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Peter's land-grabbing is more an annoyance than actually a (consistently) strong feature. The fact that the holy site is a unique district of his works against him.
Mvemba is giving me a good run for my money. And most of the time he’s isolated from me geopolitically, so I can’t interrupt his gameplay with military... Any tips to making his life more miserable from across the globe?
The AI is largely hosed by Barbarians. This is mainly due to Barbarian Scouts being absurdly nimble. I modded their Scouts to limit their movement. Haven't seen an AI get swamped by Barbarians since. They do a decent job of defeating Scouts when they can't be outrun by them.
Kongo is doing pretty good in my current game when it comes to science and culture, but the suck militarily. They used to be a pretty decent size until my military steamrolled over their cities in a series of wars. Despite that, they're doing pretty good for just having one remaining city that isn't even their original capital.
Rome and Russia were military superpowers that rivaled me, but I managed to knock both of them down several rungs. Rome is also the leader in science, but aside from that, he doesn't have much going for him. Russia actually had a stronger military than me if the overview is anything to go by, but he lost half of his military in our last war, and rough terrain is really the only thing keeping them safe from being fully conquered.
Japan and Brazil are at war, but seem to be evenly matched, with the war not going anywhere for either side. Phillip II has replaced Peter and Trajan as the rival superpower.
I concur with what has been said about Kongo previously, so I won't revisit their strengths. As for other solid AIs, America and Rome are often pretty good expansive civs in my games, if they don't falter growing during the early game. Russia's unique perks keep it competitive, but never a runaway.
Everyone else is situational-- some low tier civs surprise me, though. once I had a game where Harald was a runaway due to early coastal expansion and religion, believe it or not.
Rome seems to always get off to a good start and is usually in the top half of the pack. I voted Trajan, though the answer is almost assuredly Kongo due to not being able to build Holy Sites. Figured I'd choose somebody else for 2nd place instead of the one I forsee most people picking
Seeing Mvemba or Pedro nearby is just about enough to make me restart. Pericles and Teddy always seem to do well. I've seen Frederick do both astronomically well and abysmally and I'm not sure why--I suppose it probably depends on how quickly he can get those hanzas on line.
(Speaking of Pericles, oddest thing happened in my current game: he thanked Philip II for cooperating with his Delian League agenda...the turn after he defeated Philip. )
This is an Earth TSL map, so keep that in mind as leaders like Giglamesh struggle on this map. But to be honest, Giglamesh struggles regardless. Despite an awesome UU, his policy to support friendship means he almost never uses it at the appropriate time. But really it doesn't matter which map I play. Kongo always dominates. No matter what Kongo is on top of the other AI's. I am Khmer in 1st place BTW, Kongo is in second place. This is on King difficulty.
I like strong civs, but I get bored of the same guy always being on top. And it's not just that he has room to expand. I meant to have no New World civs this map, but somehow Pedro got in, I'm certain I didn't add him, oh well. Even civs like America and Brazil can't compare to Kongo despite having room to expand. I meant to leave all 3 new world civs out, oh well.
I just noticed Rome isn't doing so well, they usually do better this map. I play this map a lot, but it's never the same. Sometimes Rome does really well, not this time. But like always Kongo will dominate no matter the map type.
FYI I eliminated China and India and Macedon eliminated Scythia.
Gilgamesh seems to do pretty good. Oftentimes the biggest threat if Kongo isn't around. . Sample save file. Everyone else is a non-factor and he actually sent more advanced units than I had (cavalry) though by the time of this screenshot they were destroyed.
Now he declines soon afterwards because I take him out but it is likely that it would have gotten much worse without that. And he didn't even build a university in his capital!
Also I checked the last save file for this game and.... (screw you Qin for taking all the wonders and achieving nothing with them!)
I also noted Roosevelt being a pretty big threat now. Seems to be a new thing
I think Gilgamesh is hit or miss. Agressive civs tend to be hit or miss, just like Scythia and Macedon. Or they're insanely weak, or they're good / risk for runaway civ. Turtle civs with a decent military tend to be more stable (America, Rome). Australia is even more a turtle civ (but is more at risk of being wiped off the map early), but if they're left alone, they can turn out to be good as well.
TSL Earth is different of course, and I think Brazil, Kongo, America and Australia have an edge there. Kongo will always win in TSL Earth actually. The Inca's and two of the following civs: Mali, Ethiopia or Zulu will nerf them a bit, just like Indonesia just nerfed Australia.
Indonesia in my game is still stuck at 1 city. And this map I am on has a ton of sea resources. But the AI is still hesitant to settle on relatively small islands.
Indonesia in my game is still stuck at 1 city. And this map I am on has a ton of sea resources. But the AI is still hesitant to settle on relatively small islands.
occasionally she will settle New Guinea, but in my case I had barbarians on this game, and those seemed to scare her away. She could not or would not take care of the barbarian encampment there. The AI likes that island for some reason on this particular map. Usually the Aztecs will settle there for some reason. My last game those were her 3 main cities, 2 on New Guinea and her starting island (she eventually put one more on Africa), that game had barbs off.
You'd think Giglamesh would do better, I even gave him space to expand this game. I only had 8 civilizations on a large size map. I know his starting area on a TSL map isn't the greatest, but he had places to settle. Of course on a map like this, it's hilarious how the AI settles the most weird out of way spots. There were no barbs on this map by the way. I specifically set it up to help the AI more.
Giglamesh was ahead of me on science, you'd think his score would be higher, but he generally sucked.
This screenshot taken the turn after a cultural victory by me.
map: Greatest Earth TSL only 8 civilizations and no barbarians. They had room to expand and become powerhouses, so I wanted to test this. Nubia did good, that's 2 games in a row she's done well. But I have had games where she couldn't expand.
at people calling Mvemba competent. Check his pantheon beliefs. He routinely picks stuff like Sacred Path or River Goddess, which is absolutely useless without Holy Sites. I don't think the AIs play differently apart from the agendas, Qin certainly doesn't build more wonders than anyone else. If a certain leader often gives you trouble it's because they have very strong bonuses or UUs. Mvemba for example can monopolize Great Merchants and Artists if you don't take him out early, and you better get to him before he has Iron Working.
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at people calling Mvemba competent. Check his pantheon beliefs. He routinely picks stuff like Sacred Path or River Goddess, which is absolutely useless without Holy Sites. I don't think the AIs play differently apart from the agendas, Qin certainly doesn't build more wonders than anyone else. If a certain leader often gives you trouble it's because they have very strong bonuses or UUs. Mvemba for example can monopolize Great Merchants and Artists if you don't take him out early, and you better get to him before he has Iron Working.
