falconne2

The things you've described are not exploits, they are core game mechanics. They are not exploits unavailable to the AI. The reason the AI is beating you is because it is playing the game the way it's supposed to be played and you're purposefully handicapping yourself. When strategy game fans play, they want the intellectual stimulation of a complex suite of game mechanics which they try to comprehend then figure out how to maximise output. That's what a strategy is, and the

[quote who="SeraphLeviathan" reply="71" id="2770862"] a) It's intelligent from a gameplay standpoint. It alleviates the problems of unnecessary micromanagement. Why is it unnecessary? Because all of the players would eventually find ways to utilize far-flung resources and instead of us having to bend over backwards to do this, the game does it for us. The problem is that it's an unnecessary step. It adds a level of complexity that is detrimental to gameplay (notice the word is gameplay,

[quote who="Nick-Danger" reply="61" id="2769572"] Civ4 has a moderate position -- some resources are global, some local, and transportation can make a local into a global. There is little micro, and what there is is made pretty easy by the great UI. [/quote] I reckon that compromise worked well. A resource is available in every city that it is connected to through the trade network. The lack of a "network" in Elemental is detrimental and I think that needs to be added.

I suggest you wait. It'll be quite fun in a few months, after the AI and the core game code has been exposed through an API so the community can have at it for a couple of months. Right now as a strategy gamer you'll likely be disappointed by the lack of depth and AI.

Oookaay... now that we've all had a chance to vent some steam shall we get the thread vaguely on topic, like some ideas on how the AI can be improved so we'd have some things to try out when the API is released? Or at least, such ideas would indicate how detailed the initial Python API should be. Obviously I believe the game's mechanics are simple, but even if you disagree, I'm pretty sure most people here can steamroll the game at its most difficult inside of two or three hundred tur

[quote who="kenata" reply="26" id="2767814"]What I find really funny about this thread is that there are mods trying to do these very things, and yet we get limited support. I personally have been trying to add special abilities to units in just these ways, but again no support. If you guys want to see this stuff soon, support the modders as they have the time and energy to make this game great.[/quote] Until some APIs for the AI are released, is there much point adding special abilit

[quote who="dragoaskani" reply="61" id="2767755"] I dunno, both games are pretty much won in the first 100-200 turns if even that[/quote] Actually this is to do with AI skill, not game complexity. There's a difference between the time you know you've won and the time you actually win. Civ is too complex for the AI after the industrial revolution, which happens 100-200 turns in. When you get there your production increases exponentially and if no AI has got there long bef

Yes it's annoying many people are just skimming the thread and assuming it's a question of what game has the best AI. If we were talking about good AIs, then neither Elemental nor Civ would even be a contender in such a discussion. Much of the annoyance for me has been the disappointment with the gameplay in Elemental. This being Stardock, I was hoping for a game with the complexity of EU III, or Hearts of Iron 3, or Victoria II, but with the presentation and approachability

Actually I'm only active on Elemental. Hmm, it appears now I have +2. Maybe it takes some time for the total to get processed and the first time I happened to look at my profile was the wrong time [e digicons]:blush:[/e] oops

I haven't really looked at this Karma thing yet, but now that I do, I'm not sure I know how it works. Two users have given me karma but my value is +1. What's up with that?

Yeah I know Brad is against hexagons. It's a shame because they give you so much more options in tactical battle. Still, facing direction and rotation is doable with square tiles too and it will add more depth to the battles by making flanking and formations important.

As others have said, not enough special abilities and magic is way too generic. Most importantly, it's called tactical battle, but there is no tactics here at all. It's a strategic game, like simple chess, not tactical. To be tactical the terrain must matter. Things like LoS, higher ground, cover and concealment should matter. If the battle map was hex, it could be made much more tactical and interesting. I've posted this elsewhere, but I'll do it again: You can make a

[quote who="p22" reply="40" id="2766796"] You have both tactical and strategic battles, unit customizing system that is much less forgiving to bad designs (compared to promoting some unit in Civ), plus Civ4 is made so that it's game concepts are AI friendly. And questing and creature economy are also concepts difficult to train AI for. Not to mention it's difficult to train AI to place buildings properly, without having cities block each other in growth. Or use spells on strategic level.

[quote who="VR_IronMana" reply="30" id="2766586"]Well since Elemental AI will evidently be so easy to create, I'm looking forward to playing several community AI mods once we're able to really get at the guts of the AI [/quote] I'm pretty sure Brad will get the AI optimised very quickly. He just didn't have time till now to really concentrate on it.

