AI tactics explained.... kinda

So in reality there's probably hundreds of these things out there. I've only got 2k hours in this game and that's nothing compared to others. Hell I haven't even beaten the game on Deity yet, although not for a lack of trying.

All that to say, a lot of this is probably common, recycled knowledge. Just with my own personal perspective and flair added to it. I'll give a bit of a breakdown on each civ's strengths, weaknesses, likes, dislikes and probability of actually being a contender for victory in a single player game. I'm also going to assume you're playing on at least Emperor difficulty because anything below that and the AI is simply incapable of winning. I'm also assuming you're playing with all victory types on.

Would appreciate a like if you find this amusing, interesting or maybe if you've never picked up a guide or played the game before actually useful to read.

Also, I am releasing this guide partially complete. I do intend to cover every civ. But the amount of writing required to do so is more than I can do in one sitting. So check back in for updates.

The USA falls under the expansionist category. And with a Civ ability called Manifest Destiny, any kid who took US history growing up understands this. The US won't typically send out settlers across the map, but rather will rapidly spread out in their immediate area.

I havent experienced them being too terribly aggressive militarily in the early stages of the game, but if you're nearby the chance of getting forward settled is a very real possibility. If given the opportunity they will plop a city 4 tiles away from your capital and expect you to be cool with it.

They're not the biggest fans of you getting too close to them, although no civ ever is. But outside of the early game rush to get your cities out, they're pretty good neighbors to have and are generally pretty peaceful.

Overall expect the USA to be a middle of the pack player in most single player games. They're not aggressive enough to ever really be a threat militarily. They don't have the civ bonuses to win through culture or diplomacy. So that leaves time and... Science. But typically there's at least one of the science focused civs in your game that the US won't be able to win.

Early in the game, Arabia is pretty weak. The desert is just not a fun place to spawn in the beginning of the game due to it's typical lack of food and early resources. But if you can survive the early stages and not be too far behind because maybe you spawned with Diamonds or Salt as your luxury Arabia can turn into a late game monster.

Ignore their unique unit because it's not worth mentioning, neither is most of their civ ability with a slight exception of the end. Oil resources are doubled. Any player using this knows it means double the amount of bombers that can be used to pound your enemies into submission. But fortunately for us, the AI doesn't understand that.

Instead the AI Arabia will in my experience be more focused on winning a science victory. Arabia as a whole might become a little aggressive towards the end of the game, but unless they're an immediate neighbor they're a non factor in every game. They don't expand enough early typically to get ahead of the pack and they dont work well enough with their abilities to be effective.

Completely different story if they're being controlled by a real person, they suddenly become very strong very fast. If you're playing multiplayer you're doing yourself a favor by targeting them early before they get to Oil and Bombers.

Oh sweet beautiful Ashburnipal, there's absolutely nothing more terrifying than suddenly seeing 10 siege towers pop up on your borders. If you're not prepared it's pretty much guaranteed that your game is over and you might as well restart. Thankfully their power spike is pretty early in the game so if you can get past Construction... really high bar I know... then you should be ok.

If you see that Assyria is in your immediate vicinity it would behoove you to build up a solid front line. I'd highly recommend spears up front with bows in the back. It should buy you the time you need to kill those siege towers.

Assyria is ultra aggressive early on towards their immediate neighbors. If you're far away enough they usually wont bother you too much. Or if they do they won't be too much of a threat. Early conquest is the name of their game and if they do it right then they can become a formidable force in the late game where I'd argue their focus shifts away from conquest.

Later in the game they switch to more of a science focus, they won't be much of a player in the culture game but if they're able to get a small boost by capturing cities early they can make a science victory push late. They're worth monitoring throughout the game because of this

Now lets say you're playing Assyria, which honestly isn't a terrible pick with their unique early game libraries that have writing slots to help boost early game culture and the aforementioned Siege Towers of death. Your goal is simple, bum rush construction in the tech tree. Pick your weakest neighbor and bully them. While siege towers aren't too terribly weak for an early game unit, you'll want to escort them with spears to the victims cities. Your biggest enemy is range because you have none. But spears against any early game ranged unit is a mismatch in your favor and lets be real, the AI doesn't have the greatest sense of preservation of their ranged units, often sending them up on the front lines even on the highest difficulties.

