http://i14.tinypic.com/4uj3tqb.png

This is in year 1873 in my game. Taken from the American AI Capital. All other cities controlled by AI's are like this.

Red: Washington is at -4 per turn at 0% research.
Yellow: SOme more info on Washington
Cyan: The AI's capital's Buildings
Brown: America is still researching Civil Service.
Blue: It's making Swordsmen!

Discuss. I think the AI got into a loop. At -4 at 0% research because of overexpansion, it is loosing units (due to lack of money) so it's trying to replace the military units that are disapearing because of the lack of money.

This is an AI Bug due to Over Expansion. Fireaxis, a Patch might be needed right about now.

(btw i can see his capital cause i focused on espionage)

83 :) ???

83 :) ???

Bleh, hereditary rule I suppose

How many other cities does he have? He has 83 units in the capital? He must have been stuck on no research for a very long time if hes still researching civil service...

He must be just about ready to attack! :lol:

I have seen sooooo many times, at 1st found it funny, but then i seen is "normal" for the ai to act like that. Is retarded. Hope a patch comes out very very soon.

Since this is like the first game they've ever done, and the first game of its type, its understandable that they haven't figured out how to write an AI yet.

I think I am setting a new personal best in # of caravels destroyed in a game, in my current game. It seems that showing up with privateers gets AIs in a caravel-building frenzy even if they are facing a ground assault at the same time. :rolleyes:

Since this is like the first game they've ever done, and the first game of its type, its understandable that they haven't figured out how to write an AI yet.

How can you even compare the different systems of each of the CIVs?
Not that I am defending this thing mind you.
The OP looks like a bad bug.

Seen it in a couple of games - it's hard to know what instigates this, but the AI in *all* games is definitely suffering from high troop maintenance and espionage investment as far as I am concerned, which is the real reason why BtS is easier - not because the AI has had its boni removed.

How many other cities does he have? He has 83 units in the capital? He must have been stuck on no research for a very long time if hes still researching civil service...

he has about 12 cities all stackjed very closely. There's 9 other AI's which all have the same problem. The worst of the all is Suryavaraman who has 22 cities and is still researching aesthetics.

The OP looks like a bad bug.

It's not necicerailly a bug, it's a loop in the AI's system.

Seen it in a couple of games - it's hard to know what instigates this, but the AI in *all* games is definitely suffering from high troop maintenance and espionage investment as far as I am concerned, which is the real reason why BtS is easier - not because the AI has had its boni removed

A joined a multiplayer game after some guy quit and the AI took over for awhile, the AI made 60% espionage and 10% research.

83 :) ???

Heridatory rule does that? :p i'm defenitely using that now. :D

The AI could use a if strike build wealth in there. I do this all the time when I corp spam them.

Unfortunately this seems a fairly common sight in BtS, particularly on aggressive AI settings. It gets fairly predictable:

1)AI builds huge stack of early units, slowing its science rate and neglecting libraries etc to pay the upkeep.

2)AI attacks neighbour with huge stack of units - if neighbour is AI they respond with equivalent stack. If neighbour is human, they are either destroyed, or hole up in a highly defendable site and let the AI beat themselves to death tryng to take a fairly pointless hill/forest.

3)AI is falling behind research-wise, but builds a second stack of ancient age units - again slamming its research to 0%, and attacks neighbour

4)If human player survived 2) they probably have medieval units by now, and find defending fairly easy.

5)AI builds third stack, still stuck in the ancient classical era.

6)Human player has by now hit rifling, and even with vastly lower unit numbers has comparable power ratings to the AI.

7)AI now doesn't attack human, as it quite rightly realises that its obsolete units will get slaughtered. However it now sits there on 0% science with its economy bled dry by colossal numbers of useless units.

8)Human can now cruise to space race, or flatten the AIs macemen and longbowmen with tanks and aircraft.

Basically if the AI's first rush fails to beat the human player (at least on Aggressive AI), the human has already won. The same is true to a lesser extent on normal AI. The AI builds excessive numbers of outdated units, and has a very poor tech pace as a result.

i didn't have aggresive AI on just to let you know,

The same still happens on Normal AI, it just isn't quite as drastic. The AI still shows poor tech rate and unit overproduction.

I have this in my current game as well, though with Catherine. She's way low in score, didn't even really expand much at all either. She is so backward and her power level is very low. I was about to wipe her out and put her out of her misery until Bismark declared on me, lol.

It has to be some type of bug I'm guessing. It's pretty lame. It kinda ruins your game finding this out after you spent a lot of time in it, only to find out that one of your opponents is a gimp.

i wiped out everyone on my continent with axe rush played into 1873 and finnaly found out that everyone on the other continnet is as you said a gimp. :lol:

It is probably a 'bug' of balance that will happen from time to time with some AI. Needs fixing.
Anyway in my game I have agg. AI on and the Ais are doing very well.
They are actually very annoyingly aggressive with terrain grab. They really blocked me in the coast. I was going to be blocked out in a peninsula with 3 cities maximum if I was 2 turns slower in sending my settler to settle at the beginning of the peninsula! I actually saw Hatty's settler coming in the turn I made that city :S

Anyway, they are very competitive, and for now the power graphs are not over the top.
We(me+2) just dogpiled Pacal because he is annoying ^^

Yes, I've seen this as well. It is quite common. Frankly, I'm getting a little tired of facing longbows when I'm attacking with tanks or even modern armor.

One thing that is disturbing in the op screenshot is the tile development. Why haven't those forests been chopped at some point? Why aren't there more cottages? It's a CAPITAL for Pete's sake!

I felt that poor tile development was part of the poor tech problem (combined with overinvestment in espionage and overexpansion/troop maintenance), but was assured by some top players that it wasn't. But seeing this screenshot I'm concerned again...

