Why is Sciences Funding so unpopular with the AI?

[erisiamk]

Hi everyone, this is my first post on the forums but I've been playing Civ 5 BNW for about 8 games now. Something that I've noticed is that, when aiming to pass Sciences Funding at the World Congress, the vast proportion of other civilizations are opposed, while when I try to pass Arts Funding, they all want it to be passed.

Why does the AI seem to have such a bias towards Arts Funding? Do the vast majority of civs prefer to win culturally than scientifically, because this isn't what I've seen through gameplay (I see a lot more Apollo Projects than influential cultures, for instance) Or have I just not played enough games yet to see the balance?

 

[evilcat]

This is good question. Some wild guesing: In GnK victory was tied to just collecting enought culture, so collecting big number of culture was a decent strategy. In BNW collecting culture is nice, but not winning (while collecting science definetly helps). Also individual rulers are not coded to flavor science, they prefere culture/military training stuff like that. Science is important, but AI do not "know" it.

 

[jahsoldier]

I've no idea, it's really strange. Possibly it's because I'm usually a few techs ahead of the AI by that point, so maybe the AI considers it rampant sciencemongering (but then again, it offers them a way to catch up, so it still doesn't really make sense )

Practically everyone loves Arts Funding and hates Science Funding in every game I've played, even tech-focused civs like Babylon and Korea. Could be a bug in the AI, even.

 

[apocalypse105]

Babylon and korea likes it

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

It's actually quite even in my game. Venice and Maya were pleased by it, while England and the Celts were not happy. I don't remember the others having strong feeling one way or the other. Funny thing is, after it passed I found out even the ones who hated it voted for it.

 

[Wulf38]

I think there are just too many civs with cultural flavors now, and not enough with science flavors. You can see this in their social policy choices too. A majority of them will fill out the Aesthetics tree, while almost none will go Rationalism.

 

[flying_dug0ng]

Agreed, if you keep tabs on the Global Diplo screen you'll always see a majority of AIs going into Aesthetics. Perhaps because it's available earlier?

Usually on higher diff AIs go to town with wonders, so with their higher culture output, they initially try for a cultural victory. Exception is Babylon/Korea; whenever I get them in my games they almost always go for science (as expected).

 

[erisiamk]

My plan for my latest game was to attempt a Science Victory with Sweden, using their Nobel Prize and a bunch of Declarations of Friendship on a huge map combined with Sciences Funding to rush Great Scientists. I play on King difficulty so provided I don't make any seriously poor decisions I should be able to pull it off.

By the sounds of it, I might have to make a bunch of city state allies to get the delegates necessary to back Sciences Funding, but then I don't want to accidentally get a Diplomatic Victory, those things are way too easy. My current Social Policy plan is Tradition - Commerce - Patronage - Rationalism - Freedom if people are interested.

 

[Dark Paladin X]

I have a question, if you propose something that the AI will get angry at you for, how much diplomatic penalty you get for purposing such thing?

That's the same thing I got when I was aiming for Diplomatic victory as the Venetians. I didn't even bothering proposing the Scientific funding since I know this will piss off the AI.

 

[joncnunn]

I have a question, if you propose something that the AI will get angry at you for, how much diplomatic penalty you get for purposing such thing?

That's the same thing I got when I was aiming for Diplomatic victory as the Venetians. I didn't even bothering proposing the Scientific funding since I know this will piss off the AI.

I don't know exactly how much, but it feels similar to the land envy / city state envy / wonder envy modifiers.

Also, if over half of the civs would be angry about it, the measure has little chance of success of passing anyway.

 

[CountAccountant]

In my most recent game with 22 civs, the AIs actually proposed and passed sciences funding despite me voting against it. The vote occurred in the information age. Perhaps some AIs desire culture early game and science late game?

Also, I agree with the OP; most of them do seem to prefer arts early game.

