Why is this AI so....

That's part of the reason I don't really like single player, it becomes extremely tedious mowing through dozens of AI units with no challenge. But I think OP still needs to work on science game a bit before moving on, even with full scale domination this rate is a bit slow

Science Victory is a fantasy. Science never won anything.

Wars and treaties win victories. Religion/Culture overtake others.

Nobody ever said "I invented the refrigerator! I'm in charge now!"

It's also pretty much impossible on huge maps with 12+ civs. One AI civ will always be across the world, get a OP start city, gobble up it's idiot surrounding AIs and turn into a tech runaway. There is nothing you can do about it from your side of the map and the remaining AIs are too stupid to ever realize they can lose to Science.

Even when an enemy AI starts making spaceship parts...they won't war that AI.

adsin15 said:

Science Victory is a fantasy. Science never won anything.

Wars and treaties win victories. Religion/Culture overtake others.

Nobody ever said "I invented the refrigerator! I'm in charge now!"

It's also pretty much impossible on huge maps with 12+ civs. One AI civ will always be across the world, get a OP start city, gobble up it's idiot surrounding AIs and turn into a tech runaway. There is nothing you can do about it from your side of the map and the remaining AIs are too stupid to ever realize they can lose to Science.

Even when an enemy AI starts making spaceship parts...they won't war that AI.

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On the other hand though Science can and will win you every single war, so your point is pretty moot.

Consider for example the Zulu fighting the Englishmen. Not only did the Zulu have better Generals, better morale, way more experienced and determined Soldiers and a sheer mass advantage of about 10:1, yet they still lost most battles. There's only a handful of exchanges they won and even then they lost seven, eight, ten times as many men. Spears just don't beat Rifles, Swords don't beat Airplanes and Horses don't beat Atomic Bombs.

The only reason why Europe was able to colonize Africa, America and parts of Asia is because they abused technology in order to violently dominate those with less effective weapons.

Also, following any kind of logic, there can never be a "cultural victory", because clearly "Cultures" are not holistic, they are always changing and clearly not geographically limited in any way. There is no one singular "Japanese culture", it is a mixture of Chinese, Korean, Japanese and European culture, just like every other culture out there. Keep in mind borders are inherently artificial and culture does not stop at them. America was founded by Europeans and Natives, so America is in part derivative of European culture. All European cultures are derivative of mesopotamian culture, you can just trace everything back ad infinitum.

yung.carl.jung said:

On the other hand though Science can and will win you every single war, so your point is pretty moot.

Consider for example the Zulu fighting the Englishmen. Not only did the Zulu have better Generals, better morale, way more experienced and determined Soldiers and a sheer mass advantage of about 10:1, yet they still lost most battles. There's only a handful of exchanges they won and even then they lost seven, eight, ten times as many men. Spears just don't beat Rifles, Swords don't beat Airplanes and Horses don't beat Atomic Bombs.

The only reason why Europe was able to colonize Africa, America and parts of Asia is because they abused technology in order to violently dominate those with less effective weapons.

Also, following any kind of logic, there can never be a "cultural victory", because clearly "Cultures" are not holistic, they are always changing and clearly not geographically limited in any way. There is no one singular "Japanese culture", it is a mixture of Chinese, Korean, Japanese and European culture, just like every other culture out there. Keep in mind borders are inherently artificial and culture does not stop at them. America was founded by Europeans and Natives, so America is in part derivative of European culture. All European cultures are derivative of mesopotamian culture, you can just trace everything back ad infinitum.

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See I think you are sort of making my point. Science is a tool which can be used for conquest...it isn't an actual form of conquest. Domination, Alliances/Treaties, and Culture (which I define in Civ terms as "ideas" like religion, ideology, language and entertainment) are forms of literally taking over other people and binding them to your will.

I think of science like I think of gold. Gold, or more generally, Commerce, like Science, is literally essential to winning the game. Having a strong economy can allow you to purchase ships, troops and infrastructure that can easily turn the tide in most wars or give you an advantage in achieving every other victory type. However there is no "Commerce Victory".

Science and Commerce are like modifiers for victory. They enhance your chances for victory but they aren't themselves a means of victory.

Yeah I see your point. But really, if I take your POV then Culture is not a legitimate VC either.

But really, VC in Civ are just there to represent "great human Achievements", that's it.

It makes sense, too, seeing as you engage in a faux-historical scenario.

Your objective in the end is not really to win, because after you really get into the game you will win every single one of your games, even on Deity. Most of the time the AI is completely incapable of winning before T300, which means what makes or breaks my Civ games is not whether I win (or which VC), but rather how I win, how the scenario unfolds, how I play my cards.

I guess we really derailed this thread, sorry for that, but I enjoyed this little discussion thoroughly.

I agree with your notion, too, not just in terms of Civ. I think Scientism as we can see it today, a new religion where some notion of "progress" is seen as the ultimate thing to strive for, a solution for everything, is really harmful to society. I think we have to take a step back and think about how much life for the average human has changed in the last decade alone. We don't know yet how that'll affect us, physically and psychologically. I for my part am pretty scared to see how a generation turns out that has been creating copious identities online starting in their preteens, a generation that has abstracted human contact to smileys and letters on a screen. A generation that every day is confronted with the achievements of someone else, forced to compare & self-evaluate itself because they are presented with only the best moments of their friends and loved ones lifes through social media. Studies have been popping up left and right linking overt use of social media to either depression or narcissism, but no one seems to care.

