The AI was not much smarter in Alpha Centauri.

[Baron2]

(This topic is centered on CIV 5 ai)

In fact, in terms of combat, the AI was noticably dumber in Alpha Centauri.

I reinstalled and played Alpha Centauri this WE. Had a blast.

This said, for pure combat, the AI was even stupidier than the most obvious cases of Civ 5.

There are areas into which CiV5 AI perform decently.

-In Alpha Centauri, the AI feel it's necessary to put 3 or 4 units per base. While you can argue that mind worms are a much higher threat than Barbarians (1), this means that the AI is utterly unable to concentrate it's forces. An attack made with 4-5 units against a whole continent will be met, more often than not, by ''counter attacks'' made with one or two units, while the invaded guys have easily 50 or 60 units garrisoning their cities.

At least, in CiV 5, the AI is usually able to send most of it's army to the battlelines.

-In Alpha Centauri, the AI is fond of building some widely ineffective units. TBF, Alpha Centauri was coming with an Unit Workshop that completely destroyed the AI when it come to unit choice.

Ah, seeing the ennemy mass produce ''equivalent of cavalry units'' with added armor and special abilities picked to fight off mind worms (NB : armor and those abilities almost doubled the cost of the unit without adding anything to the combat value of the unit) game after game after game.

In CiV5, the way to customize units-promotions-is used a bit more intelligently by the AI. (You could argue that it's mostly because the AI handle so poorly her units that they don't promote, but...)

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(1)To summarize, Mind Worms attack with PSI, a special type of attack that forgo completely ATT and DEF values (the values that now make Strenght) and instead use the level of the unit. As the manual state, there is thus a strong possibility that even a meek ''barbarian'' unit that reached via special events a elite status can completely whack out the equivalent of Mech Infantry if the unit is green.

 

[joncnunn]

Rules differences in the game as well:

In SMAC, If the player (or AI) has a high enough police rating; the 3 policemen are actually enforcing martial law. This is also the case under certain forms of government in Civ II & III.

The workshop was indeed bad for the AI as the humans could find the best units easily.

As to PSI units such as native lifeform: Yup; that's why I ignored the workshop entirely and instead played on highest difficulty level with raging mindworms, quickly adopted Green social policy and harvested mindworms to use as my army. I'd also use isles of the deep as my navy. And I constructed swarms of Locusts upon hiting that tech.

Anyway, I think most of the AI complaints about Civ V are in comparison with Civ IV and not as far back as SMAC.

 

[smallfish]

On the note of AI, I think Lord Kona here has it down right pat.

Spoiler :

 

[The_Quasar]

Rules differences in the game as well:

In SMAC, If the player (or AI) has a high enough police rating; the 3 policemen are actually enforcing martial law. This is also the case under certain forms of government in Civ II & III.

The workshop was indeed bad for the AI as the humans could find the best units easily.

As to PSI units such as native lifeform: Yup; that's why I ignored the workshop entirely and instead played on highest difficulty level with raging mindworms, quickly adopted Green social policy and harvested mindworms to use as my army. I'd also use isles of the deep as my navy. And I constructed swarms of Locusts upon hiting that tech.

Anyway, I think most of the AI complaints about Civ V are in comparison with Civ IV and not as far back as SMAC.

Nods, I often used to play in a similar way....

However, although I enjoyed getting the Locusts of Chiron, they were really a little OP.

The native life forms were what made SMAC so special...