Which AI personality annoys you the most?

When I see a friendly Suleiman or Bismarck early, I start building troops!

Lizzy is a frigid sour cow that never likes me and Alex and Nappy are just entertainers, just there to stuff up my plans.

Caesar? Strangely I almost never had a problem with him, neither with Wu or Ramesses.

Siam.

Alexander and Bismarck. I always seem to have problems with them every game. The Ottomans too.

Alexander, not because he's Friendly right up until he DoWs you (They all do that), but because he is so intransigently stupid once the war has begun. To wit:

Alex masses troops nearby and DoWs.
You smash his initial rush.
Alex offers peace for everything that you have. You reject.
You counterattack and take one of his cities. You offer peace treaty.
Alex wants peace on the same terms as his first offer.
Etc.

Second place goes to Hiawatha. Above King level, at least, he spams cities like rain. If he's my neighbor my early game is devoted to beating him down to one wretched little city and then pillaging the tiles on that one before I accept a peace treaty.

I loved the one game where Ramesses was a good 20+ tiles across the map, but coveted my seven out of the whole map.

Ramkamhaeng probably found every possible way to backstab me before I stopped trusting him outright.
Napoleon is the only AI (in my experience) who consistently DoWs even if he isn't on my borders.
Pachacuti is aggressive and insanely smug in the interactions screen.

I've also noticed that AIs love to build cities right up to my border, issue the "your habit of claiming every piece of land has not gone unnoticed" taunt, then build the Great Wall to make it as arduous as possible for me to conquer them. Jerks.

It's probably easier to find the ones that don't annoy me: Askia, Kamehameha and Harald Bluetooth are all reliably friendly.

I love it when I have just my capital. Someone comes along and builds right near me, then pops up and tells ME not to build cities near THEM.

Bismark, Orlly you think I'll be cool with you settling literally right next to my capital, when you live in another continent, blocking half my trade routes do to settling on a road? After we make a dof and I see two of his settlers lurking near my borders, I kindly ask for him to NOT settle pointless cities in a patch of land within my borders, oh, but its an insult to him. This offence shall not be forgotten he says. After a few turns I see dusseldorf touching my capital paris, and immediatly denounce, declare war, and raze his city.

They're all annoying But these are my least faves, in no particular order:

Ramkamhaeng - expansionistic AI who is a nightmare to have as a neighbour. And he will buy ALL the City-States. The elephants are annoying as hell, too. Like medieval tanks.

Gandhi - he's always a threat, but somehow very difficult to provoke into a war. His elephants are somehow less annoying than Siam's, in part because he seems to be less adept at using them. He's also a wonder-spammer extraordinaire, which I hate, because that's my job.

Oda Nobunaga - exactly the opposite of Gandhi and a favourite proponent of the Friendly-Backstab-Friendly-Backstab routine. So tiresome. Never seems to do any real damage but will love to get you embroiled in a pointless war which will result in the loss of countless turns of production. Montezuma is another fan of this 'strategy', but for some reason I end up with Oda as a neighbour more often, so he makes my list.

Sejong - a personal bugbear of mine as the only two times I've actually lost (as in, the only two occasions when I knew the odds weren't good but fought it out until the defeat screen) were both to him. If I work out that he's on the map somewhere, I try to eliminate him as quickly as I can, despite being a peaceful player. The fact that both of his UUs are geared at defence makes taking him down that little bit harder, too.

Ramesses - less because of the wonders, and more because he seems to change his diplomatic status towards me as often as lesser mortals change their underwear. One minute he's Friendly, the next he's Hostile and taunting me for no good reason, then he's Friendly again...! I've never really had problems actually dealing with him, but he's a pain. And another City-State-stealer.

Oh, and Harald Bluetooth and Kamehameha are my BFFs. I almost never have any problems with them at all. Washington too, although he does sometimes do the 'OMG, you've got five fewer cities than I have, THIS MEANS YOU'RE EXPANDING TOO QUICKLY!' thing.

Nebs is wildly unpredictable, but I just can't bring myself to hate him because his leader screen is so utterly awesome.

I've seen a lot of people mention Bismark and Alexander in this thread, and I can definitely understand why. Personally, however, I love starting next to either of them. It's all a matter of how you approach it. If you just view them as an impediment to your early development, they'll be nothing but a frustration. Just take the DoW as a given, beeline Iron Working, and get some swords online (or a bunch of warriors, with cash on hand to immediately upgrade them). Once they attack, you'll end up with a "free" early conquest without the negative diplomatic modifier, and a bunch of weaker units to feast on in order to start leveling up your army (Bismark in particular seems to love throwing swarms of warriors and archers at you, whereas Alex tends to be a bit more annoying with his Hoplites). Once you've wiped them out, you'll have a good puppet city in their capital, along with any other good city sites they might have settled, and well-positioned to start building towards your chosen victory type.

There are no AIs I really dislike (with the possible exception of Siam), although some do keep me guessing from game to game. I've seen Japan with 1-2 cities after close to 100 turns several times; then in a recent game, they suddenly had 6 cities before turn 50 somehow (this was on King).

Its odd everyone here has trouble with alexander the great. I have always has a stable trading relationship even open borders and a defensive pact with him and im the one usually stabbing him in the back.

