AI really reluctant to expand in latest patch?

[aimlessgun]

I havn't played for a few months (patch k maybe) but I don't remember this being an issue.

Started a new game on immortal and the AI just doesn't want to expand. I realize that barbs slow it down, but by this much...doubtful. On turn 550 (marathon but still) there are still 2 AI's with 1 (one!) city, and 4 with 3 cities. And they have room. I've been expanding at what feels like a very slow and careful pace and I'm the frontrunner with 7 cities.

(On an unrelated note, is Dain the Caswallan programmed not to ever trade tech or is this is a bug? Says he won't trade because he doesn't like me enough at friendly, even worldbuilt to +100 diplomacy he still says he doesn't like me enough)

 

[Breunor]

I don't find that the AI has trouble expanding. I don't play on marathon though so maybe there is something weird in the mechanics there. Maybe see how it goes in your next game?

I don't think the Amurite leaders trade techs, they feel their knowledge has to be hoarded!

Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[Tholal]

Are you playing on a water-heavy map?

 

[aimlessgun]

Are you playing on a water-heavy map?

Not really. Tectonics > Mediterranean, so it's like 60% water probably but there's definitely continuous land to expand onto.

As of turn 750 still 2 civs at ONE city, but a lot of civs picked it up around turn 600-700, started taking barb cities FINALLY.

 

[DaveGold]

Play again at normal speed then marathon speed and see if you get the same problems. One game can produce expected results on any setting.

I find the Balseraphs will become failed states at the moment but the other civs should be developing ok.

 

[Emptiness]

Marathon speed should not be a factor (other than, of course, slowing the game down - turn 700 in Marathon is about like turn 230 in Normal speed). I play on Marathon (0.41m) and generally the AI (other than the Balseraphs) expands just fine. aimlessgun, what version of the mod are you playing? If you're not using the latest version, you might try it out, to see if the more recent AI improvements help. Also, be aware that if an AI is offered the Harpy Event in its Capitol and takes the Great Bard before it has a second city then it will be stuck at one city for a very long time because of the happiness penalty. In most games this won't happen, but it is possible for it to happen to 2 AIs in the same game.

 

[aimlessgun]

Funny, the Balseraphs are one of the civs stuck at one city in my game too. Other one is Doviello.

I'm playing patch m. And yeah that harpy event unhappiness is a real killer, though I've suffered the interminable penalty and it shouldn't cripple you for 700 turns. I checked and they havn't been stuck in wars at all really. Also their powergraphs weren't impressive at all even early, so it's not like they were just spamming units I don't think.

As I said most everyone started to do better expansionwise around turns 600-700 but that's pretty darn late. If they give up the GNP/MFGoods crown to a human early like this they're not going to get it back and then my victory is just a boring inevitability.

Hopefully this was a fluke. Starting a new game so I guess I'll find out

 

[Earthling]

Tech Trading off or other similar settings that would hamper their economy? Some of the AIs almost never get to City States/Aristocracy/anything for maintenance costs without a little help, particularly if they have weak starts - they simply could crash and wouldn't be able to afford anything.

 

[Breunor]

Funny, the Balseraphs are one of the civs stuck at one city in my game too. Other one is Doviello.

I'm playing patch m. And yeah that harpy event unhappiness is a real killer, though I've suffered the interminable penalty and it shouldn't cripple you for 700 turns. I checked and they havn't been stuck in wars at all really. Also their powergraphs weren't impressive at all even early, so it's not like they were just spamming units I don't think.

As I said most everyone started to do better expansionwise around turns 600-700 but that's pretty darn late. If they give up the GNP/MFGoods crown to a human early like this they're not going to get it back and then my victory is just a boring inevitability.

Hopefully this was a fluke. Starting a new game so I guess I'll find out

A lot of people are reporting that the Balseraphs are broken in patch m. Apparently, they are building freaks until they have a freak show; but freak shows don't come from freaks, so they are just building and building and never expanding. (See Bug report post 3569 by Niksu).

Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[aimlessgun]

Turn 550 of a new game and Doviello and Balseraphs once again 1 city heroes. Sidar pulling the same thing too this time, so maybe they share a common bug.

Rest of the field is having varying degrees of success but I think they're proceeding pretty normally, so I guess there's no real issue there (though I think they be tuned to expand a little faster )

 

[Emptiness]

What does the area around the Doviello capitol look like? If they're stuck in Ice and Tundra then failure to expand might not be that surprising.

 

[aimlessgun]

Both Sidar and Doviello firmly in the temperate zone with nice land around them.

Tech Trading off or other similar settings that would hamper their economy? Some of the AIs almost never get to City States/Aristocracy/anything for maintenance costs without a little help, particularly if they have weak starts - they simply could crash and wouldn't be able to afford anything.

Nope. First game setting completely default. This new game turned on aggressive AI (which doesn't seem to be having any effect...) and the increasing difficulty every 50 turns thing (started at Immortal).

 

[DaveGold]

I've started a game on marathon setting, but I'm not sure why anyone would want to be pressing the end-turn button so many times even before you get a first worker built. All the AIs performed well enough. The Grigori only built three cities but I'll forgive them since the were boxed in and became tech leaders. The Clan never build better units than warriors but they got up to 6 cities, entirely crowding me out, and I had to eliminate them to find any space at all. I suspected that the barbarians might arrive too rapidly for the slow production rates but it didn't turn out much worse than normal speed.

I'm not sure that everything scales up properly at marathon speed though. The Elohim world spell remains at 30 turns. The Amurite world spell is however extended to 60 turns. My biggest complaint was that Van Gossarm forgot the game speed and kept on trying to persuade me to change religion. I was pretty fed up on the 7th occassion, especially since I'd switched to Basium and didn't have any cities of his religion any more. I expect he'll get up to 10 or 12 attempts by the game end if it doesn't start a war between us first.

 

[aimlessgun]

Oh dear, I did forget to mention that I started on Classical era. Yeah, Marathon + researching worker techs = awful. So cut 197 turns off dates I was posting :/ Anyways the Sidar FINALLY built more cities in the 700's (adjusted: 500's) so I guess they fixed themselves.

Doviello and Balseraphs stubbornly refused to expand regardless, so maybe the Doviello share the issue that people were getting with the Balseraphs.

I've started a game on marathon setting, but I'm not sure why anyone would want to be pressing the end-turn button so many times even before you get a first worker built. All the AIs performed well enough. The Grigori only built three cities but I'll forgive them since the were boxed in and became tech leaders. The Clan never build better units than warriors but they got up to 6 cities, entirely crowding me out, and I had to eliminate them to find any space at all. I suspected that the barbarians might arrive too rapidly for the slow production rates but it didn't turn out much worse than normal speed.

I'm not sure that everything scales up properly at marathon speed though. The Elohim world spell remains at 30 turns. The Amurite world spell is however extended to 60 turns. My biggest complaint was that Van Gossarm forgot the game speed and kept on trying to persuade me to change religion. I was pretty fed up on the 7th occassion, especially since I'd switched to Basium and didn't have any cities of his religion any more. I expect he'll get up to 10 or 12 attempts by the game end if it doesn't start a war between us first.

Yeah odd that Elohim remains at 30. I'm not sure if that should be increased or Amurites/Illians decreased. I usually play on Mara and barbs tend to be fine (except in those cases where there are vast swathes of unwatched land and you get 10x lizardmen SoD's rolling in).

 

[DaveGold]

Doviello and Balseraphs stubbornly refused to expand regardless, so maybe the Doviello share the issue that people were getting with the Balseraphs.

The Balseraphs have that problem all to themselves, and only since patch m.

 

[Emptiness]

I've started a game on marathon setting, but I'm not sure why anyone would want to be pressing the end-turn button so many times even before you get a first worker built.

