Civ5 at PAX

Yea. Civ 4's AI was dictated by die rolls mostly, along with calculations of power level, etc. The problem with that is that the AI had little ability to adapt to a situation, and many of them were easily 'shut down' just via "active diplomacy". Not to mention that only a few AIs were ever capable of winning versus a competent player, many others played so poorly (Pericles *cough*) that they could never win. On the other hand, certain AIs (Shaka, Montezuma), were dangerously aggressive, often irrationally so. I'm not saying it was terrible, but the AI (Which is the basis of diplomacy) was always Civ 4's biggest flaw.

hardcore_gamer said:

Tough luck, I watched a video interview just recently where they said that the AI would be very unpredictable.

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I thought the BtS AI was unpredictable before I understood how it worked. How can a reviewer grasp the probably complex AI after an afternoon or two?

It depends on whether it was some reviewer with a couple hours of play time calling the AI unpredictable, or if it was the devs saying it.

Anyway, I'll stand by my point (which has also been mentioned by other people in other threads). If the AI is too random, then diplomacy becomes pointless because positive actions do not lead to positive results. Why ever try to be friendly to an AI if it is just going to "play to win like a human" and stab you in the back?

I will be very disappointed if the designers have taken this "play to win" trend too far and we end up with the proverbial lobsters in a tank, with the highest always getting pulled down. The result would be that the AIs would not really be playing to win, but rather acting as a conspiracy of all AIs against the human.

Hopefully we will get AIs with enough randomness to be interesting, but not so much as to make diplomacy meaningless.

haphazard1 said:

If the AI is too random, then diplomacy becomes pointless because positive actions do not lead to positive results. Why ever try to be friendly to an AI if it is just going to "play to win like a human" and stab you in the back?

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If the AI wants to have any chances of winning (well assuming it is going for a domination victory, at least) it will (assuming there are lots of civs on the map) have to ally them self's with others including the player or else it will just get mauled, then after the other AI's are no longer a threat then it might consider stabbing the player in the back and I for one don't find it all that unreasonable.

The AI will remain a friend with the player while he makes himself useful and then turns its back on him when he either stops being useful or the AI decides that it has more to gain by braking up the friendship then keeping it.

That way, the player will have to actively maintain him his status as a useful ally if he wants to keep the AI friendly. Sounds fair to me.