The AI get's a lot of slack, as it usually does not prove a great challenge. Today however I was reminded, that it can seriously pack a surprise.
Me and my wife were playing on a marathon game using the non-modded true start location map. The game was set up on immortal with only civs in the "old-world". I was playing with Spain and she with Sumeria. My game was pretty slow from the start, as I was aiming for religion. I managed to get iron and horses and raise a small, but potent army. She in the other half had conquered much of the middle east and was doing good with Sumeria.
I then noticed, that Byzantium was producing over 60 science per turn, while I was doing a meager 10 per turn. barbarians had caused Byzantium a lot of trouble, so they had no units at all. I decided to declare a war of pillaging and razed all of their campuses. This set up a motion, that nearly ended our game.
Mongolia was doing very good from the start, they had conquered China and had good yields in both science, and was also heading to a golden age. They saw my war on Byzantium as a trigger moment and decided to attack only a couple turns later. In a couple turns, they had conquered Constantinople (mind you, it is very far away form Mongolia), and in two more turns had conquered their second largest city. Mind you, all the cities had ancient walls on them.
I entered a golden era, and Constantinople flipped a couple turns later. At this point Mongolia had a secure hold of a couple other Byzantine cities situated in Eastern Europe. Me and my wife used this opportunity to liberate Constantinople. At this time Genghis had also made peace with Basil. They had a new target, Sumeria.
Ghengis declared war and swiftly they brought knights, light horsemen and keshighs from both North and south of the Himalayas straight into my wifes territory. We sold all GPT and diplo favor, relics etc. just to upgrade one of his war carts to a knight. This increased the combat strength of her cities to 50+, which slowed down their attack. The war itself took 20 turns, and in the end, almost all of Sumerias tiles were pillaged, two cities were down of walls and my wife had lost all of her units. On the other side, all Mongolias troops were killed of by our joint effort and a white peace was made.
tldr. Mongolia did what they are at best, conquered half Europe in a short time and almost conquered the Middle East as well
I would like to post this as a reminder for all the folks, who still thinks, that the AI is not capable of taking walled cities. It seems that now with NFP the AI has become more competent by the day. If you have lost your will to play due to poor AI a long time, I would encourage you to give it another shot. It is very fun.
Me and my wife were playing on a marathon game using the non-modded true start location map. The game was set up on immortal with only civs in the "old-world". I was playing with Spain and she with Sumeria. My game was pretty slow from the start, as I was aiming for religion. I managed to get iron and horses and raise a small, but potent army. She in the other half had conquered much of the middle east and was doing good with Sumeria.
I then noticed, that Byzantium was producing over 60 science per turn, while I was doing a meager 10 per turn. barbarians had caused Byzantium a lot of trouble, so they had no units at all. I decided to declare a war of pillaging and razed all of their campuses. This set up a motion, that nearly ended our game.
Mongolia was doing very good from the start, they had conquered China and had good yields in both science, and was also heading to a golden age. They saw my war on Byzantium as a trigger moment and decided to attack only a couple turns later. In a couple turns, they had conquered Constantinople (mind you, it is very far away form Mongolia), and in two more turns had conquered their second largest city. Mind you, all the cities had ancient walls on them.
I entered a golden era, and Constantinople flipped a couple turns later. At this point Mongolia had a secure hold of a couple other Byzantine cities situated in Eastern Europe. Me and my wife used this opportunity to liberate Constantinople. At this time Genghis had also made peace with Basil. They had a new target, Sumeria.
Ghengis declared war and swiftly they brought knights, light horsemen and keshighs from both North and south of the Himalayas straight into my wifes territory. We sold all GPT and diplo favor, relics etc. just to upgrade one of his war carts to a knight. This increased the combat strength of her cities to 50+, which slowed down their attack. The war itself took 20 turns, and in the end, almost all of Sumerias tiles were pillaged, two cities were down of walls and my wife had lost all of her units. On the other side, all Mongolias troops were killed of by our joint effort and a white peace was made.
tldr. Mongolia did what they are at best, conquered half Europe in a short time and almost conquered the Middle East as well
I would like to post this as a reminder for all the folks, who still thinks, that the AI is not capable of taking walled cities. It seems that now with NFP the AI has become more competent by the day. If you have lost your will to play due to poor AI a long time, I would encourage you to give it another shot. It is very fun.
One small step paves the way for a giant leap. Keep doing this, Firaxis, I'm rooting for you!
can't even dream of a Marathon game
