civs the AI seems to do well with

[monkeymcbain]

obviously the start position has an effect but ive found the AI as Germany, Russia and Greece always to be strong and my main rival.

Germany just seems spam wonders and be a tech leader with a huge army....

At the other end of the scale the AI seems to struggle with Brazil and the Mongols

 

[Loucypher]

The Iroquis tend to do pretty well too, though the Science penalty introduced in BNW does hurt them. Persia is also a pretty strong contender most of the time.

 

[TheologiaCrucis]

Morocco AI is a beast.

Dido likes to expand and warmonger very early too.

 

[Walter E Kurtz]

Annoying as hell:

Austria
Greece

Runner ups:

Zulu
Rome
Russia
Ottomans
America
Germany

 

[Myth and Legend]

I was actually going to start a similar thread yesterday, but got busy at work.

I'm considering the following: some civilizations just click well with the Deity AI bonuses or have UAs which don't require intelligent use.

Really strong:

Greece (can spam classical units to dominate early. Has lots of gold by virtue of Deity AI which it turns into CS spam. Alex as a leader is the most competitive thus he will always exploit weakness if he so perceives it. He can probably crush any other Ai civ neighboring him assuming an equal start)

Siam (spams a religion and tons of gold, which it turns into doubled CS spam. Can snowball if left unchecked)

Russia (the AI boost to happiness, gold and hammers means she can actually make use of the Krepost because the AI tends to not prioritize border growth. So Cathy ends up with a huge empire and plenty of hammers and resources for an army ifs she wants one)

Babylon (the most powerful civ in the game coupled with Deity AI bonuses rarely fails and usually is the tech leader, first to industrialize and quite frequently a very good warmonger with superior units)

Incas (the terrace farms give the Ai enough hammer that it can just wondermonger like mad. Also, Pacuiti is fairly warrior like, so he can stomp some face if he wants to or needs. His lands make it hard for early warmongers to cripple him)

Austria (The Ai can have 12000 in the bank. Meaning it can swoop over and take CS whenver it feels like. The bonus to GP generation really helps it since it usually makes horrid city spot choices.)

Rome (the Ai bonuses make it strong like Russia, meaning it goes wide as hell. Also it can warmonger early with its two UUs pretty effectively. But it has bonuses to road building and satellite city infrastructure, which means that its wide empire will be more efficient than that of a standard bloated Deity AI empire)

Spain (AI isabella makes great use of the free extra settlers and scouts. If she ends up near good NWs she can snowball so damn hard it's not even funny)

Just plain annoying;

Monty, Shakka, Attila nad Genghis - the Deity Ai bonus makes them able to amass a horde and cripple or wipe out a few other civs. They rarely transition into a power mid to late game but boy can they be a pain early on!

Ghandi because Ghandi

The Celts because they are ALWAYS snagging the good tenets.
Arabia/Morocco because they steal DF and Petra from you and make you break your keyboard with your face.

 

[Memoryjar]

I'm considering the following: some civilizations just click well with the Deity AI bonuses or have UAs which don't require intelligent use.

I agree with this but not on Civs. I think, it's a question of randomization.

Siam/Greece/Rome/Russia, ok.

Babylon makes nothing in my game. Incas and Austria are quite average.

Instead Korea is really annoying, tech leader all the game. Hopefully, he's stupid in space race and peaceful.

In warmonger, I prefer to be near Shaka or Attila (I just need to agree with their early war proposition to be quiet). Dido is a nightmare. I just now she'll come to me, be hard to bribe, and because I'm her first target, she doesn't want go to other neighbors first unlike a classic warmonger.

Celts are too a major problems in my game. Strong at the beginning (I always failed in a CBrush against them), after strong in religion, culture, army.

 

[Myth and Legend]

So you basically agree with all my civ suggestions bar Babylon, Incas and Austria? That's hardly disagreeing with the civ choices

 

[Memoryjar]

I know. It's hard to express myself reservedly. I need to be more careful.

I wonder why Gandhi because Gandhi ? Many players dislike him, I think I missed something.

 

[Loucypher]

Babylon doesn't use its great Scientists the way humans would. They just use it to discover tech immediately, rarely do they plant an academy. As a result, they're not as formidable as they could be (Thank god)

 

[tat501]

Austria, Germany, Persia, Morroco, Greece and sometimes the Iroquois or Korea do well.

 

[BigChiefLizzy]

Poland, if they can survive the ancient era? I haven't see them often in recent games but the last time I did they had conquered their continent, including the Japanese and Germans.

It was an Emperor level game (I was playing as England), normal speed, standard size map. They must have made good use of the extra social policies for once, maybe going deep into rationalism. Got to industrial era before me in about 1400-1500AD at a time in the game when I am usually an era ahead of everyone else.

 

[Myth and Legend]

I know. It's hard to express myself reservedly. I need to be more careful.

I wonder why Gandhi because Gandhi ? Many players dislike him, I think I missed something.

