AI stays too small, reason?

[tac2i]

I have and they build a lot, fast!

In that particular game, they were the point leader and ahead in technology as well. It was 'do or die' time so I invaded their isolated continent. It was a tough fight. After the first or second war, they launched a 'surpise' attack on me in an attempt to recapture their capital. After another couple of wars I had reduced them to a minor power and owned all the wonders they had built. That made me the new point leader but the Celts on another continent had conquered all its rivals and were catching up. I went to war with them to ensure my point lead would hold up for another few years and win the game. I liberated two dead civs and made a puppet out of another city. Probably will have to annex that city and purchase a nuke or two, if I have the gold, to prevent or defeat a counter attack. Thankfully my navy rules the oceans.

On my own continent only one civ was left that was a threat and he was stockpiling the border with troops. I decided a preventive strike was necessary and so yet another war was commenced. Thankfully the terrain was favorable for defense as they swarmed over the border. It took awhile but I finally whittled its invading army down to the point it was asking for peace.

Luckily I haven't yet encountered a completely isolated Egypt, I shudder to think how much Wonders they can build.

 

[fredmeister]

That fixes it. No barbarians, 5-6 difficulty setting, no non-military victory conditions and no city states.

Only problem now is that I get bum-rushed by an AI opponent by about 1000 BC with 7 (cheated) units, so the game is impossible. Besides, I can't find a map I like.

Edit: Ok, even on Prince they bum-rush me. Gonna look for cheats to kill the units that are attacking me.

 

[Disgustipated]

I sometimes see the expand, but not often. America is the only one that seems to expand normally. I'm not sure why that is.

 

[GhostSalsa]

Even with barbs turned off, the cycle of spend first 30 turns building army > foiled conquest > need to waste time making an army all over still makes sense, and is why this happens, I think. It is easy to imagine how you, a player, would be basically stuck in a ditch if you spent your opening on an army and it got destroyed.

The problem is that strategically, for the AI players, their best chance at staying in the game at that point would probably be nonstop settler spam from T50-150, the exact opposite of what they are doing. If they just blindly threw out settlers at some point they might make up for the lost potential in their capital.

In the most unsettled mapI've seen , which was archipelago/huge, no one was branching out except China. Dido (who has a terrible AI personality, hating me for conquering the person she asked me to DOW) tried to take my holdings and so she was left with one stub city.

Because I was going for culture, I left them an amazing island to the west that they could have used to expand and build a new empire.

With, you know, FREE HARBORS BECAUSE THAT IS THEIR TRAIT.

Nope.

Spent 100 turns just building pikemen.

Stupid.

On the other hand, when the AI's early rush is successful they will usually soak the map with founded cities.

 

[Zenstrive]

Well, so far never had things happen like this. There's always one civ that expands mindlessly.

 

[Aramel]

I've definitely seen this problem with Dido. She didn't build a single new city before I conquered her in the medieval era. I think she might be building too many boats; I've seen similar things with Suleiman and Harald Bluetooth who both had only two cities despite completing the liberty policy tree. It's really disappointing when you're playing as Rome and Carthage can't even put up a decent fight.

 

[Thry]

Seriously. This is game-breaking.

It's easily demonstrated to - Standard Pangea map with Default number of AIs on prince.

There's a statistical outlier sometimes when one or two civs will start mindlessly building cities (LIKE THEY SHOULD BE), but so far it seems completely random.

It's completely opposite from Civ IV when even the land grab on Warlord was pretty notorious. It just makes Civ V feel...empty.

 

[Disgustipated]

I agree, the world feels empty. I play on an easier level than most of you guys, so I was thinking that was why they weren't expanding, but even on the easier levels the ai should expand. It makes no sense having a world in the 20th century with unsettled land. It breaks the immersion.

This needs to be fixed in a patch.

 

[bcaiko]

Not all civilizations will expand. If they are going for Culture they will tend to stay small.

That's all well and good, but when "small" means only one or two cities, it makes for a poor game. The AI should be programmed to strive for four cities by the mid game. Otherwise, they're certain to get ROFL stomped by someone.

And if every Civ is "going for the Culture Victory" that way (as some posters have found in their games), you might as well just claim you've already won a Domination Victory.

 

[Flak509]

I just played with Ethiopia, that was a waste, the AI build 2 cities by the time i had 5 and i was taking my time. The AI then had war after war tryn to capture the few other AI cities, while i just expanded and beat their small rush's. Not often i end an Emperor game cause it would be too easy and boring to win

 

[SouljahAtWar]

I've never had that problem in high difficulty games (Emperor/Immortal/Deity), I have a problem keeping the AI small!

 

[SMA333M]

In one of my games, on king difficulty, Netherlands were expanding in every little space they could get... the map was Small Continents... so they managed to make like 16 cities (kinda early !).

Meanwhile, Polynesia had only 1 city... plenty of space to expand... but they didn't even make a 2nd city. So i just don't get it...


I have Civ 3 installed.. and I played a little for the good old days ... on Warlord difficulty (which is only the next one after settler).... they expand until there is no more space !!

On both games (Civ 3 and Civ 5) I added Conquest as victory...


And it's not just that... it's just amazing how the AI uses airplanes, ships and artillery in Civ 3 ! Amazing ! Maybe 1 unit per tile is too much for the AI ... maybe the game should go back to 1473 units per tile...

Maybe 1 unit per tile rule is the reason why turns take so much time too...

 

[Corvus corax]

In my games I have seen civs staying small (most India, Egypt) with 3 cities max, and civs REXing like mad (most Mongols, Huns, Siam). Sometimes civs stayed small with 3-4 cities until the industrial era and then started spamming cities everywhere they can.
In my experience, most of the times a runaway civ is built on the ruins of another civ or a CS. So I think early military success is a key-factor to trigger AI-city-spamming.