Best and worst AIs?

[Mouthwash]

How would you rate them? I think Qin and Mansa do pretty well, while Toku and Genghis are losers. Of course, I don't know how much their traits affect them compared to their personalities.

 

[OneLeggedRhino]

Mansa is good largely because he will trade techs with anyone, much like a human player. In a no tech trades game, he's much weaker. (I was surprised the first NTT game I played with him.)

 

[Mylene]

Mansa is usually not good, cos he is easy to defeat
If Genghis gets big, he can be good.
Most dangerous imo are unit spammers with solid traits and teching, like let's say...Sury or Mehmed, JC.

 

[The Oz-Man]

For reasons that are almost surely AI-based, Zara is always a monster when I'm on the map with him--if I can, I always make taking care of him a priority. Huayna, of course, is the same way. I also seem to have trouble with a lot of the Imperialistic leaders, but Catherine, Charlemagne, and especially Joao and Suleiman are the biggest trouble.

Also, Shaka.

 

[Seraiel]

Mansa is usually not good, cos he is easy to defeat
If Genghis gets big, he can be good.
Most dangerous imo are unit spammers with solid traits and teching, like let's say...Sury or Mehmed, JC.

Anybody can be good if he gets big, and Mehmed always Vassals to me by free will. Julius is only good by random chance. Normally he's underdeveloped and builds the wrong units (no Praets) . In my last game he lost to Viccy .

The leaders Oz-Man mentions are much stronger, Cathy and Suleiman are fearsome. Zara is a machine that techs like Mansa but is much stronger.

 

[Mylene]

What's this quoting addiction of yours lately? ...
You could just write who does well in your opinion, there is no reason to write wuwu my picks do much better. It's boring.

Moderator Action: Please stay on topic and don't troll around.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Sury is beast. :S And a backstabber. I hate him. Zara Yaqob is really strong as well.

Bad AIs include Roosevelt, Ramsees (Seriously I have no idea what the hell he is doing, he sometimes has like 3 cities), and Augustus. I find the AI tends to fail more with IND leaders because they neglect expansion and military. Sitting Bull is pretty bad too, even if he's not a pushover. He's a threat to your water supply, everyone's tempers, and himself.

 

[Ataxerxes]

Good ones already noted. I find Shaka is usually dangerous in my games.

For the bad ones, in addition to Roosevelt and Ramses, Toku is famous for doing very poorly. Doesn't tech trade, doesn't open borders and underexpands leading to him very seldom amounting to anything. Monty usually does poorly in my games because he techs so poorly and winds up losing some war. Louis usually does very poorly - builds wonders and neglects expansion and military (sort of like a newbie human). Toku I think is the worst AI of all.

Mansa is dangerous because he will vassalize to a powerful AI, supply his sugar daddy with techs and take off for a cultural victory later on. Finding Shaka and Mansa near each other is bad.

Due to the peaceweight mechanics, Sitting Bull seldom does well. Warmongers go crazy at the sight of him. I hate him because of espionage but find him useful for phony wars, keeping myself on the good side of whatever psycho I'm next to. Bad neighbor, nice a fair distance away.

 

[Habitus]

Surprised nobody mentioned Justinian, him and Zara are the 2 AIs that do well most often due to having a good buildprob and being good techers. Sury is probably the best warmonger as he techs pretty good for them, thou Shaka often does well later in the game even with his obsolete units

 

[civvver]

I'm assuming the title means which ones perform the best, not which are the best to play against. The answer is obviously highly situational. If Mansa starts on a separate continent with riverside gems and no warmongers to subjugate him he will give you a run for your money with a culture or space victory. Same with ghandi, asoka and elizabeth to some degree. But if these guys start next door they are easy kills.

I've seen some of the builders do well sometimes, again it's situational like no warmongers nearby, no rapidly expanding civs to box them in. Auggie does well given space. He'll build a lot of infrastructure. It is a shame neither of the Roman leaders know how to use their UU. Also quite shameful are all the american civs. Washington is the best of them, but still not very good.

Sury, Zara are beasts as mentioned. Toku starts out strong but quickly fades as he gets passed in tech due to his refusals to trade with anyone. But he can get to construction on his own and will sometimes capture a neighbor or two.

Ghengis is probably the worst of the warmongers imo. Shaka is much better. Don't know why, I think he just expands more. Monty also seems better to me, and ragnar can be scary with his financial trait.

 

[Giant Wolfman]

I hate finding Zara or Sury. Both play well and don't have the blatant weaknesses that a Gandhi (poor military) or Izzy (religion) do. I also hate seeing Joao, but that has more to do with him being a rexwhore than him being super competent.

Considering that he is generally held as one of the two or three worst leaders in human hands, Charlie actually does surprisingly well in most games. I'm not saying that he's even close to being one of the top AI's, but considering the dislike on these forums for him, he does do reasonably well if he can avoid going into super religion mode.

As for worst AI, TOKU. Imposing isolationism on yourself on standard settings is less than ideal. Genghis and Monte are the worst warmongers imo. If you can survive their early warring, they pose little threat. Genghis is much worst, as he's almost always backwards. Monte can become dangerous if his early war(s) are successful, but if his initial attack isn't, then I've found he gets into a cycle of WHEOOHRN and wars with antiquated units that makes him a joke mid and late game.

