Not quite Alpha

I have been playing a bunch of Through The Ages against AIs.  I like playing against humans in theory, but in practice they spend time taking their turns, don't like it when I just wander away for an hour, and otherwise have needs.

AIs don't have needs!  They play exactly when I want them to.  So much more convenient than meat sacks.

The AI in TTA is quite good.  I have been playing a bunch of Skyrim and Civ 6 lately, so I have been exposed to hilariously bad AIs, which may have lowered my standards some.  Watching Civ 6 AIs send endless troops to their deaths and declare war on enemies they can't even reach doesn't fill me with a sense of awe, and laughing as I slowly whittle down Giants with my bow because they can't climb onto the rock I am standing on is no less silly.

TTA is vastly simpler to program than Civ 6 or Skyrim, no doubt.  Navigating terrain is a huge thorny mess, so it should be no surprise that the simple integers of TTA are much easier to solve. 

I seem to be able to crush the maximum difficulty AI consistently now, but I have managed to fail twice.  The first failure was just a second place finish that happened because one AI managed to be the punching bag and the other two stole all of its culture before I could resolve my first war on culture.  Some bad RNG on events in addition to poor military card draws left me unable to win. 

The other time was far more clear:  I got cocky and figured the AIs wouldn't beat me up for a round.  I didn't have any military bonus cards, but I had a decent hand size.  Surely they would respect the hand size, right?  Instead of respecting me, they resolved two aggressions, blowing up my buildings and taking my rocks.  Next turn they took my rocks again, killed a population, and declared a war over territory.  I gracefully resigned, realizing that I had entered the death spiral from which nobody emerges intact.

So lesson learned there.  The AIs will build military and kill you, if you let them.  Don't let them.  In fact, this trend is stark.  In my games with humans the scores are often fairly high as some people go for massive culture generation.  In my games with AIs though, the scores are miserably low.  It is always a hardcore military race ended by massive wars on culture with whoever fell behind. 

In fact, I have never yet built a library or theatre building.  Two whole *types* of buildings, and none ever created by me.  How can you afford such things?  If you build them, violent people will show up, tear them down, and equip more violent people with the remains.  My mind is filled with images of Knights armed with violins and armoured with pieces of bookshelves.  Better to build your own violent people to tear down the libraries and theatres created by others than face such humiliation.

It makes leaders that focus on libraries and theatres seem silly.  I look at them and laugh.  Sure, I could get more culture if I had a huge culture engine.  But how am I ever going to have a huge culture engine with all the ravening hordes at the gates?

When I first started playing this game Umbra told me about his Plan A:  Get to 70+ military strength at the end of the game and drop a huge war on culture or two on the last two turns to crush people.  This plan works, and I have been following it avidly.  I feel like if I am going to play against great players I will have to have more things in my toolbox than this, but so far it feels like this is the way to beat the AIs consistently.