More cities = better?

[NuWorld]

I like to have a minimum of at least 6-8 cities,anything below that, imho, you'll be lagging behind in tech. You have to factor in difficulty level & map sizes also....To a certain extent more is better.

IMHO, it greatly depends on the size of other civs empires, if you're on par with the big guns, you'll do fine. Also, I would say it depends on what type of victory you aim for. For domination or diplo you would want big empires, conquest might go with mid-sized empire if you can prevent other civs from resettling conquered land - greatly depends on map type, 6 is enough for culture, space race - can't say, always disable it.

 

[Zombie69]

IMHO, it greatly depends on the size of other civs empires, if you're on par with the big guns, you'll do fine.

Actually, you need more cities than the biggest AI, to counter the bonuses they get at higher levels. Being on par will not do it.

space race - can't say, always disable it.

That's why you can afford to be just on par and still win. You took away the AI's only means of victory!

 

[NuWorld]

Well, it's not like AI is picking nose and not know what to do when you disable it. Just got little bored with every game turning into space race, even if AI can take a better shot at domination or other type of victory. When Apollo Program is built, everything else is not important any more.

 

[Zombie69]

The AI does pick its nose unaware of what to do, if it can't go for space. It's already been confirmed that this is the only victory condition the AI is programmed to go after. If they win any other way, it's by pure chance and they didn't even do it on purpose.

 

[jar2574]

The AI does pick its nose unaware of what to do, if it can't go for space. It's already been confirmed that this is the only victory condition the AI is programmed to go after. If they win any other way, it's by pure chance and they didn't even do it on purpose.

Do you think they could fix this in a future patch? It's kind of annoying.

Could there be triggers to change this? Like if the AI has 30% of the land area on a pangea map with 6 or more other civs, and the AI is in 3rd or lower place techwise, then it switches from spaceship route to domination route.

Just wondering...

 

[Commander Bello]

The AI does pick its nose unaware of what to do, if it can't go for space. It's already been confirmed that this is the only victory condition the AI is programmed to go after. If they win any other way, it's by pure chance and they didn't even do it on purpose.

Where did you get this information from?

 

[diablodelmar]

The AI does pick its nose unaware of what to do, if it can't go for space. It's already been confirmed that this is the only victory condition the AI is programmed to go after. If they win any other way, it's by pure chance and they didn't even do it on purpose.

If you have space race victory turned off then the AI is screwed...

 

[NuWorld]

So you turn off space race and you win every game?

 

[NuWorld]

Do you think they could fix this in a future patch? It's kind of annoying.

Could there be triggers to change this? Like if the AI has 30% of the land area on a pangea map with 6 or more other civs, and the AI is in 3rd or lower place techwise, then it switches from spaceship route to domination route.

Just wondering...

I play with space race turned off and I've seen in my games AI wins by conquest, domination and diplo, culture never, not one AI civ was ever close to win by culture by the end of the game. Not sure about switching from one type to another midgame, but AI won't just sit and wait for clock to tick off. I play pangaea and continents only, so this may vary from map to map. IMHO, domination or conquest are harder to pursue on islands or archipelago.

 

[Zombie69]

Where did you get this information from?

From Sirian.

 

[Zombie69]

Do you think they could fix this in a future patch? It's kind of annoying.

Unlikely since the developpers actually believe this is a good thing. This is something that we'll have to fix on our own. Maybe now with the SDK...

 

[jar2574]

Unlikely since the developpers actually believe this is a good thing. This is something that we'll have to fix on our own. Maybe now with the SDK...

Do you know why in the world the developers believe it's good to limit the AI's victory conditions? That surprises me, I figured it was just cause it was easiest to program.

Hopefully someone smarter than me will figure out a way to mod this so that AI can win in other ways. Especially since AI civs like Japan and Rome would be better off going for conquest sometimes. And maybe India could go for culture. That would add a lot more variety.

Ah well. One can dream I guess...

 

[Commander Bello]

The AI does pick its nose unaware of what to do, if it can't go for space. It's already been confirmed that this is the only victory condition the AI is programmed to go after. If they win any other way, it's by pure chance and they didn't even do it on purpose.

Where did you get this information from?

From Sirian.

If this would be true, it would be poor even for Firaxis, although I don't expect anything anymore from them conceptual-wise.

The consequences of this would be that you just have to limit the AI's capabilitiy to build the starship's final element. As soon as you have reached this, the AI will be lost in the dark and just do something. One may assume that it will mainly try to stay alive.
Occasionally, it will get higher points, the legendary culture and what not, but this would be just by accident.

So, if you have forbidden the space race victory, the AI would be left without proper goal to achieve.

Well done! Now, honestly, this would be a really clever design. /* sarcasm off */

I have to admit that I really cannot believe this. There MUST be some kind of "plan B" for the AI.

 

[Olleus]

Programming the AI to try conquest/domination shouldn't be too hard. In pseudo code this will do something similar

//tries for domination
if ( HOME_CIV has lots of land and pop):
{
    for ( every other civ starting with biggest):
    {
        if ( HOME_CIV has twice the power of civ AND is not friendly):
        {
            DECLARE WAR
            PROB_OF_RASING_CITIES = 0
            EMPHASIZE CITIES ON UNIT BUILD
            EMPHASIE SCIENCE ON MILITARY
            RETURN
        }
    }
}

// tries for conquest
for ( every other civ starting with biggest):
{
    if ( HOME_CIV has twice the power of civ AND is not friendly):
    {
        DECLARE WAR
        PROB_OF_RASING_CITIES += 50
        EMPHASIZE CITIES ON UNIT BUILD
        EMPHASIE SCIENCE ON MILITARY
        RETURN
    }
}

this would result in a very poor AI, but could be expanded to make it a lot cleverer.

 

[diablodelmar]

So you turn off space race and you win every game?

no because you have to have more points than the AI to win a time victory - if not the AI will win a time victory