What do you think the ai is good at.

[Matrix]

About the AI cheating: it has to be. The AI is not creative and cannot ever become that, but humans are. Therefore the humans will always have an advantage and therefore the AI must have a different advantage. Firaxis has never denied the fact that they're cheating. And you can always change the difficulties and advantages yourself:

 

[Arrian]

My basis for comparison here is CivII. The CivIII AI is far, far, far better at war. Sure, it's still a computer, and therefore still does stupid things that we humans can take advantage of, but at least it will actually come after you with a concentrated force. In CivII you could just build a fort on a mountain, put in a phalanx or two, and hang out for thousands of years as the AI slammed unit after unit into that mountain fort. Now you can't just ignore an AI that declares war on you. They will try to pull in allies who will also send stacks of troops your way. They will rip up your tile improvements if they have no hope of taking your cities (I learned that right away... hoplites alone do not an effective defense make!).

-Arrian

p.s. The German AI, in particular, is really good at derailing a human attempt at "peaceful builder" strategy by picking a fight in 1500bc.

 

[brody]

Spies... the AI always seems to have spies on me, probably why they sometimes know exactly where my troops are... usually if I "uncover enemy spy" I find one. I just don't spend the time or money getting spies into enemy capitals, so I never really know anything about my enemies... although it seems odd that I can try over several turns to plant a spy and be unsuccessful, but my enemy always has a spy in my capital... I guess that's one of the downfalls of democracy

 

[Panda]

Micromanagement. The AI doesn't forget to renew unfavourable trade treaties, irrigate / mine every single square in a huge empire, doesn't forget reserves in a remote city etc. All the things you tend to forget when your attention starts to wane after a few hours of game play