Why doesn't my AI ever have as much money as they should?

[Alatar1313]

Okay, so I've been watching a lot of videos recently and I've moved up pretty smoothly from King to Immortal over the past few days. However, there's always been something different in my games and I can't quite figure out why: the AI never has any money and they often are neutral or worse making it difficult to trade. I've watched a lot of videos and never seem to have AIs with the kind of money that I see in those.

I was just trying to do a start similar-ish to Bibor's here (on Immortal instead of Emperor) to try out a tall rather than wide strategy. However, when it comes time to sell off stuff, the many AI civs I've met just can't handle my resources. Also, they're all neutral but 2 so I can't sell off open borders very well.


Now, there are a couple things that I can think of that might be the issue:

1. Even when I'm playing single-player I play on multiplayer with AIs. I primarily play Civ5 with my brother (2 humans and 6 AIs on a standard map) so want diplomacy to work the same as when I play with him. I'm not sure if this is somehow affecting the AI's money generation. Note that this is the same when I'm playing a multiplayer game with only myself as the sole human player so it's not that we're trying to get the same money from the AI civs.

2. No Ancient Ruins. They have a tendency to do some crazy things that sort of unbalance the game sometimes so we have just been turning them off. I didn't think the money the AI might be getting from these would account for the differences in cash value I'm seeing compared to the single-player videos but if it is, I can turn them back on.

3. Really awful luck? Does this happen to other people or are the amounts of AI money seen in the videos pretty common?

Do any of these make sense for why the AI wouldn't have even close to enough money to consistently buy off my open borders, much less my luxuries? It hasn't been totally crippling but it's sort of annoying to see strategies that just don't work very well because the AI can't seem to get its act together in my games compared to the videos.

 

[fromar]

I believe the AI in multilayer does not get the same bonuses as a single-player AI. I'm not sure why. I can't find the thread where this was discussed, so take my memory with a grain of salt.

 

[Johan de Witt]

I believe the AI in multilayer does not get the same bonuses as a single-player AI. I'm not sure why. I can't find the thread where this was discussed, so take my memory with a grain of salt.

I might be horribly wrong, but doesn't that have to do with your ability to choose a different difficulty for all human players?

On single player Deity, the AI's have huge bonusses and build immense armies.
On multiplayer, I think it's just the player that has a bonus or a penalty because you can't have the AI build massive armies against one player and a small one against the other.

imho it would be better if you could set an overall difficulty and then give the players handicaps.

 

[Alatar1313]

I might be horribly wrong, but doesn't that have to do with your ability to choose a different difficulty for all human players?

On single player Deity, the AI's have huge bonusses and build immense armies.
On multiplayer, I think it's just the player that has a bonus or a penalty because you can't have the AI build massive armies against one player and a small one against the other.

imho it would be better if you could set an overall difficulty and then give the players handicaps.

Huh that's annoying. Is there any way to fix this?

 

[DaveMcW]

Play Civ4 if you want working multiplayer AI.

 

[Tabarnak]

Play Civ4 if you want working multiplayer AI.

Yeah because in civ5 you encounter zombies...not civs. I guess they don't interact between them...slowing instant generation of money of all sort, reducing development.

 

[Alatar1313]

What about the AIs makes them zombies compared to single player? Just the fact that they don't propose deals to the players?

Also, I would think that things like the number of bonus units on higher difficulties would be similarly curtailed if that were the reason for cutting the gold output. I just checked to make sure and the AIs get all the same bonus units based on difficulty and they do. I think the AI starting with a second settler on deity (which they do in multiplayer) would be a pretty big detriment to any player on a lower difficulty.

Does anyone know what bonuses/penalties apply to players and AIs based on difficulties for multiplayer (or which bonuses apply and which don't from singleplayer)?