AI needs to upgrade it's units!

[cephalo]

90 percent of the problem with the AI is that it doesn't upgrade its units. If they want a war, or even if they don't, they need to spend their gold on this alone, and recognize their power not in numbers of units, but in their quality also.

Don't launch a surprise attack on me in the modern era, and then surround my cities with spearmen and knights! I don't wanna see that.

 

[bite]

Might have to do with the reduction in strategic resources, in my games they do it about 50% of the time

 

[kampori]

Might have to do with the reduction in strategic resources, in my games they do it about 50% of the time

This is a fair point I never really thought about until my current game. Every game previously I've had to settle to gain resources, especially niter and coal. This game however I had at least 2, if not 4 of each resource in my borders. One city has 2 iron 1 horse 2 coal 2 niter 3 aluminium 2 oil and 1 uranium. It's not growing much, but produces like mad!

And the rest of the map is pretty barren. Every Civ is trading their left arms for a share of my abundant resources. Most of them had swordsmen until the 1800s, until I traded them some niter. Now suddenly they're rocking around with mechanised infantry.

 

[cephalo]

Might have to do with the reduction in strategic resources, in my games they do it about 50% of the time

It could be, but even so, they need to take that in consideration before starting a war. Clearly they do not.

 

[pietro1990]

They don't upgrade warriors and catapults because they don't have niter or iron.

I've seen city state don't upgrade their military a lot.

 

[gunnergoz]

Possible it has to do with AI wanting cheap armies since with the one policy they don't have to pay maintenance for first tier units. AI should prioritize upgrades.

 

[mazz0]

It could be, but even so, they need to take that in consideration before starting a war. Clearly they do not.

Yep!

I just had this surprise war from England (ungrateful bugger, after I resurrected her):

Dunno why she did it - it was the turn after this screenshot was taken and as you can see she's happy with me, as you'd expect with her saviour, and we have open borders (which I was regretting, which is why I took the screenshot - she was making moving my builders a right pain).

Anyway, I sent a tank and two choppers up north and got a lot of XP.

 

[mazz0]

By the way, I may be misremembering, but in Civ V if you declared war while in somebody's land due to open borders you got kicked out didn't you? That seems to have changed.

 

[zyx]

Upgraded units have higher maintenance, so this could be a reason why AI doesn't upgrade: to save money. Which might lead to the problem that the AI cannot upgrade all units at once.

 

[kampori]

Yep!

I just had this surprise war from England (ungrateful bugger, after I resurrected her):

Dunno why she did it - it was the turn after this screenshot was taken and as you can see she's happy with me, as you'd expect with her saviour, and we have open borders (which I was regretting, which is why I took the screenshot - she was making moving my builders a right pain).

Anyway, I sent a tank and two choppers up north and got a lot of XP.

To be fair, and forgetting the fact that it's 2015..
That's a pretty huge army. At least she committed to war. 90% of the wars declared on me have been laughable. Most recent was 1 mech infantry and 1 AT crew, from my biggest rival. Huge empire right next door. Not a single other troop. I just marched into his land and took me 15 cities.
Or of course the standard ancient era war of 2 warriors and a slinger.

What difficulty? Am on emperor and it's still a joke

 

[bite]

A least this time round if it is the AI that declares war on you, they usually come out swinging, even if it is just Warriors

 

[mazz0]

What difficulty? Am on emperor and it's still a joke

This one's just on Prince.

I rarely player higher than... what's the one above Prince? I don't know how to win other than militarily on higher difficulties - the AI may be crap but when they're given more resources than you for free how are you supposed to win, other than by invading?

 

[kampori]

This one's just on Prince.

I rarely player higher than... what's the one above Prince? I don't know how to win other than militarily on higher difficulties - the AI may be crap but when they're given more resources than you for free how are you supposed to win, other than by invading?

King is the next one.
Emperor really isn't so bad. I think they only start with an extra settler. So as long as you have a decent start with either good food or good production, it's easy to catch up. Current game with Kongo, and it's by far my best game so far. Scout > monument > settler > settler > settler. I now have 4 good cities (overtaken AI by now), and usually have enough gold to buy a builder and a trader. Then build granary > builder > water mill > builder (buy another builder at same time).
It's now 1850, I have 5 cities at 30 pop, 4 cities at 25-29 pop. I finished the civics tree in 1800 and have just finished tech tree. Now leasurely building my space projects.

I don't usually play higher than this for the same reason- I find no enjoyment against an AI they just cheats. I'll try once for the achievements but that's it

 

[mazz0]

King is the next one.
Emperor really isn't so bad. I think they only start with an extra settler. So as long as you have a decent start with either good food or good production, it's easy to catch up. Current game with Kongo, and it's by far my best game so far. Scout > monument > settler > settler > settler. I now have 4 good cities (overtaken AI by now), and usually have enough gold to buy a builder and a trader. Then build granary > builder > water mill > builder (buy another builder at same time).
It's now 1850, I have 5 cities at 30 pop, 4 cities at 25-29 pop. I finished the civics tree in 1800 and have just finished tech tree. Now leasurely building my space projects.

I don't usually play higher than this for the same reason- I find no enjoyment against an AI they just cheats. I'll try once for the achievements but that's it

Oh, they just get an extra settler and no cheats? OK! I'll give that a shot So settle fast and early is your advice?

 

[kampori]

Oh, they just get an extra settler and no cheats? OK! I'll give that a shot So settle fast and early is your advice?

They may get a free builder, but that doesn't impact it all too much. And a small combat bonus (+4 I think), but it really didn't make much difference.

Yes, settle fast and early is definitely my advice. In my first emperor game, within turn 30 or 40, I was completely boxed in by other civs while I only had 2 cities. This time I set the boundaries, and it made all the difference.

 

[cephalo]

In my first game, settling fast was hard because I was under constant pressure from barbs.

 

[Dux1]

This is definitely my biggest gripe with the (otherwise fantastic) game currently. I don't think it's necessarily because of strategic resources, either: The AI neglects upgrading spearmen, for instance, but pikemen don't require any resources at all. It seems odd to me that this would be such a big issue considering the fact that this was never a problem in Civ V. It's kind of immersion-breaking to see a surprise attack of heavy chariots and warriors in 1985.

 

[pietro1990]

use this mod fixes the AI upgrade paths ;
http://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/maddjinns-tech-tree-mod.600302/

 

[Uberfrog]

It seems like a perfect storm of factors like Strategic Resource availability, tech gaps, and maintenance/upgrade costs. Definitely in need of some tweaks, but I can imagine they'd have quite a big effect here. It's quite sad to see warriors floating around in the Renaissance and beyond.

 

[pietro1990]

It seems like a perfect storm of factors like Strategic Resource availability, tech gaps, and maintenance/upgrade costs. Definitely in need of some tweaks, but I can imagine they'd have quite a big effect here. It's quite sad to see warriors floating around in the Renaissance and beyond.

why don't they just remove them. I mean in civ 5 a lot Ai spammed warriors and when they didn't had iron they just removed them.