What empire never seems to get off the ground in your games?

[Grapa]

I notice in my games, there are several Civs that never seem to become powerful.

The first one is China, who will only grow big if it has its own continent. Other than that, Wu always plants a few cities and seems to sit there doing nothing, although she has gotten big in one or two of my games.

Polyensia, despite its bonus, never seems to expand either and is always stuck in their own little corner of the planet. Babylon acts this way too, sometimes. Japan, like Civ IV, also never gets off the ground and usually always has a low population as well.

I can always count of the Iroquois, Mongolia and France to be behemoths though. Siam too. A patch must have done something to the Ottomans, because in my last two games they were huge.

I

 

[Carnifaux]

I'll agree with China and Polynesia

Also, I've noticed England, Spain, and America seem to be content with smaller empires either because of a failure to expand (as is the case with England and to some extent Spain) or because of repeated almost sociopathic declarations of war regardless of how unlikely victory may be (Washington!!)

 

[apocalypse105]

Deffinitly china they just sit with a few cities and declare war on me with warriors in the renaissance era

 

[Lexicus]

China almost always gets conquered, and I've also never seen Rome as a great power. Before patches, India was always powerful but now they always seem to get conquered.

Genghis, Hiawatha, and Rammy are invariably powerful.

 

[Dregor]

Rome will often grow large, but get ganged up on and overrun. Alexander is often a beast in my games.

 

[headcase]

Both times Japan was in my game, they didn't expand and didn't grow vertically enough to compensate.

 

[Carnifaux]

Rome will often grow large, but get ganged up on and overrun. Alexander is often a beast in my games.

I'll second this - Rome seems to be a bit weak unless able to gobble up a weak neighbor (seems to be china or england 9 times out of 10)

 

[smallfish]

I've seen America becoming top dog of its own continent.

Polynesia in a current game would have done it too, if not for the pesky Indians down south barging in while they were busy hammering zee Germans.

Genghis never gets off; every time I see him getting clobbered by someone else or almost everyone.

Babylon is an absolutely terrifying beast when runaway. Nearly unstoppable, won't peace treaty, likes to nuke you first, and all this long before you get to nuclear missiles.

Same thing with Rome - I hate to be their neighboring buddy, with what he did to Spain, Polynesia and Egypt on his own continent.

Gandhi is looking up to become a runaway in this game, if he can survive Bismarck. He seems to be having a fun time gobbling up Polynesia and wonder-spamming.

Then there was a game where Liz was top dog of her continent (which included me, Germany and IIRC Greece + city-states), and I was on pretty decent terms with her.

 

[Rpger29]

Siam, but that's more because of me. I hate having him on a map so much that I do everything possible to make Ram uncomfortable.

Without my intervention, unless he gets a ton of horses, Genghis is kinda boned. I never see him do well without horses.

 

[turtlefang]

Once in a while, all of the Civs can grow to a mighty empire. But in my experience, Polynesia, China, America, England and India seldom get very large.

And Rome, Germany, Russia, Greece, Japan, and the Norse have to "eat" one or two other empires to get large - otherwise, they just don't get very big.

Babylon, Korea, Iroquois, Siam, Genghis, Egypt, Persia, Siam, France and the Ottomans are the most frequent large dogs in my games.

Interesting enough, the Ottomans are the real bears. If they get big, they just produce $$$$. And the nukes. However, most games only have one or two large AIs at most. The rest end up on the chopping block.

 

[Bamboocha]

In my games Alexander the great always ends up being small, surrounded and/or overrun in the later era's, same for England. France, however, is always expanding. In my last game, France owned nearly half of the largest continent in the game.

 

[Noatz]

Harald. He always seems to get creamed in my games pretty much 100% of the time. Also strangely likes wonder spamming a bit too much for a real viking.

 

[smallfish]

Harald. He always seems to get creamed in my games pretty much 100% of the time. Also strangely likes wonder spamming a bit too much for a real viking.

So he's basically Danish Ramesses Gandhi?

That's just a big shame.

 

[Noatz]

So he's basically Danish Ramesses Gandhi?

That's just a big shame.

It's not entirely inaccurate; Harald built a lot of forts, a large bridge (for its day) and was partially responsible for building the Jelling Stones. My problem is that the Denmark civ has been clumsily labelled as "the vikings", when it really isn't. And Harald says a lot of warlike things that you would expect a viking to say, and yet doesn't play that way at all.

 

[HappyBuilder]

In the many games I've played, I've seen every empire succeed and every empire fail to get going. That said, more often than not, England plays a poor game. I agree that China can be stalled for centuries before undergoing rapid late expansion if it survives that long. I rarely see the Songhai controlling more than 6 cities.

HB

 

[westyofoz]

I confess I rarely look to see who the first civs to go are. I notice the Romans often get taken over. One Civ that is always the top AI civ is Hiawatha in every game I play with him in it. The English often do well. Most agressive is Alexander by far.

 

[fmlizard2]

Wow. 16 posts and not one mention of Montezuma. All the in my pocket for the first person who can show me a screenshot of an AI Monty as a runaway civ.

Monty can't help himself from constantly going to war, early and often, even though he is far better used as a population spamming builder. He never, ever gets off the ground in the hands of the AI.

 

[vonbach]

The Germans, Danes and English never go anywhere. The Mongols and Romans never seem to go anywhere either.
Monty nearly always becomes a runaway empire, same with Catherine . The Incan's are powerful too. The Greeks do ok.
The Egyptians and the Chinese do respectable but just don't seem to be interested in building massive empires.
They will take advantage of your
weakness however.

 

[budweiser]

I can not recall seeing a dominant Germany in any of my games. At one time or another though, all the rest have become dominant, even China.

The last game I played, Polynesia went cultural, he was even 3 policies ahead of me at one point -- until his neighbors killed him. The game before that China was dominant, she would not stop attacking CS, until literally the whole world ganged up on her.

 

[fmlizard2]

Generally speaking I see AIs that prioritize City State relationships doing the best. Greece and Siam are beasts to deal with, and Arabia, Persia, and other focused Civs often end up there and can build very strong empires.

Since the AI typically has coming out of its ears and doesn't seem short of or units ever either, it can be hard to see what they are getting from CS allies that makes them thrive. My guess is twofold:

1. Strategic resources allow the AI to build even more units, overwhelming neighbors with their horde.
2. (most likely) The combat AI in regards to prioritizing targets is way, way broken. IMO Patronage is still a dominant tactic because the AI will go after your allies before they go after you. I've won countless wars I would have otherwise lost due to this. I imagine that the AI wars are swung by this effect - the patronage playing Civ beelines for the enemy's territory while the other civ wastes its time hacking away at a neighboring CS their opponent is allied with.