AI culture, faith, science and gold boost

[velosipederast]

OK, it is really annoying. I play on Prince difficulty on archipelago huge map, forty-something city states (maxed out) and 12 AI and so far it is something like 1000AD and I am second in the scoreboard. But I constantly keep degrading. I already wiped out one civ and I guess that is where the score bonus came from but now I am entering some kind of stagnant period because I already have 8 cities (2 conquered and 6 built). I started building wonders just to keep my score up but this game already annoys me. I mean, throughout the whole game the AI was behaving like it was touched by Christ. I started in a jungle-ish region so I went straight for founding a pantheon with the culture from jungles. I even did not build some improvements in order to get the culture from them, built a lot of culture buildings (after all I have 8 cities) but even so the AI was better, far ahead from me (not talking about a single civ, maybe 5 or 6). They had many policies researched. OK, maybe they got some weird bonuses from some city states or the Oracle built. Or maybe they have only 1 city and that is why policies are inexpensive. This is what I thought but no! They have ~5-6 cities each and it gets really annoying how they get culture from nothing. While I had 8 policies researched, a civ was already researching its 13th which means 4 policies better than me (-1 for Oracle let's say so it is 3). The same is valid for faith. In the beginning of the game just a few turns a number of pantheons were founded (I know that when you meet a city state that is religious it gives you free faith points but hey I am talking about multiple pantheons and you know that each time the price goes up). It is the same with science - they have more technologies than me, more gold than me and - contrary to what one could guess- they have many military units. HOW, How on Earth is this possible? I came upon this table
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ5/difficulties
and thought that maybe the difficulty the AI plays is Settler or Chieftain or smth. But how do I change it? I only know how to change my difficulty level... I can upload my save file if you want to check it also, I am sure there is something strange about all the benefits the AI gets... Also, I do not understand how capturing a city state could ruin your relations with all the AIs throughout the whole game?!?! I was in good relations with the Aztecs, the Netherlands and Germany, but once I declared war and captured Cahokia they all started denouncing the sh*t out of me.. OK, I thought it was only for 300-400 years. No. I even got denounced by every new civ I met after. Now I am the most evil leader in the whole CiV-Universe just for capturing that city state. Not to mention that the AI constantly bullies the other city-states. I am sorry I may sound like a lot of people out there but Civ 5 sucks, Civ 4 was better.

 

[Unresolved]

Uh huh. Without a save file or at the very least, a screenshot, no one can really help you with your problems. My first comment would be that you're choosing terrible pantheons because a +1 culture bonus to tiles is pretty minuscule. There are a plethora of better options than a pure culture one. As for your social policies, if the computer ever has more policies than you, that is entirely your fault. The AI is so laughably bad at culture that no amount of cheating will make them better at it. So my only guess is that you're not building culture buildings or allying culture city-states.

Also, you're putting far too much stock into the score. To go as far as wonder-spamming for the sole purpose of inflating your score sets off warning bells. The more you wonder spam, the farther behind you'll be in science and military. Can't really help you anymore without screenshots.

And I'm just going to ignore that last part of your rant because it's pure flame-bait.

 

[tomtom5858]

Just on the last bit... Unless the location is of extreme strategic value, never, and I mean never capture a city-state. It's not worth the diplo penalty.

 

[velosipederast]

OK, I made some screenshots but they are in .tga format and I don't want to bother saving them as .png or else so I will upload the save.
http://www.4shared.com/file/vI8v-6H6/Catherine_0540_AD-1200.html
I am using G&K and these DLC packs:

Mongolia civilization and related scenario
Babylon (disabled)
Double Civilization and Scenario Pack: Spain and Inca

Yes, I am not allying city-states. It is difficult for me since it requires plenty of gold to maintain the alliance because their quests are awful.
This is my second game in CiV so I may not have the best strategy so don't laugh at my progress, just point out where you think I am wrong. My first game became boring (again same details, only map type was Terra) because I had the advantage and wasn't feeling the heat of having similar score to the AI.

 

[kirbdog]

Getting just one of those cultural CS allies, even relatively early on, can be as good as 12 jungle tiles with 1 culture on them. With 40-something CS on the map, chances are the AI have been doing their quests while you haven't.

