A curious game and some thoughts...

I also found that mostly a warmonger is the strongest civ in my games. That's a city maintenance problem I guess: Each new city provides more income than it costs in very few turns, therefore the more cities you have the more money you get.

Rwn said:

- Crime. When I invaded an enemy city, I discovered a den of crime, with several autobuildings costing each more than 10 per turn (I'd say the total cost - before % increase is taken into account - would probably be in the 50 ); the total maintenance cost of the city was over 200 per turn for an income of 80 (though this was probably a bit reduced due to my invasion destroying some buildings). Unless invasion makes crime explode in some way, the AI cities must have thus an enormous strain due to crime; my guess is that the AI have difficulties managing it as well as the player, for example garrisoning town watchmen with policing promotions whenever the crime starts to be too high if there's no affordable building available to reduce crime instead.

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First of all, conquered cities have their economy values majorly screwed up due to a bug. So you need to do shift-ctrl-T first to get a more accurate picture.

Secondly, the AI plays at a relatively low difficulty level. At lower difficulty levels, you suffer much less crime, city upkeep costs etc. The city that make a net loss for you may make a net profit to the AI.

Noriad2 said:

First of all, conquered cities have their economy values majorly screwed up due to a bug. So you need to do shift-ctrl-T first to get a more accurate picture.

Secondly, the AI plays at a relatively low difficulty level. At lower difficulty levels, you suffer much less crime, city upkeep costs etc. The city that make a net loss for you may make a net profit to the AI.

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Even if the AI gets some bonuses, I don't think running cities with nearly 400 crime (and counting) is healthy even for the AI... Here's what it looks like in the city just after I took it (after the recalculation):


It's in fact nearly 100 per turn - before %! - that wasted on crime.

I've looked into other AI cities that I can see through espionage, the results are less impressive, so I guess it's that one civ (or city) that's going wrong.

Most cities I've watched seem to have a bit of crime, about half of the time between 100 and 200, except for one that is at -2000 (no particular wonder or anything). The main thing "saving" the AI is that it has not yet discovered the tech unlocking Counterfeiting or Insurance Fraud for example, so the consequences are much less severe. Still, it's costing a bit of gold.

Also, it seems the AIs did not get many animal myths, the two civs I was able to investigate had only around 15, including the non-animal ones (metal, fire...).


Next time I play I'll run with a modmod to give me a big boost of espionage so I can follow exactly what's going on in AI cities.

Rwn said:

Even if the AI gets some bonuses, I don't think running cities with nearly 400 crime (and counting) is healthy even for the AI... Here's what it looks like in the city just after I took it (after the recalculation):


It's in fact nearly 100 per turn - before %! - that wasted on crime.

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Looks like almost all my cities even after all crime fighting buildings!

I limit myself to 1 Town Watchman though

Rwn said:

Even if the AI gets some bonuses, I don't think running cities with nearly 400 crime (and counting) is healthy even for the AI... Here's what it looks like in the city just after I took it (after the recalculation):

It's in fact nearly 100 per turn - before %! - that wasted on crime.

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You did just kill all its crimefighting units though didn't you?

MacCoise said:

Looks like almost all my cities even after all crime fighting buildings!

I limit myself to 1 Town Watchman though

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You should keep more, it's much cheaper than having to pay for all those crime buildings...

Yudishtira said:

You did just kill all its crimefighting units though didn't you?

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Fair point, but I don't remember killing any in that city For some reason the AI gathered all its town watchmen (about 30) in one city...