Hello everyone.
I just came back for more C2C testing (I played something like 2.4 last time) and as allways I found out few strange things, few glitches (I love glitches :P) and few problems (things I don't understand which could use some help). So here's the list.
Graphical glitches:
I. Flying animals have low fixed "height", which means they are barely seen through the trees (I believe this one is an old problem).
II. Storms over land (one of the BUG options I use) have bad habit of covering up units under them, I mean completely. Looks like for the terrain the rain texture is transparent OK, but for units, resource and other models it's not. This brings many problems when fighting (I don't see what is going on in the storm).
III. Some of units (mostly animals but some player-owned units like prehistoric scouts) there are no fight animation. Again the problem is not seeing how much the unit is actually doing except for the final result of the encounter.
Difficulty level questions:
a) Are the C2C difficulty levels the same as in clean Civ IV or are AI/cheating drastically improved?
b) Is the AI cheating and if Yes my question is how exactly (more gold, faster teching, etc.)?
I'm playing on Prince difficulty level (as I allways did in Civ IV) and from the very beginning I'm completely overwhelmed by enemies (pointswise) to the point where me and worst AI are at around 350-400 points (right now - end of Ancient Era) and another 5 AI enemies are at 600-650 points. Also I did manage to build only 2 wonders, all other were build first by AI, same for religion (I luckily found 1 religion after trying like 5 before with zero result).
c) I believe that not all traits are "balanced" (and I don't even know if they were intended to be). I believe leaders with traits that give negative "relations" bonus like "megalomaniac" changes the difficulty drastically (because after few turns of knowing other civilization the just hate you so mich that they start war). I understant that Hitler and Napoleon should be the ones that force aggressive play-style but early engagements give nothing anyway.
Diplomacy/War/AI issues and strange things:
1) The AI seems to treat religion techs value as 0 (which is good) and don't want to trade them (also gives them for free with no problem via "spare for the good friend" option) BUT sometimes the want the religion tech from me as a part of exchange. Why is that? Do the AI want them just for points sometimes? Is giving this techs for free helping relations at all (if they are completely useless AI should ignore "gift" as well instead of thanking me)?
2) Why does AI start war "just for the heck of it"? My enemy (example) started war without attacking me at all (he have not enough army to even make me laugh - they just stay under my city, that's all). Which brings me to another question - strongly connected - what was the idea behind early engagements balance in C2C? At this point I believe the cities are undefeatable (damage per turn to attackers via tower + insane defensive bonuses + only the wall bonus can be destroyed by rams + zero units with strong bonuses against cities [the maceman doesn't count - their 50% is a joke compared to the defensive bonuses of other units]).
3) Question connected to the one before - how does one actually play military style in early game? Maybe I do something wrong (I try countering specific units, I allways do my best to have 2 types of cavalry which is what I love about subduing animals btw. - You can have bizon/elephant resource without working tile with it) but I can't find a way to successfully attack defending enemy units and cities. This game allways needed christmas-tree-style-of army ergo quantity > quality but right now it seems to me that to attack another player the only way to go is having AT LEAST triple his army. All the defensive bonuses in game completely overwhelm the offensive ones. One archer unit on the hill with forest can kill 3-4-5-maybe more melee units coming their way while healing at the same time. This is insane.
That's all for now (I seem to start work soon) but I'll be glad to post new things as I progress through the game. Thanks in advance for all the great answers - I look forward to reading them when I come back :)
I just came back for more C2C testing (I played something like 2.4 last time) and as allways I found out few strange things, few glitches (I love glitches :P) and few problems (things I don't understand which could use some help). So here's the list.
Graphical glitches:
I. Flying animals have low fixed "height", which means they are barely seen through the trees (I believe this one is an old problem).
II. Storms over land (one of the BUG options I use) have bad habit of covering up units under them, I mean completely. Looks like for the terrain the rain texture is transparent OK, but for units, resource and other models it's not. This brings many problems when fighting (I don't see what is going on in the storm).
III. Some of units (mostly animals but some player-owned units like prehistoric scouts) there are no fight animation. Again the problem is not seeing how much the unit is actually doing except for the final result of the encounter.
Difficulty level questions:
a) Are the C2C difficulty levels the same as in clean Civ IV or are AI/cheating drastically improved?
b) Is the AI cheating and if Yes my question is how exactly (more gold, faster teching, etc.)?
I'm playing on Prince difficulty level (as I allways did in Civ IV) and from the very beginning I'm completely overwhelmed by enemies (pointswise) to the point where me and worst AI are at around 350-400 points (right now - end of Ancient Era) and another 5 AI enemies are at 600-650 points. Also I did manage to build only 2 wonders, all other were build first by AI, same for religion (I luckily found 1 religion after trying like 5 before with zero result).
c) I believe that not all traits are "balanced" (and I don't even know if they were intended to be). I believe leaders with traits that give negative "relations" bonus like "megalomaniac" changes the difficulty drastically (because after few turns of knowing other civilization the just hate you so mich that they start war). I understant that Hitler and Napoleon should be the ones that force aggressive play-style but early engagements give nothing anyway.
Diplomacy/War/AI issues and strange things:
1) The AI seems to treat religion techs value as 0 (which is good) and don't want to trade them (also gives them for free with no problem via "spare for the good friend" option) BUT sometimes the want the religion tech from me as a part of exchange. Why is that? Do the AI want them just for points sometimes? Is giving this techs for free helping relations at all (if they are completely useless AI should ignore "gift" as well instead of thanking me)?
2) Why does AI start war "just for the heck of it"? My enemy (example) started war without attacking me at all (he have not enough army to even make me laugh - they just stay under my city, that's all). Which brings me to another question - strongly connected - what was the idea behind early engagements balance in C2C? At this point I believe the cities are undefeatable (damage per turn to attackers via tower + insane defensive bonuses + only the wall bonus can be destroyed by rams + zero units with strong bonuses against cities [the maceman doesn't count - their 50% is a joke compared to the defensive bonuses of other units]).
3) Question connected to the one before - how does one actually play military style in early game? Maybe I do something wrong (I try countering specific units, I allways do my best to have 2 types of cavalry which is what I love about subduing animals btw. - You can have bizon/elephant resource without working tile with it) but I can't find a way to successfully attack defending enemy units and cities. This game allways needed christmas-tree-style-of army ergo quantity > quality but right now it seems to me that to attack another player the only way to go is having AT LEAST triple his army. All the defensive bonuses in game completely overwhelm the offensive ones. One archer unit on the hill with forest can kill 3-4-5-maybe more melee units coming their way while healing at the same time. This is insane.
That's all for now (I seem to start work soon) but I'll be glad to post new things as I progress through the game. Thanks in advance for all the great answers - I look forward to reading them when I come back :)