What are the least successful Civ AIs?

[Yzman]

The only pattern I have really seen is that Rome and Greece always do really well.

Who does poorly greatly varies from game to game, especially on where they start in relation to me or other civs.

 

[CivDecimation]

Typically attila either goes on a rampage or gets wiped out himself if he doesn't. India, Denmark and Dido tend to suck.

The main problem for these countries tends to be military, and in attila's case too much (he is killed by his lack of expansion, be would likely be a good diety AI).

Austria, Napoleon and Alex are usually strong.

 

[OmniPotent42]

I think we can all agree that Greece and Germany do the best, mainly because they utilize their UU's most effectively. The AI loves to swarm units, especially pikemen, and German pikeman UU makes that twice as easy for Germany to do against other militarily-incompetant AI's.

Greece also utilizes both of their UU's while other AI's just mass archers and warriors. If other AI's were programmed to use units like Greece and Germany they might stand a chance.

 

[Jatta Pake]

Sweden was an ok power up until the Medieval Age in my game. Then out of the blue he declared war on EVERY CIV on the continent! We were Friendly up till that point. He said something like, "I am declaring war on you and my master plan will now take fruition." Or something about his "master plan". I imagined he did a Dr. Evil laugh at the end.

He got crushed. Epic Fail. Made peace with everyone after being pushed back and losing every city except his Capital.

He has balls, I'll give him that. But what a stupid plan.

 

[whyidie]

Sweden was an ok power up until the Medieval Age in my game. Then out of the blue he declared war on EVERY CIV on the continent! We were Friendly up till that point. He said something like, "I am declaring war on you and my master plan will now take fruition." Or something about his "master plan". I imagined he did a Dr. Evil laugh at the end.

He got crushed. Epic Fail. Made peace with everyone after being pushed back and losing every city except his Capital.

He has balls, I'll give him that. But what a stupid plan.

Had a similar experience recently. On a continent with me (Polynesia), Ottomans, Huns, Sweden, and Songhai he was the dominant force early. Spamming wonders, then he went militant and took out Songhai. Declared on Atilla and was pushing him back until he declared on me. Soon enough the Ottomans joined the fray.

The man must have a suicide wish. There was a point where I thought it may have been too late to stop him but fighting 3 fronts eventually wore him down. Best I've ever seen him do by a wide margin.

 

[Dunduks]

AI Denmark and Sweden always are losers. Even Polynesia has some successes, but not those from Scandinavia.

 

[NukeAJS]

Generally, I find that the AI civs that make an unusual amount of units immediately suffer greatly unless they get paired next to someone that doesn't make any. In that case, they often become a runaway civ. Monty making 20 jaguars and zero libraries comes to mind and that's probably why Atilla is mentioned by other people (rams and horse archers with zero libraries).

On the other hand, some civs that favor tech (Korea and Babylon immediately come to mind) will blast everyone out of the water if they are left alone. They will either turtle with a tall, powerful nation, or rampage with technologically advanced units.

Lastly, Babylon is the best civ to have next to you if you are Rome. Bowmen are obsolete now, ballistas counter Walls of Babylon, and you'll get a capital with an academy present (basically stealing Babylon's UA). It works for other classical-warfare civs like Greece for instance.

 

[PhilBowles]

Generally, I find that the AI civs that make an unusual amount of units immediately suffer greatly unless they get paired next to someone that doesn't make any. In that case, they often become a runaway civ. Monty making 20 jaguars and zero libraries comes to mind and that's probably why Atilla is mentioned by other people (rams and horse archers with zero libraries).

On the other hand, some civs that favor tech (Korea and Babylon immediately come to mind) will blast everyone out of the water if they are left alone. They will either turtle with a tall, powerful nation, or rampage with technologically advanced units.

Lastly, Babylon is the best civ to have next to you if you are Rome. Bowmen are obsolete now, ballistas counter Walls of Babylon, and you'll get a capital with an academy present (basically stealing Babylon's UA). It works for other classical-warfare civs like Greece for instance.

