AI's Guide to beating the player

[IAmOzymandias]

I think you misspelled 'Elizabeth'.

just played a game where Elizabeth, Kahmehameha, and Atilla popped in every 4 or 5 turns to remind me how badly my economy was doing. . .

except for the fact that I had a 1000+ gold stockpile and was making ~50 GPT in the medieval era. . .

 

[Unresolved]

just played a game where Elizabeth, Kahmehameha, and Atilla popped in every 4 or 5 turns to remind me how badly my economy was doing. . .

except for the fact that I had a 1000+ gold stockpile and was making ~50 GPT in the medieval era. . .

Weird, I don't have that problem with Kamehameha or Atilla. Only with Elizabeth and sometimes Catherine. Whenever Lizzy is in the game, I get a turn 4 denouncing >.>. Atilla usually befriends me until he backstabs me.

 

[Walter R]

when there are human Civ navies attacking your coastal cities, always be sure to:

1. embark great merchants (the human player often finds it difficult to distinguish between GMs and battleships)
2. retaliate by embarking your ranged units directly in their path
3. block the route into your harbour with a worker or settler
4. hide your trireme/caravel/privateer in your city
5. on no account have the considerable fleet you may have return and defend, but instead have them hunt for an embarked enemy worker to damage
6. use the opportunity for your longswordsmen to practice swimming

if you follow these guidelines and somehow still lose your city, be sure to leave any workers close by (but don't pillage any tile improvements); make a show of sending a single unit to retake just to save face.

Unfortunately if you are Japan these strategies will not work as well, so you will need to imitate a human player more closely.

 

[NotSure]

Never use your second Great Prophet to enhance your religion. Instead, run it straight over to the players holy city. Sure, the player could just take it for use as a holy site and then wreck your entire empire in retaliation, but they probably won't.

 

[BrokTheFanatic]

when there are human Civ navies attacking your coastal cities, always be sure to:

1. embark great merchants (the human player often finds it difficult to distinguish between GMs and battleships)
2. retaliate by embarking your ranged units directly in their path
3. block the route into your harbour with a worker or settler
4. hide your trireme/caravel/privateer in your city
5. on no account have the considerable fleet you may have return and defend, but instead have them hunt for an embarked enemy worker to damage
6. use the opportunity for your longswordsmen to practice swimming

if you follow these guidelines and somehow still lose your city, be sure to leave any workers close by (but don't pillage any tile improvements); make a show of sending a single unit to retake just to save face.

Unfortunately if you are Japan these strategies will not work as well, so you will need to imitate a human player more closely.

oh man, makes me think of times when I have a city next to a small lake that is between me and the enemy civ. They just send them in and across the lake, for so many easy ranged kills.... this is one area I pray BNW fixes, its like fighting blind, drunken pirates.

 

[thegingerninja]

33. Create a complex military strategy involving running towards the enemy with your bowmen while your swordsmen run around in circles trying to find the giant city that's throwing rocks at them

 

[joncnunn]

34. Escorting settlers across sea tiles is for sissies.

35. Always ask for embassies every few turns until the human gives in to first find some great city locations and to later send spies to.

36. Following having embassies, ask for open borders every few turns in order to send a few units into their territory to slow down their worker movement.

 

[fatusblobus]

37. If you plan on invading the player, be sure to spend a considerable amount of time building up diplomacy, through trade agreements, declaration of friendship, research agreements, etc. When the player is satisfied that you are no longer a threat, march ALL of your units to their nearest city and stab them in the back.

 

[IAmOzymandias]

37. If you plan on invading the player, be sure to spend a considerable amount of time building up diplomacy, through trade agreements, declaration of friendship, research agreements, etc. When the player is satisfied that you are no longer a threat, march ALL of your units to their nearest city and stab them in the back.

I WAS GETTING TIRED OF PRETENDING TO LIKE YOU.

"Not what you said last night, Alexander T-T"

38. when in a land battle, secure the only source of water(lake, inland sea) nearby and continually embark units for no discernable reason within range of the enemy archers.

Happened to me last night. In a war with dido, and she WENT OUT OF HER WAY to embark units into a small inland sea, despite the fact that she was actually moving them backwards by doing so. since units obviously have absolute crap defense when embarked, this understandably played to my advantage, wiping out her substantially larger force as they swam around like dinglenuts

I guess it was Dido's version of crossing the alps with elephants. . . didn't work out so well for her though.

 

[blackcatatonic]

39. Workers are very useful for scouting the enemy's territory when at war. They might get captured, but hey - who cares? Better to lose them than your military units, which you should save in order to suicide them against city walls - for which, see no. 40.

