Alexander, extremely weak at noble

[ElmoEmo]

So, I just downgraded to noble since I got a new mod. I've played 2 games and one thing I noticed is that Alexander is always last in the scoresheet. Then I remembered, Alexander has always been weak at noble. Idk why. At higher levels, he's a force to be reckoned with though.

What leaders have you noticed excel/flunk at what level? I noticed Catherine is always a frontrunner in every game as long as she doesn't start in a bad location, which is kind of annoying.

Off topic question: I also noticed that leaders like Augustus and Alexander always starts near me while leaders like Catherine always starts far away. I think there's a random percentage of which leader starts next to you since this happens far too often. I can't find the file for this though. Can anyone kindly direct me to this file?

 

[Drakarska]

What mod are you playing? that will help with the 1st part of your question.

As to Alex, it's been a while since I've played on noble, but from what I remember he wasn't a real serious threat (odd, since he's AGG). But then again, at noble, the AI's don't get any real bonuses to offset anything either.

If we're talking MON difficulty, then it would be dependent on mod and map conditions. Any of the AI's could be a credible threat (at least for me) at any given situation. I've noticed the Mali, Portugal, Ottomans, and Egypt always seem to be within the top ten of most of my games score wise.

As for the civs starting close to you, I believe if you disable the start bias in the custom games screen it will help with that.

 

[VSarius]

He's too aggressive for his own good, suffers from a lot of the same problems as Montezuma but lacks the religious flavor that completely wrecks Monty as a threat. All 3 of the 35% unitprobers are pretty weak, usually lagging behind in tech pretty fast, but not exceptionally good at war. Granted, Alex is probably the most likely to wreck a Deity game with a pre-1kbc DoW due to his ridiculously aggressive nature. Catherine expands, she expands...a lot, in fact quite a few of the IMP leaders are regularly threats. Joao and his I HAVE 30 CITIES BY 100AD empires come to mind.

Out of the warmongers, I've found Shaka, Napoleon, and Mehmed to b e the most competent, though realistically usually the highest threat are FIN leaders. Willem and Mansa especially, since they have slight dickhead properties. Victoria fits in their as well but I haven't really seen her become a runaway before.

 

[ElmoEmo]

I'm using Legends of Revolution. Yeah, I find Shaka really threatening. He's aggressive and does well in the tech. Mansa and Willem are not really threatening. They tech fast but easy to kill as long as they're not too far.
I had two games with Alex. First game on noble, he was trailing all game long. Second game (upgraded to Prince), he got his ass kicked by Ataturk (new leader in LoR).

 

[paulcarri]

It heavily depends on their start, but in my games hannibal is often the biggest threat, he techs ok- and actually builds units too...wang kon too.

Others that have been dangerous due to tech etc..ragnar and willem

Monty is dangerous at the start if a neighbour but he is slow at teching usually

 

[rah]

Usually the case, but I was playing in one a while back and I got the notification that the mids had been built and as usual, I checked to see who, in case they were close and wanted to be my next target. I was quite surprised to see it was Monty. He wasn't close enough to quickly absorb and he actually teched pretty good farther into the game.

 

[capnvonbaron]

^^ Sometimes (rarely) Monty seems to go into a weird wonder-spam/religio-nut mood I've noticed. Very random but it happens.

Alex is weak at lower difficulties simply because of the lack of bonuses. PHI isn't bad but the AI doesn't utilize it well IMO. AGG is kinda bad all around -- unless you have the bonuses that allow you to spam units like crazy. Then you take by force and keep up that way. However, I don't think I've ever seen Alex do truly "amazing"... I can't think of a single monarch/emporer level game where he's gone runaway status or even "hardcore threat". Usually he's just at tech parity with me and I can hold him at bay assuming I'm doing halfway decent. He's one of the AI I will try and kill or choke early though if he's my neighbor. I HATE his aggressive settling and demanding nature.

 

[Gregonar]

I find Peter to be the only Phil AI who is a threat. He's an aggressive settler who gets a ton of GPs and quite a few good wonders. Thankfully, he doesn't do so well in combat and if he likes you, you can bribe to attack others, like Monty, and lose.

 

[Gregonar]

^^ Sometimes (rarely) Monty seems to go into a weird wonder-spam/religio-nut mood I've noticed. Very random but it happens.

I've seen that once too. It was on a tiny map. He had half of the wonders in the game so far and had more missionaries running around than cities to take them, and few units (despite being at war).

 

[rah]

I think the comments
"I've seen that once too"
"Sometimes (rarely)"
"quite surprised"
Sums it up.

 

[Drakarska]

I find Peter to be the only Phil AI who is a threat. He's an aggressive settler who gets a ton of GPs and quite a few good wonders. Thankfully, he doesn't do so well in combat and if he likes you, you can bribe to attack others, like Monty, and lose.

You can add Liz to that as well for PHI leaders, at least in my games. Especially if she starts anywhere near an ocean that has resources.

 

[Abegweit]

Leader don't change based on the level. They have exactly the same traits and bonuses so this thread is all about OP finding patterns which aren't there, as human beings are wont to do.

 

[danthechan]

i don't think its out of the realm of possibility that built in ai advantages above noble could synergyze differently for different leaders.
i'm still pretty noobish, and trying to beat prince. what are the specific ai advantages in prince level?

 

[paulcarri]

^^ Sometimes (rarely) Monty seems to go into a weird wonder-spam/religio-nut mood I've noticed. Very random but it happens.

have never seen that, if hes a neighbour all i know is he will spam me with tribute demands every 5 turns

and that he will attack me, so i try to wipe him out early like a rash that will only get worse with time.

If im playing an island game, i inevitably get the amusing monty invasion where he sends a SOD of jaguars to attack my cities which by then are manned by machine gunners and infantry

Oh yeah, i play the english too much, but when i switch to roosevelt or darius, i ALWAYS find liz the best techer, but she seems really peaceful

 

[ElmoEmo]

I know people who doesn't play LoR can't relate but in LoR, Alex is Aggressive and Enlightened (gives 10% bonus to research in every city). I changed his flavor to military and science instead of the original military and growth and wow, Alex dominated in the tech. He's quite scary since he has a very strong, up-to-date military. He wiped out 3 civs who initially dog-piled him (Mansa Musa, Ataturk and Phillip II), almost winning a domination victory but I edged him with culture.