G&K broke the AI.

I bought most of the DLC available including G&K and now the AI is horrible. I'm playing on King difficulty and the AI is only building a total of 1 or 2 cities while there is so much room around them to expand. Considering the happiness bonus they get, they should be settling a bunch of cities. Also, a lot of the times the Capital cities aren't even building a worker to improve the tiles. So I'll literally have a couple of civs that let their city grow to 7 population with no improved tiles at all. The game is unplayable because they aren't even expanding. Before the G&K expansion, I had to fight for land and the AI was occupying almost all the spare land they could.

I'm playing the game on an overclocked 4.4ghz quad core CPU(2500k) and a decent graphics card(gtx 560 ti OC) with the game installed on an 256 GB SSD.

Its as if the AI suddenly killed itself or something because I've restarted many times and the same thing results. Either they don't even bother building a worker and have 1 city only or they build a couple and stop expanding. I've tried using steam to verify the game files and they are fine.

Try harder difficulties? King's AI is very slow.

Sometimes the AI actually build settlers early, but seem to forget to protect them with a warrior, so many times you can find captured settlers in barbcamps. On king level, I think this has happened. I had a game recently, with a nice open area between me and 3 AI's and 5-6 barbcamps in and around. 3 captured settlers and 1-2 workers sitting in those camps. I can only wonder if they ever will get that right?

And if you retake them, don't give the settlers back unless you want a very peaceful game. workers are nice as scouting units too on larger maps.

Yeah, but I'm shocked at how dumb the AI is now. I remember King was at least a bit challenging and not so slow. Even the cities that bothered to build a worker are so slow to start improvements now. I also added extra civs to the standard map size to compensate for a couple of civs not getting off the ground. Yet even the best developed civs only grew to two cities while I was able to have 4 by then. They are usually way ahead of me in this field. What really concerns me in all this is that the AI is now broken to the point that I'm playign with useless "ghost" civs that don't do anything.

Other times the AI stops everything and only build units, so they can have a go at some neighbour, like you.

Then you discover the map around their cities and maybe 4 tiles are improved in the AD1800?

I guess the AI is as fupped as an AI can be, and I don't think they will fix this in Civ5, as they never bothered to fix serious issues in Civ4, as they never fixed serious issues in Civ3, as they never...!

This is the AI we have, it won't get any better in this iteration.

Can we hope for a change in the next game? There will be another CIV in 3-5 years time, at least I hope so as it is a good game and a great moneymaker for the devs. But how much time/cash/effort does it take to make the frigging AI work properly?

Well, point one: Don't ship the game until it's finished!!!!

Thanks 2K.

I play on Large maps, Emperor difficulty, and the AI will build cities almost everywhere it can. If I don't build three or four cities early, I lose out on the best spots.

Also bear in mind that AIs like Catherine, Augustus Caesar, Suleiman and Genghis are a lot more expansionist than others.

That said, there is a lot of truth in the unprotected Settlers theory. The AI unit pathing is derpy as hell. They will regularly send unprotected Workers into your territory when they're at war with you, they use Workers and Settlers as exploration units, etc.

The Patch will encourage the AI to build more, although I liked the pace myself.

hung_h said:

I bought most of the DLC available including G&K and now the AI is horrible.

Click to expand...

I'm sorry, but WHAT?

The expansion IMPROVED the AI. Before the AI was horrible, now it is way better.

I know that different people have different opinions and all, but this one is just objectively wrong. Just about every person I have met as well as most reviewers have praised the add-on for improving the AI.

Most of the games i've played the AI has improved its play since I got GnK. And I rarely see what your describing in my games. If the AI doesn't expand like crazy, I play on standard maps usually, they have a few Tall successful cities (Gandhi!).

They don't even tank with siege units that much anymore.

hardcore_gamer said:

I'm sorry, but WHAT?

The expansion IMPROVED the AI. Before the AI was horrible, now it is way better.

I know that different people have different opinions and all, but this one is just objectively wrong. Just about every person I have met as well as most reviewers have praised the add-on for improving the AI.

Click to expand...

I have to agree that the AI is better. King AI may be a bit slower, but once it gets going, it expands just fine. There have been issues with settlers who are captured, because they were not protected. I've seen this plenty of times. All in all though in a domination game, playing on king, there is plenty of conquering to complete. Especially if you play a large map.

This has not been my experience. G+K AI is much better. King has always been easy, maybe you're just getting better? And too fondly recalling the days back when you thought King was more difficult?

Also, if you're basing this on on or two games maybe it's just a fluke? Is this a dual map? What about the other Civs?

I'd suggest going up a level, the AI is far more aggressive on higher levels. Considering your complaint is that the AI isn't challenging enough, this should fix things. Really I advise anyone to play a level or two above their skill, even if it means losing every game, this is really the most fun thing, it pushes you to be creative and come up with strategies to 'try the next time'.

I agree for a better challenge go up to emperor. King is pretty much way too easy for me. Lately, I have been testing some mods for crashes. So, I just find it easier on king. This level gives you a good enough take on game balance etc.

They do try to win, they just dont spam settlers all over the place anymore.

budweiser said:

They do try to win, they just dont spam settlers all over the place anymore.

Click to expand...

Some of the civs most definitely still spam cities everywhere. Rome, for example, in every single game i've done in G & K always tried to fill up all possible land via settling or capture.

It does seem more civs go tall now though, which is actually kinda nice, instead of two billion crap cities everywhere.

Emperor isn't very tough either unless you get hosed on your starting location. One great thing about Emperor is you at least have to stay somewhat active in the late game as the AI likes to attack your CS's or gobble up the weaker AI's. That or you'll actively need to interfere with the runaway b/c they're going to space. Intervening is given more importance. 9 times out of 10 on King you can win by just clicking Next Turn after industrial era until you hit your VC and i don't always have that luxury on emperor.

ense7en said:

Some of the civs most definitely still spam cities everywhere. Rome, for example, in every single game i've done in G & K always tried to fill up all possible land via settling or capture.

It does seem more civs go tall now though, which is actually kinda nice, instead of two billion crap cities everywhere.

Click to expand...

I only notice that with Alexander in my games.

I suggest to the OP to try a game or two at Emperor difficulty and I expect he'll find it more of a challange. As for the power of the computer system used, I am quite sure that it doesn't affect AI strength.