Poor AI in "No Settler/No Tech Brokering" Game

[giddion]

I have been playing games in 0.30f with "NO Settlers" and "No Tech Brokering" set. I like this because there is more space for barbarians and animals. The only additional cities to get early on are from the Barbs.


The AI just seems very slow to do anything. I used team play to watch what happens. The first thing they do is build a worker, with a city of only 1. Shouldn't the AI wait until the city hits at least 3???

The AI rarely sacks a city, which is a requirement to keep a lid on the financial situation, so any cities it does grab early on tend to cause them to stall tech wise. Especially with No Tech Brokering on.

Playing with water also cause them major lag, with 4 massive continents on a small map, 8 players, quick turns, Emperor. They all seem to be land locked within their own continents for a very long time, even Lunan. In my current game I have conquered 3 continents, have Queen of the Line ships and Champions. They only have Warriers with Bronze weapons, maybe a couple of axe men.
There are only 2 civs left and if I don't bother keeping the remaining cities I will easily win shortly. It is currently turn 248 and I am 10 turns away from Mitheral. They never explored outside their continents even though a fishing boat could have done most the work for them.

I wish there was a city limiting option, like only X cities per civ. That way you would have to decide carefully where to build but may get around the AI problem with No Settlers.

 

[Mesix]

Try this with wildlands too...even more animals!

 

[Ecofarm]

Using advanced start with 400-600 points, and no settlers option, effectively limits each civ to 2-4 cities + barb conquests.

 

[Deon]

Yes, I noticed that when you play on water maps or with some "unnatural" limits, the AI is just a child even on emperor. I think on deity too, it just makes their child games easier and our harder.

Last time I played as dark elves on the standard map with wild lands, ragin barbarians and barbarian world... It happened that I separated the map with the line of my cities (linear empire... City states only =( ) in 2 parts. There were all other civs in 1 part and calabim and barbarians in 2nd. Other civs took their small place and started battling each other for the tile of the map, and calabim were almost destroyed (1 city left) by barbarians... After that the only "problem" for me were barbarians, they had a half of a continent to dwell so I had 5-10 fights every turn -.- (btw it made all my assasins and sworsmen lvl 10+ ).
After that I could wipe all the civilizations with 10-12 of my expirienced units. And even with 2-3 supported by the "hidden-nationality assasin" who was level 19 with all the promotions he needed and even more... I forgot to say, I built the grand menagerie and made additional pet cells in every city... I had A LOT of tamed animals, my lvl 10+ spiders (with no promotions to level more) killed everyone too.

It looks so far that now the only "problem" for player may be barbarians, if the map is large enough they SPAWN SPAWN SPAWN, and you should watch your borders every turn to stop their horde... But they're no more than EXP and their cities are no more than gold income for me...

I think the only hope for AIs is to cheat. Like to add some high-level naval and land units when player has a lot of high-leveled units and don't see/notice how they spawn. Maybe there should be some AI-only random events... Because "no building requirements" makes it even worse, new units don't get +exp and sinister and other promotions... I think the only way is to teach AI to cheat =).