But anyway my least favorite is Bismark from the get go when i meet him he hits the denounce button. I have a habit of ignoring him all the way until he masses troops on my borders. And by then i am prepared to smash him into bits.

And my 2nd least favorite is napolean. I had a long standing freindship with him and he snuck up on my with a giant fleet of war ships declared war then annilaited my coastal cites and defenses before i could muster a counter attack (all my wars with him usually end with both of us suing for peace). But then main point i only make a alliance with him now when it benifits my civilization because he usually betrays me when i am not paying attention.

Ghandi annoys the heck out of me. He's all friendly to everyone except that one person he decides to pick on. Half the time it's the best warmonger in the area and it gets him wiped out, but don't let him fool you. If he actually decides to build units, his combat AI is one of the best in the game, and give him an inch and he can take it and turn it into nukes.

I tried out the Huns on continents, wiped out everyone on my piece of land and saw my cities getting a lot of Indian names after a few capitals on the other side of the world fell. Ghandi had taken out Greece and Mongolia to become a runaway. I was no where near prepared to invade when I found out, and he had nukes before I could get a foothold in his land. I never did manage to approach, and tried to space race him as he ate up everyone on his side of the world.

I'd never seen anything quite like it. I never liked his attitude anyway, but when he puts units behind his passive aggressive nature, the results are more terrifying than getting denounced by Greece on turn 6.

I think Ghandi was once described as "that popular girl in the cheerleading squad" which is a perfect analogy! All he does is sit there smiling and pretending to be all nice with all the other AIs just eating it up!

Then all of a sudden he goes "oh you know that guy Nebuchadnezzar OMG he's such a loser" and all the AIs are like "yeah you're sooo right Ghandi" 3 turns later and everyone in the game has denounced you and the armies are closing in!

Edit: Also Lizzy can be such a stubborn *insert bad word*! I've played games where two of her five cities are burning, the third about to join them and she's just sat there "do you really think you can beat me?... hahaha what nonsense. Now give me all of your gold and luxuries or I'll send my elite shock workers to teach you a lesson".

I generally don't get annoyed by the AI's behavior, save for this most recent dealing with Korea. The very turn I enhance my religion with 15% growth while not at war, Sejong declares on me, from the other side of the map. I never see one soldier come my way, and he will not make peace any anything short of all my gold, gpt, resources, and half my cities.

Most of the game later, once I finally cleared through other AIs to get to his territory and tore through a few of his cities, he suddenly wants peace straight up. He was not very receptive when I turned his previous offers of 'everything you got' back on him.


The AI behavior that really gets me is any overly religious civ. You walk a prophet or missionary into my lands, I will destroy you. I'm looking at you, Ethiopia...

Really the only approach is to not "trust" any of them...but try to "use" them to your advantage.... Though sometimes in the early game it can get a bit dicey. One particular AI I find hard to figure out is Attila.... But you know he will eventually attack, so you build up enough to be able to handle it...but not enough to discourage him DOWing you.

In a couple of games where I've had him right next door, his military seems oddly ineffective....he'll rush, but not follow through.... And it seems if he decides you have become stronger, he will "temporarily" ask for peace and sometimes he will give you one those rather welcome, "over-the-top" settlements... Lots of gold and some luxuries, etc.

After having a couple of these experiences with him in different games, I kind of look forward to having him as a neighbour. Sooner or later he will give you a bunch of money...unless someone else gets to him first, I suppose....

More and more in my games I try to set things up so that others DOW me and I never actually start a war myself....but I haven't figured it all out yet. And I suppose you have to avoid actually fully wiping out a competing civ.

I suppose different types of "provocation" is the key.... And done in a manner so that the other AIs don't hate you...at least until some point in the game where it doesn't matter anymore what they think of you...

wow, I guess I'll make the first vote for the civ that, hands down, impedes progress, at least MY progress, FAR more than any other civ in the game...

Darius

From EVERY experience I've had with him, he REXes more quickly than anyone else in the game. Consequently always becomes one of the superpowers of the world. Expands right into territory that I had plans for. Hates me for the close borders that we have BECAUSE OF CITIES THAT HE BUILT. Other civs declare war when they start to get an edge on you, allowing you to survive their attack through tactical defensive maneuvers and pound them in a counterattack--- but not Darius-- He waits until he has such a dominating position that there's nothing you can do about the onslaught to come. And the real kicker-- despite having lands to be envious of and all the other reasons why the other NPC's hate ME, they're perfectly OK with him doing so. Everyone loves him for all the same reasons that they hate me, so if you initiate against him, the only way to get the resources you need to prosper, everyone else shuns you for it.

Getting to the point of rage quitting simply because he's in the game.

The ones that have tons of production at their capital foothill. They usually beat me to WWs often just by 1 turn which leads me to "rage reload".

For me it's Alex, Nappy and Washington.
Mostly for being uncooperative and treacherous. Could also have something to do with their appearance and the things they say.

I also agree with slapshot2119 on Darius, he is exactly the same for me, quite often very difficult to deal with.

George Bush, Saddam Hussein, Nikephoros, Chris Nuttall

Then there's Joe Viking and moemoe