What empire never seems to get off the ground in your games?

[zan_laurin]

France is always a hell of an opponent, in my games. He seems to like going wide really fast till he reaches 5-6 cities then focuses on tall & warfare.

Once he performs a DoW on you he cherry picks the optimal entry point for ruining your day, unfortunately for him the combat tactical AI is absolutely rubbish unless you fight on open plains without forests, rivers, forts.

On one occasion I did see Ghandi take over an entire continent, steamrolling over Hiawatha, Washington, Isabella and *gasp* Ghenghis all before 1700 AD
I still think Ghandi has the potential of being the perfect warmonger when played right. Hehe

 

[cavilier210]

America never goes anywhere in my games. They might get a few really large and high cultured cities, but then Rome, or Askia come in an pwn the hell out of his sorry ass. He barely expands.

Like this last game on a huge earth map. They're the only power in Europe (oddly) and they don't move west at all. I colonized all the north atlantic islands, and spain in the late game and america just sat there whining about my occupying land they want.


Now Ghandi...... Ghandi scares me, lol. He's a nukemonger.

 

[zan_laurin]

[...]
Now Ghandi...... Ghandi scares me, lol. He's a nukemonger.

He has the biggest bias towards nukes, to the point where it's invalidated 12 out of 10 (all values above 10 are invalidated). The problem is that there's a random roll that decreases/increases that value by (-2,-1,0,1,2) if that roll is -2 Ghandi's nuke bias is "reduced" to 10... think of it like this Monty has an warmongering bias of 9, imagine what a value of 10 does for nuke_flavor This is probably some sort of sick joke the devs left in the game as an "easter egg"

 

[The Tollan]

China has usually been conquered quickly in the games I have played. It seems to be terribly weak in most cases.

The Iroquois usually do not do too well either (although sometimes they reach moderate levels of power).

Rome is usually fairly lackluster.

While I have seen some powerful Germanies they seem to be in rather bad shape more often than not.

The U.S./America seems to vary a lot. I have found some reasonably powerful versions of it (often seems to become very hostile by the late game).

Siam seems to have the potential to become extremely powerful. The most powerful AI controlled civilization that I have encountered was a Siamese empire. Although Siam does not always become one of the very powerful civilizations if they manage to do so and they have enough city state allies then they usually seem to eclipse most AI rivals with ease.

Greece often becomes fairly powerful as well (though less extreme than Siam).

The Mongols have always been one of the most powerful AI controlled civs in every game I have played (in which they were present). However, in other games (without the Mongols) I have seen AI controlled civilizations that are significantly more powerful than what I have seen from the Mongols.

In most of these games I have played they seemed to start with few or no neighbors and usually end up controlling their land mass or continent with or without much warfare. So they have often benefited from very favorable starting positions in my games.

I have only encountered Polynesia once so far (one started up one file yet since acquiring this DLC), but they have been very keen on rapid expansion (and they are extremely close to my starting area). I do not recall ever seeing any civilization try to expand so rapidly as this particularly Polynesia. A constant sequence of wars (initited by Polynesia) has resulted. They are have been faltering badly though and pose little threat now.

India varies quite a bit, but in my first Civilization V game I encountered an extraordinarily powerful India. In this game Ghandi had conquered a huge amount of civilizations and controlled a gigantic amount of a very large continent. He basically ruled the western portions of it while I held the east.

He entered the Modern Era well before the end of the 19th century. I would have to look at the difficulty settings again to remember which one had been selected, but it was either Prince or Monarch, whichever is supposed to be the middle-most difficulty setting. This version of India seemed to be more advanced than the vast majority of Emperor difficulty civs I have encountered since then (though patches may have changed the situation).

 

[TPQ]

America, China, Egypt, Polynesia, Aztecs. Probably some others too, but very rarely do I see any of these guys dominating in empire size.

 

[Louis XXIV]

Harald. He always seems to get creamed in my games pretty much 100% of the time.

Yeah, I've never seen the AI Danes play well. Even in games where they have a great defensive position that suits their ability, they get picked on.

 

[Belzek]

A big second on Monty....he always spams DOW's on everyone and anyone, but can't take cities with his early UU's since they buffed city strength. I think jags need a bonus against cities or something, he is rarely ever a factor in my games. I was terrified of him as a neighbor in IV, but in V he's just a good source for early cities and good faction with everyone else for beating up on him.

 

[Kurtbob]

China and Polynesia are always weak in my games. Sometimes they never build a third or fourth city, somtimes not even a second! Everyone else is up and down, some games they expand and others they dont. Only Russia and the Ottomans spread like wildfire in every game I play.

 

[Noatz]

Monty is just unpredictable (not in his DoWing, thats always predictable). It mostly depends on his start, if he has multiple borders with other civs he tends to multi DoW them and die off. But if hes in a position where he can only DoW 1-2 people and isn't near the player so they can stop him, then he can take over other civs and become a beast.

The same applies to Germany, except Bismark is not completely balls to the wall insane and tends to only pick fights he can win. Therefore its not uncommon to see Germany become a runaway (and field the most horrendous spam-armies in the game).

