Is BNW just Sim City??

[beetle]

civ4 had more challenging AI with fewer bonuses, relatively speaking

The AI was exactly the same -- it just is that 1UPT is harder for the AI. The bonuses were relatively similar, i.e., extra techs, happiness, hammers, etc. CiV has fewer exploits as compared to IV. I would love to see the differences outlined in tabular format though.

 

[Acken]

There are 2 main things that make Civ5 AI to underperform. And both have to do with the logic that the AI is supposed to compensate weak strategy by quantity (like it always had).

1. It has trouble with 1UPT. Especially with cities having a strong range attack AND range units being king. It is a big problem for the AI to be a real threat because it doesn't adequately factor range units. Also if it canot field more than 4 units in one area, the fact that it has 16 blocked behind does not make the army scarier. On top of it BNW made everyone more friendly too compared to G&K.

2. Civ5 BNW has too hard penalties against wide games. While it makes sense to put a penalty on expansion, the AI has to benefit from conquest or making many cities. Otherwise there is no point to its bonuses which lead to bigger empires ! Players were afraid of big empires in Civ4. They knew a big AI meant trouble. Now in civ5 it's like "Oh Shaka conquered a whole continent ? Who cares he can't tech now".

 

[reddishrecue]

Larger empires in civilization could really make it seem different than sim city because of the size. Sim city usually focuses on one city and its building placements. Civilization doesnt need you to place its buildings because it does it itself in its cities.

 

[Nick31]

A few thoughts to add:

1) Playing Random Personalities and with Raging Barbarians helps cure the Sim City mode, particularly if you stack the deck with normally aggressive civs.

2) Find a Mod that allows move and shoot AI. Of all the Developer mistakes, deciding not to patch an AI with move and shoot range capability is most bizarre. There are a few mods that do this (and often other things), ranging from huge to small changes.

Move and Shoot AI (including move and shoot raging barbs) makes play far more competitive. I recently attacked Siam with a pretty overwhelming tech lead and a force of 6 artillery, 4 cav, and 5 rifles. With his move and shoot xbows and his move and cycle elephants, Siam killed a fair amount of my units. Not enough, mind you, but he took out 5 units and would have killed more if not for pillages and insta-heal choices on promotion. And if not for the destructive power of city-killing artillery, taking out his capital and then his army would have been a proper-sized blood bath.

This was with the smart ai (v2) mod on Immortal. Get a move and shoot mod and the AI fights with more gusto, particularly on defense.

 

[IMACIVFAN]

I really doubt that after 150 hours you can win 7-8 from 10 deity standard size pangea maps with random civ.
But if you can - you can always try MP.

Anyone still playing online?

How, I really want to try

 

[reddishrecue]

Sim city is also playable online, so do you mean online in sim city or online in civV?

 

[noto2]

I agree with Acken about the AI. AI has always made up for its inferiority through quantity. In Civ4 quantity was threatening. I had countless games where I was far ahead in tech but the AI had enough units to still be a threat (so I have rifling, and Ghengis only has knights, I'm safe, right? I have 25 riflemen, I'm safe. Oh , I see a stack of 90 knights!!!) And in Civ 4, 90 knights could kill 25 riflemen. In Civ5 even 9000 knights probably couldn't kill 25 riflemen. With 1UPT and the fact that armies can no longer stack, quantity is far less useful in this game, and quantity is the only advantage the AI had/has.

But, I'm not even talking about that. I'm talking about AI behaviour. I know the AI was really passive in unmodded Civ4 as well, which is why I got Kmod, which was very fun because the AI would attack/bully me all the time. In unmodded BNW that just seems to be very rare. I want the AI to be aggressive.

Like I said, I'll try Acken's mod, and yes, I'll move up to immortal. But... I'm playing Galactic Civ and Xcom right now, so I'm not sure when I'll play my next game of Civ5. I'll post back, though, if people are interested how I fare at higher difficulty.

 

[noto2]

Noto2. Seriously try this one. AI will not let you glide peacefully into the night. Would love you to try it and post screen shots and updates:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=502035

Yes, Shaka is probably the best exception to everything I said. I think I have died to him more than all other leaders combined. Impiis are just redonkulous.

 

[consentient]

I have to disagree about Random Personalities. The AI is even more irrational and has even less of a clue of how to try and win. The biggest problem with the AI on BNW as I see it, is that it can't win. It can only kill the human if the human doesn't build sufficient units to defend itself. But if you build 8 units per era, you can win SV or DiploV easily, even on Deity. That's why Domination and Culture are really the only truly respected victory conditions at that level. They require something more.

Very occasionally you'll see really good play from the AI. I've seen Sejong and Pocatello go full Rationalism and play like a human and win before T250, or Alex will reach into his unlimited pockets and buy all the CS and win Diplo. But this is rare.

My biggest belief about all this is that if the developers wanted, they could program the AI to be more competitive with their general strategy, though they would still suck at combat possibly. But at least they could win a CV if protected, like Darius did on Acken's Mod quite recently.

