Always one overpowering enemy on King - level

[lead341]

Hi guys,

since I am not a Civ-veteran in the beginning I was always playing on easy or normal on standard maps. After a time I missed the challenge - it got too easy and I changed to King level (large maps, always marathon mode). And I realized: King-Level would be the perfect difficulty, if there wasn´t always one absolutely outstanding and overpowering AI player.
Let me describe it: imagine a game on King level on a large map with 12 enemies. 11 of them are what you might expect from King level: a few weaker than yourself, but half of them also stronger (slightly larger up to double armies, about 3 to 4 technologies more advanced). That is perfectly ok and what I expect: good challenges, challenging enemies. But there is always one who appears to be cheating and is so far advanced that you don´t have a chance to beat him. So for example yesterday this outstanding AI-player (in this case Genghis Khan) had about 3 times as much points than the second best, hit modern era while all the others where still in renaissance (!) and only a few including myself almost entered industrial age and - the worst of all - had an army about 10 to 15 times as large as the second best (remember this statistic which sometimes pops up "who has the pointiest sticks"...well, he had 180.000 points while the second best had about 15.000). So in the end there was no chance to beat this player. Even later on when I reached modern and future era his army was so gigantic - he actually nuked my whole territory in a couple of minutes.

So to me it appears that there is something wrong - it highly appears that this particular ai is cheating. Don´t get me wrong: I want a good challenge, and I want to confront players that are stronger than myself and beat them with good strategies. That is what I expect from King mode. But I don´t want a hyper-enemy that is absolutely dominant.

Is there some way to impede the emergence of such an extreme player in the beginning of the game?

Best,

lead

 

[wcbarney]

... Is there some way to impede the emergence of such an extreme player in the beginning of the game?....

1. If he is nearby, then you can tie him up with warfare from the get-go.
2. Ally with his CS neighbors and then DW; he wastes his resources fighting your CS Allies.
3. Bribe other AI civs into warring with him.

 

[bryanw1995]

on a large map it is harder to control far-away rivals. The best defense against that is to become a runaway civ yourself, then focus all your efforts on weakening the other strong civs.

 

[jbevermore]

It's for this exact reason that I prefer water maps, or at least continents.

Land heavy maps favor runaway titan Civ's. Oceans provide a buffer to this kind of behavior, and in the event a titan Civ does show up it makes it a lot easier for me to send some soldiers over quickly to intervene.

 

[Slynky333]

It's for this exact reason that I prefer water maps, or at least continents.

Land heavy maps favor runaway titan Civ's. Oceans provide a buffer to this kind of behavior, and in the event a titan Civ does show up it makes it a lot easier for me to send some soldiers over quickly to intervene.

While this is true, it's true because the AI has never been able to effectively wage wars across oceans. I played every leader on King and always used PANGEA because it seemed (to me) to be artificially crippling the AI by "exploiting" their inability to expand well over oceans.

Of course, that's just my opinion.

 

[jbevermore]

While this is true, it's true because the AI has never been able to effectively wage wars across oceans. I played every leader on King and always used PANGEA because it seemed (to me) to be artificially crippling the AI by "exploiting" their inability to expand well over oceans.

Of course, that's just my opinion.

Yeah, this is true. Wish it wasn't, but there's no point in denying reality. In this context it matters slightly less though, in that it's AI vs AI that's being discussed.

But even in multiplayer situations I prefer water maps because of the slowing element, it prevents even a human player from going all Genghis Khan on the world. There's a reason that Japan stayed independent as long as it did, and it wasn't the samurai.

 

[lead341]

thanks for your good replies.

In fact, I will focus on continental maps and hope that the overpowering enemy is on the other continent. I wasn´t aware of the fact that "across the ocean"-warfare is more difficult for the AI. I guess it should thus be easier to defend against their attacks as well.
Regarding the argument to tie up nearby enemies from the "get go": I think in the beginning it is not always easy to "identify" the future super powers. And until now they usually were quite on the other end of the world.

 

[Kerosene31]

This almost always happen when you have an AI on a big continent all alone (or geographically isolated). It is always some unmet player with a high score who has just been expanding like crazy with no threat of war.

 

[jagdtigerciv]

on a large map it is harder to control far-away rivals. The best defense against that is to become a runaway civ yourself, then focus all your efforts on weakening the other strong civs.

This is the solution for sure. Wipe clean the small and medium power civs, or get them to war with the superpower (but be weary that the superpower will often engulf these civs).