Its often civs that spam cities that become true runaways. Persia, Iroquois, Germany etc are all good at this. And the ones that try and play tall often die off to their expansionist neighbours.

 

[Gigaz]

Playing on a huge pangea or lakes on emperor or immortal.

First rule: If Catherine is in play, she will dominate every other civ. Mostly by spamming settlers and conquest.
Second rule: If Catherine is not in play but Genghis is, he will dominate every other civ. Mostly by conquest.
If neither Catherine nor Genghis is in play, the strong leaders are usually Ramkamheng, Bismarck, Napoleon, Ramses and Ghandi.

 

[smallfish]

It's not entirely inaccurate; Harald built a lot of forts, a large bridge (for its day) and was partially responsible for building the Jelling Stones. My problem is that the Denmark civ has been clumsily labelled as "the vikings", when it really isn't. And Harald says a lot of warlike things that you would expect a viking to say, and yet doesn't play that way at all.

Mate, you'll love this game I just had then.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

 

[chazzycat]

Danes & Polynesia seem to be the weakest for me. I cannot remember a game where either of these two was a threat at all. Others that have been mentioned like China, do poorly sometimes but other times are able to get things going.

 

[Fluffball]

A lot of people have mentioned China as being a bit of a none starter but in all my games China usually does reasonably well, either being one of the top dogs or being in the top 4 before being overrun by one of the other big boys, not usually me as she is almost always a good trading partner.

The biggest none starter in my experience tends to be England and i have never seen Lizzy do very well at all.

Surprisingly (for me at least) Japan never seems to do very well either. He's usually super isolationist and hard top trade anything with but never seems to declare a war or do very well in one when attacked.

America is usually very poor and i have seen a couple of games where he has never even gone past one city even when left alone. A lot of the time this seems to be an artificial lack of expansionism as he is usually very aggressive in the early game in regards to DoW but usually gets his ass kicked (often by me).
Monty tends to fall into this category also although he is usually more successful at warring but nine times out of 10 tends to declare more wars than he can deal with and gets gang banged (again often by me)
Siam is often quite small but that tends to often appear by choice as he tends to be big on culture with usually the top culture and SP totals.

For the other end of the scale, France and The Mongols are usually the biggest empires and eventual threats unless kicked into place very early on.

Russia is usually big but generally legitimately friendly so i rarely knock her down unless it is really necissary as Cathy is probably the best trading partner in the game.

India can grow really big if left alone, both in ICS and going tall at the same time but again is never so much of a threat until it comes to being nuke happy but i do tend to find an excuse to knock him down early because if allowed to he can become HUGE.
Even though he is often a minor threat Ghandi tends to be quite moody in general and is often a poor trading partner.

 

[izotope]

Wow. 16 posts and not one mention of Montezuma. All the in my pocket for the first person who can show me a screenshot of an AI Monty as a runaway civ.

Monty can't help himself from constantly going to war, early and often, even though he is far better used as a population spamming builder. He never, ever gets off the ground in the hands of the AI.

One of the early games on King, Earth i had. Monty occupied all of North America/South America.. Had a score of 4000ish while next closest was probably babylon at 2200.

Never went to war with anyone, started apollo project but got beat out by UN Vote to babylon! Damn city states!!

 

[smallfish]

Watch MadDjinn's Korea Deity Cultural LP on youtube, dude. That one had a stunning Monty runaway.

Also, from an old Prince game:

Spoiler :

 

[TImithius]

Polynesia, always Polynesia. He always is a small insignificant Empire in all of my games and I would not feel the need to conquer him, but every time I play against him he always has amazing resources nearby. Maybe he would grow more if I didn't declare war on him at first sight

 

[chazzycat]

Wow. 16 posts and not one mention of Montezuma. All the in my pocket for the first person who can show me a screenshot of an AI Monty as a runaway civ.

Monty can't help himself from constantly going to war, early and often, even though he is far better used as a population spamming builder. He never, ever gets off the ground in the hands of the AI.

He does ok for me once in a while, but you're right, this happens a lot. Attacks everyone nearby with jaguars that don't accomplish anything, then soon thereafter get rolled by someone with iron units.

 

[SlithyTove]

Monty never goes anywhere. On my last emperor small occ Monty was a runaway on his continent and his tech was still worse than mine. That guy is just fail.

Ottomans never go anywhere much though they seem to eke out a living without being totally killed.

America is a sociopath that only does well if very lucky.

I've only seen hiawatha go anywhere once, usually crushed early.

India is never big in cities, but what cities they are! Have to keep an eye on him for cultural victory.

Japan just limps along after the early game.


France and Arabia are my two most consistently powerful foes. Mongols often get a runaway empire but don't seem as apt as the first two at sealing the victory from there. Have to keep an eye on Ram and Darius too.

 

[westyofoz]

Isn't that interesting. Different Civs do different things for different people. For example, Hiawatha is always way above the other AIs in my games, he is like a second super power. I would have thought everyone's experience with the civs would be similar but obviously not.

 

[Glassmage]

China is weak in my games lately but it is just the random number generator working.