Most and least dangerous AIs to fight against

[Floats your boat]

Hey, a thread to suggest top AIs to manually select if you wanna have a challenging game. I haven't played recently but those guys have been consistently thorns in the side or guaranteed losers, whenever they appeared in my games for about a year now. Mainly deity level, but I am sure they are similar on all levels? I may have forgotten something, as usual.

Here are my choices for best:
Ethiopia - this guy is just extremely powerful early in the game. He can become a nightmare if you want to go authority and have him as an only clear first target, most likely when you'll be gathering your swordsmen and catapults he will be constructing castles and prancing his deadly knights in front of you. He becomes twice of a menace if he builds the Pyramids (without Alternative Difficulty Mod). Strong and early religion is another nuisance to you to take care of.
Songhai - If you can snipe Mandekalus alone, they are just horsemen. When he can claim any flanking bonus, you're in trouble. Terrain is the only way to slow him down and unfortunately some mapscripts tend to have rivers every three tiles apart. Better to wait out his production spike. Depending on his conquests he can become really powerful. In my experience he is number one warmonger in consistency of killing another AIs. He lacks a path to victory though, he can only block you.
Russia - don't leave her space. She often stays on three cities for a long time during early game, that's your window. If left alone, she can have so much science and culture by the mid-game she we'll be constructing one wonder in each of her cities. She is a shadow of herself at maps where she can't settle ten or twelve of her own cities. Warmongering before industrial counters her heavily.

Other strong civs and threats: Austria, Morocco
Other strong civs but usually not threats due to not fixed clear victory path: America, Sweden

Other occasionally strong AIs:
Harald - Askia's maritime cousin. Just painful to fight against, especially defense if you're coastal. Settlers also get this stupid disembark and settle an annoying city. I don't play like only one water tile for coastal cities, it would be too unrealistic for me, so he can become an experience farm for your units or an end to your civilisation.
Egypt - killjoy.
Korea - very variable. Usually struggler or pushover if he is with other guys on a continent. Can become quite strong if he is isolated and able to hunker down behind mountains or other difficult terrain.

Here are my choices for worst:
Oda Nobunaga - he never manages to achieve anything meaningful in any of my games. Sometimes he can be top AI for large part of the early game, building a lot of wonders, but after that he usually is eaten by authority AIs around him. Hardcoded tradition is probably a bug for him, this AIs is unable to use his UA, UU, UB properly on deity.
Siam - changes some version age were not kind for him. I like Siam a lot and I believe it can be very powerful choice for a player since it has a powerful unit and a very good building, but AI is playing him tradition, never to his strengths.
Greece - tradition with very hard start bias. Wrong policy, wrong UB, wrong UA. Occasionally hoplite rush can kill you if you don't settle well. Far more often, he is free wonders for whoever wants to grab them as he doesn't upgrade the hoplites.

Other weak civs that rarely matter in my games as AIs: Germany, France

 

[Heinz_Guderian]

For weak ones I agree with Siam, Germany and I would say that I dislike playing against Austria and Venice for their annoying playstyle with city states, and Songhai for just raw power. Depends what civ I am playing of course too.

 

[Stalker0]

Songhai is pretty damn scary, and Iroquois if I’m stuck in the woods.

 

[stii]

Pretty much any movement bonus is the really scary thing, and Songhai have the best movement bonus.

 

[Grassland Farm]

Even when Songhai is not waging war he seems to always be doing great. That guy's good at the game.

In my experience Ethiopia is the best "peaceful" builder that ramps up score; Harald is the most dangerous neighbour even with no coast involved.

 

[Floats your boat]

I don't agree on that any movement bonus is scary. I was never in grave danger due to French or Iroquois attack nor am I seeing them as powerful AIs in my games. Sometimes Hiawatha can spam cities and cities but that's it. Similarly Zulus never seem to conquer as much or as quickly as Songhai or Mongols. And I can plan ahead to mitigate their movement bonus by placing my cities accordingly, it is the bonus hitpoints that I find unfun and annoying to play against. I would say more, denying AI movement is the most powerful mechanic player have at war and it is the specific character of the bonus that Songhai have make them dangerous at times because it is not just a movement bonus but reversal of the mechanic player uses and because it is much more universal than Iroquois. I suspect that authority production plus tabya production is the true Songhai power spike that gives him at least 50% of his power even when at peace.

Of course what civ and victory condition you play is the thing here. Egypt is only a nuisance if trying to wonder your victory up peacefully. Otherwise, he is just very easy walkover that gives you ton of free wonders in addition to leveling your army by stomping him.

 

[stii]

I rarely see the AI ever going crazy and conquering a bunch of other players, or at least not fast enough for it to be a big issue. So what I'm concerned about is them attacking me early on. Terran matters a lot and Songhai flipping river certainly makes them strongest but any aggressive AI can be a pain if you don't have space to make all your cities in good defensive positions.

 

[andersw]

I play on emperor and its basically assaults pre steel which are dangerous.
Part of it is greedy expansion on my side but also the tech paths which makes certain early UUs really scary.
AI attacks which have caused me to rage quit ....

