Worst/Easiest AI leaders in the game

Askia is really bad. Probably one of the weakest Civ under AI control.

Wow, can confirm Askia is real bad. Just finished an Emperor game where I forward settled Askia, he got pissed at me, and stayed one city and peaceful the entire game.

Sometimes the AIs will play exactly against themselves:

- Korea/Babylon will go Honor and or Piety and neglect science. I've seen games when Babylon were dead last in technology

- Germany proposed "embargo city states" in one game.. What??

- Sweden neglect their UA and often DoW everyone on the map, with varying results

- Siam really love stomping CSs that are allies of their enemy.

- Shoshone forget how to expand

I guess this is mostly a matter of personal experience. I had the Shoshone going completely crazy with 20 cities as well as Venice eating up 4 CS and being a tech runaway right from the start. If you cannot get to them in time (i. e. playing Continents) a random Civ from the other continent can become a serious problem regardless who is the leader.

Venice might be a bit of an exception because it's just an important city. But if your Xbows are faced by Venetian Machine Guns it still can be a problem...

stormtrooper412 said:

Sometimes the AIs will play exactly against themselves:

- Korea/Babylon will go Honor and or Piety and neglect science. I've seen games when Babylon were dead last in technology

- Germany proposed "embargo city states" in one game.. What??

- Sweden neglect their UA and often DoW everyone on the map, with varying results

- Siam really love stomping CSs that are allies of their enemy.

- Shoshone forget how to expand

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The AI does not have triggers set in its code to check for the unique abilities those civilizations. Siam is the only exception really, and the best I can do to explain it is that flavor rolls simply didn't go the right way in that game. In case you don't know, the AI generates adds a random number between -2 and 2 to each of its flavors at the start of the game (a different one is rolled for each flavor), and I call this the "flavor roll".

Korea/Babylon have a rather high science flavor, but it's not high enough that a bad flavor roll couldn't override it with, say, offense flavor.
Korea doesn't actually *know* about its UA, the way it's implemented is a high science flavor coupled with a high wonder flavor, but flavor rolls could easily work against it.
Babylon doesn't know that it receives Great Scientists like crazy, so it doesn't know that it should focus on producing Great Scientists.
Germany does not realize that its UB works off of trade routes with city-states, so it will propose city-state embargo just like any other civ.
Sweden has no idea that its UA is based on DoF's, so it won't actually emphasize DoF's. I don't even think I need to mention that it doesn't know about GP gifting, either, though outside of Great Generals, it's not really worth gifting GPs anyway.
Shoshone doesn't factor in the extra tiles it will get when choosing a city to settle, though arguably that's not as important as the actual expansion flavor behind building settlers to settle those cities. Expansion flavor is a bit tricky as well, since there are a lot of AI military, economic, and city strategies that modify it based on various conditions. BTW, the fact that, AFAIK, AI Shoshone Pathfinders don't get bonuses from ruins might also hinder the Shoshone AI: the way the code works is that if the unit that uncovers ruins has the Pathfinder trait, the game will fire up the relevant menu if the "active" player is the player whose unit stepped on ruins, otherwise it will do nothing. Since the "active" player is always a human player, Shoshone AI will pass the "does my unit have the Pathfinder promotion?" check, then proceed into the clause that says "if this is the active player, fire up the menu, otherwise do nothing", fail the check, and consume the ruins without actually getting any bonuses.

I haven't played many games to the end, but the few that I have Siam is always one of the major end players. In the current game I am glad he is nearby so I can keep him in check. When on another continent, he seems to wipe out the other civs.

Sharples said:

Songhai is one of the worst AIs out there. I haven't seen it excel at anything good. It's even worse in early game because they just build a ton of warriors and go honor.

Polynesia is also pretty bad. They don't know what to do on Pangea type maps.

Babylon as well believe it or not. They bulb their first scientist at Writing, and no sometimes they dont actually go Writing at the start. They go for archer tech, then usually Masonry for its walls. Then usually goes for Writing where it bulbs its first scientist (not plant it!)

But Venice is hands down the worst AI in the game. Mainly because it goes thousands of miles across the map with its Merchant of Venice to buy out/trade with the City state, which it usually gets eaten by barbs on the way there, or Venice will get so confused that it will constantly move its Merchant of Venice in its territory and keep it in OR PLANT IT IN ITS OWN TERRITORY! The trade with Venice is good, but AI Venice is even weaker because it can't figure out what to do with its Merchant of Venices.

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Polynesia bad ? Expands like crazy and builts a lot of wonders constantly he is a pain in the ass especially with the new tourisme mechanic and culture victory know he actualy doesn't suffer penalties for planting massive cities.

my top 5

1 Mongolia
atacks city states at the verry beginning of the game and keeps doing it. This results in the world denouncing him embargo in and killing him off by chain decleration of wars. He oslo neglects his keshiks he doesn't built a lot of them and if he does its allready to late

2 Venice
The Ai doesn't know how to handle the unique ability. Its allways a question when will he get destroyed?

3 Songhai
This guy just builts 2 cities and doesn't expand any further and goes honnor and built massive warriors i've actualy seen him conquered by other Ai instead of him atacking them.

4 Denmark
For some reason the AI of this leader is just bad in the sence that he never becomes powerfull and he expands slowly. He sometimes atacks city states randomly and this causes a world war against him.

5 Maria I of portugal because she is crazy!!!!!!
Firaxis made her olso mad in the game. She can be friendly to all Ai and suddenly starts a war with her friends
in one game she backstabbed me and a other AI THE SAME TIME.
Declaring war at wierd times and losing all of her trade routes lol. don't forget the random denounciations.

thats my top 5

stormtrooper412 said:

Sometimes the AIs will play exactly against themselves:

- Korea/Babylon will go Honor and or Piety and neglect science. I've seen games when Babylon were dead last in technology

- Germany proposed "embargo city states" in one game.. What??

- Sweden neglect their UA and often DoW everyone on the map, with varying results

- Siam really love stomping CSs that are allies of their enemy.

- Shoshone forget how to expand

Click to expand...

Or byzantium forgetting to found a religion.