 

[Aaron90495]

Yep, the vast majority of civs seem to have cultural flavors. This is evidenced by the fact that the Porcelain Tower is incredibly easy to get ON DEITY - you don't even need to beeline it!

I'd really like to see the flavors adjusted in the Fall Patch. Doing so would make the cultural victory more achievable on higher levels (currently, you're out of luck if there's a runaway culture civ on the other continent...with fewer culture civs, this becomes less of a problem) and make Science Funding a viable resolution in more than 1/10 games.

 

[katfish]

Ai takes note when you lead in science. Just look at RA - if you are less advanced its will be fair deal, if you are advanced ai will ask for more GPT or gold and even luxuries

 

[Vidszhite]

In my most recent game with 22 civs, the AIs actually proposed and passed sciences funding despite me voting against it. The vote occurred in the information age. Perhaps some AIs desire culture early game and science late game?

Also, I agree with the OP; most of them do seem to prefer arts early game.

Yes, this is how it seems to go. Early-game, they -need- arts funding because they know there's ideologies coming up, and every little bit helps at that point. Once everyone's settled in and the new GWAM pop isn't going to do much for you, they start to like Science Funding more.

 

[Theruss]

Yeah, Arts funding is preferred in the mid game, where as science funding is usually preferred in the late game, for the AI's.

 

[Stealth Bumbler]

Ai takes note when you lead in science. Just look at RA - if you are less advanced its will be fair deal, if you are advanced ai will ask for more GPT or gold and even luxuries

That's not a "jealousy" thing. The cost of RAs goes up by era, so you have to pay the difference between your era and theirs. Of course if you are behind them, they don't pay any extra.

 

[Theruss]

That's not a "jealousy" thing. The cost of RAs goes up by era, so you have to pay the difference between your era and theirs. Of course if you are behind them, they don't pay any extra.

Sometimes it's not worth signing a RA if you are more advanced and need to pay extra to get the RA. The AI will get more from it than you will. Although, if you are in the Rationalism tree, and have the Porcelain Tower and the policy that makes RA's better, then RA's are always worth it.

 

[Halcyan2]

Yep, the vast majority of civs seem to have cultural flavors. This is evidenced by the fact that the Porcelain Tower is incredibly easy to get ON DEITY - you don't even need to beeline it!

PT now requires a specific Social Policy to build.

Similarly, HG and Forbidden Palace used to be immensely popular for the AI's pre-BNW, but now that they require specific policies, they are much easier to get because you have much less competition for them.

 

[parts]

The conspiracy theorist in me says - because Firaxis know the marginal utility of that one, max 2, extra GSes that the human can squeeze out of Sciences Funding is far more than the same marginal utility to the AI, and the AI's sole purpose in life seems to be to annoy you, the player. Just like how the AI relentlessly tries to ban every luxury known to man - is far more valuable to the human than the AI.

But tbh, like someone else said earlier in the thread, far too many AIs have a cultural flavour now. Combined with 1) Rationalism's power and 2) the AI's inability to win culturally, it would really up the ante significantly to just code a few more civs to give preference to Rationalism. Ideally it would be a 50-50 split with Domination-based AIs like Shaka, Attila and Genghis all preferring it as well.

 

[Kaigen]

I just assumed that because extra Great Scientists help the science leader more than anyone else (since GS bulbing is based on your beaker generation), the AI takes a dim view of it unless they're doing well in the science game. And since the human player can usually out-tech the AI by that point in the game, it is not well disposed to letting the leader widen the gap.

Going off of Parts' conspiracy theory for the sake of playing devil's advocate, though, there's also the fact that Great Engineers (which are also boosted by sciences funding) benefit the human a lot more by being able to strategically snatch wonders than the AI with its generous production bonuses. Ditto for Great Merchants and gold. Meanwhile, I'm not sure if the AI gets any appreciable bonus to generating great works or tourism (though it obviously gets buckets of culture if it wants them), making Arts Funding a more equal benefit for both the human and AI.