Does the AI ignore maintenence?

[chequita guevara]

I wanna know, cuz they seem to just spawn city after city, while getting ahead in tech, and building many units. Meanwhile, I'm struggling to stay above 50% science with four cities and two units in each.

Oh, I'm on monarch level.

[chequita guevara]

Anyone gonna answer me?

[Enigma_Nova]

They wouldn't have fixed the city gift exploit if the AI paid no maintenence,
but they do get reductions.

[Willem]

I discovered they also get a break on Inflation. On Noble, my inflation rate is 90 but theirs is 70. At least it used to be.

Noble is supposed to be about the human and AI being on even levels, but that's not really the case here. They also get a major break from Barbarians.

[Blake]

Nope, the AI doesn't ignore upkeep. They have some breaks on some difficulty levels.

Also the AI pays higher unit upkeep (this is offset by ~25% upgrading costs). One particullary memorable game a #1 Alexander switched to pacifism, then a few turns later invaded me with some stacks of doom, I took one city of his but then retreated in the face of these giant stacks of elephants and stuff, I had enough force to drive off his pillagers and declare peace, but nowhere near enough to take the offense against his giant stacks. A few turns later I noticed his entire offensive force was AWOL, I took my remaining forces (pitifully inadequate to invade a #1 warmonger AI) and invaded him, finding no resistance at all. His entire offensive army must have been disbanded.

I took a few cities i wanted from him then let him be. It took him quite a while (and a civics switch ) to get his army back.

So watch for AI's running Pacifism and prepare to invade them .

[Gibsie]

Sneaky, I likes it!

[Blake]

Oh something else about the AI's, on Monarch they start with a worker which means they have quite the head start on infrastructure, this is continued by their aggressive worker programs. They certainly have the infrastructure in place to support their expansion, and any breaks they get are just gravy – it’s not like they are being propped up by blatant cheats.
I can certainly out-expand the AI if there is ample unclaimed territory (like on larger highlands map), expansion is not particularly fiscally challenging with the right methodology.