Best A.I

[Transkar]

Out of all the leaders in the game, who is that leader who is always keeping up with you in score? Which A.I is always your arch rival?

To me my constant rivals are Justinian, Asoka, and Augustus Ceasar.

My biggest rival though would have to be Catherine. She always seems to keep up in techs while keeping a very big army.

 

[Rusty Edge]

I like maps with a mix of land and sea.

Maybe it's the Cothon, but in all manisfestations of Civ IV , Hannibal seems to have a strong economy- so he can afford both an army and tech research. So he's always a threat in a space race, and trying to disrupt him militarily isn't easy.

 

[hoopsnerd]

^^ Go Sconny.

I think Augustus Caesar is good, and also Mansa Musa if he's on a peaceful continent. I also find Asoka to be good, and for some reason Sitting Bull always has a huge territory. When I play on the higher difficulty levels (diety, immortal) Joao II is a REXing beast. He techs slow at first and then all of a sudden hes got space lasers.

 

[phungus420]

It changes, that said there are stronger AI personalities. Catherine, Gilgamesh, Rameses, and Hyuna Capac come to mind in this catagory. There are also weaker AIs, Monty, and Ghandi come to mind here, they min/max their meta game too much, which leaves them vulnerable, while the stronger AIs are usually more balanced.

 

[50_dollar_bag]

When I play on the higher difficulty levels (diety, immortal) Joao II is a REXing beast. He techs slow at first and then all of a sudden hes got space lasers.

That's exactly my experience on my latest game, he shared a relatively large empire with Shaka he settled about three quarters of it and has been at war with shaka for the last 2000 years and is teching like crazy.
He's my new worst enemy, kind of makes me want to play as him.

Agree on Augustus too.

 

[Grimus]

The ones that I can think of at the moment are: Zara, Darius, and Huayna.

 

[Arlborn]

Zara!!

Also Williem, Huayana, Gilga, Joao, Cathy...

 

[Underdawg]

Augustus (Good military and good amount of builder)
Hannibal (Good Teching and decent military)
Zara (Just balanced.... must be the cheap buildings)
Huayna (I see a lot of people recommending him but.... he techs well and builds many wonders but it's his wonder-holicness that makes him ripe for invasion because of all those hammers spent on wonders that could've been spent on troops)

Yep...

Now I just play Random personalities though so it's always someone different nowadays.

 

[Rusty Edge]

^^ Go Sconny.
When I play on the higher difficulty levels (diety, immortal) Joao II is a REXing beast. He techs slow at first and then all of a sudden hes got space lasers.

I've played more games as Joao, than against him, so I overlooked him. I think it's his abillity to access & claim special resources as well as the Fretoria that gives him an economy superior to Hannibal in the long run.
I don't think Willem measures up to these two as an A.I.

I suspect that the economy is more important for the A.I., now ( BTS) that they don't get insane bonuses and magical instantaneous upgrades.

 

[18lama]

Hannibal, cyrus and Mansa are always teching relatively faster than other AI leaders.

 

[The_CatSnack]

Top 5 AI in my experience on Noble:

Catherine
Augustus
Mansa Musa
Zara Jaquob
Perecles

Worst 5 AI

Isabella
Ragnar
Tokugawa
Stalin
Sitting Bull

 

[Nelgirith]

Zara Yacoub, Hannibal and Huayna Capac are usually the best opponents.

Gandhi, Mansa Musa, Montezuma and Tokugawa are the worst ones.

 

[ese-aSH]

catherine is real good most of the time.
the ethiopian zara yacoub impressed me in bts too

otherwise dangerous guys to me are those that tech a lot and yet got big armies : hanibal ashoka are good examples

 

[Jeffrez]

Catherine
Bismarck
Gilgamesh
Mansa Musa (if he manages not to be vassalised early on)
Hannibal
and that brute Qin Shu Huang (ive never managed to beat this guy late game)

 

[Imrahil91]

The ones with the financial trait are often powerful because of fast research, but an early or well planned war (take capital etc.) can change it all.

 

[magicalsushi]

In my last few games, Saladin has been one of the best in the tech race, has held religious hedgemony over almost the entire world, has had one of the largest empires (usually second only to me and one other AI leader, such as Gilgamesh or Mehmed), has kept a decent military force and has been practically worshipped by almost every other AI civ. I still beat him (by rights I ought to start playing Prince), but he's consistently been the only AI who even got close to competing. I don't really understand why; he has mediocre traits and one of the worst UBs in the game. Perhaps it's his focus on religion and good balance in all other areas that has made the difference. Or maybe he just got lucky - I don't get much time to play so the experience of 2 or 3 recent games probably feels more significant to me than it ought to.

 

[LiberiGlacialis]

Zara and Hannibal are the two I usually consider the best. They keep up with me, even in the lower difficulty levels I'm playing in (Warlord). It's scary...

(I even had to face off with both of them. Lucky, I think I had scared Hannibal by blowing up both the Ottomans and Asoka. Zara I just got on my side real fast.)

 

[joza]

defenietly Charlemagne, Jaoe and Willem de Oranje - that's the BTS killers pack. zara is good, but not that dangerous.
from vanilla and warlords... hannibal can be nasty as someone mentioned, rome is of course great but deangerous only if warring early with you which is not neccessary to happen to you.

 

[HiroHito]

Huyna Capac gave me a couple lessons in humility so far, emperor level.

 

[tazar]

Mao- he is an extremely intelligent player, full stop.