Denmark - Authority, get caught off guard by Berserkers and its gg (yeah maybe you can be fine losing one or two cities and try to recover but thats expensive).
It is sort of rare situation on pangea and he needs iron for this to be a serious threat.
Worst case you play a water maps and give him +15% CS on coastal tiles and get a truckload of ships thrown at you as well.
(can on the other hand be very tame with no/low iron starts on pangea even worse if he went progress)

Iroquois - Authority, cities next to forest tiles when he spams early Mohawks will go down fast.
Strong resource free early UU which have crazy movement in forests.
Worst case there's also a nearby Natural Wonder.
(If you have a gap to nearest forest tiles its not so bad, a bit more tame with progress/tradition.)

Persia - combined with golden age, +1 move tanky immortals is dangerous IF he also has brought siege.
Immortals are cheap and he can spam a lot of these.
(Try to choke is attack vectors, dont make stupid open expands towards him.)

Songhai - lots of river and its hopeless trying to maneuver.
Pray he doesnt have enough horses.
(Try befriend him and hope he attacks somewhere else until you have pikes.)

Hunns - Horse archers and unit steal is a pain and seriously strong for AI vs me.
Resource free early UU, a bit weaker after nerf to skirmers.
If you (or me) play Hunns the ability is next to useless.
You will also suffer extra war weariness which means your units will suck even more vs him.
His UA means he's a serious land-grabber and will be terrible neighbour.

Mongols - Authority with god of expanse will be a serious problem and you seriously risk getting out teched, out hammered and out cultured by a LARGE margin.
(test play it as human and make use of tribute, one of if not the strongest combo you can play)

Celts - have the potential, maybe I've been lucky or they arent coded to be that agressive.
Early pict rush is so damn strong.

 

[DeAnno]

Denmark - Authority, get caught off guard by Berserkers and its gg

You haven't lived until you've had to whittle away at invading Berserkers with Slingers as they charge at you through the desert.

 

[chicorbeef]

Siam is actually pretty powerful as an AI in my experience, he almost always founds a religion and spreads it hard. Inca tends to snowball too, and they can be very annoying to try and invade.

Denmark is not so much a contender to win as just a massive annoyance because he spams units like it's going out of style. In my games he usually eventually gets out-teched though.

Polynesia is actually an easy one to take out in my experience, and he often goes progress so he doesn't have Tradition's defense or Authority's unit spam.

 

[stii]

You haven't lived until you've had to whittle away at invading Berserkers with Slingers as they charge at you through the desert.

I had a nice one when I was rushing byzantium with comp bows and they built a cataphract while I was sieging down their capital. It was like a sudden boss fight where I had to fight it for two turns instead of the capital .

 

[azum4roll]

Siam is actually pretty powerful as an AI in my experience, he almost always founds a religion and spreads it hard. Inca tends to snowball too, and they can be very annoying to try and invade.

Denmark is not so much a contender to win as just a massive annoyance because he spams units like it's going out of style. In my games he usually eventually gets out-teched though.

Polynesia is actually an easy one to take out in my experience, and he often goes progress so he doesn't have Tradition's defense or Authority's unit spam.

Last two games Siam AI was a non-founder. He doesn't really have much religious bonus nowadays (only 10 faith from meeting a religious CS). Meanwhile I'm pretty sure no one can invade the Incas (and win) in the current version.

 

[andersw]

I had a nice one when I was rushing byzantium with comp bows and they built a cataphract while I was sieging down their capital. It was like a sudden boss fight where I had to fight it for two turns instead of the capital .

Yes this is part of the early speed tech AI has, the cav can appear quite early, combine this with the defensive pacts that chivalry opens and its easy to get into trouble.

 

[mrpilhas]

"Meanwhile I'm pretty sure no one can invade the Incas (and win) in the current version." For sure, having them as neighbours is a nightmare.
They are my favourite civ to play since the changes to their chance to spawn near montains. You can choose whatever early policy tree and have a crazy strong game.

 

[ShadedSkies]

While I don't have any trouble with any AI early on, at least on Deity the ones with cheap UUs are the worst around the midgame because they can (and will) purchase that unit on every single turn. So even if you kill their units on every turn they'll just keep coming, occupying tiles and easily wearing down your units even if they're two eras ahead. Add in the fact that AI units can be bought AND move AND attack on the same turn and you can kiss your ranged/siege units goodbye unless you have a steady wall of melee units. The Aztec leap to mind.

 

[Stalker0]

In terms of least....Venice is always up there. Even if they are going aggressive, they just can't manage the large armies that other AIs can, and so tend to fold much quicker.

Austria is another easy one..... Austria just doesn't maintain a strong military, I find she tends to fold like paper once I go in against her.

 

[youngsteve]

I always try to help the underdog, & the one I always feel sorry for & never attack is poor Theodora. She never gets going, has a handful of cities, & usually gets owned or agrees to a vasalization so she can be protected. My latest game is just typical, a couple of cities, now surrounded by other civs, with a feeble army, & although she has gotten to the middle ages, still hasn't formed a religion. Rest were ages ago. People say Byzantines is a strong civ, but never is with the AI in any game I have played.