AI doesn't manage Marathon well

[DrewBledsoe]

I play marathon / huge / aggressive AI settings , and find that this does actually encourage the AI to build more troops.
By the middle ages , 1 of the AI nations had almost always been wiped out, but not necessarily the "peaceful ones"..often Egypt or India are right at the top of the "number of troops tree".

I'm pretty certain now that "aggressive" setting causes the AIs to place a higher premium on troop building .

Maybe try this on marathon if you want better wars...

 

[SlipperyJim]

Bah ... I like Marathon. The game has a "grander" feel when it takes 30 turns to build a library in one of my core cities.

However, I think alexti2 is probably right. The human player is better at warfare (and controlling units generally), so anything that gives me more time to do so is to my advantage. But I like Marathon, so I'm sticking with it.

FYI, building the spaceship takes a lo-o-o-o-ong time on Marathon....

 

[Screw Flanders]

I love marathon cause it really makes you plan what to build. It is forgiving if you forget to change a civic or something but if you want a wonder/major improvement you have to think if you want one of your best cities to be tied up doing that for 50 turns. Also since there are more wars, you have units with many more promotions. This creates the issue of what to do with them as tech advances. It is no longer always best to upgrade 3 units and build new ones for the rest, cause I feel that throwing away a level 6 anything is some kind of crime. I've had games that you have 3-4 ancient/classical/medieval wars in and still have time to build other stuff. Sure, the AI sucks at war from a strategic sense, but if thats a problem raise the difficulty a bit. Even pillaging is more important as destroying a few towns sets that city back 2-300 turns. I find marathon opens many new avenues of gameplay i never seemed to pursue at faster speed settings.

 

[DrewBledsoe]

The one thing that sticks out to me on marathon, that I reckon the AI does wrong, is it still upgrades its troops as if it were normal speed.

Which when you think about it doesnt really make sense (ok if they're well promoted it does) , but otherwise as speed is x3 slower but troop cost only x2
its more viable just to build the "new" ones and scrap the old..(you've plenty of time to build the new tech troops which you havent on normal speed)..the cash would be better spent on science

 

[SlipperyJim]

The one thing that sticks out to me on marathon, that I reckon the AI does wrong, is it still upgrades its troops as if it were normal speed.

Which when you think about it doesnt really make sense (ok if they're well promoted it does) , but otherwise as speed is x3 slower but troop cost only x2
its more viable just to build the "new" ones and scrap the old..(you've plenty of time to build the new tech troops which you havent on normal speed)..the cash would be better spent on science

If you've been doing much warmongering, those "old" units have probably earned 3-4 (or more) promotions by that time. I'll be happy to pay to upgrade a City Raider 3 Maceman.

 

[DrewBledsoe]

If you've been doing much warmongering, those "old" units have probably earned 3-4 (or more) promotions by that time. I'll be happy to pay to upgrade a City Raider 3 Maceman.

Agreed (as I said if they are well promoted), but I've noticed the AI just upgrades wholesale..I always seem to pull away in tech from the AIs even on monarch and above, and I think this to be a good part of the reason..e.g. get yourself a great merchant factory..and from 11th century onwards you can run virtually 100% science (the AI would spend it all on upgrades)..I just have a couple of cities building almost nothing but troops

 

[Screw Flanders]

They do seem to like to do that. Otherwise, how the hell else do you explain a mech infantry with the cover 1 promotion.

 

[mjs0]

Agreed (as I said if they are well promoted), but I've noticed the AI just upgrades wholesale..I always seem to pull away in tech from the AIs even on monarch and above, and I think this to be a good part of the reason..e.g. get yourself a great merchant factory..and from 11th century onwards you can run virtually 100% science (the AI would spend it all on upgrades)..I just have a couple of cities building almost nothing but troops

Don't forget that, especially on higher levels, the AI pays way less than the human player to upgrade units.
On Prince level where I play most of my games the AI cost is 25% of my cost (at deity it is 5% ). At those prices I would upgrade everything too!

 

[Nilrim]

It wasn't Epic or Marathon, I play in "normal" but I can relate this funny event:
Ceaser declares war on me, out of the blue!
A single Horse Archer comes along and dies a horrible death against my Spearman.
I wait for the waves of Ceaser's legion, and wait, and wait.
It seems that was it! One unit attacks me and several turns later we make peace.
Weird, eh?

Yep I have had that happen to me a couple of times, seems like most of the time they have other Civs, between me and them. Maybe another Civ is canceling open borders with them. Also I find that Civs that have to be bribed to attack you normally do it half hearted. It is the same for me, if I get sucked into declaring a war to make freindly Civ happy or to honor a Def pact I don't go out of my way to attack that Civ, I have even 'fought' several wars with the AI where I never even saw an enemy militray unit, after 10 turns or so we declare peace, not a real war at all.