AI Warlord wonder building

[trev]

I have noticed in some games on Emperor/Immortal level that the AI is not building Stonehenge early making it a potential wonder for me to build even on these high levels, a great benefit for its culture, Great Prophet generation (have founded religiion with these, or built shrine). I think they are concentrating on the Great Wall more leaving Stonehenge unbuilt, is this other peoples experience too?

[Diadem]

Yes, it definitely seems easier to get some of the earlier wonders. I'm not sure if they focus on the great wall more, or if they just prioritize wonders less in Warlords, but getting early wonders is definitely easier.

Getting the pyramids is actually very doable now, even on the highest difficulty levels.

[Rancidlunchmeat]

I've only played a handful of Warlords games so far, but it seems to me that once stonehenge is built, so is the Oracle.

I've actually built the GW in all of my Warlords games so far (because I'm a GE whore), so I don't know where they prioritize that. But I will say that by going after the GW, I find it extremely easy to still build the GPs even after I've built the GW. It's like they don't pay any attention to building it at all.

So my experience on Warlords has pretty much been this... you can easily focus on stonehenge/Oracle if that's the route you want to go. OR you can easily focus on the GW/GP if that's the route you want to go. You can get either of them relatively easily.

The problem occurs when you want to mix the two and you aren't IND or don't have stone.

I think the AI in Warlords puts a priority on the GW, but that just means they will attempt to build it as soon as possible regardless of whether or not they are actually CAPABLE of building it. I think that is what leads to the whole 'problem' because they'll have cities with little production wasting 100 turns building the GW.

I'm not certain about this because I haven't gone into world builder in order to see what the AI is building. All I know is that I have never failed to build the GW, and by reading the log, it appears that everything is GREATLY delayed from when they used to be built in vanilla Civ... which leads me to believe the reason for that delay is because they were building the GW and then lost it to me.

[Saurus]

Originally posted by Rancidlunchmeat

I'm not certain about this because I haven't gone into world builder in order to see what the AI is building. All I know is that I have never failed to build the GW, and by reading the log, it appears that everything is GREATLY delayed from when they used to be built in vanilla Civ... which leads me to believe the reason for that delay is because they were building the GW and then lost it to me.

I think the A.I greatly seem to value the GW.
On my Emperor, pangea games, the GW has mostly been built before the thought of starting to build any wonder has even crossed my mind. I don´t mind this, however, since I mostly only build the oracle of all the early wonders anyway. I'm not sure why the A.I loves the GW so much as the A.I in any case get such huge bonuses VS barbarians that there should be no need for the A.I to build it. (shuold the A.I want to have GE:s then the pyramids would be the logical choice)

[allybhoy]

the main point about the GW is that you can start improving everywhere. No more barbarian axemen killing your defender and pillaging your copper mine, and the GE points can give you the pyramids, especially with Phil.No more churning out defensive units just to stay alive either

[Rancidlunchmeat]

That's exactly the reason for us to build the GW, but as was pointed out, the AI already receive hefty bonuses against Barbs so it makes it less useful for them.

In my experience so far, building the GW has been approximately equal to dropping a difficulty level. I'm always frantic in the start in order to secure copper or iron so I can fight off the hordes of Barb Axes and Swords that come knocking on my door. I can hold my cities with archers, but not my improvements, the Barbs just thrash the hell out of them.

With the GW built, I can expand almost limitlessly because they can't come inside my cultural boundaries and that leaves only a few tiles at a time that have unprotected workers.

So even without copper or iron early on, I can just focus entirely on the AI threat (which always seems less than the Barb threat, for some reason.. or it comes later, anyway).. and I can easily build a city or two to get the missing copper/iron I need in order to launch/defend against the AI.

Then again, its because of this benefit that I always focus on building the GW as soon as I can, which is probably why I always manage to build it.

[Jaybe]

I have never started the GW. I rarely have stone near the beginning, and battling barbs is much more fulfilling for me anyway.

[Blake]

And fighting barbs gives EXP.

[allybhoy]

It does, but so does building an army and taking the barb cities that spring up.

I think even though the ai gets a bonus against barbs it still suffers from pillaging and lost troops. better to get rid of it

[trev]

Go to higher levels, then barbs will not be much of a problem, on Immortal and to some extent on Emperor the AI expands so quickly they settle most of the land before many barbs start to appear. Certainly the GW is a wonderful wonder to build, but it is far too hard to complete it before the AI on the highest levels.