Insane gold production - marathon Deity - normal?

Greetings all -

Having beat Epic Immortal as an OCC, I decided to try a Marathon Deity OCC game. Large map.

I can already see this is a disaster in the making. Besides Persia entering the MODERN ERA before AD, and the Manhattan Project going off a few dozen turns later, I notice the AI's are positively AWASH in gold. This is in the 600AD era but has been going on for a while (clearly).

Persia has over 100,000 in gold. 1000 per turn.
England and American around 50,000. England cashing 1000 per turn.
Other AI's in the 500 per turn, tens of thousands.

What the????? There was nothing like this at all in my Immortal game. Can the game change dynamic be that broken between the two levels? This cannot POSSIBLY be right.

Research agreements are obviously no problem so the AI's are catapulting forward.

Anyone have some insight on this? I've beaten Deity before but I don't recall this being an issue. Is the latest patch to blame? Some odd combo between Marathon and Deity?

Clearly, I cannot hope to win this game, unless the AI's are so ******** as to let me win. And on Deity, that'd be a disappointment.

Civ5 is the easiest game yet for OCC! No point building more than 1 city below immortal difficulty, its way faster to win that way. I feel theres something broken about it, the AI never declare war even though you have no military at all. They just let you win all the way through on Emperor difficulty. & you out tech everyone with just 1 city thanks to completely imbalanced RA's.

I haven't tried deity but it wouldn't surprise me they have 1000+ gold per turn, especially darius, in my games hes always rich.

Whoa, thats pretty crazy. Imagine how powerful that would be if its in the hands of a human player!!

Now *1600* GPT. Something is rotten in the milk.

Are you playing with economy mods enabled? Because for that kind of cash these civs should have 80+ cities.

AND I just won.

THIS. GAME. IS. A. JOKE.

Persia had TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND GOLD. So he built the UN and didn't spend a DIME trying to take away my CS allies.

I will attach a save. Go ahead and smartly spend my 2500 gold and win the game on the next turn.

UNBELIEVABLE. Did anyone playtest this ^#&&Uing game? I am barely past gunpowder, there have been tanks on the map for over 1000 years, and I somehow win. Because I am a genius? No. But because I hung around and let the AI win the game for me.

Back to Civ4 for a while. The utterly inane diplomacy (worst diplomacy model of any modern game, period. Pokemon is better.) has been pushing me, and winning an Immortal game I had no business winning has pushed me over the edge.

Ah... stacks. Look ma, I can move my unit across the map without life draining tedium!!

Gonna miss the hexes and city radius though...

Be sure to look at the ridiculous income on the diplomacy screen if you load the save. England is cashing in, what, 1700 GPT? Immortal/Marathon is BROKEN. That cannot possibly be as designed.

And yet... I won. Immortal. Marathon. All Firaxis Base Are Belong To Me.

P.S. Since it was asked, this is a mod-free game. Merely large map Immortal Marathon.

Okay I lied... gonna take the City State Diplomacy Mod for a whirl and check it out... THEN it's time for a little Better Bug AI Civ 4... miss vassalizing my opponents after driving them before me and hearing the lamentations of their women, miss the diplomatic game... imagine that, countries behave consistent with their diplomatic conditions and past history. Friends are friends. Enemies are enemies.

Not a dime for city states with 200K!!

I swear, load the game and look. Each of the AI Civs could buy me 40 times over. How does Darius not spend his cash loading up CS allies with 10 turns of advance notice when HE built the damn UN?

P.S. City State Diplomacy - fun, but not for an OCC, maybe if you disable diplo victory but even then. But for regular games? Fun.

Venger said:

I swear, load the game and look. Each of the AI Civs could buy me 40 times over. How does Darius not spend his cash loading up CS allies with 10 turns of advance notice when HE built the damn UN?

P.S. City State Diplomacy - fun, but not for an OCC, maybe if you disable diplo victory but even then. But for regular games? Fun.

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What exactly, was he doing with all that freakin money if not even trying to win? I'll load the game and see if I have the same results.

Darius is programmed to not play like a douchebag. He would never pay money to a city-state because that's boring gameplay.

