My Yearly "Is the AI Any Good Yet" Thread

[Pfeffersack]

5. Chop more. The Ai seems to almost never chop, which is another big disadvantage since choosing is so strong. I almost hate to say this because I love capturing an AI city on T100 and it still having 6 or 7 forests to chop out a Wonder.

Do they really don't chop at all? Or is it more a problem of them doing the waste-variant of it by just placing districts on forest/jungle, not using Magnus or not using chops for important things like wonders? The reason I'm asking is that deforestation is an issue in any game I play - and I'm myself not an ultra-heavy Chopper, so I assume some part of it must come from the AIs.

 

[Myomoto]

My biggest problem with the AI is that it seems to just... give up? Usually around Renaissance or Industrial era the AI just seems to stop doing much, stops producing military if you crushed its army, stops spawning apostles to convert other civs to it's relegion, etc.

I just had a very very enjoyable game as Bull Moose Teddy, going long-term for a cultural victory. The AI would declare surprise wars on me and forge alliances to attack me multiple AIs at the same time, call emergencies on me, etc

But now that we're in the Industrial era, the AI is not really doing much, they all kind of just sit around...

 

[Solver]

My biggest problem with the AI is that it seems to just... give up? Usually around Renaissance or Industrial era the AI just seems to stop doing much, stops producing military if you crushed its army, stops spawning apostles to convert other civs to it's relegion, etc.

I just had a very very enjoyable game as Bull Moose Teddy, going long-term for a cultural victory. The AI would declare surprise wars on me and forge alliances to attack me multiple AIs at the same time, call emergencies on me, etc

But now that we're in the Industrial era, the AI is not really doing much, they all kind of just sit around...

That is the AI simply being unable to keep up with production costs. The AI continues playing as before, but it has major problems with improving its land and suboptimal district placement. This leads to them having too little production later in the game, even with the difficulty level bonuses. If the AI loses a Classical/Medieval army, it rebuilds just fine. But when the AI loses a later army, it takes too much time for it to rebuild. A similar problem with Apostles - the AI is very ineffective at using them, usually targeting the closest civ instead of eliminating opposing religions. This can lead to the AI buying way too many apostles, and then the late-game Apostle costs become so high that the earlier flood of Apostles turns into a trickle.

 

[Myomoto]

That is the AI simply being unable to keep up with production costs. The AI continues playing as before, but it has major problems with improving its land and suboptimal district placement. This leads to them having too little production later in the game, even with the difficulty level bonuses. If the AI loses a Classical/Medieval army, it rebuilds just fine. But when the AI loses a later army, it takes too much time for it to rebuild. A similar problem with Apostles - the AI is very ineffective at using them, usually targeting the closest civ instead of eliminating opposing religions. This can lead to the AI buying way too many apostles, and then the late-game Apostle costs become so high that the earlier flood of Apostles turns into a trickle.

That's a very insightful answer. How come the Devs haven't tried doing a kind of rubber banding solution of simply giving the AI a flat production boost that scales by era, to keep its units a more or less fixed production cost? (Or any modders?)