Waste of space on the map... sorry did I say that out loud? Personally the way the AI plays, it's one of the most counter productive civ's in the game after Venice. Austria has a strong unique military unit... but it's a cavalry unit that gets phased out quickly and isn't actually useful for conquest. Then they have a unique building with the Coffee House... but it's just a production booster which is nice, but doesn't push the envelope to any particular victory type.

Then there's their civ ability which allows them to purchase City States that they're allied with.... for a Civ that's supposed to be focusing on winning a diplomatic victory, buying out the city states that give you the diplomats to actually win is just dumb. And you'll see it happen in live time.

Austria is typically a pretty mellow civ that won't mess with you so long as you don't mess with them. Even after ideology they don't typically become aggressive to the point of war. They might denounce you but that's a pretty negligible consequence.

Austria will prioritize making allies with City States and then buying them out making a Diplomatic Victory all but impossible. Very middle tier civ with no distinguishable traits to set them apart from the pack. Almost never a threat to victory in higher difficulties.

Despite being one of the strongest Civs to play as, without a player to guide them to work with their abilities they simply tend to fall flat. The AI for this Civ just doesn't quite mesh well with their super early game focus. Their Unique unit is a warrior and isn't worth the breath to go over. Their civ ability gives culture for killing other units, which encourages war and indeed gives Montezuma an aggressive early game personality. But they're not aggressive enough to ever really push the envelope.

From what I've seen they're an opportunistic type where they'll only go after the weakest of the weak and only if they're nearby. But if there's no easy targets they just sit pat and collect a smidge of culture whenever they can find barbs to kill.

Despite all this though, what really makes them strong is their Floating Gardens. The extra food bonuses create rapid growth in their cities and helps them be relevant the entire game. On top of that, the jungle start they have works really well for the mid to late game science. Making them a high candidate for a Science Victory in every game.

A few sidenotes though that is true of all the AI civs that actively undermines the Aztecs here though. The AI will always chop Banana tiles to make a plantation which only gives 1 or 2 extra food but loses the jungle tile which will give you 2 science. The AI also has a tendency to chop most of the jungle down. While some of it is necessary to ensure that the cities have production to function, they chop down so much of it that they lose the massive science boost that comes with the University in jungle.

Overall they could be a lot stronger if a few small things were tweaked and the AI put trading posts in the jungle instead of chopping it all down.

Babylon is a very very defensive civ. Typically on a handful of cities 4 maybe 5. But their science output is through the roof, once they get to writing they receive a free great scientist, which is huge early. It essentially allows them to speed run through the ancient era. Plus the massive boost to producing great scientists ensures that they'll be a Science Victory contender.

Their unique archer helps them with handling barbarians early and their unique walls make them tougher to kill off early. Civ's hell bent on early conquest will have a hard time getting through to Babylon which allows them to snowball into a late game menace.

Typically I've seen Babylon focus on the Freedom ideology and will always go for a science victory. Losing to them there is a real threat whenever you're playing against them. They also tend to get somewhat hostile as the game progresses. Not likely to go to war with you despite the hostility unless it's convenient for them or you really really piss them off.

Overall Babylon has isolationist tendencies and focuses on developing their science. If you don't give them a reason to mess with you the worst you'll get is a denouncement from them.

Pedro finally fulfilled his dreams of holding office because we all voted for him like Napoleon wanted us to. He's now led the Brazilians to become the biggest culture victory threat in the game. Their abilities are so focused on generating culture and tourism that their unique unit feels out of place.

Brazil will typically try to avoid conflict and instead overwhelm you with their culture. Golden Ages for them are more lethal than bombers and paratroopers in their case because of the massive tourism boost they get from it. Brazil will be the first ones to take advantage of Open Borders if you give it to them by sending in archaeologists to dig up your artifacts.

Cultural and Tourism wonders are the first things they'll target and their unique tile improvement which replaces the Lumber Mill only adds to their ability to produce culture. Brazil will be one of the most peaceful civs you meet in the game only going to war when it's convenient or necessary.

But if left alone, Brazil becomes an unstoppable cultural force with a strong Infantry unit to help defend their borders and make those "Oh sh1t, I'm about to lose" moments more concrete. Early conquest is the best way to go about beating Brazil and preventing them from snowballing to a culture victory.

Beware going against their Ideology. You'll end up very very unhappy if they've been allowed to grow.

The Byzantines are a coin flip. If they're being controlled by a human, they have a very strong early game conquest plan with Dromon's being some of the most broken things in the game. But the AI doesn't recognize this and Theodora isn't aggressive enough to go for an early conquest.

Instead she goes full force into religion which while definitely a strong element that helps win games, it wont ever outright win the game for you. Especially when you waste all your faith on missionaries and great prophets... like the Byzantines do.

Expect the Byzantines to go after every religious wonder in the game and spam Missionaries out like the Mormons. They're annoying but overall harmless and inconsequential to the outcome of the game.

If the Byzantines are in your game, don't worry too much. They're likely going to become fodder for a more aggressive Civ nearby to conquer or they'll just take up space and be your best friend for the entire game for no particular reason whatsoever.

See Byzantium... seriously. Early game boat conquest as an option that they dont use because they're not aggressive enough? Yup, useless unique mounted unit? Yup. Civ ability that's just simply mid at best? Yep. It's almost like they took Byzantium gave them the exact same set up and changed a few things about it.

Instead of at least getting a slightly better religion than everyone else which can be useful to a slim degree, you get.... a free harbor in coastal cities even though you're going to still have to build roads for your land units to move around faster... Like it's useful for your island cities, but that's about it.

Oh and units can cross Mountains but if they end on a mountain they take 50 damage or half their total HP.... this effectively kills their units before they can even make it over the mountain to begin with. So not worth using, you'll almost never see the AI use it either.

If you're playing on a map like Islands, Carthage becomes a lot stronger but overall they're not aggressive enough to push their seafaring nature into a real advantage for a Conquest Victory.

Another of the Gods and Kings expansion Civs that find themselves on the, "Never good enough" tier. The Celts are good at one thing and one thing only. Getting the first pantheon.... not even the first religion because that goes to either the Desert Folklore guy or whoever built Stonehenge usually. Their ability is often wasted by the AI due to spending their inherent ability to produce faith on missionaries and prophets. When in reality the real strength of these civs is being able to save their faith to buy great engineers and scientists later in the game.

Unfortunately, their ability to generate faith from forest tiles only works so long as the forest tile isn't being improved... so the moment you put a Logging Camp on it... your ability is useless. Their unique unit is .... bad... and their unique building? Actually pretty solid but does nothing to help them win in any way. +3 happiness is great.... but overall it's not going to really help you win.

And thus the Celts are essentially just another basic civ with no real meaningful traits or bonuses that sit in the loop of never good enough to win as an AI controlled civ. At least they're somewhat aggressive so they'll try to fight some wars here and there to conquer land... they're just not optimized for it.

Expect another annoying religious civ that has a bit more of a military to back it up, but that military is just your standard run of the mill stuff with nothing special or strong about it.

After a handful of pretty weak, sad, space fillers we get to China. And they are anything but weak. While typically not overly aggressive they will go out to fight their neighbors if it's beneficial for them or you've been pushing the boundaries a bit too much. Namely building too many cities too close to them.

Depending on the era of the war, this could go fairly poor for you. China doesn't have a weak early game economy like most civs do. Their unique Library makes sure that they have the money to field a decent sized army early. Pair that with the unique and overpowered crossbow and you'll be sorry you ever thought you could fight them in the early stages of the game.

China tends to be a science based civ that has a large enough army to conquer whoever is foolish enough to get in their way. Their AI personality tends to reflect that making them one of the more formidable opponents in the game.

They absolutely can beat you in the science race due to their early advantage in their economy. There's not really a good opportunity to fight them until late game if you're built for it. Otherwise it's just a slug fest.

Are they going to win? No probably not, but then again most Conquest based civs dont win as the AI because that requires you the player to lose. But even still, Denmark is probably the "Friendliest" of the conquest minded civs. They at the very least don't hate your guts for existing, but if you're nearby expect to see that "They covet lands that we own" statement on the diplomacy screen.

Denmark excels at overseas conquest which realistically isn't the greatest, but I suppose can be nice in a very niche way. Can move a little faster, and can pillage everything along the way. Unfortunately... their unique units are... a Rifleman which is ok and a longswordsman.... yuck. I think the only time I've ever built longswordsmen in the game is when I managed to retain my starting warrior and I was upgrading him to a rifleman. Longswordsmen become Musketmen so quick that it's just not worth building them ever.

The ski infantry is also.... bleh. Like at least Riflemen are more useable but what makes them unique is that they move faster in the snow and tundra.... they get a bit of a combat bonus in certain tiles as well but overall it's a fairly weak ability for a unique unit and doesn't feel all that strong in the game.

So that leaves Denmark with arguably the worst set up for a conquest minded Civ and it's no wonder that I'm always seeing them get stomped on whenever they're in the game. They're aggressive but have nothing really to back it up with and end up getting taken out by civs that are more powerful.

If they're nearby expect to fight at somepoint but it shouldn't be too hard.

Gods and Kings really didnt give us too much to be interested in if we're being honest. The expansion was more about the new gameplay features rather than the slew of mediocre at best civs. The Netherlands don't raise the bar. Their unique civ ability will never be something the AI will actually take advantage of because they never trade their last copy of anything.

Their unique tile improvement is extremely strong, buuuuut you don't really get to use it much. As far as their tactics go they traditionally been a civ that focuses on their culture, often being one of the top players in that regard, they can get really annoying to deal with once everyone starts picking their ideology and in the world congress.

They're not much of an expansionist, nor are they really aggressive at any point that I've noticed. They prefer to do their damage by controlling culture and world congress. They're also a civ that I'd say has a slight religion focus, although I don't typically see them spreading their religion with a heavy hand.

Overall, annoying to deal with towards the end. But ultimately not the biggest threat in most games

Culture ♥♥♥♥ extraordinaire. Egypt's set up in such a way that they start to snowball early and fast. While they AI will almost never set it up to be 100% optimized, there's still a solid chance that they take the Tradition tree and have a +35% bonus to wonder building. Plus if they're lucky and get Marble it just becomes ridiculous how fast they can build wonders.

They will typically only build a handful of spread out cities and all of them will become 30+ pop cities that pump out wonders faster than rabbits can reproduce. This leads them to be one of the strongest civs for any victory type in the game, although the AI will typically focus on a culture victory for them.

War for them isn't very useful so the typically don't go to war unless they know they can win. They are quite aggressive though in their demands. They'll usually denounce you once you start to diverge from being their underling lap dog and become any type of contender. Especially if you're building wonders, they really don't like that.

The more time Egypt has to get established the harder it becomes to beat them with the only real option being war. They don't have any real bonuses to war but they probably dipped into Honor to build the Statue of Zeus. Standard siege tactics should be able to topple Egypt, just be prepared for the massive hit to your happiness when you conquer one of their cities.

Haven't had a game with England in a long long while so take this with a grain of salt. Might update it later when I get them in a game again.

From what I remember England likes to expand, but not necessarily on their main continent. They're one of those civs that likes to have cities across the world for no particular reason that I've been able to discern other than it fits their theme of world colonization.

They never really seem to be prevalent on the world stage outside of their absolute gigachad navy that will dominate everything in sight until submarines become a thing. I almost wish that they used their unique crossbow more often, the longbow. But then I remember how it's basically a medieval era artillery unit and that they're a nightmare to deal with and am glad that the AI doesn't abuse it more.

If the AI knew how to push their advantage with those longbows they'd be able to run rampant through at least one civ before they go out of date. Just hope that it isn't you who gets targeted. Regrettably like most civs on this list, they don't have the personality to go alongside their unique advantage of having a 13 strength artillery unit in the medieval era. For context your standard artillery unit is 21 strength and the Trebuchet which only has a range of 2 in the same era is a 12 strength. Oh and the Cannons which are also a 2 range have a strength of 14 soooooooo... Longbow's are OP.

Now that we've established that the AI doesn't know how to properly use their advantage though, don't be too afraid of England unless you end up on this relatively even tempered civilizations bad side and they decide to kill you during the medieval era.

A religious civ that will almost always make it to the end of the game and turn into the biggest douchebag in the game. Their abilities give them a combat bonus in war when they have less cities than their attackers, which considering I usually only see them make 3 or 4 cities at most.... is most of the time. And it's not some small bonus either, it's a fat 20% bonus to everything that damages units, including but limited to, Melee, ranged and city attacks.

Now I did mention that they were a religious civ, and this is largely due to the fact that their monument gives +2 faith. You can expect them to always be one of those civs that has the potential to spam out missionaries to plague your beautiful new religion with heresy. Or as they would call it... "enlightenment".

While they are too small to ever really do much culture wise, their guaranteed presence in the majority of late games will make them a science contender. Maybe not a strong one, but nevertheless they do sometimes get lucky and pull out a surprise rocket ship from their dirt huts.

I mean hey... Elon Musk did it

Overall they're friendly enough so long as you aren't making a habit of erasing your neighbors from the planet and you pick the same ideology as them. (It's typically Freedom)

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

inhale

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Ok now that I'm done raging from being forward settled by their 3 settlers that spawned from the void, quitting the game, restarting only to find them as my neighbor again.....

If France is your neighbor understand that it will not take long for them to start putting down cities in every nook and cranny they can fit one in. Forget about building the Temple of Artemis, you need a settler. No that worker can wait until you have the gold to buy it... you need to build a settler.

If you see land that you'd eventually like to settle, you need to settle it fast. There is no waiting a little bit for your happiness to go back up with France. Because before you know it they've sent a settler there and have 3 more on the way. Often when I'm conquering the many cities of France later in the game, I stumble across their small army of unused settlers... Hey look... free workers.

Now because you've gone ahead and staked out your territory before France could get their land grabbing hands on it... expect them to try and instead take it by force. Typically at a time that you're not quite expecting it, and would much rather be building Universities and Workshops in all of your cities.

The entire goal of France by the end of the game is to be a culture threat and with their bonuses to theming (which the AI doesn't take advantage of) and the Chateau improvement that they put done every other tile... they're pretty good at it.

Overall France can be a sneaky good civ when given all the bonuses the AI get at higher difficulties. Wouldn't recommend actually playing as them though.

Lol, what a joke of a Civ. Kill them.

Now if you've come this far, you truly deserve a medal or something. But I don't have any of those so instead here's your consolation prize. A big fat what the hell are you still doing here? Go play the game, you'll learn way more that way than reading some crappy guide online.

Really, most civs will play almost identical to each other and can all be manipulated by a skilled player. With maybe the exception of the extremely militaristic civs who can and will perma war you and take you down with them.

Any AI controlled civ can attack you if given the right circumstances. But if you hold off doing your warmongering until you get to bombers, you can usually get away with having a bare bones military and never get attacked. Just be Switzerland guys.

I do plan on finishing this "guide" and will slowly but surely update it with the rest of the civs.