how does the computer maintain -1200 income per turn????

[CaptainChaos]

I'm playing on Prince level,Mongol vs. Songhai (other powers already defeated). On the Diplomacy Screen, the Songhai have 0 gold and losing 1200 per turn, yet they are still fielding an army of around 50 units I believe. How are they able to maintain a -1200 gold balance indefinitely without any units being forced to disband?

[Martin Gühmann]

Sounds like cheating, but you don't know how many units the AI has, and how many it disbands.

But of course it could be cheating, that is an easy way to implement different levels of difficulty. In that case I would rather call it handicap instead of cheating. In favor of the AI or of the player, depends on your difficulty level.

Another aspect of handing out those advances is that the programmers thing they can with it bypass bad AI programming. Unfortunately, that does not work to make the game more challenging.

-Martin

[Dinner]

The AI can deficit spend without ever disbanding any units or buildings just as it keeps growing even if it has negative infinity unhappiness. Money and unhappiness are things the AI can simply ignore because Firaxis screwed up so badly with the AI, it was programmed so poorly, that the only way to make the game sort of fun (a little bit) was to let the AI cheat it's ass off no matter the difficulty setting.

[wodan11]

It's not cheating if that's the handicap for difficulty level.

[CaptainChaos]

It's Prince level so I thought there is supposed to be no benefit or detriment to the computer. So, I mean, really, the computer doesn't abide by the same rules as the player?? If that's the case, this game is very disappointing.

[Jaybe]

In Civ5, even YOU can maintain -1200g per turn as much as you want. The consequences are only that you can't spend gold and ...
your research is reduced by 1200. Especially popular among the AI once they have only Future Tech to research.

This was revealed Sept/Oct last year. Old News.

[CaptainChaos]

yes, but when i was less than 5 GPT, it was disbanding units every turn. How is the computer able to maintain it's 50-60 piece army? (I have 40 pieces and my military adviser tells me the other remaining side is far superior). Why does the computer get a free ride?

[Jaybe]

yes, but when i was less than 5 GPT, it was disbanding units every turn. How is the computer able to maintain it's 50-60 piece army? (I have 40 pieces and my military adviser tells me the other remaining side is far superior). Why does the computer get a free ride?

Really, I ALWAYS like having gold reserves and/or positive income. I haven't personally EXPERIENCED bankruptcy ...
except IRL, and that was unpleasant enough, thank you.

Was your research reduced to zero while your army was shrinking?

[CaptainChaos]

I have had it happen both ways, and I can't figure out why. Sometimes I lose units. Other times, my science just takes a hit. But I can't figure how the computer can keep a 40+ army with -1200 per turn.

I know units only disband one per turn, so I guess if the computer is producing them about as rapidly that can go on forever, but there still seems something weird about that. I get the feeling the AI just doesn't play by the same rules.

[Nikolai]

Post a save, I'll forward it to the devs.

[Burticus]

What? Fielding a gigantic army with a negative GDP and trillions in debt? USA! USA!