Why is nobody building Theatre Squares?

[Lord Lakely]

Turn 224, King difficulty, standard speed. I am the only one who has built Theatre Squares.

It looks like the AIs are just faith-buying the Writers despite having no slots to put their Great Works in. Wilhelmina has a pathetic *ONE* Great Writer Point per turn (but no Artist or Musician points. This has to be a Wonder, the Great Library, perhaps?) and she's the only one who earns the points naturally besides myself.

Is this... normal? lol. Because Culture Victory is already so easy with Corporations mode, but the AI is just doing nothing against it, regardless of which mode you're using.

 

[Lord Lakely]

FTR, I am playing with Shuffled Techs, and Drama and Poetry ended up being a dead end here.

Which should not be an excuse (the AI still built Statue of Zeus early, and Military Training was a dead end as well.)

 

[IsabelBraganca]

In my last game, Eleonor had a lot of artworks. I think it depends on the AI. I know the AI builds more Campus now.

 

[bengalryan9]

This seems to vary from game to game in my experience. Some games I am able to get GWAMs incredibly easily, and some games I'm lucky enough to snag a few (and many of those don't include Peter, either). I've seen the same thing with Generals and Admirals too, where the AI just doesn't seem to prioritize that district in a given game for some reason or another. Occasionally I've even seen games where the last Great Prophet sticks around for a lot longer than you'd expect.

I think different leaders are programmed to prioritize different things to some extent, and if you happen to draw the right combination of opponents you see these kinds of results.

 

[Lord Lakely]

This seems to vary from game to game in my experience. Some games I am able to get GWAMs incredibly easily, and some games I'm lucky enough to snag a few (and many of those don't include Peter, either). I've seen the same thing with Generals and Admirals too, where the AI just doesn't seem to prioritize that district in a given game for some reason or another. Occasionally I've even seen games where the last Great Prophet sticks around for a lot longer than you'd expect.

I think different leaders are programmed to prioritize different things to some extent, and if you happen to draw the right combination of opponents you see these kinds of results.

Yes, but this should not be happening.

Isn't Kristina's agenda all about getting Great Works? Why isn't she building Theatre Squares????

 

[Archon_Wing]

King difficulty

Because the AI is bad and cannot build anything without massive bonuses. Normally, King or so is usually what I play in civ but because of this King and below is literally unplayable because they don't do anything.

However, in general the AI does not pursue theater squares except when pursuing culture victory specifically. But even in those cases it's a very low priority; they like encampments too much.

 

[Lord Lakely]

Yeah. I just won on T305. Current status:

Don't let Georgia fool you. They recruited Alfred Nobel, and the Dutch did indeed get the Great Library, which is where that lone Great Writer Point comes from. I did notice that the Mayans had ONE great work of Art - clearly they bought the GA with faith despite having only one slot to put it in.

This is just ridiculous. This should not be happening. Fix this, thanks.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Yeah. I just won on T305. Current status:

View attachment 585192

Don't let Georgia fool you. They recruited Alfred Nobel, and the Dutch did indeed get the Great Library, which is where that lone Great Writer Point comes from. I did notice that the Mayans had ONE great work of Art - clearly they bought the GA with faith despite having only one slot to put it in.

This is just ridiculous. This should not be happening. Fix this, thanks.

Maybe they read this forum and figured they needed to only spam campuses to win.

 

[Lord Lakely]

[Lily_Lancer] clearly this exploit of bad AI behaviour means one thing: any civ with bonus to CV is OP! Japan is S-tier now. Canada solidly A-tier. Negative Civs: any civ without a culture bonus. Gran Colombia and Babylon are some garbage now! [/Lily_Lancer]

Moderator Action: Please do not troll other members. leif
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Kotofei]

With the exception of, like, Eleanor, the AI doesn't give a rat's ass about culture in my experience.

It kind of has point. If I'm not going for CV, I find 2-3 good Theater squares perfectly adequate for getting through the Civic tree. And maybe the AI behavior is okay. A Deity AI (or 2) that plopped down 4 quick theater squares could chew through all the GWAMs in a hurry. (Think Korea and GS)

 

[Pietato]

Yes, but this should not be happening.

View attachment 585181

Isn't Kristina's agenda all about getting Great Works? Why isn't she building Theatre Squares????

Maybe it is a king thing? On an unrelated note, how have you not discovered everyone before the Nobel Prize has ended?

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

On an unrelated note, how have you not discovered everyone before the Nobel Prize has ended?

It's a World Congress thing.

 

[_iheartciv_]

It depends from the civ AI is using (put pericles and russia in the game next time) and of course from the difficulty . You should play deity (or at least immortal) . On king AI starts with 1 settler like you and the bonus it gets (tech and culture boost is 8% on king) is low. On deity it starts with 3 settlers and bonus is higher.

