AI Building Less Wonders?

[fmlizard2]

Let me preface - sample size of 1. However, in my first new patch game last night I was stunned how few wonders the AI built. I dropped it down to King from my usual Emperor, and it was ludicrous how few wonders got built by the AI.

When I hit the Renaissance, I think the AI (7 AIs) had built one wonder - the Great Wall. I had all the rest. And it wasn't because I spammed so hard...I was at the point of even building crappy wonders like the Colossus because it was already 1000 AD and it only took 3 turns to jam out.

I was doing things like building Stonehenge practically in the Industrial Era and the Oracle past 1000 AD.

Just a weird coincidence that coincided with a warlike game, or did AI behavior change to favor warring more over building? There was a mosh pit of wars going on.

 

[Txurce]

Let me preface - sample size of 1. However, in my first new patch game last night I was stunned how few wonders the AI built. I dropped it down to King from my usual Emperor, and it was ludicrous how few wonders got built by the AI.

When I hit the Renaissance, I think the AI (7 AIs) had built one wonder - the Great Wall. I had all the rest. And it wasn't because I spammed so hard...I was at the point of even building crappy wonders like the Colossus because it was already 1000 AD and it only took 3 turns to jam out.

I was doing things like building Stonehenge practically in the Industrial Era and the Oracle past 1000 AD.

Just a weird coincidence that coincided with a warlike game, or did AI behavior change to favor warring more over building? There was a mosh pit of wars going on.

That is three reports along these lines, including my own game.

 

[The Mad Russian]

Yes! usually the AI goes Wonder crazy right? Not any more! I've noticed only a very small fraction of Wonders have been built and I have actually been able to snag a couple that I don't usually get because of it.

In my Future Era game that I started up, normally the AI pumps out Wonders like they are on crack, but not with this patch. Very interesting change of behavior. While playing through my last two games I've seen quite a bit of new stuff, including Giant Death Robots which I have never seen an AI use before.

 

[Babri]

Previously there were civs which forgot about expanding or defending themselves & concentrated their efforts towards wonders. This resulted in unbalanced game & runaway civs emerged. I think they tweaked it so that AI no longer build wonders like crazy. Maybe they reduced wonder priority too much.

 

[King Patrick]

I've noticed the same thing in my game - very few of the AIs seem to be building wonders, so they stay available a lot longer. In the past, most wonders, especially the really good ones, got snapped up before I'd even finished researching the prerequisites. But Egypt's not in this game - I've got America, France, Aztecs, Babylon, India, Inca, England, Germany, and Arabia. In the past Arabia's been a big wonder builder, too, but in this game they're not in a good position, so I think a lot of energy's going toward just staying alive.

 

[TPQ]

I've noticed the same thing on my first play through with 332. Emp/Lrg/Epic. So many wonders still available a long time after they would usually be gone. AI seems to have gone off building them.

 

[Mods]

I was able to get both the great library and the hanging gardens on my emperor game (which I normally never get), also not a single wonder still hasn't been built by the AI. (only at turn 80 but still...)
i'm starting to think this is a bug?

 

[Martin Alvito]

This is not the case on Deity. I took ten cracks at this sequence with Babylon on Standard speed (trying to GL Theo):

Pottery -> Writing -> Mining -> Calendar -> Philosophy
Scout -> Worker -> GL
Worker farms until Mining, then chops GL. Steal second Worker if possible for chop; get additional Worker from Citizenship if possible for chop.
GS is used for an Academy

This sequence can be completed between turns 34-40 depending on luck. I came up short every single time.

What I think is going on is that the AI really, really likes the cheapened costs on units such as Archers. So on lower levels it spams units instead of building Wonders like it used to. Once you get up to Deity, it has enough to satisfy its desire for early military and still spam Wonders like mad, so it still builds all the early Wonders.

 

[Mods]

This is not the case on Deity. I took ten cracks at this sequence with Babylon on Standard speed (trying to GL Theo):

Pottery -> Writing -> Mining -> Calendar -> Philosophy
Scout -> Worker -> GL
Worker farms until Mining, then chops GL. Steal second Worker if possible for chop; get additional Worker from Citizenship if possible for chop.

This sequence can be completed between turns 34-40 depending on luck. I came up short every single time.

What I think is going on is that the AI really, really likes the cheapened costs on units such as Archers. So on lower levels it spams units instead of building Wonders like it used to. Once you get up to Deity, it has enough to satisfy its desire for early military and still spam Wonders like mad, so it does that.

Sure, but if they only try for wonders on the very highest and deliberately unfair difficulty levels thats very bad.