I love starting next to Babylon just because, since G&K hit, Nebuchadnezzar is my most consistently reliable ally, and he's nearly always strong enough to make that count for something. The AI still has an intrinsically hard time using both Babylon and Korea because it never uses specialists (and it never uses the Babylonian free GS for an academy), but somehow both do tend to do well technologically when played by the AI - Korea more consistently than Babylon.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Askia is always an OCC pushover in my games. If he tries to expand, he gets attacked by a larger AI. Well, that also happens if he doesn't try to expand either.

 

[HeraldtheGreat]

Sweden has fared a bit better in the one or two games I played against them. The Huns are a total mess though. They just cant recover from a failure, so they have a bunch of rams and horse archers sitting around their cities. The Celts are always very strong, though.
________________________________
Stupid truth always resisting simplicity.
-John Green

 

[smallfish]

Askia is always an OCC pushover in my games. If he tries to expand, he gets attacked by a larger AI. Well, that also happens if he doesn't try to expand either.

If Askia starts next to Sejong, he will become a Korean puppet eventually.

 

[ahawk]

Typically attila either goes on a rampage or gets wiped out himself if he doesn't.

The Huns are just so hit-or-miss as an AI. If they spawn next to a Wonder-spamming civ (Egypt) or other non-military oriented civ, they can conquer and grow rapidly and become a run-away AI. Conversely, if they spawn next to a fellow war-monger, or spawn in an isolated area, they tend to become a one-city AI with rams and horse archers milling about aimlessly well into the mid-game.

 

[Carnifaux]

Going to have to counter what has been said about Denmark: I've had them behave near the bottom of the "average" pack, nor have I seen Attila fail either. Sweden, India, England, The Netherlands, and Russia are often failures in the case of Sweden, England, and India or pariahs in the case of Russia and England of the map.

 

[Charlieguns]

I've only seen Babylon alive once, and that's because he was next to me. Most of the time (Babylon only city) is conquered.

 

[Rooftrellen]

I have started to notice the Ottomans in my games, being on good terms with everyone, doing fairly well, and then randomly deciding suicide is fun, denouncing the strongest civs and declaring war on one soon after. Not sure what it is, because I never noticed him doing such stupid things before, but...

 

[PhilBowles]

I have started to notice the Ottomans in my games, being on good terms with everyone, doing fairly well, and then randomly deciding suicide is fun, denouncing the strongest civs and declaring war on one soon after. Not sure what it is, because I never noticed him doing such stupid things before, but...

Actually I noticed him doing it all the time in vanilla (and once in G&K), but have found he's to be taken more seriously in G&K - he usually does well, and is occasionally a runaway.

 

[blackcatatonic]

Sweden, Maya and the Aztecs are the ones that are most likely to disappear before I've even met them. China and France never do as well as they did before G&K, but they are survivors, although I've seen China gobbled up a few times. For some reason, Carthage always fails in my games. She doesn't always get gobbled up but she never builds more than 3 cities and likes to have huuuuge armies so she's always losing cash. Silly girl.

Weirdly, I tend to have the opposite experience with Babylon as described by the OP. Other AIs that are guaranteed monsters are Mongolia, Polynesia and, of course, Korea.

 

[Tachii]

The AI still has an intrinsically hard time using both Babylon and Korea because it never uses specialists (and it never uses the Babylonian free GS for an academy), but somehow both do tend to do well technologically when played by the AI - Korea more consistently than Babylon.

Are you serious? Never use specialists? Often whenever I spy I see civs generating GE points, settling GAs for landmarks, GMs to influence CSes, and so on.

 

[bcaiko]

In my experience, the AI versions of Egypt, India, and Korea all seem to do very, very poorly.

Korea has a penchant for being "Afraid" of other Civs. I've never seen it come up with other Civs quite as often. Gandhi fails, I think, because he manages to tick off EVERY Civilization he comes about; he is the king of denouncements.

 

[smallfish]

Korea also has a penchant for going crazy on science and running away - they get the great wall and wonder spam and very few civs can take them out