How does the AI get so many units and simultaneously build every wonder?

You sent your army into their own Vietnam. It doesn't matter how many units you have if Hiawatha is 2X faster then your units (Great Wall and Forest Roads) and much stronger (Mohawk warrior in forest vs a bunch of range units).

The great wall is insanely hard as it is to move range units but when you add forest terrain to it. It makes it a non starter to even enter that war.

Your best bet is to pillage the country side and get a small city or some money for your trouble. And wait til a more modern era

OnceAKing said:

You sent your army into their own Vietnam. It doesn't matter how many units you have if Hiawatha is 2X faster then your units (Great Wall and Forest Roads) and much stronger (Mohawk warrior in forest vs a bunch of range units).

The great wall is insanely hard as it is to move range units but when you add forest terrain to it. It makes it a non starter to even enter that war.

Your best bet is to pillage the country side and get a small city or some money for your trouble. And wait til a more modern era

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I think Waterloo is a better example, or Bay of Pigs. Vietnam would be an example of a technologically and materially dominant military forced to make peace for empire happiness.

AI don't spawn units out of no where, they can hold units in reserve, I know the AIs is capable of it. I've been seeing reserve units since Vanilla expac, and freshly built units.

Mohawk warrior is swordmen replacement, and they can only take 1-3 turns to build depending on location and city improvements. In other words, its easy to horde up.

"And, I have like 10 Trebuchets, 10 Crossbows and 10 Long Swords. Hiawatha still has Composite Bowman and Mohawk Warriors."
You call that a large army? Composite and Mohawk can outhorde you easily due to them being cheaper to build than trebuchets/crossbows and longswordmen.

30 units is a small army to me. Especially when 2/3 of them is frail units that can't take a punch and you're assaulting Hiawatha deep in forest + Great wall is up. You need 30 longswordmen at minimum just to have a shot at all. You will be taking lots of turns battling and pushing to the to the walls of the capital.

Melee troops for forcibly pushing the frontlines and crossbowmen to maintain the frontline then Trebuchets only come into action when they're about to unleash a barrage onto the capital. Provided that there isn't any forest blocking LOS to capital.

God help you if Hiawatha becomes smart enough to start constructing forts for his own use against you.

Simply said, you need more units. Don't have the units? Build them. Can't afford them? Stack surplus of gold and build them in a hurry then charge in and let them die off and take the capital. Can't do it? Give up on the war and focus on homeland of yours first and explore the world.

Adjuvant said:

I think Waterloo is a better example, or Bay of Pigs. Vietnam would be an example of a technologically and materially dominant military forced to make peace for empire happiness.

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Nice analogy.

All I know about AI handicaps is that they start with an extra scout (king), extra worker and warrior (emperor), and another warrior and settler (immortal and deity). Along with that, they start with about 5-8 additional techs already so they build great library by turn 30.

They also start with about 50 happiness on harder difficulties. My proof: check the timeline records. You'll notice that some civs gain golden ages as early as turn 20. That gives them a production, culture and gold handicap. I also guess that they have a gold handicap to compensate for the additional units and less or no penalties when in debt/deficit.

Also, most AI civs are smart enough to choose tradition over the other starting policies.

sendos said:

Nice analogy.

All I know about AI handicaps is that they start with an extra scout (king), extra worker and warrior (emperor), and another warrior and settler (immortal and deity). Along with that, they start with about 5-8 additional techs already so they build great library by turn 30.

They also start with about 50 happiness on harder difficulties. My proof: check the timeline records. You'll notice that some civs gain golden ages as early as turn 20. That gives them a production, culture and gold handicap. I also guess that they have a gold handicap to compensate for the additional units and less or no penalties when in debt/deficit.

Also, most AI civs are smart enough to choose tradition over the other starting policies.

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So is there anyway for me as the player to get as much gold?

I've noticed the AI having 1000 Gold very early in the game.

Is there anyway I could do that?

Or is it just the extra happiness they get that gets them so much gold?

Those are not the the right handicaps, move everything up a difficulty. AI gets an extra settler and two workers on deity, a worker on immortal, etc.

Human players need to take monarchy to have positive early gpt. Gold from meeting cs should not be overlooked.

The AI gets bonuses, but it uses them in stupid ways. It gets bonuses to production and gold buy uses them to build or buy walls and castles in cities that will probably never be attacked. It starts with pottery and rushes to found a religion and obsesses over spreading it all over the world, but picks a founder belief from which it benefits little to spread beyond its borders. It gets a bonus to growth but uses its larger pop to work merchant and engineer slots, and rarely uses its engineers to rush a wonder.

CivAddict2013 said:

So is there anyway for me as the player to get as much gold?

I've noticed the AI having 1000 Gold very early in the game.

Is there anyway I could do that?

Or is it just the extra happiness they get that gets them so much gold?

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Well, if you never spend your gold, then probably. For the general problem though, it depends who you are. You can trade your additional luxury resources with other civs, and if you have a DoF you can get a solid 240 gold for one. The Netherlands can trade their starting lux resources for a lot of money while still maintaining happiness, China can get a nice boost to gpt with the paper maker, Shonghai can get a decent boost by opening honor and getting money from barbarian camps. Spain can also get some fast gold if you open double scout first and get lucky. The Zulu also pay a lot less for melee unit maintenance. If you use your first merchant of Venice for a trade mission, you can get lots of gold and a city state ally very fast.