 

[Txurce]

This is not the case on Deity. I took ten cracks at this sequence with Babylon on Standard speed (trying to GL Theo):

Pottery -> Writing -> Mining -> Calendar -> Philosophy
Scout -> Worker -> GL
Worker farms until Mining, then chops GL. Steal second Worker if possible for chop; get additional Worker from Citizenship if possible for chop.
GS is used for an Academy

This sequence can be completed between turns 34-40 depending on luck. I came up short every single time.

What I think is going on is that the AI really, really likes the cheapened costs on units such as Archers. So on lower levels it spams units instead of building Wonders like it used to. Once you get up to Deity, it has enough to satisfy its desire for early military and still spam Wonders like mad, so it still builds all the early Wonders.

Why do you think there's such a huge difference between Immortal and Deity with regard to Wonders (assuming what I encountered is the norm)?

 

[Furycrab]

Sure, but if they only try for wonders on the very highest and deliberately unfair difficulty levels thats very bad.

Well yes and no, the AIs that would get the wonders before on Prince/King would more often than not get killed off by a conquering AI leading to huge runaway civs in the Mid-game or be very easy targets in the early game. So it makes sense that the early wonders are of easier access to better players.

As for the later game wonders... It's fairly easy to get a runaway tech lead on prince/king over the AI.

On deity though... The AI gets a ton of early techs for free. So it might just be that a lot of pieces would need to fall exactly into place for you to even have a chance.

Just curious Martin, how close are you to actually getting the library first (mostly wondering if a Great Library build would work with an Egypt Tradition build)?

Was the GL actually building most of the time, or did you just finish the tech for it.

 

[DarkMaster]

I also noticed it built less wonders, but it still built a reasonable amount (ie, as many as I did, on average).

In my sample size of 1, I found it to be a good change.

 

[Becephalus]

In my first game after patch the numbers are something like:

5 me
3
3
1
1
0
0
x (DEAD)

so the AI seems to be focusing on it a little less, but they are still building them. Overall the AI seems better. It is not like the wonders are super powerful.

 

[Randall Turner]

Posted this already in another thread, but for reference -

I've played two large, slow games on Deity now. One, the AI built all the available wonders very quickly, the second I got the GL which then snowballed.

Need more samples, but I'm dropping down to Immortal for an American standard everything game next.

 

[Polycrates]

On Emperor, I found the AI was quite good in early wonder building. They pretty much all got built, just not all in turn 5 like they used to. Seems good so far, but n=1.

 

[joyous_gard]

On Prince there were a ton of wonders hanging around. I built Stonehenge in 1725. It took fewer turns than a public school.

As an aside, I got Hanging Gardens and it is quite powerful.

 

[Zeknichov]

Funny because wonders are better than before. Maybe they are building less wonders to pump out more military to kill you while you build wonders instead of military (hoping).

 

[Martin Alvito]

Why do you think there's such a huge difference between Immortal and Deity with regard to Wonders (assuming what I encountered is the norm)?

It has twice as many starting cities and smaller / boxes. The result is that it's about three times as efficient at early builds on Deity. If it prioritizes ranged units first and Wonders second, it makes sense for it to get the ranged units, but not the Wonders, on Immortal. On Deity, it has time to spam both.

It probably depends somewhat on the AI, as well. I had Monty DoW me with 12 Jaguars in a Standard game earlier on turn 28. I had several Archers and the starting Warrior, but I got thoroughly thrashed anyway. Probably should have bought the DoW by Monty against Alex; we'd both jointly denounced him.

In any event, the Deity AI seems to be much more aggressive than it was even in .275. I'm guessing that it's building the ranged units twice as fast and hitting the tipping point for attacking, where pre-patch you could deter it by keeping up in unit production.

 

[Txurce]

In any event, the Deity AI seems to be much more aggressive than it was even in .275. I'm guessing that it's building the ranged units twice as fast and hitting the tipping point for attacking, where pre-patch you could deter it by keeping up in unit production.

I'm sure that's the case on Deity. Watching the Replay on my Immortal game, the AI EXing was 1) uniform and 2) led to early, decisive wars. By the end of my game there were 3 AI civs left. The lowering of city defenses seems to be having a major effect.

 

[Sainhann]

In my first game after patch the numbers are something like:

so the AI seems to be focusing on it a little less, but they are still building them. Overall the AI seems better. It is not like the wonders are super powerful.

True except for The Hanging Gardens, 10+ food is a huge bonus.

In my current game I got HG, GL & Stonehenge. Washington built the Great Wall and someone beat me to The Oracle.

They are building them but they are also expanding faster as well since when I was at only two cities the others players that were near me were at 4 or better.

They are also building quite sizeable armies as well.