Let me tell you what is boring gameplay - winning that game like that. What a waste of time. It's like getting a medal at the Special Olympics. Darius built the UN without a plan to actually try to get votes? Then why build it at all? Because it's there? There is no rational explanation - just sloppy.

Venger said:

Let me tell you what is boring gameplay - winning that game like that. What a waste of time. It's like getting a medal at the Special Olympics. Darius built the UN without a plan to actually try to get votes? Then why build it at all? Because it's there? There is no rational explanation - just sloppy.

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Admittedly Diplomatic Victory is the most broken in terms of AI. The AI will aim for a particular victory... but will not attempt to prevent other players from winning a victory.

Now that makes a little bit of sense because
..To stop another player from winning Domination Victory, the AI just needs to hold onto its own Capital... something it tries to do anyways

..To stop another player from winning Space/Culture Victory, the AI needs to invade and conquer the other player...a major undertaking. (that could slow its own victory pursuit down)


So in both of those the AI behavior is somewhat sensible
However
To stop another player from winning Diplomatic Victory, flood the CS with Gold (or conquer them). Now that has a cost, but the AI apparently has a lot of extra unused Gold.

That is probably the bigger thing that the AI needs, to find ways to effectively use their gold.
1. Buildings (AIs that have 1000 gpt and 100,000 gold should have EVERY possible building in thier cities)
2. Units... AIs in that condition should be able to have a war with 1 unit from 1 city each... a COD wave against a lesser human player

3. Finally, CS... AIs that have all buildings and have a sufficiently massive Army and still have mass gold, should start buying all CSs that they possibly can... focusing on those that favor their win condition, or are allies of potential enemies

Lay_Lay said:

Darius is programmed to not play like a douchebag. He would never pay money to a city-state because that's boring gameplay.

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I might agree on lower difficulties. But on immortal and deity I expect the AIs to use the tools at there disposal. What's the point of the hardest difficulties if the AIs are using it to their advantage?

I think alot of the ai woes goes down to the flavour system - i'd guess darius rolled low on the "buy cs" ai flavour

SpearMan153 said:

I think alot of the ai woes goes down to the flavour system - i'd guess darius rolled low on the "buy cs" ai flavour

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However, as the AIs gold goes up it should start buying CSs ... regardless of flavor Especially if it is at Globalism OR the UN has been built. (and a Diplowin is theoretically possible)

Krikkitone said:

However, as the AIs gold goes up it should start buying CSs ... regardless of flavor Especially if it is at Globalism OR the UN has been built. (and a Diplowin is theoretically possible)

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yes I agree, that's my point - ai "should" buy out CS's assuming spare cash and not being worried about upsetting other civs (via "competing for same CS" penalty) as that's good play but if the ai happens to roll high on "ignore CS" flavour they won't (I'm guessing)

I suspect alot of ai goofiness goes down to flavours. Why do some ais always do better then others? Because they just happen to have flavours that work for them, instead of causing them to shoot themselves in the foot (like not expanding and building wonders without developing infrastructure)

Of course as we don't have any source code I acknowledge that I'm only speculating here...

I registered just to say that this has to be the most hilarious Civ-related thing I've ever read.

Venger said:

THIS. GAME. IS. A. JOKE.

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Indeed the AI should be fixed in that it prevents you from getting the last vote (if it can) and using that money for rush-buying infrastructure (among other things).

Other than that, I see no reason why every AI should pursue a Diplo victory just because it has lots of cash.

Bibor said:

Indeed the AI should be fixed in that it prevents you from getting the last vote (if it can) and using that money for rush-buying infrastructure (among other things).

Other than that, I see no reason why every AI should pursue a Diplo victory just because it has lots of cash.

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ummm, perhaps because it is "playing to win"? Oh wait...

OP, just switch the diplo victory off. Ater diplo win accidentally happening to me (wanted to take away few CS' from the AI that built the UN while aiming for culture and boom I've "won") I've turned off that broken feature and yes, Large Deity Normal games can be quite challenging.

As for the money of the AI's - it's there for you Sell all luxuries you can, and after beating soundly a loaded AI you can have a nice chunk of their gold in a peace treaty