Deguar Posted December 19, 2009 Share Posted December 19, 2009 Greetings all (from a oh this demo is fun but.. poster) I'm thoroughly enjoying the demo and am actively considering purchasing but.. Always islands question - got answered, go forum search Took me half a dozen games before I realised that you had to go into Trade to do Diplomacy stuff ie sue for peace. My ships still sporadically end up in mid land when out on a "go into that black spot over there" scouting mission, although it's become less noticable as updates roll in. I can't built an Airfield to save myself and have no idea why, manual not helpful there. I send out an infantry unit, hit the build airfield button and nothing happens. Annnnddd the main one... I am tearing my hair out over the lack of food, maybe it's a limitation of the demo map but within 20 turns I'm at starvation. If I can scrounge/buy/trade myself to about turn 50 I'm usually okay. However this involves going for the Fertilizer and Ecology techs almost straight away, which tech the AI totally ignores. The problem then rears it's ugly head again into the mid 100s and is generally the sole motivation to go attack someone else to try and desperately get some food. I've been playing the demo map with two novice AI and this morning tried going up to three novice AI which promptly led to a "rage quit". I started 5 games and each one led to me resigning it within 20 turns owing to me being unable to find sufficient food. Food just doesn't seem to be working (for me) economy wise and it seems to be as a result of either stringent scarcity or the food support cost of a city, everytime I take over a city there is a significant dip in per turn surplus. Of course the fact that it costs 3:1 when Oil/Steel sell at 1:1 makes life even more unbearable. So what tricks am I missing, is it the economy stupid or is it a limitation of the demo map (at which point obviously I'll get into "it feels a little too limited territory) P:S: The Captcha was horrifyingly unreadable and took several attempts to puzzle out Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deadmeat1471 Posted December 19, 2009 Share Posted December 19, 2009 your just either unlucky, or have way too many units - i found it hard but doable to survive in the demo and in the full game. Try capturing lots of resources and less towns, unlike most games, more cities = more mouths to feed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deguar Posted December 19, 2009 Author Share Posted December 19, 2009 your just either unlucky, or have way too many units - i found it hard but doable to survive in the demo and in the full game. Try capturing lots of resources and less towns, unlike most games, more cities = more mouths to feed I wish it was that simple, unfortunately the simple step of going from two > three novice AI players is dramatically making the demo unfun. My current about to be abandoned game is at the following stage Turn 11 - Money 72.8(-3.0) - Steel 86.4(-2.7) - Oil( 54.2(-4.6) - Food 35.3(-10.1) And there you see the problem, only eleven turns in yet in three turns I will be out of food even though the other resources are fine for good while. At the moment the only food visible on the map is a 5 wheat on the next island, so even if I manage to collect it which is going to take me about 8 turns to get a unit to I would still be hitting -5 (naturally my sole transport decided to pick this moment to run aground on land so I don't have any way to collect it). All I've done is capture one city and build two units which is leading to that -10 deficit per turn. Two cities are generating 40% of that deficit, there isn't enough food in visible range to overturn that. Even if I was generating surplus oil/steel I would need 300 oil/steel to get me 100 food which would only get me another 10 turns. Evidently you folks are having fun with 8 AIs and expert modes but I'm at a dozen aborted games today since trying to go from three>four players. The one game I did luck out and get barely sufficient food to get me past turn 20, all three AIs decided to declare war on me at turn 23 (Note: I'd only met one of them) which is another unfun experience particularly at the stage where it takes 15-20 turns to build a single transport/destroyer and the easiest available resources are on water. In basic terms, going from two > three novice AI players on the demo map is convincing me that the economy is irrevocably broken (even though it must have been tweaked to perfection) and the full game would just be a dissapointment once more blatant AI cheating started to become apparent as I stepped up from novice level. ~insert obligatory rant about AI not apparently developing since my C64 days 2.5 decades ago and we could write them in basic/hex ~ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deadmeat1471 Posted December 20, 2009 Share Posted December 20, 2009 meh i dont know. i played a tiny map with 10 players and JUST survived lol. Granted my entire army consisted of a battleship, 2 infantry and a tank Luck does play a factor tho, there have been times where ive had no food near me at all :/ generally what i did then was take an aggressive stance and find food resources fast. ....and dont rip on c64, i still sometimes play c64 games i bought on a disc ages ago the ai isnt perfect in this game, il grant it that, but its good enough for a challenge and brit intends on updating it and improving it, so its all good. and sheesh, you have well few resources i usdually have a massive surplus of iron and export it for cash, then buy me food, dunno whats up with that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brit Posted December 20, 2009 Share Posted December 20, 2009 I can't built an Airfield to save myself and have no idea why, manual not helpful there. I send out an infantry unit, hit the build airfield button and nothing happens. To build airfields, select an infantry unit. Press the "Airfield" button, then move your cursor over the map. (The cursor will change to a small building.) Right click on the location where you want to build the airfield. Once your infantry arrives there, it will take 5 turns to build. I am tearing my hair out over the lack of food, maybe it's a limitation of the demo map but within 20 turns I'm at starvation. If I can scrounge/buy/trade myself to about turn 50 I'm usually okay. However this involves going for the Fertilizer and Ecology techs almost straight away, which tech the AI totally ignores. The problem then rears it's ugly head again into the mid 100s and is generally the sole motivation to go attack someone else to try and desperately get some food. Do you ever put your cities to "Produce Wealth"? In some games, when I'm running low on resources, I'll set some less valuable cities to produce wealth and use the money to buy resources, plus it means I'm not producing units (which will cost you more food and oil). Not an ideal solution, but it's helpful at times. Also, the new game-setup window will contain some additional options, including the ability to adjust resource abundance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deguar Posted December 20, 2009 Author Share Posted December 20, 2009 To build airfields, select an infantry unit. Press the "Airfield" button, then move your cursor over the map. (The cursor will change to a small building.) Right click on the location where you want to build the airfield. Once your infantry arrives there, it will take 5 turns to build. Heh, so my perfectly logical approach ~cough~ of moving the infantry unit to the planned location, hitting the build key and expecting the airfield to appear underneath the unit was err demonstrating my Civ indoctrination , must pay more attention to the cursor in future. Do you ever put your cities to "Produce Wealth"? In some games, when I'm running low on resources, I'll set some less valuable cities to produce wealth and use the money to buy resources, plus it means I'm not producing units (which will cost you more food and oil). Not an ideal solution, but it's helpful at times. Also, the new game-setup window will contain some additional options, including the ability to adjust resource abundance. I've used produce wealth a few times, it just feels wrong to do so in the first turns of the game. Blame more Civ (& settlers & Gal Civ & etc) indoctrination for the "grab everything in sight, explore, grab more, especially cities" mentality of mine and I'm a "quaility over quantity technologist" so I'd gotten into the habit of running a per turn money deficit to get an early lead in the technology battle. Which was working against two AI players, looks like I need a strategy shift for three Thanks dm and Brit, going to fool around with the CMSF demo today and figure out what is going to be the treat for Xmas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Innocence Posted December 22, 2009 Share Posted December 22, 2009 Getting enough food has been the number one concern in my games too. Even after capturing all sea and land food resources in sight, and even though I dont have a single defending unit in any city, I've still got a shortage. I usually end up producing Wealth in 70 percent of my cities and selling Steel units by the hundrets to pay for food purchase. It does indeed slow down expansion greatly, and I do agree with the OP that it might be a little too much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raynale Posted December 22, 2009 Share Posted December 22, 2009 Same for me. Too much iron and I lack food all the time. And the AI seems to be unaffected by any resource shortage? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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