That is correct. Neither does your screenshot make a convincing point, because it are all just individual moments from games. Those pictures are only illustrations.
I can post plenty of screenshots from different playthroughs all illustrating my point that this is a chronic problem in Civ5 ever since the patch.
Looking at your Washington, it is very centraly located, with America already wiped out from the game. It is reasonable to expect a high amount of military pressure on America from the beginning of the game. America will likely have been in a situation where building workers was justifiably not the highest priority.
When I won that game I took the pic from, I watched the replay and saw that America didn't lose any of its cities until around Turn 230. I don't know how long America was at war with Polynesia and Egypt before I finished them off, but probably had 200 Turns of peace. That should've been plenty of time to improve the tiles around Washington. Boston and Philadelphia were much better developed -- although I don't know if Egypt did that after they captured them.
If you're saying Egypt, Polynesia and England had done better, some of those civs seem to have either started from a more insular position (Egypt at least) or have been the bullies instead of the bullied (Polynesia). It's too difficult for me to make guesses about the other ones just based upon this one screenshot.
Egypt actually had fairly bad start position; it was on a river surrounded by tundra. But Egypt expanded rapidly and became the richest and second most powerful faction. Their cites' tiles all improved when I conquered them. Polynesia was third, and it captured Atlanta and conquered Persia; the Polynesians improved their own cities' tiles, but didn't bother to improve the tiles of the cities that they captured. England was hemmed in by Polynesia and only had 3 cities, but their tiles were all improved.
The Inca would've been a perfect example because they weren't at war with any other civ until I DoW around Turn 150 and captured their important cities. The tiles surrounding their capital were mostly un-improved; it had mines, a few farms, and luxuries and resources. I captured several of their Workers, so they weren't lacking in manpower.
I have more screenshots but they're from after I won, so they aren't great examples of what I'm talking about. I don't want to spam this thread with unnecessary pics, so I'll just provide a link to my photobucket page.
http://s1115.photobucket.com/profile/SorynArkayn
Are you calling the bonuses the AI receives on higher levels cheats? I like to compare them to the handicap system a sport like golf has. Different rules for different players, mutually agreed upon. You can only talk about cheating when you break rules.
The cheats and bonuses the AI receives on higher difficulty levels are supposed to compensate for the fact that the AI cannot play any smarter than it does on any difficulty level, which has been a recurring failure of the Civ franchise; the AI has never been able to play the game properly. Players have simply come to accept this -- but I don't.
BTW, you cannot claim that the different rules are agreed upon beforehand because Civ5 doesn't disclose precisely what bonuses the AI receives on each difficulty level; Firaxis doesn't disclose it either. If you want to know you have to peek at the game files. So no, it's not comparable to a golf handicap. It's more like that fancy putter that Rodney Dangerfield's character uses in Caddyshack -- it's cheating.
Are you having problems with the existence of difficulty levels in games in general? Most strategy games have them. The Civilization series has always had huge bonuses for the AI on the higher levels, it's nothing new.This is pretty far off from how it really is. You're not forced to build military only to survive in the game, that was true for Civ III (CIv 4 I never played), but in Civ 5 you can still even build early wonders on the higher difficulty levels, just look at W A I N Y's Let's Play's, he will often have a go at the Great Library.
Research Agreements aren't crucial on any level, and I find them helping extremely little to keep the peace. Peace itself is not crucial either to do well on higher levels. It was in Civ III, but not in Civ 5. 1UPT has meant a huge nerf to AI military strength, this is well documented. There's much less to be afraid of.
You'll have a better chance to sign Research Agreements on the higher levels, as the AI has more money, but I normally use it for allying City States. I'm behind in tech most of the time, but as long as the gap doesn't get too big that's not too bad. It's much easier in Civ 5 to do well while not exactly being in pole position in the tech tree.
AI bonuses had a much more unbalancing effect in Civ III (again, I can't speak for the others, as I haven't played them), and the strategy path for the human player became rather narrow.
There could be potential worries in Civ 5 as well. If I'm looking at the obscene financial bonuses the AI gets, they only need to step up their efforts to ally City States and it would become impossible for the human player to compete for their favour. Then I would have a problem, because I don't like parts of the game being completely taken away from me.
How it is now, on higher difficulty levels the human player can still compete on all levels. Not on all levels at the same time, I mean you can't expand fastes, build the most wonders and have the biggest military at the same time, but that's not how it should be either.
But pick any strategy path you want to focus on and it can be a viable path. That you have to make some sacrifices in other departments is only logical and how making choices in strategy games should work.
I don't want to get into a long rant about the higher difficulty levels. Suffice to say that IMO the strategies that are required to compete with the AI's cheating are not fun because they're too restrictive and formulaic. The best players can win Science victories as early as Turn 200 solely because the AI can infinitely expand and receives bonuses to Wealth so they can always afford Research Agreements. That enables the Player to exploit the over-powered RAs and complete the spaceship by 1500 AD.
Whereas I actually enjoy
longer games. If I win close to Turn 300, that's great; but it's not a race. I love to construct buildings and Wonders, and expand and conquer gradually with a modest military until the late game, wherein my investments in my cities' infrastructure pay off and I can choose between Domination, Science, or Diplomatic victories. That's not possible on the higher difficulty levels. That's why I don't play them. That's also why I want a genuinely smart AI instead of a cheating AI.
The only thing I'm getting concerned about if I'm reading your post is that you're stating that AI workers were better before the patch. But I can't say anything sensible about it, I only started playing this game in the summer and never noticed much of a problem.
The last patch was in August. Even if you started playing Civ5 in July, you probably wouldn't have completed enough campaigns during that time to notice the significant differences before and after the patch. It took me a month or two to notice it, and since then it's become more prevalent -- it's impossible to ignore now. Playing on higher difficulty levels merely masks the problem because the AI receives free Workers and other bonuses.
It's unusual for the AI to neglect to improve its tiles, especially around its capital city. Washington was by far the most heinous example of that I've ever seen, which is why I started this thread and post that pic.
I have no idea what could explain that change you've observed. I don't think there's anything in the flavours about workers. The flavours are for the leaders, not the workers.
I'm afraid all workers do the same thing, from whichever tribe they are.
An Iroquois worker is just as likely to chop a wood as any other worker, regardless of the Iroquois leader trait or their unique building. I don't see anything in the XML files that would point to different rules for different workers.
I never said that different civs are better at producing or managing workers than any others. It's exactly the opposite! From one campaign to the next, the same civ can play radically differently. A couple campaigns prior to this one, Egypt neglected improve its tiles. In my latest one they were second only to me. Several campaigns ago, America was my main rival and they had great infrastructure despite having nearly two dozen cities. But in this one, by far the worst I've ever seen.
War cannot be the sole reason for this problem. That's too simple of an explanation for a chronic problem. I'm certain that the AI squaders its Workers, which is why its tiles are un-improved. Any Player that has made the mistake of automating their Workers knows how dumb they are -- they'll travel 10-20 turns to a remote city, build one improvement, then travel all the way back to build an improvement near your capital, and repeat; they'll try to construct a road to a CS halfway around the world. The AI's Workers are always automated, so no wonder they're so incompetent. And if the AI's Workers are lost, the AI neglects to produce replacements. The end result is the same: the AI civ's development is crippled, it cannot compete, and it's inevitably conquered by the other civs. Civ5 has plenty of problems, but IMO this is the worst one that has arisen from the last patch; since it didn't exist before, it should be fixable.
Let's list them:
