Why does the AI pick Order so much?

[GBPirate]

The last few games I've played of Civ (Huge map, continents, all victories enabled, don't spend culture on social policies right away, all random civs) there's been a huge bloc of Order civs. Last game it was the worst. I (Greece) and Boudica were Freedom, Ottoman Empire was Autocracy, other 8 civs were Order (two had been eliminated out of 12). This current game, it looks to be the same.

Is order the best for the AI? Is the AI balanced less toward diplomatic victories and more towards military/culture/science victories?

[Millstone85]

It would also seem that the "Tear Down this Wall!" achievement is ridiculously difficult to obtain. Once the AI adopts Order, it keeps it!

[Rivaire]

Order provides wide empires the most amount of benefits overall. All three ideologies are great for tall or wide empires, you won't ever be screwed if you went Autocracy or Freedom.

I think what you need to realize is that the A.I does not share the same penalties as a human player. Their maintenance, happiness issues, and whatnot are at 80% only compared to human player. Essentially, they can already build more cities than you if both you have the same amount of luxuries and resources, or have their cities grow taller before facing the penalties you started facing long ago.

This is also why the AI always builds as wide as possible without hindrance regardless of their unique bonuses.

If this is not the case, they are picking Order because whoever picked Order first in your game was also the most influential civ. To prevent ideology pressure, they went with the flow.

[Moonjunk]

Originally posted by Millstone85:

It would also seem that the "Tear Down this Wall!" achievement is ridiculously difficult to obtain. Once the AI adopts Order, it keeps it!

I got it my second game of civ ever?

[Millstone85]

Originally posted by Lord Vlad:

I got it my second game of civ ever?

Lucky you.

[Bruno]

Originally posted by Lord Vlad:

Originally posted by Millstone85:

It would also seem that the "Tear Down this Wall!" achievement is ridiculously difficult to obtain. Once the AI adopts Order, it keeps it!

I got it my second game of civ ever?

I got in my First

[GBPirate]

Originally posted by Rivaire:

Order provides wide empires the most amount of benefits overall. All three ideologies are great for tall or wide empires, you won't ever be screwed if you went Autocracy or Freedom.

I think what you need to realize is that the A.I does not share the same penalties as a human player. Their maintenance, happiness issues, and whatnot are at 80% only compared to human player. Essentially, they can already build more cities than you if both you have the same amount of luxuries and resources, or have their cities grow taller before facing the penalties you started facing long ago.

This is also why the AI always builds as wide as possible without hindrance regardless of their unique bonuses.

If this is not the case, they are picking Order because whoever picked Order first in your game was also the most influential civ. To prevent ideology pressure, they went with the flow.

Thanks for the post, man. I guess that's more apparent at the higher levels of difficulty. I think Freedom is the best in terms of growing large cities, so it's better for tradition, but it's great to combine w/ Patronage and Treaty Organization and trade with city states. That allows you to actually have many cities that are also huge, like 25+ pop.
Just my 2cents.

[gimmethegepgun]

The AI picks Order more than the other 2 because more civs are set to prefer Order than the other 2.

[Rivaire]

Originally posted by ~TAB~ GBPirate:

Originally posted by Rivaire:

Order provides wide empires the most amount of benefits overall. All three ideologies are great for tall or wide empires, you won't ever be screwed if you went Autocracy or Freedom.

I think what you need to realize is that the A.I does not share the same penalties as a human player. Their maintenance, happiness issues, and whatnot are at 80% only compared to human player. Essentially, they can already build more cities than you if both you have the same amount of luxuries and resources, or have their cities grow taller before facing the penalties you started facing long ago.

This is also why the AI always builds as wide as possible without hindrance regardless of their unique bonuses.

If this is not the case, they are picking Order because whoever picked Order first in your game was also the most influential civ. To prevent ideology pressure, they went with the flow.

Thanks for the post, man. I guess that's more apparent at the higher levels of difficulty. I think Freedom is the best in terms of growing large cities, so it's better for tradition, but it's great to combine w/ Patronage and Treaty Organization and trade with city states. That allows you to actually have many cities that are also huge, like 25+ pop.
Just my 2cents.

I'm a Liberty player, because every civ by default plays Tradition. You gotta play a lot smarter when you play Liberty, and it's really satisfying when you overcome the issues of playing wide by making good, accurate and superior choices. Half of the success of your empire is the terrain given to you, the other half is what you could make out of it.

My very best Liberty game, as Byzantium, had 30+ population in my first 6 cities, 40 in my coastal capital. 20+ for the rest of them on average. I had about 30ish cities, the whole continent nearly painted in my colours. But that takes a really perfect game, the land needs to be rich with rivers, rough terrain and resources, it takes a lot of calculated decisions to know what are priorities and what to discard.

80% of the time when I go wide I go Order, primarily for Worker's Faculties, since my empire is covering so much land that coal shouldn't be a problem, and my science will spike drastically once I deploy factories. I said 'shouldn't', but I have been coal screwed before despite my huge stretch of territory. It gets really irritating when you are also aluminum deprived.

As for the whole difficulty thing I mentioned, the AI already benefits with a lesser penalty on Prince. Anything lower than Prince you will have less penalties, but you would develop some really terrible habits that don't help you become better at the game.

[SamBC]

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

The AI picks Order more than the other 2 because more civs are set to prefer Order than the other 2.

No civ has any preset as to which ideology they prefer.

I believe the AI actually tries to assess which ideology would be most beneficial for them at the time, based on the potential tenets and the diplomatic/public opinion ramifications.

[Millstone85]

Originally posted by SamBC:

No civ has any preset as to which ideology they prefer.

I believe the AI actually tries to assess which ideology would be most beneficial for them at the time, based on the potential tenets and the diplomatic/public opinion ramifications.

I am only good enough for the Emperor difficulty, but I would have to agree with the AI there. Order feels like the most comfortable ideology in the majority of games.

[Nekoborg]

In the start up menue there is a resource option where the rate can be adjusted. I have noticed when maps are generated with very low resource rate nations often become very agressive and often go autocracy. This tendancy is intensified when overcrowding too many AI nations on a tiny map. It is fun when they barly have enough space for 2 or 3 towns and there is very few resources.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by SamBC:

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

The AI picks Order more than the other 2 because more civs are set to prefer Order than the other 2.

No civ has any preset as to which ideology they prefer.

Wiki says otherwise. Though it certainly has a tendency to not know what it's talking about.

[Matthew]

I believe if no other Ideology is yet taken, they are programmed to take the leftovers. I suppose in order to force the tension of getting 3 different Ideologies in the game ASAP. So if you are first to pick and always pick freedom or autocracy, that is one reason you will see order picked a lot.

I do not know for sure whether pick preference is tied to the specific Civ, but there must be something in the background dictating it, because there are trends. Maybe it is just tied to victory path, so if Civ is going for domination win, it is more likely to pick up auto or order. Since some Civs tend to favor victories or others, this could be what is making it seem like Ideology preference is tied to Civ.

[SamBC]

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

Originally posted by SamBC:

No civ has any preset as to which ideology they prefer.

Wiki says otherwise. Though it certainly has a tendency to not know what it's talking about.

Tell you what, find me where in the XML it has a preferred ideology (like it does for religion), and I'll admit I was wrong

There are tendencies, but they are indirect; the flavours cause AIs to play differently, and those different playstyles make it more likely they'll find a certain ideology preferable. They are relatively vague tendencies, though.