What the heck is Persia's problem in this game?

[headcase]

Runaway AI in general is a problem with this game. Agreed I've seen Persia do this a couple times myself (though other times they don't do so well, especially if a warmonger picks on them early on).

Many of the AI bonuses benefit bigger empires more and smaller empires less, so the big get bigger and the smaller AI still bicker with each other as they get conquered. Their happiness bonuses on the middle difficulties, let alone the high difficulties, rarely even slows down their natural expansion.

It would be better if the bonuses helped small empires more and had ceilings where the bonus would dissipate if the AI was doing well in an area.

From a historical perspective, it makes sense, and puts the player in a David vs. Goliath position for gameplay, but there's no real in-game mechanism for David to win besides using some uncreative exploits and hoping Goliath randomly shakes out his units in an inefficient formation.

From a gameplay perspective, it's good to have civs that are stronger, but not that much stronger, unless other real-world stuff like civil wars, rebellions from colonies, etc happened to break down civs that get too strong.

 

[aluelkdf]

Assuming everyone has the same game from 2K, I'd honestly say that all this is quite subjective. In 602 hours, every civ has become a runaway not just Persia and I've seen civs beat Persia to a pulp.

This is true. I have seen evey civ become a runaway. And I have also seen every civ barley able to get onto its feet; sometimes they survive into late game with 1 or 2 cities and are basically irellevant, sometimes they are destroyed early on.

But I do think that some civs are more likely to become a runaway.

 

[Sleepless CiVr]

Persia tends to be an absolute BEAST in my games. I see them 80% of the time when I play and it's getting to the point where I either avoid them (unless they're bordering me) or kiss their butts because I know eventually I'm going to have lots of pointy sticks coming my way if I don't.

 

[The Peacekeeper]

One of the times I have played against Persia was when I was playing as Egypt: he DOWed me, and I was able to repel his attacks with a few archers. I built pikes and then pushed forward to capture his closest city. He cowered and gave me two more of his cities in a peace deal. I accepted, thinking he was going to be crippled with only two cities left. But Darius being Darius, he city spammed on islands all over the world. In my experience, Darius is more of an annoying city spammer than somebody to be reckoned with.

 

[drivebyposter]

I had three games in a row where Hiawatha was my final competition. It was the same scenario. Their army will wipe us off the map and etc.

Try to get a right of passage agreement to scout where their troops are. If they are busy elsewhere, go in guns blazing.

Take a couple of their cities to give yourself maneuvering room and then retreat behind the one that will bear the brunt of their counter attack. Move up engineers to build a defensive road/rail network around your new toys. Make sure river crossings are easy to move to and fro. If you have plenty of workers, don't worry about them being captured. You want them to be captured. If they are capturing workers, they cannont attack your troops or city.

Pick off the counter attack with your siege guns that you should have been making very good since the beginning and then either retake the city (they shouldn't be able to take the city if you had workers in front of it and it leaves them wide open to counter) and then wait for the next wave they'll send. Eventually, you'll tire them out. Just make sure they don't have aircraft while you don't. You'll get cut to shreds on defense.

If they do have aircraft and you don't, there's a decent chance they won't have many troops around their airbase. You can try to make a beeline for the city hosting all those fighters and sometimes pull the coup de grace on their entire air force. Barring that, know the range for their fighters (the default is 6) and stay beyond it drawing their troops in for your big guns to pick off. Don't let their fighters hit you. If they get XP, they'll upgrade their range to 8 and then you're in a world of trouble.

Don't forget to set up a med unit behind lines to cycle in your front line people back and forth.

If you have cajones, you can easily defeat an empire that supposedly has a much larger army than you and is even more advanced by a generation.