[R&F] What's with AI's disbanding their militaries?

zxcvbob

Emperor
Joined
May 18, 2015
Messages
1,713
Location
SE Minnesota
I've just started playing Civ 6 again. I'm playing the base game plus the R&F DLC, and none of the small DLC packs. I've had to drop back to Warlord level to keep up with the AIs in science and culture, they seem to runaway now, but I have noticed that in the middle of the game a lot of the AI military strengths drops to zero. Even the ones that previously had been warmongering. What's up with that? The winning move seems to be for me to attack whichever neighbor has been the biggest PITA (flooding me with apostles, settling 4 tiles away from one of my cities, denouncing me for stupid reasons like not sending her my one and only trade route, etc) and capture most of their cities. Use my spies to get the last city to rebel and take them out of the game. Although if I capture that last city it's about 5 era points (Wilhelmina did not stand the test of time, lol) and what are the others going to do about it, they have no militaries either?

I think something changed with a recent game patch. But since I hadn't played for a while, I don't know when it changed.
 
There is a theory that with the "AI going science crazy" since the last NFP patch (April 2021 was it?), it does very little in terms of building CH and revenue, and at some point in the game is left broke and has to disband its military. Certainly credible.
 
Thanks. That also explains why I'm having a hard time finding a commercial district to level-up my spies. (Stealing gold is the most likely mission to succeed for a rookie spy; even if the gold is not worth the effort, that first promotion is)
 
I think this patch never made it to iPhone. I have Civ6 on my phone and the AI’s tend to maintain large militaries and wage war throughout the game
 
even if the gold is not worth the effort

Like in fishing, you just need to know places where to go :)
(the example is on Deity, with AI science bias reverted)
Spoiler :


I think this patch never made it to iPhone. I have Civ6 on my phone and the AI’s tend to maintain large militaries and wage war throughout the game
I suspect it has. I have it on iPad, no NFP, but I see all the signs. Much easier to survive tiny cramped maps on Quick, lack of CHs, and Great Scientists are in great demand. But Deforestation starts from 10% and then goes up when it starts, and not from 50% and then down, like in my version with NFP on PC.
 
Like in fishing, you just need to know places where to go :)
(the example is on Deity, with AI science bias reverted)
Spoiler :



I suspect it has. I have it on iPad, no NFP, but I see all the signs. Much easier to survive tiny cramped maps on Quick, lack of CHs, and Great Scientists are in great demand. But Deforestation starts from 10% and then goes up when it starts, and not from 50% and then down, like in my version with NFP on PC.

Ah ok
 
Unfortunately, the AI does not value Gold differently when they are swimming in Gold or the opposite. Au contraire, it seems to neither trigger a "frugal" behavior where they avoid to buy units / building, try to sell there resources to other players, slot Gold-making policies, prevent to build additional military units, put some Harbors / Commercial Hubs or go for Trade Routes, nor a "prodigal" behavior when they are swimming in Gold.

When you are bankrupt, your military is disbanding each turn until you get back to the positive. Either the AI suffers from this, or maybe they do value disbanding as money generator. At release, you could sell your units for Gold. I believe it was a 50% rate. They removed this due to some exploits, like the Scythia's exploit. I hope the AI knows that selling its military doesn't generate Gold like it did at release!
Scythia's exploit was about building light cavalry units en masse in order to sell them. Something to know: Maneuver was a +100% card, and Strategic Resources didn't stockpile: owning 2 copies allow you to train as many as you want. Owning 1 copy limit the production to cities with Encampment.
Basically, Scythia could produce 4 Horsemen for the price of 1 (80 Production / 320 Gold, but you need 40 Production (+100%, Maneuver) to generate 2 of them). In the early game, you could generate 320 Gold from 40 Production. I believe it was even crazier once you could build Armies of Helicopter at discounted production, which increased profitability by 33%.


When you combine both facts (AI are poor Gold manager which disband units when bankrupt), then there is an exploit. You can bankrupt them. The best way is through Diplomatic Favor: they are valuable for the AI, while selling them has few to no consequences even if you aiming for a Diplomatic Victory: the AI will probably use all of them to ban Truffles or something, while not think about selling about their DF in order to get some Gold. Gathering DFs them is not a hard task (early buyer of 20 DF at 1 Gold, Monarchy + Diplomatic Quarter, Monarchy's legacy + Renaissance Walls). Great Works work too.
You either go two steps:
  • Buy all the Gold / GPT. Wait next turn, and buy all the remaining Gold / GPT created last turn. The following turn the AI would drop its Military to 0. But sometimes, it manages to get crazy emergency Gold from nowhere.
  • Buy all their Gold in exchange for your GPT. Wait 20-25 turns. Exchange all their GPT for your DFs or GWs. Wait 5-10 turns until the AI does not enjoy from your GPT from the first trade. Witness their empire spiral into bankruptcy with no chance of coming back.
 
There is a theory that with the "AI going science crazy" since the last NFP patch (April 2021 was it?), it does very little in terms of building CH and revenue, and at some point in the game is left broke and has to disband its military. Certainly credible.

Just happened to me in my Mongolia domination deity game.
By renaissance/early industrial I'm still the only player who generates GM/GA points.
Both Georgia and Indonesia have 0 gold per turn and a 0 army score.
Happened during medieval Era as the AI went ham on (especially) campus, holy sites and encampments.
Only player who has a decent army is Cree, and that's only because he spams Mekewaps.
 
I just finished a game as Shaka. Since I get military perks already, I chose governments to beef up everything else. (Classic Republic, Merchant Republic, and Democracy, in the Info Era switched to Communism for the production bonus.) I suppose I could have taken Divine Spark to help with great people, but Desert Folklore looked better on this map and that's unusual. I don't think I got any great scientists the whole game; they all disappeared very early. And I had trouble getting writers, artists, and musicians. I could have all the generals, admirals, merchants, and engineers I wanted. I ended up with a science victory in part because I got Werner von Braun.
 
Last edited:
There is a theory that with the "AI going science crazy" since the last NFP patch (April 2021 was it?), it does very little in terms of building CH and revenue, and at some point in the game is left broke and has to disband its military. Certainly credible.

But @zxcvbob wrote that he's using R&F. How can his game be affected by the NFP patch? :confused:
 
But @zxcvbob wrote that he's using R&F. How can his game be affected by the NFP patch? :confused:
It wasn't exclusively NFP patch, this particular change has been made in one of the base game files and it affects the game universally, regardless if it is played vanilla only or including R&F, GF and/or NFP content.

Do you know if Infixo's Real Strategy mod also sets the science value from 150 to 15?
Well, it was Infixo who discovered this "feature" and started the AI crazy about science thread, so I guess it has been taken into account. The mod does quite a lot of things, you better read its description for more details.
 
Top Bottom