Til about “King” Jadwiga of Poland. She was named king of Poland because there were no ruling queens allowed but the rules didnt specify the king had to be a male.

They definitely try their best, but there’s a few things that almost universally end up in the players favor. Militarily the AI will avoid building up a large navy and airforce like the plague, which is obviously easy to take advantage of.

They also can make some pretty stupid trade agreements, but generally economically they’re actually decently savvy.

Part of the perception of them being “dumb” is that every Civ has agendas, certain Civs are more likely to favor certain agendas than others, like Jadwiga and her love of religion.

The problem arises when a Civ receives a conflicting “hidden agenda”. If your neighbor is a pacifist, but also secretly happens to like it when you capture enemy cities through war, you’re going to be receiving some conflicting messages.

Still super fun though! It can be so complex, I can hardly blame the AI for their shortcomings.

Alexander: "Why don't you declare war to expand your territory?"

Also Alexander: "I denounce you for inflicting Grievances on others."

Combat Civ AI is deeply idiotic since V. They haven't been able to process the shift to one unit per tile. In any level below Deity, any player with even the most basic understanding of combined arms (infantry at the front/cavalry ready to flank and exploit gaps/archers and catapults protected in the back) will run circles around them because the AI can no longer build a balanced army or is able to coordinate it and exploit tactical possibilities.

The AI in IV did not have to deal with this and was able to build terrifyingly well balanced doomstacks that could fuck your shit up if you weren't careful. I still remember a TSL game with Spain in Civ 4 where I controlled all of Western and Central Europe and Stalin went all Fulda Gap on me sending several doomstacks across our border, crossing the Rhine in the first turn and reaching the Atlantic in the second. I was barely able to hold him back in the Pyrenees and push him back. The few times the AI in 6 has done something similar they have politely trickled a few units in the general direction of one of my border cities, then completely failed to recognize that the city could be put under siege, randomly moved some units around it and then got slaughtered by my armies half their size picking their units one by one with archers and then using cavalry to rush their long range units.

I actually don't mind their diplomatic AI in 6 since the rules are arbitrary but consistent in their arbitrariness: Each ruler will like you or dislike you based on these arbitrary factors Firaxis decided, but at least will do so consistently.

Late to this conversation but the AI being ‘dumb’ is actually a design philosophy for Civ games (and probably extends to other strategy games) where I believe Sid Meier himself is quoted explaining that you want the AI to be smart but not too smart. There are two main reasons for this, the first is obviously from a resource management perspective in that the smarter the AI is the more memory and complexity the code would take up again impacting game performance (and let me tell you even on a good computer Civ still runs pretty slow). The second from a gameplay perspective is simply that if the AI gets too smart then it begins to exploit mechanics and strategies that are really difficult for a human to replicate and become impossible to beat which is actually bad because it’s just not fun or engaging (and despite what it may seem even at the hardest difficulties Civ games are still beatable). Getting the right balance for the ‘smartness’ of the AI is tough but if you really wanted the challenge you can always play against other people! I personally think Civ has done a great job with their AI.

Pretty much all strategy game AI are dumb.

There's always mods to fix the lack of AI skill, at least for Civ 5 there are some really good ones. I don't think the developers put a whole lot of effort into good AI programming to begin with.

I always think it's worth distinguishing between the leader personalities and the actual gameplay AI when discussing what's dumb. The personality quirks are a fair representation, imo. Most leaders have a particular agenda and focus. For example, US president GW Bush would covet oil and want revenge for past failed wars.

It is universally agreed that the Civ gameplay AI is bad. It is particularly noticeable on the strategic layer in the hex-tile games, and they've always only had difficulty settings via head starts and increased yields for the AI, to cover for its weakness.

No access to coast? All good mate. First city by the coast just settled? Omg get some boats or war.

You mean converted him and all his subjects

Send them a delegation. Even if they hate you they still accept because of the agenda.

While Casimir's mother IS called Jadwiga she was only a consort, King Jadwiga is the daughter of Louis the Great of Hungary, making Casimir her great uncle, as Casimir was Louis' uncle.

I used a single Winged Hussar unit to hold off three knights from France when they tried to attack one of my city states.

It wasn't quite the siege of Vienna, but the battle of Zanzibar does have a nice ring to it.

Funny enough, there are plenty of rules made because there wasn't a specific rule not allowing it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tonxd_9_lY