Having played a variety of scenarios with patch 'd', including 'the momus', and now upgrading to patch 'j' i decided to try the momus again. I have also done a couple other scenarios, like 'into the desert' and the one after it, as well as all of the illian and doviello scenarios except for the last one.
Also, I have played a number of regular games.
Here is my experience:
Pros:
Barbs are much better now
AI seems to manage its Non-War economy slightly better
Cons:
The AI is 1000x times worse during a state of war than the AI under patch 'd' because:
1) The AI does not settle new cities during war, even if it has settlers and lots of open space. This is most obvious when playing the scenario after 'into the desert', the one that is a religious war in the valley of Tor. In this scenario, everyone starts with miles of space between them and the nearest enemy, and the Calabim start with 2 settler units in their city. Despite this, the Calabim maintain only 1 city throughout the entire game, keeping their 2 settler units in that city, not moving, while all other civs keep only the cities they start with, never settling new ones. Back in patch 'd', all nations would settle new cities even when in a state of war, so this is a new bug/downgrade from the previous AI. This can also be seen in the momus and all other scenarios, where basically no new cities will ever get settled.
2) The AI does not build any buildings at all when in a state of war, no matter the situation. I noticed this even when playing a normal non scenario game. I could declare war on a civ, then build any new cities, wonders, buildings, etc that I wanted while they built nothing but warriors the entire time until, after we declare peace, he has nothing but a clogged warrior economy, and I am far ahead of him. This can also be noticed playing any scenario where you are constantly at war. Just check the world builder every turn and see what the AI is building. They never build buildings. The AI could even start with the tech to build champions or knights, but if their city doesn't start with the needed building they will build warriors endlessly.
3) The AI almost never leaves its cities. Even when the AI has a tech and unit advantage on you or another AI, if there are multiple people at war with the AI then the AI will never leave base. This can be seen in any scenario and additionally when playing normal games. For example, in the Momus, in patch 'd' the AI for the infernals, Duke Sallos, would rampage even when everyone was against him for 100 turns. He would conquer the pink/purple girl to the south of him and attack you and everyone else, and win a good chunk of the time. He was your main opponent normally. Now with patch 'j', he sits in his cities. He has hundreds of axemen when everyone else has just warriors, and he just sits there, even if everyone is at war with someone else, not him. He founds no new cities, conquers no new cities, and will not send out his troops even to kill your scout. I remember in patch 'd', I had to bring massive stacks of units to his cities. I brought in many different troops, spell casters and also many catapults. Despite the fact that he couldn't kill it all, he attacked my massive stacks with so many assassins that by the time i got to his cities i had no more spell casters or catapults left, forcing me to retreat and rebuild. Patch 'j' removed his balls, and he longer does this, and no ai has balls anymore. Even in normal games, the under patch 'j' will attack with only one massive stack, and when that stack eventually fails it is game over for the AI as none of their other units will leave their cities. Under patch 'd', I remember being attacked from multiple directions, multiple paths, by different amounts of units, including at least one big ass stack, although it wasn't as big as the new stacks of 'j' it was superior as it had different fronts i had to worry about, and the attacks don't end when the stack is killed.
4) The AI builds so many units, it has to spend all its money on supporting them instead of researching. It doesn't matter if the scenario or game starts out with no techs or with almost all the techs, either way the AI will build units until it reaches the point where its research drops to 0%, meaning the only research it gets is from specialists and great people.
I think it would be worth going back and looking at each individual change to the ai and seeing what on earth has been done over these new patches to make it soooo much worse.
thx
veqryn
Also, I have played a number of regular games.
Here is my experience:
Pros:
Barbs are much better now
AI seems to manage its Non-War economy slightly better
Cons:
The AI is 1000x times worse during a state of war than the AI under patch 'd' because:
1) The AI does not settle new cities during war, even if it has settlers and lots of open space. This is most obvious when playing the scenario after 'into the desert', the one that is a religious war in the valley of Tor. In this scenario, everyone starts with miles of space between them and the nearest enemy, and the Calabim start with 2 settler units in their city. Despite this, the Calabim maintain only 1 city throughout the entire game, keeping their 2 settler units in that city, not moving, while all other civs keep only the cities they start with, never settling new ones. Back in patch 'd', all nations would settle new cities even when in a state of war, so this is a new bug/downgrade from the previous AI. This can also be seen in the momus and all other scenarios, where basically no new cities will ever get settled.
2) The AI does not build any buildings at all when in a state of war, no matter the situation. I noticed this even when playing a normal non scenario game. I could declare war on a civ, then build any new cities, wonders, buildings, etc that I wanted while they built nothing but warriors the entire time until, after we declare peace, he has nothing but a clogged warrior economy, and I am far ahead of him. This can also be noticed playing any scenario where you are constantly at war. Just check the world builder every turn and see what the AI is building. They never build buildings. The AI could even start with the tech to build champions or knights, but if their city doesn't start with the needed building they will build warriors endlessly.
3) The AI almost never leaves its cities. Even when the AI has a tech and unit advantage on you or another AI, if there are multiple people at war with the AI then the AI will never leave base. This can be seen in any scenario and additionally when playing normal games. For example, in the Momus, in patch 'd' the AI for the infernals, Duke Sallos, would rampage even when everyone was against him for 100 turns. He would conquer the pink/purple girl to the south of him and attack you and everyone else, and win a good chunk of the time. He was your main opponent normally. Now with patch 'j', he sits in his cities. He has hundreds of axemen when everyone else has just warriors, and he just sits there, even if everyone is at war with someone else, not him. He founds no new cities, conquers no new cities, and will not send out his troops even to kill your scout. I remember in patch 'd', I had to bring massive stacks of units to his cities. I brought in many different troops, spell casters and also many catapults. Despite the fact that he couldn't kill it all, he attacked my massive stacks with so many assassins that by the time i got to his cities i had no more spell casters or catapults left, forcing me to retreat and rebuild. Patch 'j' removed his balls, and he longer does this, and no ai has balls anymore. Even in normal games, the under patch 'j' will attack with only one massive stack, and when that stack eventually fails it is game over for the AI as none of their other units will leave their cities. Under patch 'd', I remember being attacked from multiple directions, multiple paths, by different amounts of units, including at least one big ass stack, although it wasn't as big as the new stacks of 'j' it was superior as it had different fronts i had to worry about, and the attacks don't end when the stack is killed.
4) The AI builds so many units, it has to spend all its money on supporting them instead of researching. It doesn't matter if the scenario or game starts out with no techs or with almost all the techs, either way the AI will build units until it reaches the point where its research drops to 0%, meaning the only research it gets is from specialists and great people.
I think it would be worth going back and looking at each individual change to the ai and seeing what on earth has been done over these new patches to make it soooo much worse.
thx
veqryn
