Lending the A.I. a helping hand..

[King Jason]

I'd like to get the general civ5 strategist's opinion on what game settings are more beneficial to the A.I. as opposed to less beneficial to them. The obvious one is difficulty, the higher the difficulty, the better off they are... but more generally I'm interested in other settings. For example it's often said Slower speeds benefit the player more than the computer. Obviously if you pick an island map, you're going to play with that in mind, etc.

So basically I guess the categories could go (<-> including everything in between);


Map size: Smaller - larger
Map type: Islands <-> Pangaea/all land
Speed: Faster <-> Slower
Number of opponents: Less than specified < -> more than specified
City states: On or Off
Barbarians: Raging <-> None
Ruins: On/Off


Personally; My setup would be something like:

Standard map
Pangaea ~ There's two sides, A.) it's easier for me to conquer, but B.) It's "harder" (not really) for me to defend... I argue this in the sense that computer opponents seem to stick to their own continents and cause little-to-no threat to me from across the seas... tossing everyone on one continent makes it more hectic and more likely I'll be ganged up on from multiple sides.
Standard speed ~ slower and quick speeds favor the human.
City-states off ~ The A.I. doesn't utilizing CS nearly as effective as I can.
Barbarians on ~ Generally equal "luck", imo
Ruins on ~ I would argue that more A.I. find more ruins than I do, so while I may pop a lucky hut during a game, I think the odds are actually in their favor. Plus, I can go the extra step and not emphasize Hut-hunting for my own benefit.


Lastly, with the lack of city-states on the map, I think it doesn't through off the balance too much to add in an extra A.I. civ or two to the map.

 

[Roxlimn]

The AI is better at building than it is at war, so Pangaea helps the player, not the AI.

 

[King Jason]

Well I never go to war anymore, so I think for myself it might favor the A.I. I only go to war if attacked because the A.I. is that bad at it. Beating a snowballing A.I. economically with a smaller empire seems more of a challenge than conquering the world. In that sense, I think Pangaea lends myself to be more vulnerable to attack (since I myself am pursuing a builder strat), and it gives the A.I. all the territory it needs to snowball around me.


I could give everyone their own continent, but that'd simply be no fun. I enjoy the threat of being attacked, but don't enjoy the ease of conquering... if that makes any sense.

 

[Celevin]

Very interesting thread.

Map size: Smaller - larger
Map type: Islands <-> Pangaea/all land
Speed: Faster <-> Slower
Number of opponents: Less than specified < -> more than specified
City states: On or Off
Barbarians: Raging <-> None
Ruins: On/Off

Map size: Bigger. With Deity coms, they can expand rapidly and see very little consequence.
Map type: Pangaea. Coms can't do sea that well, nor do they know that they will have to tech for it on an island map.
Speed: This is a hard one. Faster I guess, since it lets them replace their military readily? This option basically just changes reaction time, and in a good game the player will have amazing reaction time.
Number of opponents: Unless we're seeing a cheesy 1v1 victory, I'm going to have to go for less. Gives our Deity coms more space
City states: Definitely off completely. This is the one thing that will give the coms the most advantage after difficulty.
Barbarians: Doesn't really matter.
Ruins: Off, even with the Deities getting gobs of starting units. We don't want the player to have a lucky Infantry early game.

 

[King Jason]

Now Celevin, I definitely agree that turning CS off is the next best thing to give the A.I. a leg up ~ in a case where one isn't necessarily going after the greatest challenge, but looking for a decent balance.. do you think adding in an extra A.I. opponent or two is warranted with the removal of city-states?

On the one hand, the more land to be gobbled up, the better... on the other, theoretically with the removal of the city-states (always twice the amount of players), there's more room.

 

[aimlessgun]

-If Pangea is harder, why not go all the way with an all land map?
-No city states, definitely.
-Not sure about opponent #. More is probably harder since you'll get crowded/attacked.

Well I never go to war anymore, so I think for myself it might favor the A.I. I only go to war if attacked because the A.I. is that bad at it. Beating a snowballing A.I. economically with a smaller empire seems more of a challenge than conquering the world. In that sense, I think Pangaea lends myself to be more vulnerable to attack (since I myself am pursuing a builder strat), and it gives the A.I. all the territory it needs to snowball around me.


I could give everyone their own continent, but that'd simply be no fun. I enjoy the threat of being attacked, but don't enjoy the ease of conquering... if that makes any sense.

Makes total sense. Exactly how I feel. Unless I want to start putting the AI on teams with me alone, I've instituted a "no attacking cities" rule for my games.

 

[JanissaryRush]

Lakes is tougher then Pangea as you can get attacked by some many sides and the AI's fight eachother much more. That leads to a few or one gaining lots of power way faster.

 

[Surgeon]

I played a recent game with :
minus 2 civs from default (large pangea)
minus 5 city states from default

The extra room for expansion seemed to help one or two of the AI get that critical number of cities. Pangea meant open borders was all they needed to get to their enemy.

The AI is better at building than it is at war, so Pangaea helps the player, not the AI.

While the AI isn't human* when at war, pangea really helps it as it doesnt have to worry about a navy much/at all.

*i will argue it never was, even with stack o doom.