 

[newbie2]

I play on emperor and if you have civs like russia or greece in the game, you defo won't get any of the early great writers.

aside from kristina, all the other civs you have rolled are more science or military focussed. And kristina AI obviously doesnt know she is culture focussed...

 

[cain3456]

You should play deity (or at least immortal)

Oh goody, one of THOSE people

 

[Lord Lakely]

Maybe it is a king thing? On an unrelated note, how have you not discovered everyone before the Nobel Prize has ended?

Because I don't bother exploring beyond the borders of my neighbours? Why would I, if I can expand in the other direction undisturbed.

The three unknown Civs turned out to be Macedon, Spain and Canada ftr. The fact that Canada built no Theatre Squares, like Sweden and the Netherlands, is very strange.

I play on emperor and if you have civs like russia or greece in the game, you defo won't get any of the early great writers.

aside from kristina, all the other civs you have rolled are more science or military focussed. And kristina AI obviously doesnt know she is culture focussed...

Same on King. I've had games where a Russian AI got every early Writer and Artist... and then did nothing with them because, you know, no (or insufficient) Theatre Squares. Greece builds them, fortunately enough, as does France, neither were in my game.

It depends from the civ AI is using (put pericles and russia in the game next time) and of course from the difficulty . You should play deity (or at least immortal) . On king AI starts with 1 settler like you and the bonus it gets (tech and culture boost is 8% on king) is low. On deity it starts with 3 settlers and bonus is higher.

Yeah no. Immortal and Deity AI's get a lot of free stuff and yield modifiers that are unfun to play against. Playing against 12 opponents, all of which cheat. Only 1 or, if you're lucky, two strategies work against that, all of them involving forgoing fun peace building and attacking aggressively in the Ancient Era and Classical Era. Hard, hard pass.
Emperor is my upper limit and I don't even like playing Emperor (with most Civs anyway, and since I usually roll my Civ at random...)

but I will try a game on Emperor (as Greece) to see whether this pattern continues. Because if it does, then the AI programming should be tweaked. After all, there are a few things that can affect this phenomenon

- lack of culture civs in game
- difficulty
- game mode (above game was with Tech Shuffle mode and Corporations mode)
- available victory types

I'll let you know if there's something weird going on.

EDIT: this is the set-up for those interested:

All of these opponents should build them, or at least have an advantage towards building them. Trajan and Ambiorix were added because they have strong culture per turn, meaning they should get to Drama and Poetry ahead of the others.

No Russia because the Lavra generates GWAMs and I want to specifically see who (and when) the AI builds Theatre Squares.

 

[Lord Lakely]

First 100 turns are done, got a very good start due to a goodie hut relic (=> Religious Settlements), and REX'd to 7 cities while avoiding war. I got Drama and Poetry around T60, and it's not a dead end in the Civic's tree. It's a prereq for Civil Service, so if anyone builds the Meenakshi temple (not me), I'll know that they have the ability to build TSs.

Theatre Square Count?

still a sad zero. The AI doesn't seem to be competing for Great People in general. I have one campus and run the +2 GS point card and I already received two Great Scientists.

AI seems to be building the new Preserve district however (notice the Persian one on the top left corner of the first image), I wonder if there's a connection?

 

[Melkus]

All AIs overemphasize Science in the latest version, they're more efficient but predictable (though not so efficent in corporations mode, because they absurdly lack luxuries there). In mid game, the AI's science output doubles their culture output pretty consistently. Unfortunately when Pericles waits until the later eras to build his Acropolis, the flavour of having him as an opponent is gone.
There's also a lot less pressure to get a religion.

It's as if the AI coders had an assignment to make them more competitive and win more quickly, so they took the straightforward route. Observe how every ai goes straight for the Pingala science update in the capital every time. The game still lacks a Soren Johnson-like figure at the helm, who doesnt put up with the constant shortcuts (or maybe the code base is too messy to make serious improvements, who knows).

 

[Buktu]

Only 1 or, if you're lucky, two strategies work against that, all of them involving forgoing fun peace building and attacking aggressively in the Ancient Era and Classical Era. Hard, hard pass.

I can understand that you dont have any fun playing against immortal or deity AIs and its fine for me that you play on the level which is the most fun for you. But this statement is simply not true. You can absolutely win games on deity without ever capturing a city and there are more than 1 or 2 strategies which are going to win the game. There are even more than 2 working strategies for a CV! Improvements, great works, wonders, relics, natural parks, rock bands etc.... Then you have obviously at least one strategy around every other victory condition.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I felt targeted by this thread until I saw you meant the AI.