is there a mod that makes the ai keep trying to grow?

I am a little bemused by the behaviour of AI (at least in the medium hard modes I play in) the way I see it they consistently stay with smaller empire sizes than they need to, they never (well I've seen it ONCE, so not never) cross oceans with settlers, and rarely attack any of the other players (and of they do, they take one city, if that) and yet they often wholesale attack me simultaneously - but I am not moaning - just saying!

I was just wondering if there was a mod where the ai is tweaked so he always expands cities until there is the sea and then he keeps going! and that that "attitude" leads to war.. that he develops resources and luxuries properly, always keeps growing according to his means (happiness etc etc)

is there an AI aggression / expansion mod that does this (or tailors more for civ personality) or is it simply that the harder modes are rubbish? because when I go into the hardest mode a artificially boosted civ attacks me from god-knows-where with more men than I could ever make (and usually with an ally!) - and that to me is nonsense - there is no fun fighting with both hands tied like that and I'd prefer to up-skill to the ai so it gets closer to a competition!

i've also noticed that there seems to be civs that are picked to be the leaders. they are the ones that expand the most and usually declare war. all you have to do to win is knock them out and the other civs will never expand. its like one civ is picked to be the main opponent, and the rest are in a support role to them. then once you knock that main opponent out, none of the other civs take their place, so the rest of the game is just mopping up. kind of boring. makes the late game very boring. the only thing that seems to help is playing on a single continent. this makes the other civs expand more since they have the room, so they are more trouble to mop up later.

I don't think there is a mod for that, but there was a thread a while ago that showed how to fix that in the XML. Try searching XML on these forums...

Weird, I normally play on King or Emporer, and there is almost always one agressive expander in the game. Even if there isn't an aggressive one, there are always several who expand at a pretty good rate.

And, unlike the OP, I HAVE seen the AI settle on new continents. It doesn't happen often, but why would it? I don't even do it all that often - it's too much trouble to defend against a new continent's worth of now-angry neighbours. Easier just to conquer.

I do agree with another poster who mentioned the "favored" AI. If all AI start with same benefits, why do one or two race out to such a big lead without conquering? Some AI just seemed assigned to play poorly (or at least sub-optimally) and other much better (and not always through way).

In my most recent game Korea has expanded like a man-man, holding the number 1 position for most of the game (I had it the rest of the time) and only went to war in 1500 AD against a belligerent Japan, and still remains on good terms with me even though I'm on the same continent.

I don`t see a problem. The AI does and will expand, crossing overseas. They`ll even sometimes take little islands. If they have a good land mass then the need to expand is not so great. I was opposite Washington who had a huge landmass to himself that allowed him to grow exponentially, wiping out Genghis. then when he was good and ready with a few Carriers and aircraft he proceeded to go overseas and take one my cities, expanding into my land.

Seems logical and reasonable to me.

One time China expanded to my continent. She settled a city on the farthest north, on snow, right on the coast. No resources except for maybe one deer.

I was like, "Suit yourself. You can stay there as long as you want!"

Play enough and you'll see all kinds of variations. So many factors involved that each roll is different.

Will say that it wasn't until I moved up to Emperor until the AI became consistently good at taking over other AI cities. Thats not to say it didn't happen at Prince and King, its just that I haven't had it NOT happen at emperor....only 5 games in at that level though.

I have consistently seen that the AI does not wage successful wars with each other.

You may see X has declared war on Y...but cities almost never change hands, and they quickly make peace after a while.

I even saw washington with 6 cities fail to take out denmark, whom i had left with one city (and not even their original capital). All they accomplished was some minor damage to the city, then washington simply gave up. They had the same tech levels as well.

Barring a runaway civ with a very good start location, the AI can never take out another AI....nor can they make a decent navy (i frequently see AIs in renaissance with tireme fleets...), and will make almost no effort to engage your navy with theirs. They also have no idea how to launch amphibious invasions, which is why AIs on another continent don't pose any threat to you. If you have safeguarded your own continent, you can simply disregard military units and spam end turn for a diplomatic/cultural/science victory.

Question said:

I even saw washington with 6 cities fail to take out denmark, whom i had left with one city (and not even their original capital). All they accomplished was some minor damage to the city, then washington simply gave up. They had the same tech levels as well.

Click to expand...

Also it's because the AI need a horde of units to break 1 city with a wall and 1 archer

I don't recall AI failing to expand in any of my games.
Maybe difficulty level has something to do with it - I play on Deity.
Also maybe the map type has an impact - I play on Pangaea
BTW Pangaea with sea level set to HIGH creates interesting maps...

Question said:

I have consistently seen that the AI does not wage successful wars with each other.

You may see X has declared war on Y...but cities almost never change hands, and they quickly make peace after a while.

I even saw washington with 6 cities fail to take out denmark, whom i had left with one city (and not even their original capital). All they accomplished was some minor damage to the city, then washington simply gave up. They had the same tech levels as well.

Barring a runaway civ with a very good start location, the AI can never take out another AI....nor can they make a decent navy (i frequently see AIs in renaissance with tireme fleets...), and will make almost no effort to engage your navy with theirs. They also have no idea how to launch amphibious invasions, which is why AIs on another continent don't pose any threat to you. If you have safeguarded your own continent, you can simply disregard military units and spam end turn for a diplomatic/cultural/science victory.

Click to expand...

We must be playing different games. I haven't played above Emperor yet, but I have a ton of saved games at Emperor and below with AI's capturing cities. Granted I have seen horrible attempts at siege by the AI, not sure what the difference is.

I to wish there was a mod that makes this occur more often. Every now and then soem AI's will go wild, hell even atilla did it one game, but there is no consitancy allowing me to expand like crzy and still keep the tech lead up, even at emperor

Well the coming patch will encourage the AI to expand a little more to isolated areas.

whyidie said:

We must be playing different games. I haven't played above Emperor yet, but I have a ton of saved games at Emperor and below with AI's capturing cities. Granted I have seen horrible attempts at siege by the AI, not sure what the difference is.

Click to expand...

Well i play on prince, maybe the AI gets more aggression bonuses or something at higher leveld that discourage peace.

They will expand, and it seems to be connected to the difficulty lvl. I was going for some of the more annoying achievements and did it on low lvls, there was allways one point when they simply stopped expanding - maybe in relation to their tech lvl - and because they cant keep up at that levels (about up to King) it seems they will not further expand as to maybe 3 to 5 cities (about that range), with exceptions of course.

But try it on emperor, immortal or diety: You will recognize that they expand in waves, with about 2 - 3 cities at 1000BC and 3-5 (as mentioned above) cities at ~0 to~500 AD and then at about 1000AD (depending on alot more factors) there often comes a large wave of new settlements.

I think it corelates with their tech lvl, and this maybe the reason they "seem" to stop expanding at lower levels.