Opening scouts can pay for themselves by meeting city states and getting gold from that, and if you like playing strategies that call for lots of units, you can take tribute from nearby city states. That's what AI Shaka does all the time to keep his gold up.

CivAddict2013 said:

So is there anyway for me as the player to get as much gold?

I've noticed the AI having 1000 Gold very early in the game.

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Was that civ Spain and did they find El Dorado (first)?

This problem has nothing to do with the AI and everything to do with your strategy and unit selection. You shouldn't fight someone with the GW without any horse units. 30 units on king and failing... Thats all on you. 10 trebs.. Wasteful.

Taking down a GW city requires patience and strategy and timely unit sacrifices.
Post a save I'd really love to see this for myself.

Any time I play on king the AI hardly has ANY units.

CivAddict2013 said:

This is what makes me not like this game. I outnumber the AI, with superior units, yet I'm getting beaten? They need to fix this.

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I always imagine the AI saying this when they try (and fail) to take one of my cities.

Novalia said:

I always imagine the AI saying this when they try (and fail) to take one of my cities.

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Me too! Good job the AI can't post threads...

Novalia I agree with your earlier comment, especially the monted unit point, apart from unit sacrifices. Taking down a GW city requires strategy, yes, and above all timing. By that I mean fighting that war when you have the appropriate units. For instance in this case it's Hiawatha - he'll spam crap cities everywhere given half a chance, especially little islands so hit those cities first, XP and upgrade your units, take a good peace deal and hit the harder-to-reach/stronger cities later...preferably with bombers!

Dr. D said:

Another factor could be if the AI chooses the city bombardment bonuses with Tradition and the bombardment pantheon... with those two combined, cities will often blow your trebuchets to smithereens.

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If this happens + great wall... avoid that AI till artillery. You are putting yourself in a meat grinder.

I hate to say this, but it sounds to me like the OP is a ridiculously incompetent player and should probably move down to warlord until he/she improves

AI gets starting bonuses in form of free techs and units from turn 0, and bonuses to production, happiness, maintenance and gold rush, even at prince they have some base bonuses like much less culture needed to fill policies, and a bit less of science needed to research a tech.

CivAddict2013 said:

So is there anyway for me as the player to get as much gold?

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How many times in the 20-odd rant threads you've posted have people tried to suggest that you play on a lower difficulty?

There's nothing wrong with playing on low difficulties, and moving up only when you basically can't lose a game on that level. If the subject matter of your threads here were problems with the game, there wouldn't be all these people able to play on Emperor, much less Deity.

Walter R said:

Just a quick q - is Onondaga coastal? Cos great wall is no protection against frigates.

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Generally yes, but very occasionally no! The bias towards coastal is much higher now since the patch, which has made Japan into my favourite civ again.

All I can say, is why are you fighting with them without waiting for the samurai? That's just crrrrazzzyyy in my opinion.

I always have much better success waiting for the Samurais and waging war then going in early.

Osama Bin Davis said:

Generally yes, but very occasionally no! The bias towards coastal is much higher now since the patch, which has made Japan into my favourite civ again.

All I can say, is why are you fighting with them without waiting for the samurai? That's just crrrrazzzyyy in my opinion.

I always have much better success waiting for the Samurais and waging war then going in early.

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Sorry OBD I didn't quite understand your post. I was just suggesting to the OP that if his trebs were getting wasted before he could use them due to GW he may be able to bring ranged fire from the sea if the target was viable.

Walter R said:

Sorry OBD I didn't quite understand your post. I was just suggesting to the OP that if his trebs were getting wasted before he could use them due to GW he may be able to bring ranged fire from the sea if the target was viable.

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Either way the trebuchets would still get killed without the GW because it takes an extra turn for the trebuchet to load their fire.

I have been in almost the OP's exact situation playing GAK on emp: Mediaeval/Renaissance siege of the OC of a civ with GW, oligarchy, protection, forested terrain around the capital. Not Hiawatha though. Trebs would die before they could setup. There were very few tiles they could fire from anyway due to the trees. Here's a few of the things I did on the way to taking that sucker.

• forward built a city as close as I could
• burnt 3 GGs to cut a swathe through his territory to his city
• used workers to build a road up to it so units could enter and exit the danger zone faster
• used workers to cut down forests to open up lines of fire
• used workers to build forts for the trebs (later cannons)
• used melee units with two cover to protect the workers (had to keep swapping them)

qemist said:

[*]used workers to build forts for the trebs (later cannons)

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Since the "No Defensive Terrain Bonus" promo of siege units appears to negate the bonus from Forts/Citadels that seems rather pointless.

Unless you're using a mod that fixes this (mine changes No Defensive Bonus to -25% Defense in Rough terrain purely to negate terrain bonus but allows both Fort/Citadel and Fortify) but most of them would also give Indirect Fire to most siege as well...