It takes a really dragged game to lose to an AI CV.

 

[Zaimejs]

Every single game I've started over the past few days has ended with me quitting because someone shows up on my doorstep with 40 units to my 6 or 7 defensive units.

I have been very impressed since the latest update with the AI military responsiveness. They still aren't very good tactically, but they certainly will exploit a weak neighbor. I Shaka is on the map, I had better be cranking out units.

I find the balance on Emperor to be enjoyable. I am not much of a micromanager, so I'm certain I am making lots of little mistakes along the way during the early game that make me vulnerable... but in the last game, I was dominating in science, building wonders... had a nice peninsula with natural barriers. Then I get DOWed by two peaceful neighbors... just out of the blue. 4-5 frigates at my doorstep with a host of high-powered units.

Anything but a walk in the park.

 

[reddishrecue]

Very occasionally you'll see really good play from the AI. I've seen Sejong and Pocatello go full Rationalism and play like a human and win before T250, or Alex will reach into his unlimited pockets and buy all the CS and win Diplo. But this is rare.

Sejong I've seen him do a science victory while Pocatello, I've seen him defend well. Alex, I've seen him go dipV almost but didn't continue because next turn he was announced winner. AI could be quite unique sometimes.

 

[FrostK]

Main problem: Ai nearly never uses food caravans. So even if AI playing 4 cities tradition, his cities are small and scientist slots are never filled. I think just simple:
-limit number of cities to 4
-only food caravans
-units count no more than say 5 for city
-cities near mountains
-tech path=eduction>astronomy>public schools>labs,
-social politics: rationalism if available.
will let Deity AI win really fast.

 

[TinyLittleBirdy]

Programming an AI isn't easy guys, just saying. It's much easier to give an ai a bonus than make a different ai for each difficulty setting. While there are some games in which a "cheating" ai would absolutely unacceptable (imagine if you were playing chess and the computer had 2 queens) but I don't feel like it's completely unacceptable in Civ V considering how complex the game is.

 

[Acken]

Main problem: Ai nearly never uses food caravans. So even if AI playing 4 cities tradition, his cities are small and scientist slots are never filled. I think just simple:
-limit number of cities to 4
-only food caravans
-units count no more than say 5 for city
-cities near mountains
-tech path=eduction>astronomy>public schools>labs,
-social politics: rationalism if available.
will let Deity AI win really fast.

And makes the game pretty boring. Trying to make the options the AI do take, sometimes logically, perform as they should is a better idea imo.
Trying to shove down the throat of the AI the common best way to play of human players would remove a lot of the diversity.

It's also the lazy way out. Teaching the AI that it must beeline Education, make 4 cities and always pick rationalism is very easy to do.

 

[reddishrecue]

Default ai still gets enough growth without the use of food caravans in default which seems that deity ai doesnt need the food caravans at all. However, if they were programmed otherwise then they could run into unhappiness issues like they usually do?

 

[Drakarska]

Programming an AI isn't easy guys, just saying. It's much easier to give an ai a bonus than make a different ai for each difficulty setting. While there are some games in which a "cheating" ai would absolutely unacceptable (imagine if you were playing chess and the computer had 2 queens) but I don't feel like it's completely unacceptable in Civ V considering how complex the game is.

I'm not not sure I completely agree with this. The OP reference's KMod for Civ IV, and looking at both the xml and python, Karadoc has done an amazing job of amping up the threat value of the AI, as well as cultural and diplo changes as well. Not just simply giving the AI bonuses bonuses.
Several other mods for Civ IV does similar things to the AI as well. Same could be said for some of the great mods for Civ V in order to make the game eminently more enjoyable to the player.
Additionally, it would depend on the individuals perception of what their own definition of "complex" in regards to their game. What you or I consider as complexity could have totally different values.

 

[Volentia]

Programming an AI isn't easy guys, just saying. It's much easier to give an ai a bonus than make a different ai for each difficulty setting. While there are some games in which a "cheating" ai would absolutely unacceptable (imagine if you were playing chess and the computer had 2 queens) but I don't feel like it's completely unacceptable in Civ V considering how complex the game is.

Exactly.

Not only is it hard to program a very good AI, it's also very CPU-consuming, thus making the game unplayable because of waiting time between turns. Some tweeking here and there as Acken mod offer can be very good, but an overhaul rework in order to be "super competitive" would not be healthy in the long run (especially on the diversity of opponents strategy and waiting time between turns).

In almost every game i know, humans are, with enough practice and logic, able to beat the highest level of the game. Game devs know that so that nowadays they focus more on multiplayer, achievements, or unlocking new content to keep the player busy. Civilization is no different, but i feel that in comparison with other games the single player mode offers so much already.

