They should make the AI more competive on the Railway Tycoon path. (Playing on Immortal)
- Thread starter CliffCo
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Boris Gudenuf
Deity
To be fair, I've never seen the AI put much effort into winning in the Modern Age at all. I have managed to complete all four victory types, and have yet to be seriously challenged by any AI. In all these threads, I've seen one gamer post that the AI beat him out of a Victory - one, out of how many hundreds of games played?
Your basic point is entirely valid, though: while Economic Victory is slightly less competitive than the others, they are all in need of balancing in some way, both because the AI doesn't seem to seriously compete for any of them and because the speed with which human players can storm any Victory Legacy is ridiculous: 14 turn Science Victories or super fast Cultural Victories for example, which have both been featured on these Threads.
I find the AI likewise weak in pursuing the economic legacy path during Exploration Age. But this might (also) have to do with placing fewer treasure resources on the island strips and more in the actual continents. I often see the AI settle at least some of the islands. I much less and much later see them settle the actual distant lands on the other continents in a substantial manner or - never seen that - start an effective amphibious assault to capture other AI's cities rich with treasure resources.
stealth_nsk
Deity
The problem with Railway Tycoon victory is that it's kind of peaceful victory - it requires trading for resources, it requires gold and influence to open banks and price scales with bad relations, skyrocketing on wars. With AI constantly being in war in Modern, it doesn't make much sense for them to pursue it.
Regarding the legacy path itself (not victory), AI clearly could be better at using factories, but again, with limited trading and without mass production beelining, I wouldn't expect AI to show much better results.
Regarding the legacy path itself (not victory), AI clearly could be better at using factories, but again, with limited trading and without mass production beelining, I wouldn't expect AI to show much better results.
Another possibly related issue i always see is that while there are always multiple wars happening between the AI in all eras, the AI rarely attacks me unless i start a war with one of them, possibly due to me having a strong defenseive force and walls. Generally it seems like the only time i get attacked is when i settle too close to one of their settlements, i've actually gone an entire game without ever getting attacked by another leader.
Boris Gudenuf
Deity
This. Another point of AI Strangeness. The only wars I seem to get into are ones I start myself by declaring war, or indirectly start myself by getting into alliances with the wrong people or forward settling.
Point being it seems to take action on the part of the gamer to get into a fight, and so it is not at all hard to stay out of wars until you pick the opponents and wars you want to fight.
Of course, I play on the biggest maps I can generate with 1 - 2 fewer AI Civs than the max number, so I generally have lots of room on my worlds. Based on other posts it appears that on fully-inhabited maps that is not always the case and human gamers can find themselves in 'forward settle' situations more often and in wars from that situation they didn't necessarily want.
That, however, goes to the wider point, that Civ VII's design seems to have been dedicated to making war generally undesirable, seriously restricted (settlement caps, razing penalties and generally pacifistic Legacies not requiring any conflict) and without any real advantage to waging it compared to the disadvantages. Also note that except for some 'extra' settlement caps here and there, no Leader or Civ has any general advantage to waging war, which would come as a real surprise to the leaders of any of the generally bellicose Civs in history that did develop such advantages in their political and military structures - like Rome, Persia, Han China, Britain, Germany/Prussia, Renaissance Spain, etc.
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bengalryan9
Emperor
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- Nov 13, 2018
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I just saw Xerxes complete the Railroad Tycoon path in my last game (on Immortal) so it can happen. Xerxes had conquered a few Roman cities and had a pretty big empire which I'm sure helped him have the resources he needed. I remember looking from turn-to-turn to see how many points he was accumulating each turn and it was a significant amount (don't remember the exact number, though). He definitely surprised me!
The only victory path I have yet to see an AI complete in the modern age is the military one, oddly enough. You'd think that would be the one they'd be best at.
The only victory path I have yet to see an AI complete in the modern age is the military one, oddly enough. You'd think that would be the one they'd be best at.
bengalryan9
Emperor
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Not sure I agree with that - there are definitely leaders and civs that get bonuses from conquered settlements, for example.
Maybe you mean it more along the lines of "get advantages from being actively engaged in war", which is more accurate.
Boris Gudenuf
Deity
No, 'general advantage' was what I meant.
Specific advantages like captured settlements are just that: specific advantages for some kind of Success in war (capturing enemy settlements, getting bonuses from defeating enemy units, etc).
But nobody gets any general advantages, such as increased Happiness, or the ability to extract more Gold from their population, or recruit more Troops from their population, Just because they are at war.
Yet these are all things that Modern Age governments did regularly, and all three of the game's Ideology-based governments did in WWII and WWI, and similar effects were found in some Antiquity and Exploration Age populations as well. War Taxes in some form, for example, were levied in almost every Empire and kingdom in history either at the outbreak or duration of wars.
War has been used as a reason/excuse for states/polities to call on extraordinary bonuses from their people in the name of Defending the Homeland/King/State throughout the historical period, but virtually none of that is in the game. Given the number of negatives in the game associated with going to war and even with success in war (like the Settlement Limit or negatives from Razing), that is, IMHO, an extraordinary omission indicative that the game is designed to punish war as a strategy.
I would say pretty much all the civs in game benefited from war…against “IP”s. (modeled by the yields you get from dispersal)
War against other “civs” has historically been something that gave very few benefits (usually the benefit of the war was the elimination of the civ making war on you leaving you free to war on the “IPs” without competition)
War is still sn excellent strategy in Civ7, but it is not the “Always best” strategy that it is in all other civs.
