Strongest/Weakest AI Civs

[Scout]

Okay, for those of you have now played through a few games, whcih AI civs seem to generally do the best? Which ones seem like perenial losers?

In my games, Rome has ALWAYS been weak and usually is wiped out by mid-game. Germany is also a perennial loser.

Russia and India have generally been the strongest.

 

[Protaxis]

Hmm, interesting topic.

With the exception to my current game, the Japanese tend to be one of the weakest civs for me, followed by the blowhard Germans (no offense to any real-life Germans, but the ones in Civ 3 tend to be all talk and no walk ;p), and then the English.

The Zulus, Chinese, and Russians tend to be the most powerful, while everyone else tends to be somewhere in the middle.

 

[Anunikoba]

In several of my games, I have found the English to be #1. In others, especially a 16 civ, huge map game, the Americans, French, and Russians did very well, along with the Germans.

Sometimes it just seems to depend though.

 

[Panda]

Russia, India and the US seem to be constant tough competitors in my games, while Japan, Germany and Babylon end up being the underdogs.

Oddly enough, the first civ I usually have to decimate are either the Aztecs or the Zulus, because I always end up being neighbours with either of them

 

[ironfang]

In my games Persia and China tend to be tough. Zulu's and Aztecs are strong in the beginning, but usually anihilated by the end of the Medieval times. Rome, Greece, England and Germany never seem to be a threat ever.

ironfang

 

[RangerFalcon]

I have found that France has typically been in the hunt for my games, and Babylon has been pretty strong (hard to kill it when all that culture keeps swinging cities back to them).

The first civ I wipe off the map has always been India, and the Japanese have usually been second. The English usually end up getting mopped up by the other AI civs in the late Industrial/early Modern period.

 

[Richard III]

As I'd said weeks ago in another thread:

Rome: always weak, always shunted
Russia: generally ends up being weak

In two different games, I found myself donating a city that I didn't want to either of these civs just to keep things interesting - sort of a puppet government arrangement, I guess. Politically correct issues with it aside, it had a ring of creating "Manchukuo" to it on each occasion.

Americans generally smack in the middle of the pack
Japanese do just okay.
English generally moderate
Germans generally moderate-strong, and are more an irritating adversary than a difficult one.
India are pretty strong, but then they weaken on the way.

Zulus end up being very strong, and damn do you get pissed off if you end up at war with them.
The Aztecs are also a pain, although they do more with less - smaller empires, less tech, but very successful considering.
Chinese end up being very strong.
The French end up with half the map - always - but then their lack of culture seems to leave them weak to defections.

Since then, I've played several more games and found the Persians to be verydifficult and tenacious adversaries. The Babylonian cultural advantage doesn't seem to be so decisive, save and except in that they seem - as noted above - to be unconquerable. They don't win, but they don't lose either.

R.III

 

[Scout]

One other thing I've noticed... Every game I play, there's a fairly strong contender (maybe #2 or 3 out of the 16) who everyone gangs up on and gets wiped out over a war or two.

Half the time it has been the French in my games.

 

[redtom]

The strongests civilisation I miss for not being strong as they were in Civ 1 + 2 are the Zulus. The zulus used to dominate now there nothing special leaving a massive gap in game play.

 

[Thunderfire]

Strong: Eqypt, India, Chinese, France, Japan

Japan eleminated 11 civs before 1400AD in one
of my last games.

My main competitior is often one of these nations.

Weak: Germany, Zulu,US, England.
Germany,Zulu are to aggresive this gets them killed fast.
US,England both expand to much and forget to defend
their cities. They die quickly when their neighbours get
greedy. This also makes them nr 1 target for me because
I like easy wars.

 

[TrailblazingScot]

In the games I've played Germany can be a fearsome opponent should she get a decent start site...I have to say that I find France to be a most energetic competetor...I really don't understand how someone can diss their cultural output as they very often build alot of Wonders...

 

[Sam_Catchem]

I think the Industrious Civs are the ones that the computer seems to play best for whatever reason.

French, American, Persians, Chinese, Egypt are the ones I see the AI playing the best. Anybody else think so?

 

[ApocalypseKurtz]

Americans, Russians, French are consistently powerful

Not sure yet about Indians, Germans but they seem strong

Aztecs, Egyptians, Iroquois are usually weak

Zulus always attack me

 

[Hitro]

I almost all of my games the religious AI civs did pretty well. On the other side the militaristic ones, especially Germany, always had a smaller and rather underdevolped empire.
The focus on culture seems to be an advantage for an AI civ though.

 

[Aslan]

I played a game and the rank in terms of strenght went:

Germany
Persia
Russia
France
Babylon
Zulu
English (wiped out)

I think that it is genuinely a random sort of thing. Any given game could have a different top-dog versus any other given game. I think that says something about the effort put into making this a balanced game.

 

[dogen]

Are the strongest and weakest AI civs random? The AI controls all the AI civs, right? why doesn't it make them all have the same strength? Does AI have its favorite civs????

 

[cat98]

Silly bugger. If the different civs were at the same strength level the game would stink. Just imagine, a bunch of cpu controlled civs, using the SAME building and war tactics. *shudder*

 

[Richard III]

Originally posted by kittenOFchaos
I really don't understand how someone can diss their cultural output as they very often build alot of Wonders...

Speaking of France, of course. Nothing personal to the French, since their ugly pinkness has been a loyal, sexy and altogether too unsuspecting ally in several games now. But I'm only reporting what the game tells me: the French cultural scores are disproportionately low relative to their population, and I've had more French cities defect to me in all of my games (as Zulus, Americans and Greeks) than from all other cultures combined. Don't know why, but that's the way it is.

R.III

 

[Adonis]

The Zulus either hold a grudge forever or are just generally ornery. Whenever I start a game and my civ is near the Zulus, it's just constant war, weakening both of us unless one of us is much stronger than the other (and sometimes, they're the stronger ones). Despite their aggression, the Zulus never seem to do very well. The French, on the other hand, are generally peaceful, and do very well in my experience.

 

[Polonius]

Cat98 has a point - they can't be all the same it would be too basic.

But I think that there are a lot of factors at work such as what maps you are playing on, what difficulty level, who draws next to who etc. They are designed to be pretty balanced in terms of playing them yourself (i.e. each will suit a certain style of player, but stink for others).

So if a civ that would do well with a peaceful, cultural approach, draws next to a militaristic one, on a small island, on Chieftain (where its build rate is severely hobbled) it will probably do pretty badly. Whereas it might do better under other conditions. One of the beauties of this game is that there aren't automatic answers to these sorts of questions.

My experience at the basic level has been that England hasn't ever done well yet, and that the Zulus almost alway end up in a fight. So far they've lost too. The Americans - being expansionist - always seem to end up making a late run up the points charts as they relentlessly settle more land.... etc. Checking out everybody's attributes might help to get an idea as to how well they'll face a given map and game settings.