How good is the AI?

[campmajor!]

My first impressions of civ3 is that it has turned into a game of "Grab that land before someone else does!".

My first game I lost badly, beacuse I had too few cities. And I consider myself as an expander! When I look back at that game I now know that if I had done things differently the outcome would have been different. Because I have noticed that the AI really expands like hell and builds lots of soldiers, but ignores culture somewhat. So if you try to keep up a bit and build temples etc. then you capture their cities without even a war!

War is something you should not start, unless your military is really good. In my second game, which I am still playing, I'm doing a lot better!

My culture is good, my tech is reasonable but by trade I can keep up. My military is outnumbered but the Germans are separated by sea so it's difficult for them to send troops. With all other opponents I try to stay at peace. I will use my culture to absorb them. They are still building cities, allthough they are in complete jungle....

Maybe it is still too soon to judge the AI, but I will give my opinion at this point anyway:

1. They expand very fast, which is good for them, but difficult for others. (+)
2. They build a lot of military units which makes waging war dangerous. (+)
3. They seem to forget to build culture a bit, so they run the risk of getting absorbed. (-)
4. All AI civs seem to act the same, allthough the characteristics of their civ are different (that is Expansionist/Religious/etc.).

I will come back on this later. Now I will play some more!
By the way I really like how civ3 has become! So Yin:

[Deathray]

I find that the AI tends to expand quickly first, and will only do culture once it has filled in all of the gaps. Some civilizations will just churn out military units and go on the offensive at this point though.

[Warhammer]

The AI civs actually have different personalities dependant upon their traits. For example, in my games the Egyptians tend to respect my national borders whereas the Russians routinely violate them. Also, Russia and Germany routinely make demands, whereas the other civs tend not to... Also, the biggest warmonger AI civ is the Greeks.

This is just what I have found in my games, yours may be different, but they definitely have different personalities...

[campmajor!]

Hmm, maybe you're right, but in my games all AI civs cross my borders and apologise about it, but keep on doing it! Especially at sea! But the civs you mentioned (Greeks/Egyptians) I have not played against yet, so you could be right.

[campmajor!]

Originally posted by Deathray
I find that the AI tends to expand quickly first, and will only do culture once it has filled in all of the gaps. Some civilizations will just churn out military units and go on the offensive at this point though.

Yes, that is what I have noticed too. I play on a huge map, so it takes some time before they are through expanding....

[Adagio]

I have also noticed that Indians prefer to have peace, I don't know if I have ever seen them in a war yet, I haven't noticed yet, but ofcause I have only played one game against them yet

[sianews]

Damn Indians were in a war against me after signing a treaty with Japan to take me out .

[DarkHawke]

Indians pulled a sneak attack on me two days ago - had 3 swordsmen in my territory even though I'm on another continent. They found a city in the middle of my empire only guarded by a pikeman - I was in the process of building a musketeer (damn not being able to upgrade my pikemen!), so they declared war and attacked the city. The pikeman ate 2 of the swordsman before dying to the third, but I lost the city.

Ghandi isn't always a pacifist....

And for those that care, they held the city for exactly one turn. As they didn't raze it, I marched a knight over and took it back. Then I bribed every other country in the game to declare war with the Indians, so after that they were too busy fighting off the rest of the world to bother with invading me again.

The funny part was that when they started making peace with people (they actually WON that war!), I created a world-wide trade embargo against them. About 500 years later, I finally relented and let it down, and they spent the rest of the game as one of my closest allies.

Kinda like the real world: don't mess with the guy who controls the world economy - in my case, France (moi) controlled 5 horses, 5 iron, and when the time came, 4 oil.

[Raleigh]

So far I find the AI to be a very aggressive expander and then I agree with everyone else, it depends on the nation. Some AIs kill me with culture no matter what I do and others build tons of military units.

Compared to Civ2, I have never faced such capable militaries (Of course, it depends on who you are fighting). I am impressed with the culture expansion of other AIs.