I havent seen anything like this. Ive played about 5-7 games. Weird...

I play on Epic if that has anything to do with it...

How many other cities does he have? He has 83 units in the capital? He must have been stuck on no research for a very long time if hes still researching civil service...

Not 83 units, because difficulty gives some happiness and Palace gives +1, so he has about 75-80 units depending on difficulty, I'd say.

Not 83 units, because difficulty gives some happiness and Palace gives +1, so he has about 75-80 units depending on difficulty, I'd say.

You can't know about his happiness resourcers there's at least one, wine.

I've seen 30+ stacks without Aggressive AI. So maybe 2 of his stack of 30+ just happened to be in Capital at the same time. That's 60 units and happiness about 20-25 and he was low on health because no grannies or anything. I'm not so surprised by that.

EDIT: No, he had grannies but nothing else.

Yes, I've seen this as well. It is quite common. Frankly, I'm getting a little tired of facing longbows when I'm attacking with tanks or even modern armor.

One thing that is disturbing in the op screenshot is the tile development. Why haven't those forests been chopped at some point? Why aren't there more cottages? It's a CAPITAL for Pete's sake!

I felt that poor tile development was part of the poor tech problem (combined with overinvestment in espionage and overexpansion/troop maintenance), but was assured by some top players that it wasn't. But seeing this screenshot I'm concerned again...

bad tile placement is nothing new lol.

Huh, I thought the AI was supposed to be "vastly improved" for BtS!

Huh, I thought the AI was supposed to be "vastly improved" for BtS!

It's vastly improved in a lot of ways, especially when you consider it doesn't get all the bonuses that it used to. There's definitely some kinks that need to be ironed out, though.

AI-built coastal cities seem to have a Trireme fixation. Huayna has two such cities on a coastline some eight tiles long plus a deep, narrow bay: his triremes can't go further along the coast because he doesn't have Open Borders with his neighbours, Tokugawa and Gilgamesh: and he has six triremes at sea and (my spies report) eleven more in the ports and two more under construction. But he has Astronomy, so why not build more-advanced ships ?
This trireme frenzy could, I suppose, have been triggered by the Privateer I have anchored on his Fish. But I would think that he could sink it by attacking with trireme after trireme, although the first few would probably lose.

It differs from game to game. In my first few games in BTS, I simply blew past the AI in terms of tech. No one had chemistry by the time I was building tanks and the Apollo. Now, in my current game, I did do quite a bit of warring like in the previous games (I'm Louis XIV :lol:) and Justinian and Qin Shi Huang are quite a bit ahead of me in tech in the industrial era (3-4 techs) and Justinian even has a bigger power graph. I find that the AI does better when on huge maps or at least a large pangaea. AI simply cannot handle isolated or jungle starts nearly as good as human can and tends to fall behind in tech quickly. All I can say it varies greatly from game to game based on my observations.

I was a at war with ragnar at about 700 AD on Noble, and I thought I was starting to fall behind (I had to turn research down), then a thing poped up telling me I was the most advanced person in the world. Afterwards, I really boomed economically, so I was fine. I have No tech Brokering on, but it just really hurt the AI, since normally I'm pretty good when it comes to teching.

I have No tech Brokering on, but it just really hurt the AI, since normally I'm pretty good when it comes to teching.

It really slows down the AI a bit...I think I will be back to normal with it and see what happen!

Please post a save of this, if you still have it. Was it a "always peace" game, by any chance?

It seems to me that if you play with a lot of AI civs (15+) then the AIs that get good starts end up engulfing the AIs that get jungle or isolated starts right away. This is great because it leads to less of the parity that you'd used to see in Warlords, where all the civs were about the same tech and poewr level.

Please post a save of this, if you still have it. Was it a "always peace" game, by any chance?

Yes it was, i wanted to go Space Victory without any "problems".

There's a problem like this in Medieval 2: Total War as well. The AI is programmed to be aggressive in its unit recruitment, and it can pose a real threat (especially with some of the fan-augmented AIs) in the early to mid game, but by the end game, it's suffocating under the weight of the unit upkeep its outdated armies cost and is quite easy to dispatch. In M2TW, there is no way at all to mod AI recruitment behavior (it's currently hard-coded). I'd imagine in Civ, there is a way to alter this. All the same, I think the basic fundamental changes in the BTS AI are a huge step in the right direction - I just wish that this particular problem wasn't so crippling for the AI in the late game.

This AI behavior is specific to the always peace option and will be adressed in the patch.

This AI behavior is specific to the always peace option and will be adressed in the patch.

are you from fireaxis or something?

are you from fireaxis or something?
Notice his title "Firaxian". That is your first clue.:lol:

He's the lead designer on BtS ;)

In the meantime, using my unofficial patch should also address the problem.

Notice his title "Firaxian". That is your first clue.:lol:

:lol: The second clue would be the "Alexman," aka Alex Mantzaris, like others have said the lead designer of BTS...

:lol: The second clue would be the "Alexman," aka Alex Mantzaris, like others have said the lead designer of BTS...

that sounded pretty familiour to me. that's why i asked. :lol:

I don't get it. I play with normal AI and they built Manhattan Project, Broadway and Rock'n'Roll in the 17th Century.

Good to see Alexman's reply. I'm finding the AI quite good, gulp!

I often play 'always peace' but in normal setting -- I don't attack. I'm kind of like Mansa Musa. But they will fight me on tech!

Breunor

When from what Alexman said this is happening only in Forced Peace games. Also I wouldn't be surprised to find out how many people are playing at difficulty levels that are not commensurate with their skill level. :)

Another thought. Could this happen if the OP had the following setting? Aggressive AI, Always Peace, and no Tech Brokering?