I enjoy runaway civs -- I found in previous civs, the moment I would wiped one or two civs, it was virtually over and boring.

Now, theres always a superpower I must continually try and rival (especially on continents, usually the other continent).

If anything, I find it to be the best improvement (of few) to the AI in Civ5.

 

[Civsassin]

A better solution to the problem than just avoiding it, is learning how to deal with a runaway civ on another continent. Build and invasion force with an adequate number of support naval units and hit him hard. For naval invasions you have to find a good city from which to set up a beach head, and you can roll from there. One of the best ways to do it is to ally a CS in the enemies territory and use its land as a jump off point. If you are weak in a certain aspect of the game, learn it instead of avoiding it. It will make you a much better player in the process.

 

[Menzies]

How dare the AI be competitive!

 

[roguepro92]

i had the same problem, due to early war inca had devoured a weaker nation completely. i decided to slow him down by forcing him in a constant war...bad idea. he devoured the other 3nation and it was me him and 8city states left at like turn 250 or so at marathon speed. i eventually won but DAMN was it hard. he was good 8cities ahead of me even after i expanded as hard as i can. Inca never razes cities? he seemed to puppet or keep them all.

 

[Samuil]

How dare the AI be competitive!

A lot said in one sentence.
The AI should play to win, and like in real life, there is always one runaway civ My last game - Aztecs... They were surprisingly slowed down by a huge nuclear barrage by 5 city Egypt, which was very fun

My advice - defend the weak
Or take them out before the enemy does

 

[King Patrick]

In my last game, Babylon was a runaway on my continent, but Persia and the Incas were runaways on the other continent, so that was kind of interesting. I was able to keep Babylon off my back on my continent by playing him off the runaways on the other continent.

 

[King Patrick]

How dare the AI be competitive!

Every complaint about the AIs being "broken" seems to boil down to this - that the AIs don't just step back and applaud as you approach victory.

 

[King Patrick]

My last game - Aztecs... They were surprisingly slowed down by a huge nuclear barrage by 5 city Egypt, which was very fun

I finally got to see a nuke go off in my last game, when Egypt hit Songhai's capital. I'd been playing on prince before, and I was normally so far ahead of everyone else by the endgame I'd win before anybody had any nukes (and I was too busy going after the win by that point to build any myself, plus, no need).

 

[SRG]

I finally got to see a nuke go off in my last game, when Egypt hit Songhai's capital. I'd been playing on prince before, and I was normally so far ahead of everyone else by the endgame I'd win before anybody had any nukes (and I was too busy going after the win by that point to build any myself, plus, no need).

Seriously? How can you resist?!!

I have literally given up a Science victory as Babylon just so I could compare (in detail, mind you) the blast sizes of the Nuclear Bomb vs. the Nuclear Missle.

I actually STOPPED production on a spaceship part and set it to Nuclear Missle. Then I was so busy building missles and dropping them on random cities that I forgot I could build the spaceship at anytime I chose...

I ended up winning by score...

 

[bronzeager]

I play on King and seem to have this problem a lot too... one AI gets to the head of the pack, he's usually on the other side of the landmass, and there seems to be little you can do to keep up with/topple him.

Definitely good advice, however, is to NOT try to be friendly with him. That will only encourage him to dominate the game and keep getting stronger. Fight him at every turn, and if he's a big enough conquerer, the other AIs will ally against him.

also, don't become so focused on fighting #1 AI that you forget about everyone else. This happened to me last game when I was fighting tooth and nail with Egypt, when suddenly Hiwatha (3rd place) pulled out a cultural victory before I had even half my spaceship built.

lastly, a sudden blitz on the captial will cut any AI down to size, and probably net you a few wonders. if you have the possibility to set up such an attack, you can completely hamstring an AI.

 

[dexters]

There isn't always one, but the way Civ works is cumulative, so there is a tendency for a runaway.

But I've played games where there is a triumvirate at the top. 3 Civs of roughly equal size/score, one of them being me.

The current system is somewhat of an improvement over earlier systems as the ability of AI to form coalitions (denouncing) can slow down big AIs ; especially if a luxury trade they count on is cut off because a supplier denounced them.

Also, my preferred maps are continents as it gives the AI on the other continent plenty of chance to grow ; though my last few games have been on pangea.

 

[Guelph]

The last time I ran into one of those on King it was Russia, and it had allied nearly every CS. It was getting about 350 GPT.

Killing a few maritime CS cut off the food supply, and slowed her down enough for me to catch up and start taking out puppet cities.