 

[BobiB420]

Just on the last bit... Unless the location is of extreme strategic value, never, and I mean never capture a city-state. It's not worth the diplo penalty.

The way i deal with CS's who have what I want is by settling a city 4 tiles away, buying a tile that puts my borders 1 tile shy of their city, and plonking a GG right down next to their city, which usually covers the resources they have. Sometimes the resources are in the second or third ring (2nd to 3rd tile from city), but the concept is the same:

found a city near them, and use a GG to expand your borders around their resource. No diplo hits from any AI or CS other than a temporary "very angry" from the CS you stole from, which goes away in time. I LOVE doing this in game with Alex, because he generally buys off all the CS, and by taking their resources you effectively nerf them, and all he gets is their friendly bonus of culture/food/whatever their type is.

Another thing you could do, if you really want to take a CS, is to play as Austria and just Diplomatic Marriage them for a puppet/annex. No diplo hits there either.

 

[Ninakoru]

On prince you get no bonuses, neither the computer. However they have minor preset bonuses much like you get on cheftain, but not production/tech/gold boosts. On prince once you know the game enough, the AI just sucks. Too easy. Huge maps make things harder but not by much at that level. Some things that come into my mind:

- On huge maps you can get more cities, as unhappiness per city is lowered by 60% IIRC. Huge and island maps favour liberty. Did you went liberty? Even if not, you can do 6 cities with not sweet whatever is your initial social policy branch. If you went honor and you are not continually warmongering and conquering, you will not keep up with computer.

- To keep other civs happy, you must avoid aggresive actions like declaring war, conquering a city state. One of this actions is forgivable, specially if you previously denounced the player you declared war, or the CS was drawn into battle along an enemy civ that declared on you. But this issues will add up on your warmongering status and they don't wear off. Once you have done this kind of action 2-3 times forget about friendly status with other civs, so forget about research agreements.

- Jungle starts are harder. Just adapt, do and extra worker than you would normally do. On water maps you usually don't need more than a few workers. Clear jungle, specially for hills and riverside tiles, and around the city. Jungle is nice later, once you get trading posts and universities, but until then is more damaging than not.

- Dont focus too much on wonders. They often damage more than help due to the large time building them. On prince they are easy targets, try to get one per era, the most useful for your needs, and skip the rest. Also don't build them too early, it will damage you even more.

- If you are novice but player previous civs, prince level is great starting point, but on a small/standard map is much better to get the hang on it. A few games and you'll be in king.

 

[joncnunn]

On prince you get no bonuses, neither the computer. However they have minor preset bonuses much like you get on cheftain, but not production/tech/gold boosts.

A couple of these aren't so minor; (Chieftain happiness level bonuses / massive AI unit upgrade cost bonus) But even with them its really easy to beat the AI at all but the highest levels once your used to it.

Also, in response to the OP's title:

Culture: AI gets no direct cultural bonuses on any level. Instead it gets cheaper cost to open social policies (same tile expansion rate as humans.) However for those AIs that took Mandate of Heaven this does interact with the AI happiness bonus to give them more empire wide culture.

Faith: AI gets no direct faith bonuses on any level. Perhaps an indirect one on King+ from production of bonus for those AIs that have faith buildings as a priority; but first to religion is more determined by UA/UB of civs and luck (religious ruin / religious city state / religious natural wonder) than anything else.

Science: AI gets no direct science bonuses on any level. However on King+, the AI's growth rate is faster and more citizens = more science. In addition, the Chieftain level happiness will make it easier for AI to build more cities while growing all cities.

Gold: The AI gets a unit supply bonus & a massive unit upgrade bonus at all levels. The King+ reduction in hammer cost for units probably also decreases the cash buy cost by the same percent. The indirect effect of not needing happiness buildings due to the Chieftain level happiness bonus though is big.

 

[velosipederast]

OK can you please check the save file and tell me if my strategy is weak?
I didn't focus on wonders, I have one or maybe two and another one that was built by an AI some turns after I started building it. I was planning on building more, though.