[quote who="Tormy-" reply="28" id="2766579"] What? Because you can't rush the patched Civ4 AI [@normal diff - which is not getting any bonuses] you say? [/quote] Go ahead and try killing 9 AIs on normal difficulty inside of 200 turns on a map of comparable size to Elemental. The point is not about how smart the AI is, it's that there is so much going on in the game, even against a dumb AI it will take much longer to achieve a victory condition (and the BTS normal AI is smart

[quote who="divvu80" reply="26" id="2766571"] Now, again, my point was never wich AI is the best, I was pointing out how easily Civ was dismissed as a simple, while I feel that, ATM, Eemental is much simpler.[/quote] Exactly. The Civ AI is still very haphazard, but that's because the game is so complicated. I'm just surprised at the suggestion Elemental is anywhere near that yet, when it's obvious the designers deliberately kept the game simple so they could get the balance and t

[quote who="Tormy-" reply="21" id="2766542"] Now what about Civ4? Building cities/units -> expanding & taking care of culture,religions & happiness? You call this complicated? The gameplay mechanics of Civ4 are pretty simple imo. [/quote] Well that's where we disagree. If I can figure out a few simple rules to blitzkrieg Elemental in 200 turns, it's not complex enough. I know the game will be made more complex later, but I can't see what you're findin

[quote who="Annatar11" reply="17" id="2766516"] Well, that comment was mostly aimed at the people who directly compare the AIs of the two games as one being better or worse than another. Because each needs to do very different things, I don't think it's a fair comparison. A lot of complexity is added by the number of things the AI needs to deal with, not just how complex an individual "thing" is. I think your comments grossly oversimplify the complexity of the decision making required fo

[quote who="Annatar11" reply="7" id="2766461"] Perhaps because the AI in Civ only needs to worry about building its towns and normal troops, while Elemental's AI needs to worry about keeping its Sovereign alive, recruiting heroes, equipping heroes/sovereign, leveling heroes/sovereign, fighting monsters, doing quests, clearing goodie huts.. [/quote] I think the question here is how difficult it is to write the AI, not whether the AI of one game can handle the gameplay

[quote who="Tormy-" reply="2" id="2766378"]Interesting video. Note #1.: Imo the [patched up] Civ4 AI is far from being perfect [it's mediocre] and it's been made for a "simple" game basically. I am pretty sure that the EWoM AI will be very good later on, but you shouldn't forget 1 thing: EWoM is a much more complex game than Civ4. So writing the AI for EWoM is/will be much more harder than writing the AI for Civ4. [/quote] Ummm, no. Right now, strategic

[quote who="Mivo" reply="222" id="2766306"] Following the German forums (it's been out here for a week or so), it has issues and was a bit "dumbed down" from the previous installment. They also released a patch, then pulled it because it introduced new crashing bugs. I'm glad I didn't pre-order it (granted, it was a result of Elemental's launch), though I'll pick it up when it has matured a little. It also lacks any sort of multiplayer. A reader survey at PC Games (one of the

Some people have suggested waiting until you've expanded before researching the Adventure resource reveal techs. This is incorrect - those techs reveal the same number of resources regardless of how many cities you have. All it means if you wait longer is the spawns will be more spread out. In fact, it's much better to get, the first one at least, as early as possible, as extra gold mines early on is very valuable. Also, it's better anyway to have the resources concentrated around a few citie

[quote who="Wizaerd" reply="216" id="2765622"] Oddly enough I've been playing more real time type of games such as Settlers 7, Dawn of Discovery, and Tropico 3.[/quote] Speaking of which, Patrician IV is just around the corner. Now that's one heckova good trading/economic sim.

[quote who="Mivo" reply="148" id="2764929"]I actually don't know how I feel about the removal of the stacks. Pretty much everyone in this thread (I probably missed some posts) seems to welcome this. I wonder how well the AI will handle this, though. I really don't play TBS games online, so the quality of the AI is an important aspect for me.[/quote] I'm dubious about it too. I'm all for tactical warfare on hexes, but I think it should be fought out on a separate tactical scr

[quote who="Mtn_Man" reply="142" id="2764883"] You cite this as a difference, but it's exactly how I feel about Elemental.[/quote] Well I think that those of us who are complaining (and the reviewers) feel differently. I've played a game after each patch release and I've yet to play one where, with all the AIs on at ridiculous, I haven't wiped out 5 or 6 of them before turn 150 and given up in boredom. After Brad's had a month on the AI I'll have another go, but frankly, even the