 

[subtledoctor]

It probably depends a lot on the map. I've been playing large/epic/continents/50% extra civs, on king and emperor and I've found the following:
- Korea are always strong, tech leaders
- the Celts are almost always squished by a neighboring civ, usually before I even meet them
- Morocco is vulnerable early (they once spawned next to Japan, the end was sad but quick) but very strong mid-game if they can get established
- Greece and Rome are threats that don't always materialize
- but mainly, Russia. They destroy their neighbors and snowball into a runaway every. single. time. They always seem to be across to world from me so I can't do much about it. By the industrial era they have 20-30 cities, with a gazillion resources and tons of gold. I can usually still beat them to an SV or CV, but it gets annoying. Lately I remove them, just because I'm bored playing into the modern era with 2 superpowers, me vs. Russia every darn game.

 

[danaphanous]

In my experience with Immortal/Deity:

For Science:
- Korea AI always does best
(Maya and Babylon should but end up average in my games)

For culture:
- Brazil actually does decent if he can survive...he tends to get ahead in tech sometimes too due to the jungle start and brazilwood camps. 3/4 times he's dead by late renaissance though due to having awful military, few cities, and wondermongering after scoring universities.

For religion: (efficient use for victory)
- Poland (destroys the piety tree early due to UA if he wants one. I often see him fill it out completely then also get one of the normal start ones before hitting the medieval/renaissance trees. He can go nearly any path and I've seen him try all but diplomatic)
- Ethiopia

For Conquest:
- shaka (AI cannot handle his Impi rush, he frequently wipes out 2-3 neighbors and somehow also manages it all well, keeping up decently in science and getting autocracy real early. Even islands maps don't stop him. My last small islands game he destroyed 3 civs and is mongering for a 4th now. Island-hopping with frigates and a LOT of melee boats. the guy can use anything due to the blanket -50% on all melee)
- germany (frequently wipes out a couple neighbors, but ends up with an efficient empire too)
- russia (quite powerful...formidable late game, very high production cities, and quite expansionist. Also deceptive and will backstab a friend doing well if the opportunity presents itself)
- Greece (Always attacks neighbors, and if he wins and takes someone over he gets crazy powerful later. same reasons everyone else has said. Also is the only credible AI diplomatic threat)

 

[tat501]

Im going to add Venice as well actually. You'd think they'd get crushed early on but they always seem to have massive amounts of tourism and control all the city states. They're a threat for cultural or diplomatic victory nearly every time I play against them.

 

[Dellan]

I'm usually having a hard time with Shaka, Caesar, Catherine (and any other warmongers)
Pachacutec is one backstabbing moron as well.

Leaders, which are doing patheticly badly in my games:
- Wu Zetian (often has like 2 cities and gets bashed as soon as someone declares war.)
- Theodora (same as Wu. ALWAYS has 3 cities and is really passive. But sometimes she goes completely mad and actually WINS wars and wipes out other minor civs. )
- Nebuchadnezzar (same as Theodora. Stays really small but sometimes he's like Shaka 2.0 and destroys anything. Rarely happens)

 

[ArguCa]

Religion:
Ethiopia is the most dangerous civ. They're always getting pantheon first.

Culture: Brazil, Persia (Persia is really annoying civ. They built 3 wonders which I almost completed in my last campaign) I'm in rage

Conquest: Shaka, Greece (alexander is the most annoying leader for me. They always attack you without any reason and then ask for peace, if you kick his army back), Russia, Ottomans, Huns and even sometime France.

Science: Korea and Maya

 

[joncnunn]

In Vanilla and G&K, the AI did well with Korea. However the Korean AI lost its focus with BNW

I really haven't seen any AI in BNW do particularly well; even when as a self-imposed challenge I don't take Rationalism none of the AIs reach the information era before I win.

 

[Callonia]

Iroquois, its the only AI civ that could manage to fight me to a stalemate and make me give up on conquering all of their bases. And still is the only ai to wage an massive naval battle with me. yes i'm speaking about hundreds of ships sunk in Information era and no headway has been made.

Jesus after all I'm still thinking of a damn naval war that happened two years ago during gods n kings just before brave new world came out.

All other AIs suck compared to hiawatha. I even friggin lost one almost fully promoted battleship with just two promotions left to go in that war only because almost all of it's meatshields was sunk by then.

And that wasn't all, they actually had air cover brought with them which forced me to fight the naval battle further away from iroquois's shores preferably out of stealth bomber's range.

 

[Strategist83]

What Callonia says: Iroquois is far and away the best civ for the AI. The reason is obvious: Since the disastrously badly designed AI has no happiness restrictions whatsoever unlike a human player, the dominant strategy of course becomes spamming as many cities as possible. Hiawatha isn't strong in the AI's hands so much because of that civ's specific attributes but rather because the AI flavor is set to Liberty up the whole place and just blanket the map in cities. One would think that an AI like Catherine of Russia would perform better in this respect but for some reason Hiawatha almost consistently out-spams the Russians.