Consensus on AI in Civ5

[mercury529]

It all comes down to your expectations.

CiV has a recreational gaming AI. That means the quality of the AI is largely constrained by two things: development resources and the speed of AI decision-making. On a limited budget with an emphasis on fast decision-making, I find the CiV AI to be satisfactory. If someone else could be doing substantially better given the constraints, I sincerely hope they will pursue more meaningful endeavors than recreational gaming AI development.

I guess what it boils down to for me is: "Does the AI interfere with the enjoyment or challenge of the game?". For me, the answer is no. While the AI undoubtedly makes bone-headed moves at times, so do human players. I consider that part of the game. I also try to keep in mind that my imperfect information about the enemy may factor into why a local decision appears particularly atrocious when it may merely be suboptimal. Regardless, I do not let my enemies' tactical mistakes decrease my enjoyment of the game. Others may feel differently.

As for challenge, I do not expect the AI to ever compete with me without significant resource advantages. Again if developers can pull of that feat, they should be applying their talents to more meaningful endeavors. A ruleset that gives the AI advantages is strictly necessary to create a challenging opponent in a game of CiV's computational complexity. Paired with those advantages, I find the AI to be challenging on Immortal and very challenging on Deity.

So to answer the OP's question, for me the AI allows me to both enjoy and be challenged by CiV. Are you looking for more than that out of your AI?

[Jabberwockxeno]

In my games at least, the AI acts pretty smart.

It's just a matter of noticing what's seems like a "bad" move or illogical one isn't actually.

The main issue with the AI is that it's not very transparent, so it seems like it's not acting well, and it can make why they are denouncing you or X or Y rather ambiguous at times.

Generally, I feel the same as a few of the posts on this thread: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=395421

[Roxlimn]

rezaf:

I'm not sure how you remembered Civ4 on release, but I remembered talk here around how badly the AI was faring economically since it rarely improved its own lands significantly, and when it did it often built the wrong improvements. I recall not even bothering to replay Noble again in Civ 4 on release because the AI failed so hard, apart from its war failings.

You still won't hear people advising you to automate workers in Civ4, since the improvement script is so godawful bad. That's the script the AI uses; only on release, it was much, much worse.

I'm with PhilBowles here. The AI in Civ is about the same as it ever was. Arguably, it's better since it doesn't fail to connect its trade routes anymore, but that's a legacy from Civ4 AI, so not exactly fair. I still find AI lands in Civ 5 woefully underdeveloped on the lower settings.

[civfanatic13]

The AI is really and truly quite horrible. As a long time Civ4 player, I was very appalled when I loaded up civ5 for the first time and played a game. In just one turn, your allies will all turn your backs against you if you aren't careful for very silly reasons. Civ5 games often feature tangents of very unnecessary wars that get no where. Often times the AI will declare war on you for pretty much no reason, send no units to attack you, and will refuse to make peace with you regardless of the status of the war. In the current game I am playing, Washington declared war on me, the military leader at the time, because his buddy denounced me, and made no effort to attack me what-so-ever. In reaction, I ended up taking a couple of his cities from his already tiny empire, and crushing any attempts to reconquer them. The war has been going on for a VERY long time now and has really screwed the both of us over (A lot of other civs end up declaring war on me), yet when I go to make peace, he demands pretty much all of my resources (the war still hasn't ended yet). The best analogy I can make to the AI in civ5 is that they are little bratty five year-old girls that get offended for no reason and don't want to cooperate.

If you are looking to a new and improved version of civ4, you've came to the wrong place. I will say though that the game is decent for what it is. The game is meant to be played on a very, very small scale (I liken it to Age of Empires). If you're into that stuff, go for it, I'm sure the AI will be improved in later expansion packs/ patches.

[Kerosene31]

I think the AI has improved a ton since release. With all the patches and the expansion, the diplomatic AI is much better.

The diplomatic AI is light years better than before. It may seem random to those expecting it to be like Civ4 (it isn't), but as long as the AI Civs act in their own best interests, it works for me.

The fundamental flaw in the AI has been in the game since day 1: The AI produces a bigger army than you and they think you are "vulnerable", except that the combat AI (while improved) isn't going to do nearly as well as a human player.

The AI may have a lot more units than you, but most human players won't have a problem using the terrain and a good mix of units to cut the AI to pieces. The AI thinks it is going to steamroll you, because that's what the numbers say, but in reality wars aren't wars of attrition.

