AI commits suicide!

[Captain]

I can think of no other way to put it. The Greeks have blinked out of existence. They pack up their cities, move out their troops, and vanish into thin air. It's quite eerie...

I know people have talked about the AI imploding with communism. I tell you now, in my latest game, we didn't even get to monarchy! it's 50 AD, regent, continents, normal, AI is developing terrain nicely, irrigating and picking pretty decent city sites. plenty of food available, they're just not eating it! this is beyond implosion, it's evaporation!

I was playing builder with a few cities in the south, Greeks to northeast have maybe 6 or 7. then they start disappearing. i follow. then they have but 2 cities. then, poof! the Greeks are no more. AFAIK no one was at war with them, no barbarians or anything... they just starved themselves out of existence... why???????? there's only improved tiles left...

note: I did mod the game. citizens eat three but i also bumped up grassland, plains, and flood plains to provide more food. (check my cities to see the growth potential)

I'll post the save games below.

[Captain]

this is the game two turns later... no greeks!
or you could just play out the previous and see for yourself.

[Captain]

oh, i think the egyptian ai is going to bite it soon too...

can anyone explain this ai? how do i prevent it (and keep my modded terrain?)

[notyoueither]

That's funny. You've created an arena. The Egyptians killed the Greeks, but were very nearly done in themselves.

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by Captain
oh, i think the egyptian ai is going to bite it soon too...

I declared war on the Egyptians. Took one city that was auto-razed and one evaporated. The AI may be having a hard time with the plains cities.

can anyone explain this ai? how do i prevent it (and keep my modded terrain?) [/QUOTE]

I think it was mostly the war. The Egyptians just took two one pop cities at once thats all. The Zulus have aroung ten cities. I didn't count but it was significantly more than your civ.

[Flanker]

Maybe the AI doesn´t know where to place its cities to compensate for the extra food the citizens eat. Place it on plains where it looks like its a lot of food, but then suddenly the people starts eating like horses, and the granary is all but sudden empty...

[Captain]

ok, i continued my game. i kep the peace and the egyptians survived. it's now 590 AD. they had just 2 cities for a long time, but then just replanted one. don't know why it took them so long to do so.

perhaps i was mistaken, the rest of the ais aren't having trouble feeding themselves. it look like the greeks were just disappearing without cause (especially since I couldn't see any "conquerors" nearby). maybe they did get killed instead of suicide. but without multi.sav I won't know.

other thing is notice are that they are irrigating more and staying out of the deserts. otherwise i can't explain why i am the only one to have settled the former greek/egyptian lands. the zulus had troops (but no settlers) running all over the place (i think to hunt barbs), they only planted one city near my borders. i think this has really changed the expansion rate.


my big problem now is massive corruption on the northern half of empire!!! can't build anything there. and core cities are still tiny because i used them to build settlers for the xpansion.

use of the shrines and city placement planning has kept pockets of empty terrain minimal and the ai is outside my territory. i discovered one other bonus for srhines, since they're only 10 shields, they never take more than 10 turns to build. so by 15 turns max i've got a border expansion. all for the low price of 10 shields and 15 gold. (the 2nd border expansion would cost 150 gold if i kept the shrines). ai is good at using them too, most of their cities are culturally linked now.