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No, really. You made me curious. I keep reading about how the AI kicks ass, and I have to wonder if there's a different version of Civ 3 that those people are playing. Or whether it's just that "the AI is smart" sounds better than "I totally suck at the game, and got my rear handed to me even by the dumbest computer player in history."
Lemme see:
1) The AI will cheerfully build and send forward the most obsolete units it can possibly build. (Just look at how YOUR governors always want to build longbowmen and galleons, even in the 20'th century. The AI does just that.)
2) It also doesn't seem to apply _any_ combined arms strategy. Just sends everything that-a-way, and let the devil sort them. Each war I've had consisted just of a huge stream of individual units. (And obsolete ones at that.)
3) The only saving grace it has is that the whole game rewards mediocrity and mindless clicking, so even a dumb AI has a chance. Swordsmen and archers can defeat tanks anyway, so the AI can just cheerfully send an endless stream of swordsmen and archers at you. No matter how obsolete they are, the f***ed up combat system means they still can win.
4) Ditto for the science stuff. The whole system, complete with the max and min turn caps, means that no matter what, you can't fall behind too much technologically. Which is exactly what happens to the AI. Most of the time any AI opponent doesn't even build universities and research labs, it has a couple of libraries in the whole empire, is still a despotism (i.e., max 50% research), and has half the cities that I have. Yet it's only 2-3 tech levels behind me, whereas in Civ 2 it would still be researching iron working. (Not that it even matters, since it will send obsolete units anyway.) Again, it's not really been playing any better, it's just that the game system didn't let it fall too much behind.
5) It will mindlessly lose those hordes of obsolete units in wars all the way across the world. There'll always be a steady stream of units through my lands, because the Germans want to fight the Egyptians who are that-a-way, and the French want to fight the Russians, which are all the way over there.
6) Which brings us to another point, which is that the AI doesn't seem to even be aware of borders at all. Neither his, nor mine. It will cheerfully cross through my lands all the time, AND it will only object to my troops if they end up exactly adjacent to its cities. As long as I stay one square or two away from its cities, all's well. Briefly, the AI still thinks he's playing Civ 2 without borders. It's as if whoever coded the AI and whoever coded borders never even spoke to each other, much less try to coordinate their parts.
7) And to another point: that the AI never seems to have trouble holding on to a city all the way across the map. (Whereas for me corruption would mean I lose money just for having that city in my empire.)
8) It never seems to build too many improvements to its cities, presumably on account that it's always busy building obsolete troops instead. Most of the time I can see AI cities that are 100 turns old, but still have no cultural radius of their own. You'd think it could manage such concepts as "let's build a mighty economy to support our war machine and THEN conquer those pesky Babylonians, that aren't even my neighbours." Nope, it just stays stuck in an endless cycle of "must build more offensive units" and "got offensive units, must attack someone. Anyone."
9) It doesn't seem to fully master the concept of aliances, either. Situations where someone fights their allies' allies are more of a rule, than an exception.
And so on, and so forth.
Lemme see:
1) The AI will cheerfully build and send forward the most obsolete units it can possibly build. (Just look at how YOUR governors always want to build longbowmen and galleons, even in the 20'th century. The AI does just that.)
2) It also doesn't seem to apply _any_ combined arms strategy. Just sends everything that-a-way, and let the devil sort them. Each war I've had consisted just of a huge stream of individual units. (And obsolete ones at that.)
3) The only saving grace it has is that the whole game rewards mediocrity and mindless clicking, so even a dumb AI has a chance. Swordsmen and archers can defeat tanks anyway, so the AI can just cheerfully send an endless stream of swordsmen and archers at you. No matter how obsolete they are, the f***ed up combat system means they still can win.
4) Ditto for the science stuff. The whole system, complete with the max and min turn caps, means that no matter what, you can't fall behind too much technologically. Which is exactly what happens to the AI. Most of the time any AI opponent doesn't even build universities and research labs, it has a couple of libraries in the whole empire, is still a despotism (i.e., max 50% research), and has half the cities that I have. Yet it's only 2-3 tech levels behind me, whereas in Civ 2 it would still be researching iron working. (Not that it even matters, since it will send obsolete units anyway.) Again, it's not really been playing any better, it's just that the game system didn't let it fall too much behind.
5) It will mindlessly lose those hordes of obsolete units in wars all the way across the world. There'll always be a steady stream of units through my lands, because the Germans want to fight the Egyptians who are that-a-way, and the French want to fight the Russians, which are all the way over there.
6) Which brings us to another point, which is that the AI doesn't seem to even be aware of borders at all. Neither his, nor mine. It will cheerfully cross through my lands all the time, AND it will only object to my troops if they end up exactly adjacent to its cities. As long as I stay one square or two away from its cities, all's well. Briefly, the AI still thinks he's playing Civ 2 without borders. It's as if whoever coded the AI and whoever coded borders never even spoke to each other, much less try to coordinate their parts.
7) And to another point: that the AI never seems to have trouble holding on to a city all the way across the map. (Whereas for me corruption would mean I lose money just for having that city in my empire.)
8) It never seems to build too many improvements to its cities, presumably on account that it's always busy building obsolete troops instead. Most of the time I can see AI cities that are 100 turns old, but still have no cultural radius of their own. You'd think it could manage such concepts as "let's build a mighty economy to support our war machine and THEN conquer those pesky Babylonians, that aren't even my neighbours." Nope, it just stays stuck in an endless cycle of "must build more offensive units" and "got offensive units, must attack someone. Anyone."
9) It doesn't seem to fully master the concept of aliances, either. Situations where someone fights their allies' allies are more of a rule, than an exception.
And so on, and so forth.
. The AI is a much more able foe.
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