[GS] Best civilizations when managed by the AI

Which are the civilizations doing better when managed by AI, after Antarctic Late Summer patch and last hotfix?

 

I think you should set the setting for this question: map type, number of city states...

 

Korea and Greece does quite well, with their unique districts

 

Kongo

 

Georgia

 

You're right.

I like to play with 15 civilizations and 15 city-states, huge map continents.

 

Seeing as the hotfix just came out the other day, we may need some more time to see who rises to the top, AI-wise. I played last night, and did not see anything unusual in terms of the pecking order— Chandragupta, Poundmaker, Lautaro, and, to some extent, Tamar, were leaps and bounds ahead of the other AI counterparts. They were all focusing on their strengths (read: Chandra was warmongering, Poundmaker was a production titan, Tamar was going hard with missionaries, etc.). Of course, they were like this pre-patch too, so it is hard to determine if after one game the patch+hotfix has changed anything.

In general, the above, and especially Amanitore and Jadwiga, are generally solid AI Civs. Consistently middling civs that I see include China, Japan, England, and America. Germany can be hit or miss, depending on Fred’s start. Sweden and the Otttomans always get beaten up by the time I meet them and their one or two remaining cities.

 

Pre patch it was Curtin and Gilgamesh with Seondeok winning the paper tiger award for looking really scary but never really doing much.

So far as being trouble relative to conquering their territory, I'd say:
- Egypt's Maryannu archers combined with AI production bonuses are tough to deal with in the early game.
- Mongolia is problematic from the early through mid game.
- Tamar mid through late game due to Tsikhe combined with a golden age (cities are hard to conquer quickly and loyalty is such that you have to conquer quickly).
-Eleanor late game due to COL.
- And Lautaro situationally (if you're in a golden age or don't have units a few eras ahead of him).

 

Latest game, immortal with Mali, rather peaceful game, I only did a sneaky invasion. Alex was invading my neighbor Korea, the cities were falling to disloyalty and I got them all. Alex and a couple of AIs were in par with me science wise until at least modern Era if not atomic. I didn't have any trouble winning but still it was quite OK for an immortal game. I could have been in trouble if not for a managed diplomacy with Alex.

 

Curtin and Cyrus seem to always do well... Cyrus with Granada in particular makes for a very terrifying deity runaway coupled with the AI bonuses.

 

I've seen a few mentions of Tamar and Lautaro, but they're in a weird spot: they generally are not particularly threatening, and in that sense they don't really fit, but they're huge pains to actually deal with if you need to engage at the wrong time.

It's basically not worth it to fight them unless you have to since they're usually trash but stupidly annoying to conquer.

 

I have found Kongo to usually be played unexpectedly well by the AI. The bonus GWAM points go some way to making up for the AI's inefficiency, and they can't waste time on holy sites so they tend to have better culture/science output.

 

Australia always seems to do well in my games, but I think it has more to do with it being a broken civ more-so than the AI managing it well.

Since Kongo cannot focus on religion, it tends to pull ahead very quickly in my games.