Played some MP with different settings What happened!

[Garth Vader]

So I played some games with a friend and multiple AI's and I saw some really odd things.

We played with Aggressive AI OFF and normal speed instead of epic.
I was set on Monarch level and he was on Noble. He isn't that good at war, so we didn't fight each other just AI's.

I saw that with Aggressive off the AI's just didn't war. Except for the first game where he got overrun by the early medevil time.

The AI's seemed pretty good at keeping up with tech, more so than I am used to. I was surprised because I assumed they would have had no bonuses in this game like they would have usually had if I was playing monarch.

When I did declare war on one they were much better than I have ever seen. Usually once you defeat the AI SOD the war is over. I was fighting Roosevelt and took a city, defeated a large stack and began the usual process of taking cities. All of a sudden he comes up with a huge force of knights and wipes my whole field army out while approaching his capital. I eventually wore him down but I have never seen an AI replace a force that fast before.

Which brings me to our last game, we played on a tiny map with the 2 of us and 2 AI's. We both declared war on the Ottomans and they put up an incredible fight. All 3 of us were about the same size, but yet once again the AI was able to build units at an unbelievable pace. Between the two of us we killed over 100 units in the Sword/Cat/Axemen/Longbowmen era. They had between 5-8 cities during this time (3 cities were changing hands a lot). We quit when we took them down to 4 cities and started besieging the capital. They also managed to build the Pyramids and Hanging Gardens during all this.

Is it the normal speed? With lower unit costs that would make replacement faster. Is the AI different in a MP game?

[wodan11]

The AI with aggressive AI turned on focuses much more on building units, which should be obvious.

What's not obvious is that, as a result, they don't spend much effort on infrastructure. Think about that, and you'll see why you got results as you did.

[Ming]

Didn't he say that Aggressive AI was tuned OFF?

[Garth Vader]

I did. It was backwards of what I expected.

[trev]

Sometimes a 2nd SOD may have been at the far end of their empire or even in lands further away chasing down barb cities or whatever, and therefore can arrive at the war late. Once it is dealt with, then it is just their normal production, which can be higher with Aggressive off, as they have put more effort in making their cities more productive during the peacetime. Once they are all switched to units unit production will be high.
Likewise because they spend more time developing their cities, their tech rate will be better with non-aggressive.

[Sir Og]

Normal speed is more difficult than slower speeds. I think this was the main thing that you experienced.

Also I think that aggressive AI ON is actually easyer. Some of the things you have experienced can be explained by that. (e.g. faster teching yet capable military)
There was a thread some time ago where we went into more details about that.

[wodan11]

Didn't he say that Aggressive AI was tuned OFF?

Yes. What I said was correct.

Aggressive AI off results in better AI teching and infrastructure.

[Ming]

Also I think that aggressive AI ON is actually easyer.

Again... that really depends a lot on each game, the civs, the land, and other factors.

In the long run, you will probably have more problems as a builder if you play with it off. However, in the early game, it's probably harder with it on since the AI will attack and you can't just spend all your efforts on building vs military. If it's off, the early game usually has very little risk of being attacked. You have plenty of time to get settled in with few distrations.

[Garth Vader]

Yes. What I said was correct.

Aggressive AI off results in better AI teching and infrastructure.

That was what I was expecting, but I was expecting to face fewer units. I am sure a big factor there is the lack of any AI wars. An aggressive AI will build more units, but lose more too.

[wodan11]

The AI doesn't ever stop building units, ever.

So, on aggressive AI, it gives a higher percentage of total GNP to unit production. But on non-aggressive, you can still run into an AI who hasn't had a war yet in the game and thus can easily have more total # of units than an AI on "Aggressive" setting which has been in wars all game

.

[rah]

I go along with what Trev said since I've seen that before. I'll usually shadow sod of civs i plan on attacking. I experienced the same thing where the AI had one large SOD off in foreign lands and was accumulated a second one. I figured the first one would be occupied when I attacked, but despite the original stack being strong enough to roll over the civ he was at war with, when I declared he withdrew from his first enemy and about 10 turns later the stack was thrown into the war with me.