[Freeciv] I upgraded to 1.14 beta

[Mark Metson <markm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi, thanks for locating the required sound-library RPM for me, it worked 
and I am now playing 1.14 beta. Not the 1.14.1 just announced, I need an 
RPM of that before I can upgrade to that as I cannot compile on this box 
(I am using the household router as an Xwindows terminal, naughty 
enough of me without proposing to also start using it for compiling.)

It seems to me as if the AI is a better opponent in this 1.14 beta than it 
was in the 1.13 that came with RedHat 8.0. Could be my imagination? It 
seems to actually build wonders now, before there were a few it did not 
ever seem to actually complete. Sure ti always used to grab the pyramids 
and the great library but it only ever seemed to toay with most of the 
modern-era wonders?

I can understand it not bothering with the Hoover Dam  since it never 
seems to build factories but I dont recall it ever completing Shakespear's 
Theatre before whereas now it does. I dont know if it would ever have 
actually completed the Cure for Cancer because I haven't given it a chance 
to now since seeing it was actually serious nowadays about completing the 
Theatre.

I dont know how the AI actually chooses what to do, but I get the 
impression that comes at me in waves. If it has ironclads and I don't, it 
throws them at me; once it has destroyers it comes at me unitl it sees 
that I have metallurgy, then it goes home to develop howitzers and comes 
back with them until I too have howitzers, whereupon it looks like maybe 
it might have given up on attacking me and instead decided to head for the 
stars?

Once I stole the howizers (I was behind in research due to throwing all my 
trade into money to put factories everywhere) I found it far too easy to 
break its massive empire - it was just one massive AI versus me by then, 
only two of the other twelve AIs survived as tiny remnants, one AI civ had 
wiped out almost al lthe others. I simply loaded four howizers and four 
mech inf onto one transport, sailed over to its capital and found it 
defended by only two mech inf. Presto, it broke in two when it lost its 
capital. Too easy.

I think the AI suffers a lot from not doing strategic/surgical strikes. It 
was far far vaster than I and yet wasn't a real problem once it stopped 
throwing attack units at me, and even those attack units were like high 
tech barbarians really, an annoyance and attrition but not really aimed at 
taking my capital or my wonder-cities. All I have to do once I get my 
factories and manufacturing plants and offshore platforms and stock 
exchanges - by which time my few cities has more production than them and 
maybe more money output too - is go shopping for the wonders that I want 
or just take out the capital of the largest AI civilisation. Too easy.

Also, I know the AI doesn't use air units, but I hear tell that in payciv 
fighters autoattack bombers? If that is true then maybe even just building 
fighers in its cities might help. It does at least build SAM batteries so 
I guess that is something. Today I am following in its footsteps by using 
howitzers instead of going direct to bombers though and that just seems 
too easy. On the other hand it also looks like there isn't really much you 
can do against numerous howitzers? But at least it could pile a few more 
units in its capital and wonder-cities couldn't it?

MOf course I dont really know how the heck anyone without the Theatre 
would manage to muster a full transport. Gotta be a pain. But maybe the AI 
simply changes government when it wants to mass troops? Its little 
transports having only one howizer and one mech inf are more an annoyance 
than a reral threat, occassionally it semds a couple of them at one target 
but I think it would be much more of a threat if it would get serious 
about one of my really important cities and send a serious attack force 
instead of just sending these little harrassing things at my peripheral 
cities.

I suspect part of the problem might be that it does not understand the
massive difference industrialisation can make. Its as if it thinks the
fact it is three times my production and trade makes it ahead of me so it
can afford to sit back and leave me alone for a while. As soon as I have
built some factories, or certainly by the time I start on manufacturing 
plants, my small nation becomes number one in the world in production. 
Though actually I have also sometimes been number one even without 
factories since admittedly I do focus my citizens on the land and improve 
the land instead of just throwing up harbours all over the place. Even if 
the AI does not itself build factories and manufacturing plants and 
offshore platforms it maybe ought to take into consideration the fact that 
I might do so and not be so complacent. I always win by going all-out to 
build the hoover dam and factories and manufacturing plants and offshore 
platforms. Sheer production always seems to win for me. I dont need all 
those puny cities of the AI nations, in fact I am learning that in 
bothering to take their cities I am jhust wasting my resources since I 
then have to throw so much effort into bringing those puny cities up to 
"par". Really their main use today has been whenever I need more engineers 
I go buy a puny city from the nearest puny-remnant AI nation to build 
another engineer unit for me. I think the AI's approach of taking over all 
those puny cities of everyone else's does not seem to work very well. 
Maybe even against other AIs it should do like I do: locate the capital 
and take that, then when a new capital is chosen go attack that. Seems to 
work much better than bothering with all those puny cities that don't even 
have factories and manufacturing plants yet.

Of course global warming is likely to be a problem. :) A friend who plays 
PayCiv on Windows claims that eventually global death occurs - an ice age. 
Is that true? Because I am actually toying with the idea of deliberately 
doing global warming since I can maybe keep correcting the effect with my 
engineers whereas the AI will probably not fix the effects and its cities 
will get even more pathetic than they already are?

-MarkM-

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