AI on Immortal and Above

[rover6695]

Playing one of my first few games on immortal, and the AI has pretty much colonized every square inch on the world, and at standard speed we are not yet at turn 300.
Has this happened to you, and if so, WHY?

When I play at lower difficulty levels I rarely will colonize and spam cities, it just makes things so much harder. Am I missing something? Is there some benefit or is this just the dumb AI?

 

[poxpower]

The AI on deity starts with 2 settlers, so they use up space quickly. They also get tons of huge bonuses to science, happiness, production, growth and culture so it lets them make settlers faster and start crappy cities anywhere they like basically without repercussion.

On immortal they don't have the double settler but they still get massive bonuses to everything else.

 

[joncnunn]

This is actually an example of the AI behaving correctly.
With the happiness bonuses the AI gets when the human is on Immortal+ is combined with the AIs growth bonus, a city anywhere is worth founding for the AI.

 

[Acken]

Playing one of my first few games on immortal, and the AI has pretty much colonized every square inch on the world, and at standard speed we are not yet at turn 300.
Has this happened to you, and if so, WHY?

When I play at lower difficulty levels I rarely will colonize and spam cities, it just makes things so much harder. Am I missing something? Is there some benefit or is this just the dumb AI?

Turn 300 is kind of the end on these difficulty

 

[Sclb]

Yea, only way to extend game beyond 300 is to be a warmonger that can cripple any AI from launching SS and to conquer culture AI's capitals.

 

[rover6695]

It was actually at turn 250.
So basically you are saying the AI plays by different rules than me, which is why they "spam" cities which for me as a player, NEVER makes sense on any level?

 

[Kriogen]

It was actually at turn 250.
So basically you are saying the AI plays by different rules than me, which is why they "spam" cities which for me as a player, NEVER makes sense on any level?

AI plays by the same rules as you, but above Prince it gets a bonus. More happy faces, smaller penalties, etc ... At Immortal+ its very high.

Same "math", but numbers are a bit different. Its a bit like: what you get, AI gets 2x as much. If you get hit by -4 happy faces, AI would be hit by only -2.

 

[danaphanous]

Here's the numbers.

2x is an overstatement for immortal. On Deity, yes, they get close to half your penalties and double your bonuses.

Of particular significance on Deity:

- AI starts with 2 settlers, 2 workers, 2 military units
- AI has a 50% modifier to buildings and national wonders (can build buildings for half your cost but NOT wonders)
- AI gets 60% combat bonus vs. Barbarians
- AI gets 5 free techs, basically everything they need to build roads, mines, pastures, shrines, granaries, immediately. Gives them a huge edge with 2 starting workers
- AI gets 60% modifier to unhappiness (so 40% less then you)
- AI only needs 60% of the food you need to grow
- AI gets a 50% discount to building units and buying them with faith
- AI gets 50% discount to building and unit maintenance costs

These are the ones I understand, there are other modifiers whose purpose I'm unclear on. Given the list it's amazing they lose at all. Shows how dumb they are at management. If they could tech near as optimally as a human and fight better humans would lose every game to early T40 rush. Given the huge bonus they get starting with workers AND the tech to use them, this is why stealing their workers is so effective at nerfing them. If you manage to steal both you can see the effect as they are the weakest AI by far by turn 100. This is a recommended move for aggressive Deity/Liberty strategies on standard maps.

 

[poxpower]

Their units also start with two promotions and require 50% as much XP to level.
When they research armory, all their units start with 4 promotions, basically. Thankfully they always pick a random garbage mix instead of going for logistics/+1 range.

 

[rover6695]

That makes a little sense but not much. I just don't see how it helps to spam cities....that never made my path to victory easier; in fact it made it harder.

 

[Acken]

It doesnt help them arguably. They get hit by some unhappiness here and there and most importantly they fail to make national wonders and get hit by the tech penalty. One of the major component of why bnw deity is easier then gk is the tech penalty hurting the ai real bad.

 

[rover6695]

It doesnt help them arguably. They get hit by some unhappiness here and there and most importantly they fail to make national wonders and get hit by the tech penalty. One of the major component of why bnw deity is easier then gk is the tech penalty hurting the ai real bad.

Yea it just seems dumb, all it does is prevent me from settling but after I get 4 cities I'm done.

 

[Acken]

Well the AI is still more efficient on many cities than on 4. That's because the per city AI is rather poor so it needs number to be frightening. Only large AIs usually are a threat.

But like we said too many too soon can hurt it instead.

 

[joncnunn]

It doesnt help them arguably. They get hit by some unhappiness here and there and most importantly they fail to make national wonders and get hit by the tech penalty. One of the major component of why bnw deity is easier then gk is the tech penalty hurting the ai real bad.

BNW introduced the AI getting a science bonus; which applies on all difficulty levels.
It's just that some of the flavors have even libraries as such a low priority than high expansion flavors can build cities that do almost nothing for science progression.

In addition, BNW introducing trade routes amounts to on Deity giving the human part of the AI starting handicap. (BNW did greatly reduce the ability to get AI's gold though)

 

[Acken]

Maybe my memory is bad but I remember the AI winning regularly in the 250-260 in GK whereas it's not that commong on BNW,