Runaway AI

[TheArchduke]

Well that is new. I had a semi-decent game as Indonesia. Not enough strategic ressources so I had to push against an India which forward settled me north of Agra (also Indian) with archers and chariots only against Varus. Which was nasty to say the least. In a bid to catch up with the runaway AI which turned out to be Shaka of all things I dowed Ghandi with my knight/xbow army and Harald with my new Jongs to get enough land to compete. But holeymoley. 238 science.

My cities are underdeveloped compared to be starts I had, and it is only immortal. Be warned smoother difficulty is also in effect (which means less settlers but more boni on everything which results in a smoother start but tougher endgame.)

Needless to say I am having a blast.

   

Unfortunately I did not do a turn 1 save.

I do however have a turn 83 save before I started on a mass build of an army to engage India for much needed land (end of session 1)

All in all, if you get lucky the AI might actually pose a challenge.

[Japper007]

With Jongs it should be easy to cripple Shaka right? Just burn down everything coastal and then outbuild him.

AI seems to do better under R&F in general to me, it must be all the Golden Ages it can generate by accidentally hitting "Historical Events" with it's various scatterbrained builds and massive production bonus. On the other hand as a player I fall short for even normal ages a lot of the time with how fast the ages flip by with the AI tech bonuses, I usually plunge into a Dark Age right when I'm entangled in a nasty Ancient Era war. In general it also does really well when left alone to eat a few CS and for once it doesn't turn a war against a neighbour into a thousand year WW1 situation...

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Shaka makes sense since he's got a good snowball with his army creation. If the robot takes a city-state or two, then he can probably steamroll his neighbors - he's not in that minimap above, so it's possible he has most of the other continent.

The AI also notably improved once that bug that made them build nothing but Holy Sites was tracked down. Robot Roberts I notice usually keep pace with me in science for a couple of eras.