AI overexpands?

[BillSeurer]

In both of my last two games I was in the middle of the pack in progress and then, rather suddenly, I overtook and passed the leaders. From exploring the maps and attempting trades it appears the AI over expanded quite seriously, got into financial problems, and research fell off to nothing. After many, many turns almost no one other than me is advancing much.

It looks like what might be happening is that they are taking over barbarian and rival cities way far away from their home area too soon in the game. Unless they choose the right civics that will suck them dry for money in no time; it sure kills me when I do it anyway.

The other thing I sometimes see is them dropping down little cities in questionable places that have no growth potential and no nearby resources, often half way 'round the world, too. These are just bound to stagnate and drain money away.

 

[fuzzy_bunnies]

Actually... this is happening to me right now and I think you're right, I think it might have to do with barb cities that they capture.

I'm playing barb world and the svart are much bigger than I am and expanded aggressively early on but they're almost at the bottom of the chart in score. Looking over their cities, it looks like a lot of the new ones were ex-barb cities which would make sense if they didn't count captured cities when determining whether or not a new city would be a good idea.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

yeah, they definitely tend towards overexpansion. especially on higher difficulty levels. if you have "raging barbs" on, they tend to get hammered into defeat due to building lots of settlers and not enough units.

 

[Ahriman]

Very often the Hippus in particular capture a huge tract of land with horsemen and then tech-crash into oblivion.

 

[Yashkaf]

I remember the good old days with Loki, when every time I captured a newly founded city the AI would waste no time in training two more settlers and sending them into any clear spot, even ones that make no sense whatsoever. I ended with 5 nice, rich captured cities. The AI ended up with 11 cities evenly spread around the continent.

 

[Zechnophobe]

Honestly, it isn't the expanditure that's the problem, per se, but rather that the AI currently doesn't pick up the necessary tile improvment techs. How often do they go entire games without Sanitation, or chopping down jungle? Capturing/growing into a thick jungle just costs maintenance. Similarly they'll get cities on coasts, without fishing, and maybe few other resources to work.

It's a major flaw in the AI, and playing on relatively fertile map scripts is the best solution.

That said, It is pretty hard to *truly* overexpand. If you work tiles effectively, than it only takes a city to get to size 3 or 4 before it makes back the econ deficit. Further more, the total Maintenance a city can pay for Number of cities caps at (IIRC) 6.

 

[Ajidica]

I never have an overexpanding AI problem (Except occasionaly Perpentach) It may be because I play on Erebus mapscript, but sometimes the AI stays with 2-3 cities the entire game. (I play on Noble)

 

[Fafnir13]

The AI's I see don't seem to have the tech crash problem, but they do tend to build waaaay more cities then I ever can. I suppose that, if I made settlers a priority, I might keep up. Problem with that is then I am the one doing the tech crash. Better to conquer their their many cities as budget allows, it seems.

 

[Vylinius]

I played islands and I saw the ugly side of ai wars. THe doviello captured the elohim's 2 cities now they had 4 2 turns later the jump in and fight the kuriotates. Then I jump in and find the 4 cities and I think to myself what the heck it is too early to have 4 cities on an islands map.

 

[Mailbox]

I think that AI should realize how powerful markets are for keeping a rapidly expanding economy afloat.