That's it for my part, don't want to get infracted for posting offtopic

You guys don't understand.

Russia was making threats of murdering me. Russia doesn't build military units to carry on through of her promise to bring death and misery to me. Russia looks at Demographics and see that Russia is threating murder on No.1 power and doesn't adjust the military to kick ass. Thus, AI is asleep.

Also, Its King + Standard Speed. I found Epic to be too slow for me on Civ5 but Epic was perfect for Civ4.

Stepping up to Emperor isn't even an option because Science progresses too quickly on Emperor and above. Entire eras flies by so fast. I could march across a map and my units is obsolete already because of speedy science. Its ridiculous.

And no, I don't keep everything I capture. AI settle cities in terrible locations 99% of the time. Always a large raze spree when I conquer territory.

Monty had four cities, I kept one.
Songhai had three cities, I kept two.
Byzantines had five cities, I kept two.
Mayans had more than seven cities, I took five and kept three.


And I like it when my military is fighting appropriate era units not UFOs.

Your complaint isn't valid on king difficulty, is the point. AI is obviously incompetent on King.

Why don't you try playing on Emperor on Epic difficulty then.

inthesomeday said:

Your complaint isn't valid on king difficulty, is the point. AI is obviously incompetent on King.

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I believe that my complaint is valid. Russia had 200+ turns to build up her military.

She simply build something else...
I dont understand exactly what you want... You want to have an easy game where the AI cant follow your tech pace and your millitary progression but that you will have units to kill on your way to your dom victory?

What I hear is:
You play a level that you can actualy beat the AI on your very 1st attempt at playing the game and complain its too easy.
Then, if we suggest to even just step it up a single level, you complain they will outtech you too fast.
Then we say, disable science vic.
You say: well... then I wont be able to roll over a huge 12 civ map wth caravels and musketmen.

I can believe that indeed the AI outtech you on emperor since you are on turn 325 in that game and your Navy is prvateer, caravels and frigates. Your mellee land units are riflemen. The actual real world time line suggest that you should have ironclads, battleships and that your land units would be Great War Infentry. They actualy had Aircraft carrier in WWI.

My suggeston is that you step it up to Emperor level, AI will be a bit faster in tech (still EXTREAMLY easy to follow, even outtech, without even spying or getting extra science from trade routes) but they will actualy build army because they have a pretty decent production bonus.
You will enjoy the game WAY more, and still be able to roll over the AI like Hittler on belgium (ok, maybe France).

I suspect that the reason why you cant keep the tech pace on emperor is because you pay no attention whatsoever to you science. The reason why I think that is that is simply because even if you build NCollege on turn 110, buld Oxford on turn 180, dont steal a single tech, and almost ignore public schools to only end up build them when you have some kind of time for it, technicaly, you should keep the emperor pace (probably even be top 3). You would probably even be slightly ahead of the real world timeline at some point. (at least in some trees)

King can be a fun level to play and fool around I suppose, dont get me wrong. Sometimes I like to build any wonder I want, and follow a totally not optimal but fun policy path etc... (actualy I do that on emperor) but when you do that, you are not really allow to expect that AI will give you a challenge. This is the reason why you play a level that is under you actual skill level: to do whatever you want and still come up on top.

Try what I suggest... tight up your game regarding science. Step it up to emperor. And maybe disable other victory paths but domination as other suggested, and I predict that you will have a great time, because AI will actualy have an army. He will still be horrible in decision making, move around like he have no plans at all during combats, but at least you will have something to kill on your way to victory.

Callonia said:

She maintains HOSTILE attitude towards me for 200+ turns. Its turn 325 now so that you guys know. She had couple hundred of turns to build up her military to prepare to defend against me.. and she.. did.. NOTHING! Just sat there, skipping turns! wtf.

And that's not all, she's maintaining insults and denouncements and spying on me stealing techs. Surely, all those won't make me attack her.

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So the AI isn't allowed to hate the strongest military? Why is that? I mean in real life this does not happen. Countries have hostile attitudes to one another regardless of military strength, so why do you think it is a bad thing the AI does this? It would be awful if you could repair all your diplomatic relationships just by building units.

Callonia said:

And now a large Armada is sitting right next her, about to strike. She has noone to blame but the Firaxis Developers!

If hostile towards Powerful Civilization with military 5 times bigger than you, build more military units. Why not!

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You can role play all you want but let's face the truth: you would have attacked the AI regardless of it's attitude towards you and you would have crushed the AI regardless of it's pointy sticks. There is no way to lose because the AI is really bad at war.

Callonia said:

Is there someone that can enlighten on me why Russia is not doing anything. Thank you.

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Here's the thing: the AI is bad. No matter how you look at it the AI is bad. It is bad at King and it is bad at Deity. In fact it's the same AI only deity gives it ridiculous bonuses that make it more competitive.

Callonia said:

You guys don't understand.

Russia was making threats of murdering me. Russia doesn't build military units to carry on through of her promise to bring death and misery to me. Russia looks at Demographics and see that Russia is threating murder on No.1 power and doesn't adjust the military to kick ass. Thus, AI is asleep.

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I find that threats and denunciations often come from fairly weak civs. You shouldn't think of it as the AI being asleep. Instead, they are bluffing. If you call their bluff, you find out there's nothing there. If you don't call their bluff, then they stay secure. IRL, you can think about Saddam Hussein or Moammar Khadafi -- both of whose bluffs were eventually called.