Do AI bonus on higher difficulties work differently for capital cities? In my last game (immortal, standard speed and size) one of the AIs (I never met him, but it was Poland) had a ridiculous score early game, reaching the 1000 points while the second place, city spammer Hiawatha, had about 600, and me and the rest of the AI were somewhere between 300 and 500. At first I thought that it should be just an AI that was wonder spamming, as wonders give lots of points. But then a message popped up saying that an unmet player had reached renaissance era. It was turn 89 at standard speed! I was still fighting with Composite Bowman, trying desperately to beeline Machinery to defend myself against an incoming Nobunaga attack! Nobunaga himself still had spearman! And then at T132 the mysterious runaway got to industrial era!
I was about to give up anyway because Nobunaga joined forced with Washington to crush me, and their combine armies had a ridiculous numeric advantage, something like 6:1. Then I decided to hit the Retire button and go take a look at the graphs, and unveil the mystery of the runaway. What I saw is that the Polish success began immediately after they conquered Rio de Janeiro. Comparing the graphs, it was visible that right after the turn when Brazil lost their capital, Poland's science per turn skyrocketed. Their science per turn was twice as much as any other AI (and over 3 times as much as mine), reaching 120 science per turn at turn 100. They should have had really tall cities, because they had that ridiculous score with just 3 cities, including Rio de Janeiro. Do AI bonus work differently for capitals, even if it is a conquered capital from another civ? They conquered Rio very early, at T46, so it probably didn't even had wonders. Actually, when you conquer a city that early in the game, it usually comes with low pop and hardly any buildings. It is not much different than getting a free settler, really. How come a very early conquest made Poland's population and science get so high?
I was about to give up anyway because Nobunaga joined forced with Washington to crush me, and their combine armies had a ridiculous numeric advantage, something like 6:1. Then I decided to hit the Retire button and go take a look at the graphs, and unveil the mystery of the runaway. What I saw is that the Polish success began immediately after they conquered Rio de Janeiro. Comparing the graphs, it was visible that right after the turn when Brazil lost their capital, Poland's science per turn skyrocketed. Their science per turn was twice as much as any other AI (and over 3 times as much as mine), reaching 120 science per turn at turn 100. They should have had really tall cities, because they had that ridiculous score with just 3 cities, including Rio de Janeiro. Do AI bonus work differently for capitals, even if it is a conquered capital from another civ? They conquered Rio very early, at T46, so it probably didn't even had wonders. Actually, when you conquer a city that early in the game, it usually comes with low pop and hardly any buildings. It is not much different than getting a free settler, really. How come a very early conquest made Poland's population and science get so high?