CivIII AI - First Glance...MUCH BETTER

[Peterk]

I can echo everything that has been said here:

I'm playing on Prince and ended up getting placed on a narrow sliver of a continent along with one other Civ. I figured I'd be able to at least take half of the continent and had some good locations for cities explored out. Well, the AI just expanded much faster than me and to throw a wrench into the equation, another Civ came from overseas in the very early part of the game and started setting up 2 small cities on my northern frontier (in tundra for godsakes!) in places I wasn't really going to do anything with. Now I only have about 20% of the continent (I'm in 600 AD) and I have powerful neighbors on both sides of me (both of which refuse to sign a peace treaty with me, which is kind of holding me back from fighting one of them - I don't want to have them gang up on me if I attack). It's a very tense and exciting situation.

The barbarians are much better in this game too. I was 3 turns away from building one of the first great wonders in the game at one point and a barbarian army which I thought I could hold off easily since my city was very well garissoned (3 units and walls) just overran my city, destroyed my wonder (almost 60 turns worth of shields) and then proceeded to start demolishing everything in the city. It took about 100 years to get Rome back to normal again, and I finally built the wonder (Colossus) after starting over again from scratch. The cool thing is that my military advisor warmed me about a "massive barbarian encampment growing to the north" about 10 turns before the attack happened.

[Solver]

Wow! Firaxis have done excellent job at making a real AI, it seems to me. Will play my first game on Prince, too, BTW.

[Jason Beaudoin]

Ya... well, here's another echo!

I've been playing at Warlord level, and I have been able to expand at least as well as the AI, but they are no pushoever! What everyone is saying here is true, the AI will be chalanging, and they won't be nice, unless your nice to them.

[Melloj]

The only thing that I have a problem with is the fact that the AI seems to almost totally ignore culture. For example in my game, I (russia) border with france.

France has about 14 cities mostly 1-2 population.. I on the other hand have about 8 citiies, most about 6 population, and due to my culture, we both control the same amount of land.

Maybe this is improved AI, but its just wierd seeing settlers go to every little crack on the map to make cities.....

[Peterk]

You'll probably see your culture play more and more of a role later in the game as those cities become cultural monsters. I think it takes a bit of time for the culture effects to become overwhelming. Patience, it looks like you're in a good situation.

Just a guess.

[Dknight]

The AI is waaaay better than in Civ II. The computer actually KNOW how to fight a war now instead of throwing everything at one city. In my game, I was smack in the center of the continent and I have access to the sea on both sides. North of me was the Indians whom I harass from time to time oh btw, I was playing as the Chinese. Anyways, bottom of me were the Egyptians and the Japanese. Well, the Japanese went into my territory and I told them to back off and they declared war on me. So I thought, blah, no big deal, I have my riders, they only have those stupid swordsman. Boy did I almost get my arse kicked! Well as you can see I have both iron and horses, but only 2 roads connecting to my biggest city Beijing. They ran passed my heavily defended city of Memphis on the border (hehe gotta love big culture) and ran straight for my one unit defended Shanghai. So I had to move all my units and try to intercept. And then guess what? The two roads connecting to Beijing? They pillaged them, stopping rider production in Beijing. And then they fortified themselves on the mountain next to Shanghai and started to bombard me with like and endless supply of swordsman. Wasn't doing too well, so made a deal with the Egyptians to help me fight them off. And right after that happened, instead of throwing their guys at my now more fortified city, they actually retreated and intercepted the Egyptians (they were their neighbours). After fighting them off, I had to make peace to regroup, leaving the Egyptians to themselves. And the Egyptians went from polite to annoyed right away. Whoops! So great stuff!

[Marquis de Sodaq]

Woo Hoo! The AI knows to attack your supply roads, to take your resources, and attacks with numbers (if not actual strategy)! I can't wait - oddly, I look forward to an AI that can squash me like a bug - surely a sign of a game that will take time to master...