Help me understand the AIs bonuses (no whine thread)

Hello, I struggle to understand the bonuses the AI gets from time to time, they seem like cheats and didn't happen in the previous version of the game. Surely there is an explanation but I can't figure it out and I got about 1k hours in this game. The difficulty is Diety so I don't mind cheats (if that's what they are) but I would like to understand them in order to deal with and prepare for them.

I encountered multiple in this game against the war horny Pericles (why is he always so aggressive?)

It started with him simply ignoring movement costs from hills and I cant seem to find any of the natural wonders that give this bonus so where is this coming from? Or is it a change from an update I have missed?. It started in the first war so there are no policy cards that could have influenced it either.

My next point is the teching. I don't mind being ruthlessly outteched but I don't see a consistency compared to the other AIs. This happens in most games so it must be something I am missing.

Pericles showed up with armies of modern armors, suggesting he is pretty deep in the tech tree, the other civs are still in the industrial era except for Montie who is in the modern era. I just don't understand how Pericles is crushing his AI companions so badly when they have a lot more science than him per turn.



Again please don't take this as a whine thread. I dealt with the early attacks and I will deal with Pericles late game (hello bombers). I am just trying to understand the AIs better. Another point is how some just do it all, Pericles always built units, almost all the wonders, most cities, etc. But I guess that could come down to good lands and snowballing, it's just sad that early game investment into military doesn't have any consequence for the AI.

 

On your first question, I'm not sure if you're saying you can't find those natural wonders in your game specifically, or you're not aware of them at all. If the latter, there are natural wonders that allow units to ignore hills (Matterhorn). If the former, the only thought I have is potentially a GG nearby that gave his units extra movement?

The AI seems to often beeline dramatically - it's very possible that Pericles beelined to get to modern armor while neglecting a lot of other areas on the tree, while the other civs spread out further. I don't know what the rhyme or reason is as to why certain AIs beeline for certain techs though.

 

Pericles probably discovered the Matterhorn Natural Wonder and his units got the buff to movement and combat on hill tiles. AI behavior for specific leaders can change game to game depending on their relationship with the player and their own circumstances (spawn, second agenda, etc.). I've honestly never put too much thought into late game AI teching...sometimes there's a runaway AI and other times they're all in the dumpster late game.

 

No, I am saying that there is no natural wonder that I can see. The only tile I have not discovered is south of his cities ( i am northwest): I guess it could be possible but is the AI that smart that he walks all newly trained units south and then northwest. From one of the natural wonder u also get combat bonus so I would have noticed that one ( can't remember the name of it ). There was no great general either as this was an ancient/classical era warrior rush. There was also an instant just now when he embarked a 3 movement unit and moved 6 tiles through my lands? Not sure about the embarking rules but this all seems so weird to me.

The beelining sure makes sense but it's still insane that he can get there before the others get to the modern era considering almost all of them have more science per turn.

 

The AI isn't smart enough to move units to a wonder to get a buff, so it must not be that. Roads aren't advanced enough in the ancient/classical to explain it either. Pericles doesn't have any buffs that would give his warriors anything early so I'm at a loss. Are you playing with heroes mode enabled? I'm unfamiliar with that mode so I cannot comment on that.

 

For movement, it would be much easier to offer a better explanation, if you uploaded a screenshot or a save, without that it is just poking in the dark mostly, trying to guess your settings.
Like, perhaps those were double promoted melee units, with the Commando promotion?

 

Another explanation for Pericles techs could be that you took cities from him which lowered his science per turn drastically in the last few turns Maybe he had envoys in one or even more scientific cs you were suzerain of so he lost all the bonusses he got from them as war was declared. Or lots of science projects earlier on (the AI loves these lately). Ofc combined with beelining stuff in later eras like modern armors in this case. Also the other players could have a spike in science per turn because of projects atm and may have teched slower for a large part of the game.
In short you can say science per turn does not matter too much for the situation you are in, it shows its effect over time. What matters for the moment is total science and how it was spend.

 

Just a random guess, but on of the latest big a changes was increasing the AIs eagerness to generate science (e.g. unless the are somehow especially religious-minded, they will ignore HSs and instead put down more Campuses). That made the game much more challenging, because AIs are generally more likely to outtech you for a longer time. However, even that increased scientic advantage tends to dwindle over the course of the game...and one reason for this (beside the human player simply playing the games finer mini-games like district puzzling better) I suspect is that most AIs neglect their culture...so they likely fall back in culture tree. Which hits them by having worse goverments and policy cards. Pericles is probably better suited here with the UD he has access to.

 

A great place to start is the Wiki page describing the AI bonuses at different levels against what the player gets.
On Deity, it needs to be clarified that although the wiki says the AI gets 3 settlers at start this is not actually correct - they get the 2nd settler immediately on founding their capital, and the third on founding their second city.
The 5 warriors & 40% experience boost remains though, as does the 80% production/gold boost and the 32% Science/Culture/Faith boost.