MAP Options ?
Below MAP Options i have only "Select barbarian activity"
maybe should activate in ini file?And how?
And another question: work only with scenarios?I want to use a save file.
You can't use debug mode on a save file sadly. Not without downloading an external application.
To turn on debug mode, open the scenario editor, scenario, scenario properties, then click debug mode. Are you sure you're in the civ 3 conquests scenario editor? I don't see map options anywhere in it.
@@suedeciviii7142 Ok.I see it.I have CIV3 complete version.So i must go to the Conquest folder and open editor from there.Not the editor from main CIV3 folder.
Thank you.
Have you ever won on sid difficulty?
This video tells me to stick to playing Warlord difficult. ^^
This video tells me I should give at least monarch a go, regent is "too easy" - or it should be if I play my games right!
Hello, I am just wondeing if anyone else has some AI issues. I always end up against America and Inca when I choose random civs. I like to choose random because then it's a suprise on who I play againsy, anyone have a way to fix this other than choose the civs I play against?
The "culturally linked start location" setting is bugged. It's supposed to make civs of the same culture group spawn close together. But instead it will spawn a disproportionate number of civs from the Americas culture group. Turn that settings off and the problem will go away.
@@suedeciviii7142 thank you so much!
Sorry to be dumb, but I cannot find where to change it. Can u explain it to me plz?
@@caltroy4899 When you start a new game, in the civ select screen, you get to choose some game rules. Accelerated production, preserve random seed, cultural conversions, etc.
Culturally linked start locations is one of those options.
how did you open the whole map?
Hahaha, yeah! Rapid EXpansion is great, and REX means king after all!!! :-)
Perfect timing just got home
This is a very nice seed... can you tell me what it is? I would like to play on this map.
No sadly. Do you know how to extract the seed from the save file? Best I can do is send you the save file on regent from turn 1.
Hmm, not exactly but I can look back, and I could probably look on the internet on how to extract the seed from a save file.
It's hard, you need some sort of external application for it.
So I just loaded up a game as the celts and I think this is a map YOU could win on Sid as, you start with 2 fish, iron, horses, and spices within your capital, you also start on a floodplain and a wheat on the floodplain, and you can reach 2 other floodplains if you expand a bit, (which is inevitable) and you can reach some silk as well if you expand a little... the seed is:208931, it’s a 70% water Pangea, normal climate, is a warm temperature, and it’s 5 billion in age, standard map size, and I have barbs off, but I don’t know if the barbs will effect the world you will get... but you really need to try the beat it on demigod+ because you’re a god compared to me and I could probably beat this map on Demi+ also if you do play this world make sure to move your settler south to the hill so you can access the 2 fish and that hill has the iron for Gallic swordsman on it... thanks suede!
@@StrattonOakmont420 Is that the correct seed? The number looks kinda small, and I loaded it up and it wasn't as you described it.
you motivated me to try emperor
So, about building units before the settler. You can build warrior and it would take 1 citizen from you instead of building settler and waiting. You will still have a village of 1 citizen in it and then you can start your settler only that he is late now.
How do you get both the units and the settler fast?
Warriors don't cost population, are you saying that they do? Or am I misreading you?
@@suedeciviii7142 yeah that is what I said. It might depend on the version of the game? Is there a limit on number of them that are free?
@@maxmagnus777Building a warrior never consumes a population point.
The only units in the base game that cost a population point are workers (1 point) and settlers (2 points)
@@suedeciviii7142 ehm so what is the point of granary then? I was sure that it is used to not consume population?
@@maxmagnus777 It speeds up growth so you can build workers/settlers faster
Great vidz. I wonder what u think about victory point scoring ?
Not properly designed around a standard game of Civ 3. Works great in the conquests though.
@@suedeciviii7142 Thank u
how do you, play on debug mode?
Open up the file in the map editor and there's an option to enable.
it's annoying when people brag about easy wins on anything higher than Regent
I am so happy the americans and persian is not destroyed😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😊😊😊
nice
vary nice, i am also trying to rebalance the difficulty levels. You know. Starting with 4 plus workers, 2 plus settlers, and 18 units, and extra suply cap of 10 per city, and cost factor of 4 is ridiculous. As the easy levels are ridiculous as well. The fact that when the AI build a city, units are auto spawning there makes it very unbalance there. And the cost factor unbalance the wonder building. I mean it is ok to have a cost factor of 40%, but when it is about wonders it is disgusting. You can't complete even if you are exclusively building. Them cost factor on science makes them research the tech and start building from zero and completes before you, even if you have more production and a dozen turns of advantage. I don't care about army cap or cost factor in units, i just kill tons and tons of AI units. But it turns impossible to build wonders. The only way i can build colossus in Sid, is playing versus civs that do not start with bronze working. Sometimes, my capital have to start the game building it!! 3 settlers vs 1 is also very unballanced. I focus on early game, it is the most fun for me, but that Sid AI growing is disgusting. I mean, i never play Sid with agressive AI. My only way is beeing weak building improvements at early, so that start build armies in medieval ages. You can't war early on Sid. That is missdesign for early sid games i think.
Sid is supposed to be incredibly difficult, the original version of the game ended at Deity and the player base was complaining that it was too easy so for one of the early patches the developers added Sid difficulty and the goal was to make it so difficult that no one could complain about it being too easy.