[the343danny]

The most disappointing aspect of the AI is how they act diplomatically compared to how they did so in Civ 4. In Civ 4, they acted as a nation, with its own loyalties and enemies, and would not suddenly slip down a slippery path just because you captured one too many cities. You could role play and the limitations of combat AI could be downplayed by the player's own will to not use cheesy anti-AI tactics excessively. You could have loyal allies and have great fun defeating your foes alongside your allies. This is what made Civ 4 endlessly replayable for me.

However, in Civ 5, your dearest ally stabs you in the back the moment you need them the most because they are coded to go for the victory. Yet, they stand no real chance of defeating the player on equal footing so their efforts to work to win go in vain simply because an AI coded not to simply try to win (Civ 4) will win in the situation that the Civ 5 AI will win in the first place, that is in an extreme advantage over the human, with certain exceptions of course. The Civ 5 diplomacy AI creates a game where none of my playthroughs can never become memorable, for the most memorable Civ 4 moments were the times when I plowed through the world with my vassals or had your group of allied great world powers crushed by Shaka Zulu who invaded the established powers off of his island base following a massive three fold military boom FOLLOWING a consolidation of their home island after they started out as a single pathetic rebel city against the Vikings (the rebellion added with Legends of Revolution mod). In Civ 5, you often fight off hordes of enemies who decided to denounce you en masse and rather unfortunately, it is not interesting because the AI is hardly capable of mounting a threatening invasion and it is not like you havent had that exact same chain of events happening in pretty much every single game you've played.

So yeah. I like this game but I was pitifully disappointed at how much better it could have been if it had not been for a few crucial gameplay decisions by the development team. Honestly, if you want a fulfilling game that you recite in your great alternate history narratives or recall years into the future, just stick with Civ 4 with mods. Give this game some time with improvement via mods and expansions, because once you try this game out, it would be hard to go back to the better game that is Civ 4 because of things like the new and better combat system and the hex tiles. As for me, I'll hope that a modding of leader competitiveness in the XML files along with their loyalty values will give me a miracle.

[Jabberwockxeno]

Originally Posted by the343danny

However, in Civ 5, your dearest ally stabs you in the back the moment you need them the most because they are coded to go for the victory. Yet, they stand no real chance of defeating the player on equal footing so their efforts to work to win go in vain simply because an AI coded not to simply try to win (Civ 4) will win in the situation that the Civ 5 AI will win in the first place, that is in an extreme advantage over the human, with certain exceptions of course. The Civ 5 diplomacy AI creates a game where none of my playthroughs can never become memorable, for the most memorable Civ 4 moments were the times when I plowed through the world with my vassals or had your group of allied great world powers crushed by Shaka Zulu who invaded the established powers off of his island base following a massive three fold military boom FOLLOWING a consolidation of their home island after they started out as a single pathetic rebel city against the Vikings (the rebellion added with Legends of Revolution mod).

I think this is the one big issue for the AI.

I can't really blame Firaxis, though.

In a way, the pure logical "pro vs con" approach by the AI IS smarter than what we want. The issue is that as human beings, even the most logical person is still prone to act in illogical ways in regards to things we care about.

How do you program something to judge a a factor on a subjective value like "friends" or "ally"?

[elprofesor]

If you want to try for yourself, either buy Civ 5 (vainilla) in a sale for peanuts, or download the Gods and Kings demo (it's on default difficulty, so if you are a Civ pro you'll find it easy).

But it esentially boils down to how you play: if you are a very aggressive player, you will immediately spot how inefficient the tactical AI is; otherwise, I find the AI to be reasonably good across the board.
The single most painful defect the tactical AI does is that it values a unit so much, that it won't sacrifice it, even if doing so would later save more units. So, for example, you will regularly see the AI fortify and heal his whole army in front of your cities, because otherwise he would lose a unit the next turn (instead, they should attack so that the war ends before you have a chance to rebuild your army, etc.).

If you don't mind that and accept that the AI gets bonuses to account for that (the most infamous being nearly infinite happiness), it's OK. Diplomacy is reasonable (although take into account that now they tend to act more as a player than as a nation's leader), building orders are reasonable, winning strategy usually is reasonable, army composition and size are reasonable, etc. Suboptimal, but reasonable.

Trade agreements are usually off (and that includes peace offers), and some war situations make the AI fall apart, but aside from that, it's OK.

[the343danny]

Originally Posted by Jabberwockxeno

I think this is the one big issue for the AI.