I play on marathon because I hate the feeling that units are obsolete before they can be built and marched to attack an enemy that comes with faster game speeds. Some early-game dullness is worth the benefit in the mid- and late-game, for me. The early-game is usually kept interesting thanks to exploration.

My biggest complaint was that Van Gossarm forgot the game speed and kept on trying to persuade me to change religion. I was pretty fed up on the 7th occassion, especially since I'd switched to Basium and didn't have any cities of his religion any more. I expect he'll get up to 10 or 12 attempts by the game end if it doesn't start a war between us first.

I have declared war on a civ just to shut them up. The constant annoyance of diplomacy gets old fast. Every civ contacting me every few turns to make some ridiculous demand that I have to refuse adds up, and so do the diplomatic penalties. If the frequency with which the AI can made demands doesn't scale with game speed, then I would certainly welcome a change to make it scale.

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Doviello and Balseraphs stubbornly refused to expand regardless, so maybe the Doviello share the issue that people were getting with the Balseraphs.

The cause of the Balseraph problem is code that forces them to build Freaks in cities that don't have a Freakshow, and the fact that the AI never actually uses any of the Freaks it builds to create Freakshows in its cities. That specific problem should be limited to the Balseraphs, since no other AI civ has access to Freaks or Freakshows. However, there could certainly be some similar problem with the Doviello. They've only been in one of my games recently, but started as the neighbor of my Svartalfar and so didn't get a fair shake (early worldspell and a covert war kept them suppressed until I was ready to attack in earnest). I'll add them in to my next game and see how they do.

 

[a_civilian]

Doviello have always expanded in my games (0.41m), but generally they still fall way behind in tech. Likely causes for this are their usual tundra start and their worldspell sinking their economy. I also suspect they may be building workers and upgrading them to warriors, because I've seen them produce warriors in nontrivial quantities even after they are obsolete (Doviello can't build warriors after bronze working).

 

[aimlessgun]

The cause of the Balseraph problem is code that forces them to build Freaks in cities that don't have a Freakshow, and the fact that the AI never actually uses any of the Freaks it builds to create Freakshows in its cities. That specific problem should be limited to the Balseraphs, since no other AI civ has access to Freaks or Freakshows. However, there could certainly be some similar problem with the Doviello. They've only been in one of my games recently, but started as the neighbor of my Svartalfar and so didn't get a fair shake (early worldspell and a covert war kept them suppressed until I was ready to attack in earnest). I'll add them in to my next game and see how they do.

Oh I see. Well if nobody else is having Doviello probs then maybe it's just a fluke, unless they pull this 1 city thing a third time in my next game.

Another semi-related question about expansion: do the Illians not recognize Ice areas as viable city spots for them? Auric in my current game is pretty small (4 cities) but there's a huge ice area north of him that is full of good city spots if you can use ice like the Illians, and he's not taking it. Or am I misunderstanding Illians and ice.

 

[Emptiness]

I don't think they recognize that Ice is a good terrain type to settle near. They probably use the same formula (or whatever) as all the other civs to determine what sites are good for cities. I have also seen them ignoring city sites that would be just fine for them, and I don't believe that this is a recent change in their behavior. They would benefit from a custom formula that doesn't care about the terrain of the workable tiles around a potential site (because all the land tiles can be turned into Ice with a Temple of the Hand), and instead focuses on access to resources and fresh water.

 

[DaveGold]

The Doviello generally fall behind because they have no economic traits, no racial bonus to development, miss out on research buildings, and fail to press home any supposed military advantage. Their world spell fails them as the wolves don't move once they're summoned leading to a big a maintenance burden. All AI nations seem to have cheap upgrade costs and are resilient against barbarians so the Doviello probably gain very little advantage from their traits. After a quick check in world builder it seems that the AI is building some archery ranges and training yards so they lose their advantage from scratch units as well. They also lack mid game units to finish off any good start.

As you can tell, my personal opinion of the AI Doviello opponent isn't very high .