AI's in the conquests

[Theoden]

After playing some of the Conquests i've noticed that the AI doesn't change style according to the conquest you play. For example in AoD the AI doesn't expand very much and build wonders in most of its cities. I've also noticed other very stupid things in the conquests (more stupid than i've seen in epic games)
Rise of Rome: Carthage doesn't connect to ivory before ~turn 50; Macedon, Goth, Carthage builds only very few cities; Carthage loaded an army with two war elephants and one swordsman
AoD: AI builds settlers even though it has known to build colonists for 50 turns; AI expands very little

I think it's because the AI doesn't know what the meaning with the Conquest is. It plays it like if it was an epic game.

Has anyone else noticed that the AI is extra stupid in the conquests.

 

[Zandrew]

Yes, especially in the AoD conquest. The AI sticks to it's usual settle-and-expand expand-and-settle strategy when it should be concentrating on treasure movements instead. My guess is that "strategy" is the hardest thing to program into the AI and Firaxis just hasn't taken the time or effort to design alternate strategies for unusual scenarios, so it just sticks to it's usual strategies and hopes for the best.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

If you consider how c3c was made, that's pretty likely:

Breakaway designed the Scenario (and did a great job here!), and asked Firaxis for certain changes to the game engine, like enslavement, VP scoring.
However, getting an other company 'improving' the AI strategies for issues they even don't know exactly seems impossible...

 

[StabbingNirvana]

you know whats the worst though? in the crusades, the western nations actually invadethe abbasids. they just stay in europe and never war. i think the christian nations should be in constant war with them

 

[Alcamar]

I am playing my first conquest (did not play an epic game yet) so i don't know how the AI behavior is depending on then played conquest. But i did notice that in AoD, the AI's are only expanding and do not focus on the generation of treasures. So i have about 28000 VP and the nearest are the Portuguese with 8000 (BTW i am the Dutch).

But i did not notice some major changes in AI behaviour as compared with vanilla Civ.
Especially in naval war; they now are always travelling in convoys which makes it much more difficult to capture their scarce treasures.
In diplomacy i noticed that the English were making allies with all my neighbours just a few turns before they declared war on me (without obvious reasons). The English even launced a succesful amphibious attack on my main treasure generating town on cuba. And they are constantly attacking my main fleet carrying 8 treasures. And they attack not with a single ship but with multiple man o wars. Fortunately, I also travel in convoy's so these attacks have not yet been succesful.

Although, i am sure i will win they are giving me a hard time (and only playing at warlord). It is almost looking like real Dutch history. When in the "disaster-year" 1672 the netherlands were in war with England, France and several neighbouring German states. England attacked from the sea, and France and Munster invaded over land. The same is happening in the game.

Concluding sofar i am impressed about some of the new AI aspects.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

Yeah, the really managed to improve a lot of AI tactics (Naval Escort, Amphibiuos Attacks, Landings), but they couldn't really get the strategies working (AoD is a prime example; while Portugal surprisingly manages to return quite a lot of treasures, all other AI Civs miserably fail here).

 

[dgfred]

I have noticed in several of my Middle Ages games the AI will "bring" their
relics to me . Whether I am a Viking nation or European nation
they will attack with a relic unit if you start eartly wars with them . It
is really surprising when it happens but usually spoils the game, making it
easy to win on VPs [dance] .