Cannibal AI Civs

[Dinorius R.]

I've just finished a really strange game in which several initially large AI civs just cannibalized each other before my very eyes. Normally the AI's are all lined up against me. It was nice to see them acting "human" for once..

Since I don't know how to attach multiple pictures, I'll try to show you what happened, one post at a time..

We start in 1745AD. As the Egyptians (yellow/green on the left) I had just eliminated the poor Romans and Germans from my continent and started to build a few small cities on the now vacant north coast. Note there are still 5 healthy AI civs on the other continent....

 

[Dinorius R.]

By 1814, the Japanese had completely disappeared and the conquering AI civ didn't build any towns to replace the lost Japanese cities..

 

[Dinorius R.]

By 1898, it's clear that someone is attacking the Chinese (turquoise area, top right), but also not building any replacement cities.

Meanwhile, I'm still clearing jungle and trying to civilize "my" continent. I haven't set foot on the right-hand continent yet.

 

[Dinorius R.]

1946AD. I've estabished a few cities in the vacant land on the other continent, but not at war with anyone. And still the AI civs to the north are withering.

I believe it was the Babylonians (dark blue) and Persians (dark green) doing most of the ethnic cleansing at this point, but they really didn't seem to care about me being there, or about expanding their own territory, just wanted to kill each other..

 

[Dinorius R.]

Finally, it's 1977.

The Zulu's, Chinese and Persians to the north have evaporated totally and I haven't laid a finger on any of them. I don't even have time to settle the fully developed land they left behind. I simply roll over the war-weary Bab towns with tanks and modern armour to gain a Conquest Victory.

Wierd, wierd game.

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

WOW!

I guess this is where optimum number of cities kicks in!

I`ce seen this, too, suddenly even wonders are razed, but never this obvious!

 

[etj4Eagle]

Originally posted by Dinorius R.
I've just finished a really strange game in which several initially large AI civs just cannibalized each other before my very eyes. Normally the AI's are all lined up against me. It was nice to see them acting "human" for once..

This is the case with every one of my games, the AI civ's usually fight it out amongst themselves long before they really bother me. (which makes it real nice for me to pick up the scraps from the war and expand without threat). In my current game, two AI civs were eliminated long before I was attacked and then it was real simple to convince all the remaining civs to gain up on the one that attacked me.

 

[Dinorius R.]

I believe you etj4Eagle, I can only think that it has a lot to do with starting positions. Usually I'm sharing a large land mass with most of the AI so they have an easy time to attack me (and attack they do). In this case though, the majority of the AI were on a different continent, so they were bound to end up hating each other I suppose. However, 2 things still struck me as odd in this context;

1) The way all the empty, fully developed land from defeated AI civs wasn't instantly snapped up by the stronger AI civs. They had a few hundred years to do it and normally they spawn like crazy.

2) Once I made an appearance on their continent, why didn't the AI civs do their usual trick of all turning against me? Or to put it another way, if they didn't see fit to gang up on me this time, why do they always do it in every other game I've played?

 

[God]

On your first map how there was so much unoccupied land. Doesn't the AI usually do early quick expansion. Never in my games is there any open land. How did you do that?

 

[The Last Conformist]

Dinorius experience seems pretty extreme to me, but the does seem to be very keen on ethnic cleansing. In my latest game, the Egyptians and Greeks beat down the Romans to one city (named "New Sparta" - go figure ...), and then the Egyptians exterminated the Greeks and the Russians the Germans towards the end of the game (I won by spaceship). In the later cases there wasn't much time to colonize the vacated land, but even in the Roman case, which happened in the Middle Ages, it was centuries before the Egyptians and Greeks had resettled the former Roman Empire.

As contrast, I wiped the Japanese in the Ancient Era and kept their cities - much of the Chinese spaceship was built in Kyoto and Tokyo.

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

A little trying on huge map with 1 opponent showed me the following:

- the AI is very keen on not exceeding optimum city number

- the AI is very unwilling to keep captured cities if it doesn`t plan on a long campaingn (i.e. declared war when you refused demands or when honoring alliance)

- the AI is especially unwilling to keep captured cities when the city is prone to flipping. When`s the last time a captured city flipped back to you? The AI can judge the risk very well
- the AI is very keen on razing when it has been betrayed. It also is very much into betraying after it has done it once before. Go figure....

 

[cat98]

Good lord. I had no idea that huge map games could be like that...

 

[D. Boon's Ghost]

In the time I have been playing, I have yet to see such an extreme example of this.
Wow!

And Killer makes some excellent points.

 

[Dinorius R.]

Originally posted by God
On your first map how there was so much unoccupied land. Doesn't the AI usually do early quick expansion. Never in my games is there any open land. How did you do that?

Good question (no wonder they call you God!): I should have mentioned this before, but I didn't want to complicate the story too much. In any case I don't think it changes the essentials.

The mod I'm using ("Final Solution to Corruption by Distance" by Dreifels) inhibits the settlement of tundra, jungle and desert tiles by requiring they be improved first. This is why the AI's hadn't totally occupied their continent in my first picture (1745AD). But note that they had filled up all the available arable land - their spawning abilities are just as rampant on good land as in the "normal" unmodified game. After the first couple of AI civs had been eliminated, the land left open was fully developed - railroads and irrigation everywhere. That's why I was surprised to find the dominant AI civs (especially the dark blue Babylonians) didn't immediately expand onto that prime real estate. And the mod doesn't change the military aggressiveness of the AI, so again I was surprised they didn't all leap on me the minute I began founding towns on their former lands.

Anyway, an interesting game was had by one and all.