I can't really blame Firaxis, though.

In a way, the pure logical "pro vs con" approach by the AI IS smarter than what we want. The issue is that as human beings, even the most logical person is still prone to act in illogical ways in regards to things we care about.

How do you program something to judge a a factor on a subjective value like "friends" or "ally"?

Sure, you can call it smarter but it is only smarter when it comes to trying to screw the player over, and you know what that happens when their attempts to do so (which happens with practically every nation in every game ever) fails.

You CAN blame Firaxis because they EXPLICITLY mentioned that they will make the AI strive towards the victory conditions. I let that go through me at the time of that announcement because I was so hyped for this game but only when I experienced it in first hand did I realize how awful of a choice they made.

And in Civ 4, at least, and even in Civ 5, friends and allies are not subjective. They are objective and based on numbers and often times it worked. At the least, you knew who your allies were and that would not change so dramatically just because you grew a little bit too strong. At best, it lead to excellent diplomatic confrontations to use things like religion to bring nations to your side and become partners in trade. Like I said earlier, Firaxis deliberately made this design choice to make AIs "each one for themselves" and it certainly was possible to have the game not be this way.

Anyways, off to test my diplomacy mod.

[Jabberwockxeno]

Originally Posted by the343danny

Sure, you can call it smarter but it is only smarter when it comes to trying to screw the player over, and you know what that happens when their attempts to do so (which happens with practically every nation in every game ever) fails.

You CAN blame Firaxis because they EXPLICITLY mentioned that they will make the AI strive towards the victory conditions. I let that go through me at the time of that announcement because I was so hyped for this game but only when I experienced it in first hand did I realize how awful of a choice they made.

And in Civ 4, at least, and even in Civ 5, friends and allies are not subjective. They are objective and based on numbers and often times it worked. At the least, you knew who your allies were and that would not change so dramatically just because you grew a little bit too strong. At best, it lead to excellent diplomatic confrontations to use things like religion to bring nations to your side and become partners in trade. Like I said earlier, Firaxis deliberately made this design choice to make AIs "each one for themselves" and it certainly was possible to have the game not be this way.

Anyways, off to test my diplomacy mod.

Tell me how it goes, I have like 50 mod ideas, many of them complex and based around threads on this fourm, but I can't do 99% of them because no DLL or because i'm more of a 3d art guy than a coder.

Diplomacy is probably my most thought out one, but the most complex and difficult to do, so if yous works i'd like to try it.

Anyways, it's a matter of balancing winning at all costs and what we expect the normal human being to do.

[PhilBowles]

Originally Posted by the343danny

Sure, you can call it smarter but it is only smarter when it comes to trying to screw the player over, and you know what that happens when their attempts to do so (which happens with practically every nation in every game ever) fails.

You CAN blame Firaxis because they EXPLICITLY mentioned that they will make the AI strive towards the victory conditions. I let that go through me at the time of that announcement because I was so hyped for this game but only when I experienced it in first hand did I realize how awful of a choice they made.

And in Civ 4, at least, and even in Civ 5, friends and allies are not subjective. They are objective and based on numbers and often times it worked. At the least, you knew who your allies were and that would not change so dramatically just because you grew a little bit too strong. At best, it lead to excellent diplomatic confrontations to use things like religion to bring nations to your side and become partners in trade. Like I said earlier, Firaxis deliberately made this design choice to make AIs "each one for themselves" and it certainly was possible to have the game not be this way.

Anyways, off to test my diplomacy mod.

All those still exist - in my game today, Austria was friendly since I first met her because I'd adopted Christianity in most of my cities (no religion of my own, but mosques were a good use of faith). For most of the time since she's been part of my diplomatic bloc, with my game-long ally Babylon.

As I've noted several times before, playing to win is not the issue - not making an AI capable of making decisions that help it achieve that objective is not the issue. Humans play to win, and when doing so they form exactly those kinds of diplomatic relationships since having certain civs on your side will help you win the game. When the AI gets into situations where it doesn't do that, that isn't because it's playing to win, it's because it's playing badly. The design philosophy is perfect - it's the implementation that often leaves something to be desired.

[Thry]

The AI is retarded Moderator Action: Please keep an eye on your language. . It's like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter how you try to frame it, the pigeon is still going to get up and walk all over the board crapping itself and knocking down pieces.

The deity AI is a small improvement except that we've given the pigeon a butler, put the human in a straightjacket so he's forced to use his mouth to move pieces, and removed every piece on the human's side except for pawns.

