The Ai making colonies 1492 style

[Hengoroth]

Greetings fellow fanatics, im a loooong time lurker and player of civ, since civ 3 and extremely non poster,(going to remedy this) but i am enjoying this fantastic site.

This weekend for the first time in civ 5, i have seen an ai, The danish civ, making a colony with a setler on something similar to New Foundland, since i normally only play on Terra-shaped maps(all ais and me on europe\asia\africa continent). Have you seen the ai expand beyond the initial continent and its local 1tile islands? this is a feature im sadly missing from civ 4. I miss the race to get colonies in America etc and the european wars i started by attacking an ais colonies in America. I remember the ai in Civ4 too often taking my favorite spots in america, but now in Civ 5 and countless terra games, i have only seen it once. Usually i have America for my self for the total game length... This feels artificial, especially for the civs that i have wiped 99%off, but with a costal city intact, they never settle and start anew in empty spaces of america\Australia. Have any modders thought about this lack in the ai? I know the ai sometimes love Iceing,but have never seen it on other continents...

I must say that i find the ai better at naval invasions, i have even seen 4frigates,caravells guarding a 8 soldier invasion,but the convoy guards never react to my sinking them or the rest of the ai fleet...

 

[bcaiko]

I think the AI has gotten *slightly* better at founding cities off continent. In a recent game, England settled near me on my continent when she was being pushed off hers by the Egyptians and Mongols.

Still, the AI isn't very good about late game settling if it finds itself in a situation where it should do so. Hopefully this will change.

 

[Steelyglint]

Russia founded a city on a one-tile-island just off the new world once.

 

[Emstinson]

I find myself playing on Terra more and more, I like to load it up with 12-16AI on tiny or duel and play on Emperor/Immortal and see if I can hang. If you survive for a while all of the AI tend to get an emp/Imm sized army with out the empire and go broke. Anyways typically I see one of all of the AI expand on the "New World" portion of the Terra map. Granted the sea distance may be smaller then on your maps and I've seen it connected by shoreline depth so it was settled really early in the game one time. Typically it would be myself settling first and then one of the AI finally starts building on it. I really like having the city states on their to act like Native Americans, makes it easier to roleplay of sorts.

But to your points, yeah I don't really see a better naval approach by the AI. They do tend to build more ships but I rarely see their huge invasion forces guarded properly. I don't expect it to be much better then it is, because my navy typically is for defense so I don't desire great naval battles, but being able to wipe out their armies so easily can be disappointing. It's all good though, I haven't had to buy another computer game since so as long as they keep teasing me with DLC and patches I'll probably be playing for a while....