40. If you lose all your melee units when attacking a city, fear not - just keep bombarding it with archers and catapults and it will automatically surrender to you eventually.

 

[blackcatatonic]

41. If your unit is next to a water tile and facing enemy fire, the very best thing you can do is embark it, even if it's within range of an enemy city or ranged unit. Embarked units are totally safe from everything.

 

[Sincro]

Speaking of embarked units...

42. When you're being punished by the players bomber force and you've finally managed to build a mobile SAM for defense, immediately embark the SAM. You know, so it won't get overrun by the single tank the player is using to snipe your cities.

 

[pilot00]

--If you are William dont trade your last resource even if it is advantageous to do so.
--If you are Sejong...Science is for wussies.
--If you are Babylon, play as Napoleon, attack anyone.
--If you are Napoleon, attack anyone repeatedly, because you know...It doesnt matter you are reduced to only one city...
--If you are Sweden, always always after the latest patch, spam the whole wonder catalog and go for autocracy, even if it means you will attack city states only.
--PRO AI tactic:
1)Create a 4 CiV alliance (including the human player) through DOFs, Trade, Common wars and whatever + modifier you can cram in between the 4 of you.
2)Steamroll whoever is not part of the Alliance.
3)Have One of your controlled CiVs (AI) and part of the Alliance attack a CS.
4)Denounce him en mass except the human player.
5)Hand a - modifier to the Human who made a DoF with your enemy (WTF1)
6)If he denounces the attacker too, hand him a second - for denouncing one of his friends (WTF2)
7)Disintegrate the alliance that lasted for 2000 years and resume total war tactics.
8)Accept the humans bribe to get into a nuclear war with an x member (now hostile) of the alliance above.
9)?????
10)PROFIT! (for the human)
1-10 are actual facts from a game of mine.

EDIT:

--If you are Selassie always piss off the player with your missionaries and never convert any other city if an inquisitor is in their capital. Just have the prophet/missionary move left and right. Its not that they cost anything...
--If you are Hiawatha city sprawl everything and call to the human when he plants a city. After all its YOUR borders not theirs (though your other two cities are on the other side of the continent).
--If you are Cathy city sprawl everything including one tile tundra islands with a single fish in the ocean.
--If Attila and you don't win the game by the medieval era, just forget science. Muskets and tribuchets work as well in the info age. Ignore the fact that you have about 25+ cities.
--Your Bombers must always hit that annoying tank 20 hexes away from the city. Those MLRS and Mech infantry outside your capital are there for tourism.

 

[Miravlix]

Moderator Action: Funny, but not really strategy -> moved to GD .

This is of course humor based, but it is very much about what strategy the AI uses, so people can think about how to avoid it.

1: If you have a city spammer, kill them early, or in some other way limit expansion.
2: Bribing the AI is effective.
3: Player has a huge advantage in combat, use it.
4: ...
5: Let the AI build a wonder cap then swipe it.

While I could have posted the second list as a guide or whatever, it was just to annoyingly boring

 

[mintcandy]

39. Workers are very useful for scouting the enemy's territory when at war. They might get captured, but hey - who cares?

Hey, I actually use civilian units as spotters for my siege units when there are no other units available.

 

[IAmOzymandias]

Good point, never thought of it that way.

53. Aplogize to the player after his level 3 spy kills your spy in his city. When you get a new spy put it right back in the city regardless of what he asked you to do.

EDIT: Elizabeth, who was friends with me the entire game, kept putting her level 1 spies in my city and my spies kept killing them. I didn't mind too much, though, as it was just levelling up my spies and making them incredibly effective vs the enemies (I was already ahead in tech, regardless, so it didn't make a huge gameplay advantage.)

 

[mintcandy]

54. A player just allied with a City State adjacent to you, and starting to spam roads in that City State whilst stationing military forces there. Seems legit.

 

[IAmOzymandias]

54. A player just allied with a City State adjacent to you, and starting to spam roads in that City State whilst stationing military forces there. Seems legit.

55. If the player says they're "just passing through" with those 12 artilleries and 7 infantry, they're telling the truth. Just trust them on that.

 

[mintcandy]

56. Games are won by how many World Wonders you beat the human player to. Bonus points if you beat them even when they use a Great Engineer.

 

[JamesCivFan]

The OP misspelled "you're". But funny, otherwise. Seriously now, though, I wish for a Civ with a smarter AI, not an AI with massive bonuses, when the player raises the difficulty.