Here's a great list off the top of my head:

-It will refuse to give up things settle for peace even as it hoards piles of gold and you take it's last city. The AI does not seek to preserve itself.

-If having given you gold or resources in exchange for peace, it will refuse to do so again.

-It's expansion planning is moronic.

-You will be called a warmonger and chain-denounced by every civ if you successfully wage war against and wipe out an agressor.

-It will ask you to stop settling even if it's miles away. This leads you to having to settle anyways which causes a diplo hit, or not settling which causes you to shoot yourself in the foot.

-It's ability to generate science is pathetic at prince level.

-It does not improve it's own land, sometimes for eons. It makes decision on buying luxuries through how friendly relations are between you and the AI, not how much they need it.

-**IT PROMOTES IT'S OWN UNITS IN A COMPLETELY MORONIC FASHION**.

I don't know how many people actually pay attention to how the AI promotes it's units, but it's laughable. I was genuinely surprised when I played multiplayer for the first time and got crushed by a human's units which were competently promoted.

[PhilBowles]

Originally Posted by Thry

The AI is retarded. It's like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter how you try to frame it, the pigeon is still going to get up and walk all over the board crapping itself and knocking down pieces.

-It will refuse to give up things settle for peace even as it hoards piles of gold and you take it's last city. The AI does not seek to preserve itself.

It's bad at determining when to give up, but this seems an exaggeration. In my experience it will pretty much always give in and offer you all it has if you're closing on its capital.

-If having given you gold or resources in exchange for peace, it will refuse to do so again.

Normally only when it doesn't have any left in my experience. By the time a civ's beaten down to a point where it will surrender everything, it will rarely have anything worth giving - especially if it gave you cities the last time.

-It's expansion planning is moronic.

And it will try and expand into or through enemy-held lands repeatedly, even after losing settlers and their escorts every time, as has happened consistently in my current game. When Suleiman finally did get a settler into position (on, for some reason, tundra on the same part of the continent as two civs with whom he was at war), he knew going in that I had frigates and an ironclad waiting just beside the spot he settled - which was obligingly coastal.

-You will be called a warmonger and chain-denounced by every civ if you successfully wage war against and wipe out an agressor.

-It will ask you to stop settling even if it's miles away. This leads you to having to settle anyways which causes a diplo hit, or not settling which causes you to shoot yourself in the foot.

These are both the result of the AI following the game mechanics, so those are at fault more than the AI. The 'warmonger penalty for killing the last city' needs to be tweaked - in concept it's odd before a certain era, since early civs hardly blinked when they wiped one another out, and it's not obviously done for game balance since you can wipe out one civ without being a runaway, and conversely you can be a runaway while leaving one city standing.

The stop settling trigger needs to be more sensitive to just where the AI happens to be.

-It's ability to generate science is pathetic at prince level.

It gets better at higher levels, but it does do odd things like wait for several eras before bothering to build the Great Library or Porcelain Tower as high as Emperor. And it almost always waits forever before after building Apollo before starting to produce spaceship parts, unless another civ is in a position to do the same.

-It does not improve it's own land, sometimes for eons. It makes decision on buying luxuries through how friendly relations are between you and the AI, not how much they need it.

The AI gets happiness bonuses and generally doesn't need luxuries at all as a result, so this is fair enough. It should be less inclined to buy luxuries it doesn't need, but willing to trade for them.

-**IT PROMOTES IT'S OWN UNITS IN A COMPLETELY MORONIC FASHION**.

I don't know how many people actually pay attention to how the AI promotes it's units, but it's laughable. I was genuinely surprised when I played multiplayer for the first time and got crushed by a human's units which were competently promoted.

The AI rarely if ever promotes its units at all. This isn't an AI fault specifically; it's programmed to default to 'heal' when a promotion becomes available, to compensate for its greater likelihood than the player of losing units. And this is often a good option for it.

[skintmark]

In my experiences king and lower, the ai will consistently give me everything they can except for cities when I stomp them the first time. Afterwards, the ai will never give me any other war spoils until I wipe them out. What thry said happens to me too.

[Tachii]

G&K AI is way more improved than Vanilla. Their tendency for Wonders is a lot higher than before. It's almost impossible to get GL on Immortal unless you get really lucky.

Backstabs have created diversity. DoF lasts longer and is actually relevant if you want RAs.

