Post-patch AI Expansion & Aggressiveness

[Txurce]

Reviewing my Replay after finishing my first game on Immortal/Standard, I saw that by turn 78 - when I was at war trying for the NC and stuck at one city - all of the AI had 4-5 cities. In other words, no one hung back for a tall culture start. (And no ne built Wonders, either.)

More interesting, though, was that Rome took out Songhai's roughly-equal empire by turn 130, and Spain wiped out Denmark very quickly after turn 150. The AI is probably as aggressive as ever, but the changes to city defenses have allowed it to start conquering each other whenever one gets some sort of edge on another.

 

[Sainhann]

I would agree.

In my first game after the patch there I was with Arabia with just two cities on a standard size Pangaea map.

Both Russia and America had several cities and Washington is being war like. He has declared war first on Russia, then Suliman and he decide to come after me.

Results were me losing one warrior unit and him losing two horsemen & two Spearmen, two warrior, one catapult & one Trireme so a complete disaster for him.

Oh he has offered peace but the terms were not to my liking.

Oh and they do build wonders since someone beat me to The Oracle.

 

[aimlessgun]

I found the opposite in my Immortal game. AI expanded laughably slowly, about the same # of cities as me, and I wasn't expanding very fast. Many of the AI's stopped completely for hundreds of years at around 3-4 cities.

I think I'm tied for the most # of cities currently with 8. And the map is not even close to being full. There are tracts of empty land all over the damn place. And it's 1300 AD. Horrible.

The AI does build wonders, but not as aggressively as I remember from before, especially early on.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I think I'm tied for the most # of cities currently with 8. And the map is not even close to being full. There are tracts of empty land all over the damn place. And it's 1300 AD. Horrible.

To be fair, in 1300AD most of the world WAS empty (or, at least, empty of "civilized" empires).

 

[snoochems]

I played on prince, and have noticed the AI is getting 3-4 cities built very quickly. It is either using a good strategy to do this, or it is once again getting massive happiness cheats. (I get after my 2nd city)

 

[Txurce]

In my game the four (!) surviving civs all had between 9 and 16 cities... and the two continents were filled in.

 

[RedRover57]

In the past I don't think it's the quantity of AI cities that has been the main issue, it is the quality (of course those do go hand-in-hand). If they did anything to stop the AI from settling garbage sites (like one tile islands) and spamming out cities relentlessly without ever improving the tiles in their current cities then that would be a big step in the right direction.

 

[ShaggyCan]

Playing on Prince with a small map with 5 Civs, I have never seen the AI so aggressive.
I have been at war almost the entire game. I usually have at least 2 civs fighting me, they come in lose about 5 units to my line of fortifications (which I have NEVER built before) the sue for peace. Its actually annoying since they are attacks that can't possibly take a city.
So far I have taken out the Germans (they had 3 small cities and were constantly belligerant). Almost took Washington, but had to pull back my army when Siam and the Indians, which are much closer to my borders declared on me.
Siam's attack was the first attack that was actually a threat due to 4 war elephants.
The game feel massively different, the AI warmongering is too much though. I went from games where I would fight maybe 1 major conflict and 1 minor one on the same setup to a game where I was constantly at war.
Also I have noticed that most of the AI's don't expand well, they have 3-4 cities to my 8 and build maybe 5 units send them in, then ask for peace once those units are destroyed, and then repeat.

 

[ywhtptgtfo]

Started a game on king difficulty. A.I. was a bit more threatening (since cities were weaker). Their combat A.I.s are still pretty dumb. I rush bought 3 camel archers and it basically wiped out everything that came and then I just took city after city with the 3 camel archers and a swordsman.