Saving policies and AI

[LukaSlovenia29]

Hi.

For a while now I've been playing with the saving policies option enabled. So I usually select around 7 policies (progress and two authority, perhaps piety opener if I have a religion), and save the rest for the industrial era.

I was wondering if anyone has any experience with how the AI makes use of this option? Are they coded/trained to use it or do they always pick a social policy immediately upon having enough culture? My experience thus far is that it always uses it immediately, though I haven't paid that much attention.

If it's a vestigial remain of vanilla civ that the AI can't use at all/effectively, then it'd feel gimmicky/exploitative to use myself.

Thnx for the replies.

 

[Funak]

I don't think they do, but to be honest, with very few exceptions, I don't believe saving policies is ever the right move to make. Don't get me wrong, if I had 18 policies available at the start of industrial era, I would definitely max out all the industrial era trees, they are purposely better than the earlier ones, but there is just so much lost value in not picking up a policy as soon as it is available that I can't really see saving policies as viable (especially with most policy-trees providing heavy culture and you needing 3 filled trees to unlock an ideology).

 

[peterw1987]

Saving policies is not a good idea in VP. All policies have been reworked that all is useful.

While in vanilla, i remember that i also saving policies, because many branch that is too weak and useless.

 

[LukaSlovenia29]

Thanks for the reply, guys. Funak, I remember you helping me with advice a while ago when I was switching to progress, and iirc you mentioned this as well.

I guess in my experience it's been paying off in the long run, especially considering my play style. I just wanted to (re-)check if it's not cheesy/exploitative of the AI.

 

[Funak]

In vanilla, policy-saving was really considered cheesy, and definitely something that gave a human an advantage over the AI, saving policies to instantly fill Rationalism by the time you hit renaissance comes to mind. In VP I tend to keep it disabled out of habit, I mean I don't use it and the AI doesn't use it, so why waste time enabling it? If you really enjoy it however, I really doubt it gives you an advantage over the AI, maybe some limited scenarios where you're really behind on policies and won't even fill half of a medieval tree before you hit industrial or something along those lines. But then again the medieval trees are kinda important for empire stability, providing a big chunk of your global happiness. Anyways now I'm just rambling.