Backward civ

[LDiCesare]

In my current game, around 1770AD, I conquer a zulu city in which lies Marco Polo's Embassy. Great! I decide to look at the other civs. Zulus are on their way to extinction, Greeks are a nuisance but not much to fear and... Spanish have 13 cities and ONE tech (warrior code). They have no capital and aren't researching anything.
Did anyone ever see that? A civ not researching any tech for all the game?
I am not even considering conquering them right now since I have the greeks to attack and they have a few things like walls or phalanxes and catapults to get crunched by my dragoons.
Still.
A civ with only one tech and 13 cities. In Deity even! Ever saw such a thing?

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Yes, I played a game on a gigamap a while back (ToT) where the Celts had about a dozen cities, no bigger than size 2. And their only tech was Alphabet, so they had nothing but settlers and warriors. What seemed to have happened is that barbs took their capital, and without a palace, their cities stopped researching tech (I guess to keep luxuries jacked up).

Somewhere there is a thread with an uploaded save

2 things... look to see if they lost the capital early (to barbs) and also, difficulty level shouldn't make a difference to the AI - they are always on King level equivalent for happiness, IIRC. Production is another story...

[rah]

Yes, when they lose their capital early it can happen.

Another similar type thing is that the AI will try to mirror your science output. So if you set your science to 0% and just use caravans to generate your techs the AI will tune down it's science also. If this is done over a long period of time, the AI gets quite technically stunted and is easy to roll over. ( like it's ever tough)

RAH

[Scouse Gits]

I have seen the stagnating civ syndrome a few times. Even playing at Deity level some AI powers only start at 4000BC with just one settler. This is a massive handicap, especially if they lose cities to Barbs.

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SG(2)

[Julius Brenzaida]

Yes, it has happened to me too, many times. Indeed I am quite happy when I see an AI civ strong enough to be a match. They always tend to be expansionist and militaristic growing close to a civilized one and acquiring their techs.

[Scouse Gits]

Originally posted by rah
Another similar type thing is that the AI will try to mirror your science output. So if you set your science to 0% and just use caravans to generate your techs the AI will tune down it's science also. If this is done over a long period of time, the AI gets quite technically stunted and is easy to roll over. ( like it's ever tough)

Yes my favourite trick is to get to Crooks and Clads and then turn off science - even on a giga map I rarely face Riflemen ...

SG[1]

[LDiCesare]

I only had a save in 3000BC (I don't bother with intermediate saves usually, so having this one was already exceptional). They had one city at that time and their Warrior Code tech, plus one wandering unit. I feel sad they were so poor. They had a nice continent, were alone on it and not too far from the rest of us. They might have been a challenge.

I got dragoons much before I got ironclads in this game. I had little use for a navy as I had to get rid of Great-Walled zulus on a big landmass first. The worst opposition I got was knights and catapults by 1830. And I tend to always be high on science, like 80% (communist in this game). Though the 50 last years were more moving all those armies around the map to go from dead Zulus to Greeks but these were all eliminated before a third of my army went there. What would I have done with all the money anyway?