 

[ahcos]

~ = neither good nor bad
- = bad
+ = good

->

~ George Washington
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Abraham Lincoln
~ Saladin
- Montezuma
- Hammurabi
+ Justinian I
+ Hannibal
+ Boudica
~ Brennus
~ Mao Zedong
~ Qin Shi Huang
~ Willem van Oranje
- Hatshepsut
- Ramesses II
~ Victoria
- Elizabeth
- Churchill
+ Zara Yaqob
- Louis XIV
~ Napoleon
~ De Gaulle
~ Frederick
+ Bismarck
- Alexander
- Pericles
~ Charlemagne
+ Huayna Capac
- Gandhi
~ Asoka
- Tokugawa
+ Suryavarman II
- Wang Kon
+ Mansa Musa
~ Pacal II
- Genghis Khan
~ Kublai Khan
- Sitting Bull
+ Mehmed II
+ Suleiman
+ Cyrus
~ Darius I
~ Joao II
~ Julius Caesar
~ Augustus Caesar
+ Catherine
~ Peter
- Stalin
- Isabella
+ Gilgamesh
~ Ragnar
+ Shaka


Top picks for me are Gilgamesh, Zara, Catherine, Justinian and Survayaman. Worst is Toku.

 

[Opies]

In the short time I've been playing:

Justinian I always seems to be my biggest rival.
Gilgamesh is usually a top scorer.
Shaka is usually always trying to kill me.
I honestly can't say I've ever seen Toku do well. He seems to always get into wars he shouldn't and he refuses to trade with everyone

 

[r_rolo1]

I find that this factors tend to help the AI to perform better:

- Cre trait. The AI is really bad in border pop management and that reflects a lot in terms of getting early land. Cre takes that issue away. Special mention to the Incan UB as well

- Fin trait. Self explainable: more output of tiles.

- A median unit buildup rate. Too little and their stack is a sword and 2 Buddhist missionaries ( Gandhi, who else ? ... ), too much and the unit maintenance kills them ( Monty, who else ? )

- Being eager to trade techs, but being not eager to sell away techs that little people know . Trading techs always helps ( as long as it is a actual trade and not those discount sells that the AI loves to do to eachother ) and if you put yourself out of the loop, you might find yourself with axes when everyone has knights ( Toku ). OTOH being too indiscriminate might be giving a bad techer warmonger the tools to finish you ( Mansa )

- Focus on early expansion. This one is more a "make settlers and workers in the early game and not all the wonders around" ( AI can't handle SSE ). Ind AI and , for some reason, Wang Kon sometimes limit their expansion to a handful of cities for no reason and that is , besides self-cripling, only makes your neighbour bigger than it should ( especially if it is one guy that loves to blob out... like Sury, Gilga or João ). Imp and Exp traits somewhat help, but not that decisively as that ...

- Being able to wage lucrative wars. This is a quite broad topic and it is easy to fail: they have to pick someone that will not be able to fight much ( Monty and most warmongers fail there ), they must not be above stabbing a friend in the back ( some religiously focused leaders fail there ), they must do a decent buildup ( some Pro leaders tend to overbuild archery units in their buildup phase and leaders with mounted UU sometimes overbuild them to detriment of siege ... ), they need to focus on nearby AI instead of making faraway adventures , that the AI does not know how to handle ( Sitting Bull fails there ), they need to grab land and not get out of war by basically white peacing out ...

- Having cheaper courthouses and/or UB that cut maintenance also help the AI , that do not know much more of strategy besides that land= power

 

[lymond]

Actually, I think AIs with the IMP trait fair quite well in the game, especially on higher levels. Just, Joao, Cathy, Vicky are all pretty strong as they have good trait combos. Totally agree on Zara, and I mentioned in a similar thread like this a while back. Probably one of the strongest leaders to face.

Otherwise, the FIN guys are strong simply due to the trait and their ability to tech fast. If left uncheck, like on another continent, they can put up a fight in longer games like Space. However, generally they are weaker and easier to conquer or vassal.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Also, warmonger AI's who overbuild units are coded to limit their tech trades. A combination of Mansa and Shaka would be a blast.

 

[r_rolo1]

Actually, I think AIs with the IMP trait fair quite well in the game, especially on higher levels. Just, Joao, Cathy, Vicky are all pretty strong as they have good trait combos. Totally agree on Zara, and I mentioned in a similar thread like this a while back. Probably one of the strongest leaders to face.

Otherwise, the FIN guys are strong simply due to the trait and their ability to tech fast. If left uncheck, like on another continent, they can put up a fight in longer games like Space. However, generally they are weaker and easier to conquer or vassal.

Well, Imp is good for the AI since it makes it focus on settlers when you need to make settlers That is more striking when you compare them with the Ind guys, especially when there is more than one in game ( making sure that most will lose wonder races ).

Fin guys OTOH tend to get away from working hammer tiles to the coin ones and that hampers them somewhat. But a Fin guy with a -giving granary, a early melee UU and a decent buildprod might go a long way

Also, warmonger AI's who overbuild units are coded to limit their tech trades. A combination of Mansa and Shaka would be a blast.

Not sure ... the warmonger respect diplo bonus would mean that the mansa+ Shaka combo would act as a mega-warmonger tech booster

 

[ProximaCentauri]

Hey, a lot of you posters are referring to some AI personality (this one will trade tech, this one will mass units, this one will backstab...).
I find myself in trouble with diplomacy and even after many games it seems I haven't found any consistent pattern for AI behaviours, except for some like Montezuma.
There's a great post about AI DOWs but it's not really summarized enough since it heavily relies on XML files and even Python code.

Do you have some great source for this info or is it all about gaming experience ?

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

All warmonger, and IMP leaders make very strong AI. As they always get big, also Zara is usually huge.

 

[Keilah]

I notice that the IMP and CRE leaders are the toughest to have as neighbors. Techers like Willem can be a pain if they're on the other side of the planet, since they'll almost always have a tech lead by the time you're ready to kill them, and they have an annoying habit of trading good military techs to my next target =P

Shaka is an early game threat but techs so badly that his late game is a joke.