 

[Myth and Legend]

I've been a big civ fan since Civ2, I played thousands and thousands of hours of Civ4 (and a lot of Civ3). When Civ 5 came out my comp couldn't handle it so I didn't start playing it until after BNW had been released, I thus never played Civ5 vanilla or G&K

I'm a hybrid player, sometimes I like to war all game, sometimes I like to build. Civ4 was a fantastic game. I used to play on Emporer, with AI mods. I remember, though, that even without mods Civ4 was challenging. If I was playing a builder game the AI would actually attack me. It wasn't Sim City I was playing, that's for sure. I can't even tell you how many times the AI caught me with my pants down, building wonders and infrastructure with a small army. I lost countless games to dogpiles too, where my army was strong but not strong enough to fight off 2-3 civs at once, and I would lose due to losing the diplomatic game.

Civ 5, at least BNW, has NONE of this. First of all, if I want to go to war, the AI is so freaking pathetic that it's a cakewalk to win domination.

But even if I want to sit and build away towards a peaceful victory, it's a snoozefest. The AI doesn't DO ANYTHING. Oh sure, the AI will denounce me for expanding too much or having a different ideology, but it never actually tries to stop me from winning. I've had several games in Civ5 playing as a builder, like Egypt or Korea, beside a martial civ like Japan or Mongolia, and I just sit there building away, with no military whatsoever, and I never get attacked.

I've tried mods. I've downloaded and installed many mods that claim to make the AI more aggressive, expansive, or whatever, and nothing seems to work. It honestly feels like in BNW the AI is programmed to just sit there and let me win, never actually trying to do anything or create any challenges for me - the one exception being the barbarians. The damn barbs are the only thing in the game that ever cause me any trouble, like attacking my trade routes, but of course they are just a minor irritant.

I'm sorry, I suppose this is a rant, because I'm 99% sure I'm just going to drop this game, with fewer than 150 hours in it, and go play something else. But maybe some one can shed some light on this for me. Any mods actually fix this?

I have a save as England, where I'm between several warmongers and got destryoed on my two attempts. I'll post it later on today. Good luck, commander.

 

[beetle]

Game devs know that so that nowadays they focus more on multiplayer, achievements, or unlocking new content to keep the player busy.

Fair observation! Note that CiV only has only token bits of each of those three! Let us hope that VI does not learn the wrong lessons!

I have a save as England, where I'm between several warmongers and got destryoed on my two attempts. I'll post it later on today. Good luck, commander.

It does not seem that OP has given CiV much of a try. IMHO, complaining that CiV on King is too easy is like complaining about Tic Tac Toe.

Very occasionally you'll see really good play from the AI. I've seen Sejong and Pocatello go full Rationalism and play like a human and win before T250, or Alex will reach into his unlimited pockets and buy all the CS and win Diplo. But this is rare.

I agree that it is rare to see the AI win before T300 -- but most players will find that if they ramp up difficulty they will feel competition from the AI.

It takes a really dragged game to lose to an AI CV.

I have had plenty of games where an AI wins by CV before T350. So that may be dragged game to you, but T350 is also plenty of time for some AI to win by SV. And then there was that DCL where I lost by CV on T262! (But I seem to have been the only one with such poor luck.)

My larger point is that assertions that the AIs do try to win are not really credible -- until a player gets so good that their deity games are routinely over by T300.

 

[Drakarska]

Exactly.

Not only is it hard to program a very good AI, it's also very CPU-consuming, thus making the game unplayable because of waiting time between turns. Some tweeking here and there as Acken mod offer can be very good, but an overhaul rework in order to be "super competitive" would not be healthy in the long run (especially on the diversity of opponents strategy and waiting time between turns).

In almost every game i know, humans are, with enough practice and logic, able to beat the highest level of the game. Game devs know that so that nowadays they focus more on multiplayer, achievements, or unlocking new content to keep the player busy. Civilization is no different, but i feel that in comparison with other games the single player mode offers so much already.

Again, I'll have to disagree concerning programming the AI issue difficulty. GalCiv II and III ( which is still in beta btw) have a superior level AI. Any of the Ageod games have an excellent AI that proves to be a worthy challenge to the player. Even the Euro series ( Well, I haven't played the last in the series yet) has a better AI in comparison to the Civ series. All of these games have similar benchmarks running on current systems in comparison with Civ. I don't believe it's a matter of being super-competitive to the player, but a matter of a player being immersed in his/her game. Any player who has dealt with strategy games for a length of time is going to notice fairly quickly that there is something wrong with a game if they are winning easily on the higher difficulties.
This is one of the things that has bothered me with the Civ V series, especially as a modder. With Civ IV ( and yes, I realise its an old game) modders have had an almost complete access to the code in order to make some insanely excellent mods, mod comps, scenarios, and also create tools to take the game even further. With Civ V, which was ironically touted as the most moddable Civ ever, We still have only partial code in order to enact the current mods available now and create tools necessary for any type of modding. I see this as an inherent issue on the dev's part, as had they actually listened to the Frankenstein testers, it is entirely possible we would have had a better vanilla base game to work with.

The second part of your quote I agree with however. I would add though, that personally I think it's more about gaining profits and less about delivering a smoothly polished game at launch.