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

[ANightDude]

I don't know about you guys, but every time - literally, every time - that Persia pops up when I'm discovering new Civs, I'm ridiculously frustrated and half the time don't even want to deal with them or play the game. I purposefully go to "advanced" and put in Civs I want to play against just so Persia isn't in it.

EVERY single time, they manage somehow to build a massive, sprawling empire with "an army that could wipe us off the map" and if we go to war "they threaten our very existence". It's appalling how un-fun they make the game when they take up half of a continent, have double my score constantly, an horrifically powerful army, and Darius is just sort of a douchebag half the time.

Just today I played as an ally of the Persians, which was good for our happiness and our peaceful playing since we had a defense contract. But God, they had another huge empire, massive military, advanced technology more than any other civilization, etc.

Is this normal for people who play? One time he was on another continent, and when I was able to reach and meet them, they'd already wiped out and conquered three other gives, had nearly 10,000 or more in gold, and when they declared war on me, my military adviser told me to make peace or we'd be destroyed. Even from across the world, he began invading, and I had to end the game before I technically lost.

So, anyways, is this normal to happen every single time he plays? I'm on Prince as well.

 

[crawf0rd]

Some leader's traits lead them to be more efficient, especially when comboed with a good UA. I seem to always meet up with Hiawatha, and he can ICS like no other. The bonuses the AI gets gives them an advantage, so maybe tone it down a difficulty?

 

[Alrin Kharr]

Siam does this a lot too, and to an even worse degree than Persia, in my experience. Rammy buys up every single city-state unless you outbid him, resulting in extremely rapid expansion both land and population-wise. On top of that, he always has a massive army thanks to a steady stream of units from militaristic city-states. Every single game I've played with Siam, he just runs away with the game unless I put a stop to him early.

Except one game where he started off sandwiched between Bismark and Alexander with no real room to expand. Watching them race each other to wipe Rammy out and take his land was pretty amusing.

 

[joncnunn]

The military adviser is mostly comparing numbers of units.
And his negative comment would only be valid if you let an AI control your military unit placement.
Just build a couple of archers and you'll be fine.

 

[cakes]

i played the wonders of the ancient world scenario which contains persia... needless to say he won (or was going to win before i quit) both times i played it and i decided it was in my best interests not to play that scenario again

 

[Loucypher]

Funny that, I have that relationship with Greece. Alexander has a habit of meeting me, and within the next 10 turns he'll DOW me. Every. Single. Time. Even when he doesn't even know where my lands are located, he'll DOW me, kill my scout, and start demanding outrageous tribute.

 

[ense7en]

Certain civs seem to always be strong.

Persia definitely is one of those for me in my games...it's not every single game, but most of the time they are a force to be reckoned with.

 

[Heerlo]

This reminds me of how Spain used to be to me in Civ4.In at least to different games, they acted very ugly to me.

 

[prince_caspian]

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.

 

[thadian]

Some civs are more prone to runaway.

Persia and Greece tend to runaway a lot in my games early on, especially greek conquest.

Mid-game Mongol and Arabia start to snowball if they havent been beaten, i usually try to keep one of the 2 alive because they usually target over-powered persia.

Late game, Britan and Vikings tend to excel in my games because their navies allow them a form of expansion that doesn't care about settling further.

If you notice an early run-away you need to IMMEDIATELY denounce them and gift gold to Mongol, Arabia, or Germany - either 3 of these will check persia once they get better units. but they HAVE to survive and have 3-4 cities. Its best if you pick 3 weaker civ's and gift them each gold and trade with them, hoping persia will declare one war and end up in a world war.

Actually, while i resent how overpowered persia is overall, they might be one of the FEW civ's that does what they were meant to do in the game - while their neighbors are not.

I dont know if the blue helmet still works but try putting one unit on each land tile next to the coast and block their entrance.

Several months ago, unless it has been changed, the AI won't even sap workers or great people, if you keep ONE space open (on the left side) they will ALL move to it, then walk up to block it, and free up a tile on the right side. Then their units move east. You can actually make them waste a LOT of time moving around the water. It helps to keep a boat or 2 because you can auto-kill about 4 embarked units per turn per boat.

Once G+K comes out, i am worried for songhai, and vikings.

 

[theguy8882]

I played a game as siam and i got to watch the Persians and the Arabians have a constant war. Nukes would fly back and forth. huge armies of Arabian tanks and infantry would roll across my borders only to get destroyed by Persia's massive air force. Until one day the the Arabians nuked Ectbana and Harun marched his troops to Ectbana and captured it, which caused Darius to lose most of his air force, because that's where the girth of it was stationed. Harun proceeded to march on to Persepolis and took it, destroying them. However it was mostly in vain, because I won a culture victory a few turns later. The lesson learned here, is get Harun to attack persia and he'll destroy them for you, so that you can win.

 

[KevinJK]

Persia has a very good unique ability and building. It's among the top three strongest civilizations in the game, so it tends to do well even with the AI controlling it. In fact, because the AI seems to cheat like hell on happiness, Persia's golden age boosts seem to be even more powerful under AI control.

 

[aceflamingo23]

I haven't experienced this in Civ5, but the same thing happened with me and Isabella in Civ4. No matter what I did, I always got stuck RIGHT NEXT to her and her bad attitude, and she would always declare war on me just as I was about to win, denying me victory.

 

[Securion]

Its mostly Siam and Greece that does this in my experience. Persia is in most of my games not very big or strong, usually two or three cities, and then they get wiped out by an aggressive civ.

 

[smallfish]

Has anyone ever seen an Indian runaway?

Spoiler :

If there wasn't a city-state in the way (or if he had just attacked it - he took a lot of city-states, this Warmonger Gandhi), he would have gobbled up China, Babylon... probably me and the Koreans too!

 

[elniallo]

Gandhi is starting to runaway in my current game. He's managed to stay out of the permanent war that has engulfed the world, and now every 20 or so turns I get a message saying Gandhi has built (insert wonder). Mid game at the moment, but I have a feeling it's heading that way.

 

[Bakspatel]

Persia is usually the most powerful civ in the games that I play, they tend to expand massively and earn gigantic amounts of gold each turn. Luckily, Darius holds a friendly attitude almost all of the time, giving me the space to go for either a cultural or scientific victory.
I've also seen Siam so many times expanding their empire massively, bribing up all CS and holding an unfriendly attitude towards everyone else. Alexander expands a lot as well, but usually he ends up being wiped out because of his hostile attitude.

 

[Callonia]

my military adviser told me to make peace or we'd be destroyed. Even from across the world, he began invading, and I had to end the game before I technically lost.

So, anyways, is this normal to happen every single time he plays? I'm on Prince as well.

You're from france aren't you.

Surrendering before a shot gets fired.

Man up and fight persia. I've gotten we must make peace or we'll be destroyed bazillion of times and I chose to fight and not get destroyed rather, destroy the will be destroyer.

 

[Buccaneer]

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.

 

[Kabloosh]

Persia got screwed in my current game. He was stuck in the middle of the continent and while I did finish him off it was the other guys that ate him up in the beginning.

The whole game though every civ was a dick to me. Jokes on them now since I own 80% of the map and China is the only "real" contender left. However, I kind of lost interest since this recent patch just sabotaged my game by nuking my happiness and changing my civ to Spain.

AI is stupid with units. You can easily outsmart them and really the only tactic they have is "swarm" which is easy to overcome with nice unit placement and diversity. Don't spam one unit type but it would be wise to build lots of ranged units.