Some comments about the replies here so far:
-The diplo hit after conquering the entire civ had always been reasonable to me. Warmonger AIs also tend to not give a especially if it's your first annihilation. But think, by wiping out an entire civ (especially repeatedly), their spies, their social policies (I had 2 full patronage trees stacked against me at one point with 2 minor civs with 1-2 cities), their religion, their diplomacy (to vote, RAs, trades with other AIs). Gone in an instant. Friendly AIs to that civ will deservedly be pissed. If I was in the shoe of the AI, I would see the human as a douchebag. Everytime I play dominance I always feel like an especially when I conquer everything. It's often excessive and unnecessary. And when you feel it is necessary, you get the sense why everybody else would be pissed.

[elijahfire]

Originally Posted by PhilBowles

It's a strategy game. It's an AI. Of course it's terrible.

Is it better than it was before patches and the expansion? Yes.

Does it compare well to similar games' AIs? At this stage, fairly.

^ False assumptions and a poor summary.

Compared to AI of 20 years ago this AI is terrible.

Heck even compared to Civ IV AI G&K is terrible AI.

This is especially obvious when you observe AI vs AI interactions.

An opponent AI in my last game kept bullying a CS I was allies with and she was not anywhere near its border, nor was her military good. In fact she had 3 towns left and was being decimated on 3 sides by other AI yet the city state kept forking out money to her.

Automated AI bast the first 5 moves is horrendous. A worker will travel all around the globe to get a useless resource rather than upgrade the uranium 1 tile over.

CS troops will hug their border while being pummeled and killed by enemy cites instead of hiding back near their castle.

CS troops will run out to a castle and attack on horseback... derp.

AI will disembark in range of your units making them extremely easy to blow out of the water.

AI will offer accept horrendous trades often giving whole cities away at the threat of one knight.

AI don't follow their predispositions.

This is a VERY short list of very obvious and easy things that need to be fixed in order to make the AI seem like more than a wandering crazed person.

[Stonecutter9]

Some civs also have worse AI than others; i.e. these are the civs which often lose their capitals and never make it past the Renaissance tech-wise.

~Byzantium (overexpands, loses everything)
~Carthage (quinquereme spam even on Pangaea)
~India (outgrows its UA)
~Korea (turtles up and gets killed)
~Songhai (at war with EVERYONE)
~The Huns (use battering rams as spearmen)
~The Ottomans (just REALLY bad)

Some civs have particularly good AI; i.e. these are the civs settling 15+ cities and stealing YOUR wonders.

~Arabia (makes 10000+ gold every game)
~Egypt (builds 75% of wonder pool)
~Ethiopia (crazy missionary/faith spam)
~Japan (just doesn't stop conquering)
~Siam (hogs all the CS)
~The Iroquois (...so...many...cities...)

Any guesses as to the good, the bad, and the ugly AI in BNW?

My guesses, from best to worst:
~Poland
~Portugal
~Assyria
~Brazil
~The Zulu

[elijahfire]

Originally Posted by Stonecutter9

Some civs also have worse AI than others; i.e. these are the civs which often lose their capitals and never make it past the Renaissance tech-wise.

~Byzantium (overexpands, loses everything)
~Carthage (quinquereme spam even on Pangaea)
~India (outgrows its UA)
~Korea (turtles up and gets killed)
~Songhai (at war with EVERYONE)
~The Huns (use battering rams as spearmen)
~The Ottomans (just REALLY bad)

Some civs have particularly good AI; i.e. these are the civs settling 15+ cities and stealing YOUR wonders.

~Arabia (makes 10000+ gold every game)
~Egypt (builds 75% of wonder pool)
~Ethiopia (crazy missionary/faith spam)
~Japan (just doesn't stop conquering)
~Siam (hogs all the CS)
~The Iroquois (...so...many...cities...)

Any guesses as to the good, the bad, and the ugly AI in BNW?

My guesses, from best to worst:
~Poland
~Portugal
~Assyria
~Brazil
~The Zulu

Guess it's just like in real life then lol!

[VilePilot]

The only thing that bothers me about the AI is when it goes into turtle mode overdrive and gets taken over by another AI creating a runaway AI.


The AI sometimes has a hard time prioritizing military unit production vs beaker total.

[4Dingo4]

Civ 5 looks amazing... however the AI is so uncompetitive that the game is unplayable. I uninstalled Civ 5 months ago. I hope this is fixed in Civ 6.

The AI in Civ1 through Civ4 was far from perfect but at least it was competitive and playable.