Brain Dead AI Nations

[iceboy]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

Actually the Arcos AI works great. Finally after much tweaking most of the nations work well. They play with their strengths. Pangaea uses stealth, Marignon uses dominion strength, Ctis uses poison, and Mictlan finally manages to keep up some dominion and not starve itself early in the game.

Arcos as a nation is geared around magic. Its a strong researcher.

In test games I have often found some nations to be strong early expanders, then others are strong mid-game, and yet others are a late game powerhouse. So whether or not an AI is "broken" often has more to do with the way the games are played. On smaller maps with many opponents certain nations will always seem to be powerful. But on larger maps with more wilderness they will do terrible. Those larger maps (larger than the game creates, such as 1000-1500 provinces) which go into late-game and powerful spells is where Arcos does very well. Also setting the independents really strong tend to play into Arcos favor.

However, if you wish to "fix" the AIs for the types of games you are playing then look at the SemiRand program. With it you can have the AIs setup from pre-done files. A player-created better choice of god and scales can insure a better game.

Gandalf Parker

Thanks for the info. I am only referring to EA Arcos as the other Arcos ages seem to work fine. Every game that I play EA Arcos looks like this: EA Arcos is always dead last in expansion. This is always on a large map with plenty of room and time for expansion and has nothing to do with early or late in the game. They never get to late game because they never expanded at all... Independents are always set to 9.

[iceboy]

Here is the map I always play on: I set all the starting provinces very evenly and even when I move EA Arcos around they still are dead last in expansion...

[lch]

Originally Posted by iceboy

Independents are always set to 9.

And that's the reason for the AI faring badly. I intended to ask about this, now you pointed it out yourself. Read up on other threads how to improve the situation for enemy AIs. Play at normal or lower indie settings.