What's up with Darius?

[Colm]

Maybe it's a coincidence, but in every game where Darius is present, he's either constantly at the bottom of the list or is conquered by barbarians early in the game.
Do you see that happening in your game too?

[atc_chief]

Geeze, I sure hope not because I just started a game as Darius!

[TriMiro]

I don't remember seeing Darius die (or ever meet him as opponent).

Cyrus on the other hand is one of the best leaders IMHO. Can easily make either early settler spawn or Immortal + GG rush. Then the Charismatic + UB give him large population from the very beginning. It would be interesting if there is such a big difference between the two leaders.

[Hauptman]

There are civ choices that the ai just cannot play very well, just as there are some that it can play exceptionally.

Darius, is one of the former, along with Sie Germans, Sitting Bull, Hatshepsut, Lincoln, Ragnar and a few others. in nearly all games, they become vassels or get destroyed outright.

On the flip side, Zara, Quin, Catherine, Huyana, Mansa and Willem will always be points leaders when they are present.

There are even AI controlled civs that often do very well during or until a certain era. Isabella springs to mind. usually a world power until the renasaince, then she will fade into obscurity. Montezuma should be greatly feared in the ancient era, but his style of play makes him a non threat very quickly (as long as it was not you that had to bear the brunt of his attempted conquests). Tokugawa During the middle ages, samurai or not, but never a late game points leader.

[Theben]

Darius has been a pain in the butt most times I've had him as a neighbor. Ragnar is the one that gets killed by barbs the most in my games (aka twice, 1 more than any other). It can be fun if the barb city/former capital is isolated for a long time... I came upon the city of Sidaros as barb city in the late 1800's one game at the end of an island chain. The barb culture was huge!! And the city was size 16! I'd never seen such a well-developed "barbarian" state before!

[Unimatrix11]

Well, Darius seems to indeed lose pretty often lately. Last time we played, he forfeited 4 games on a single evening... or did you not mean my gaming-buddy ?

[Blaupanzer]

Darius as an AI is generally dangerous in my experience. Of course, this depends on him getting horses to build his UU. Without that, he just muddles along. A lot of the financial civs are vulnerable early, especially to raging barbs.

Theben, I have seen a few cases where the barbs have a set of two or three large, well-placed cities by the time they are found. This is especially true if they overrun a civ post its initial expansion. Generally, the cities only have two defenders each, lots of cottages and workshops, and not much else. (The number of defenders is determined by the difficulty level -- being more as we move up, but still 2 at Prince level.)

[Loxy]

Darius should be a techmonster if he gets a decent starting location with horses for secure expansion.

When I play as him it feels a bit like cheating 'cause of his financial awesomeness

[atc_chief]

Originally posted by Loxy
Darius should be a techmonster if he gets a decent starting location with horses for secure expansion.

Funny you say that Loxy, I'm playing Darius now but I didn't choose him to be a techmonster. The funny thing is, with my economy chugging away I'm running 100% science and still have a positive cash flow and no reason to throttle back.

You'd think the AI wouldn't have such a hard time playing Darius.

[Loxy]

Once I was playing multiplayer with two friends and some AI civs on a large map (monarch). I decided to try winning without war against AIs since I consider Darius allready to powerfull and I am still a builder at heart.

Each of us human players were on a different continent (3) and my main competitor was Ramses to the north. I kept building cities (6 or so) `till I ran out of land and then belined to monarchy and civil service beacause of my totally overpowered capital. All other cities I managed to build were only of mediocre quality. So I teched along and build a lot of troops for defense while developing my science center.

Ramses and Gilgamesh on my continent were quite scary in terms of size, but due to my financial awesomeness I was able to snag Polytheism and converted them to the true faith quite early with some backup from the shrine

So Ramses was the leader in terms of Size and Power and I happily traded with him an kept up with his teching speed with ease. My Power was also quite good 'cause I know the might of a standing army


So one of my friends had an idea of punching down Ramses while he still was able to after he had conquested his continent... and guess what

...one turn before his forces were able to put their feet on Egypt lands I dialed up my old buddy Ramses and decided that it would be best to unite against the untrustworthy infidels

Ramses of course happily agreed and my friend was like

He did not attack then because of the united might of Ramses and my troops... we waved him goodbye and since then I fully concentrated on wonderbuilding while Ramses kept on with pumping out Troops like mad after we vasalised Gilly

Darius