Game too easy or bad A.I? Help please.

El Caballerion said:

The game is a lot of fun, but yes, there are crucial setbacks that make me want to cringe. The biggest to me is that if you start the game on a solo island, you will NEVER be invaded successfully by ground units. Never. The AI will rarely send an invasion force, but it's placement will be so stupid that you will beat them back easily, even on the highest difficulty.

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No, it happens. Not often, but in the same way the AI can win land battles - brute force and sheer numbers. The positioning won't be great, but if they can land units on every spare tile that's not vitally important. I had a very strong series of naval invasions launched by the Ottomans in one late vanilla game, and an attack by Mongolia in G&K on an island map, both of which had force of numbers supported by battleships for bombardment on their side (naval positioning being less critical as long as you don't have a defending fleet). And being able to use melee ships to capture cities helps the AI (I've never lost a city to AI melee ships, but I've seen other AIs do so).

Play immortal with no city states and raging barbarians on continents or pangea.

Should also be some AI mods, was for original civ5 (which seems what you have) but not sure for the new expansion yet.

Civ4 is also a nice bet. Civ5 has some nice additions/changes but in civ4 the AI is dangerous because on Monarch+ they can send huge stacks of doom. make sure to get the civ4 AI mod if you go this route. It is also pretty cheap.

The AI in Civ 4 was also pretty terrible.

Kwami said:

The AI in Civ 4 was also pretty terrible.

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The AI in both civ4 and civ5 build empires in reasonable ways (usually, Gods and Kings added some wierdness to that but that is a side issue). The diplomacy has always been a little to very strange when it comes to the "why?" questions.

BUT because of stacks civ4 can pose a threat when it comes to war. In civ5 a civ declaring war on a person is basically now doomed since they are so easy to stop/ward off. It is wasted resources. The only time a civ is competitive in civ5 is when it isn't close and is working hard towards science (and occasionally diplomatic). On high difficulty it is time consuming to wear down a civ in civ5 but it can be done no matter how many units they have.

So in civ4 when someone has a large army and they demand something from me, I might give it to them. I never give anything in civ5, they aren't a threat except maybe just after the very start but they rarely war at that point.

Of course by mid game in either civ4 or civ5 you can usually tell if you will win or not. It is rare to get a great game that is very close to the end but at least I feel like I need to stay somewhat on my toes in civ4.

The whole series has been great to play and I hope they realize that at this point the AI is the next big step. Ideally the AI "acts like a person". If someone gets in "the lead" other AIs begin to conspire to either catch up or give the leader problems (as in offering you or other AIs deals and what not, or just going to war). Like in Risk, it is a simple strategy, attack the strongest player. They currently don't even act completely selfish (the simplest strategy), thus seem rather schizo at times.

Multi-player is what some consider an option but it is very hard to get even 2 people let alone 3+ together for long civ sessions. I don't like speed play or short games, this isn't Starcraft (a great game that I loved but civ is not an RTS). I kinda wish I could play by email, like old school mail chess.

BrokTheFanatic said:

The AI in both civ4 and civ5 build empires in reasonable ways (usually, Gods and Kings added some wierdness to that but that is a side issue). The diplomacy has always been a little to very strange when it comes to the "why?" questions.

BUT because of stacks civ4 can pose a threat when it comes to war. In civ5 a civ declaring war on a person is basically now doomed since they are so easy to stop/ward off. It is wasted resources. The only time a civ is competitive in civ5 is when it isn't close and is working hard towards science (and occasionally diplomatic). On high difficulty it is time consuming to wear down a civ in civ5 but it can be done no matter how many units they have.

So in civ4 when someone has a large army and they demand something from me, I might give it to them. I never give anything in civ5, they aren't a threat except maybe just after the very start but they rarely war at that point.

Of course by mid game in either civ4 or civ5 you can usually tell if you will win or not. It is rare to get a great game that is very close to the end but at least I feel like I need to stay somewhat on my toes in civ4.

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I always felt, in all previous Civ games, that the endgame was a done deal one way or the other, except occasionally in cases of diplomatic victory - it's only in Civ V that I've encountered genuinely close games for other victory conditions. No, I've never faced a late-game AI in any danger of scoring a domination victory (as could be the case in earlier Civ games), but the endgame definitely feels more dynamic.

More needs to be done with the diplo voting AI, however. In older Civ games the AI would vote to stall a victory even if they liked the leading civ. In Civ V, where they vote purely based on how much they like you, I've had a civ close to meeting its own victory condition cast the deciding vote in my favour rather than vote against me in order to give it longer to build spaceship parts.

PhilBowles said:

I always felt, in all previous Civ games, that the endgame was a done deal one way or the other, except occasionally in cases of diplomatic victory - it's only in Civ V that I've encountered genuinely close games for other victory conditions. No, I've never faced a late-game AI in any danger of scoring a domination victory (as could be the case in earlier Civ games), but the endgame definitely feels more dynamic.

More needs to be done with the diplo voting AI, however. In older Civ games the AI would vote to stall a victory even if they liked the leading civ. In Civ V, where they vote purely based on how much they like you, I've had a civ close to meeting its own victory condition cast the deciding vote in my favour rather than vote against me in order to give it longer to build spaceship parts.

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I basically agree. I will say that in civ4 I have had to nuke opponents to stop them from finishing a spaceship but in civ5 science races happen more often. The diplomatic victory has never really worked right, and cultural always takes too long or is easy to stop with military action. Even though civ5 diplo has some oddness I like it better since it is possible without having to basically subjugate your opponents with military or religion. And they made some changes w.r.t. city states and diplo victory.

And I don't really care if domination victory is possible for the AI, but the AI really needs to be a threat. At least force a player to want to keep them 'appeased' while they fight someone else. As is, 2-3 opponents can be handled, especially if terrain is in your favor. If you don't have terrain then they will muck about a city with their forces but that isn't nearly as much of a threat as is needed. If they could at least roam around destroying improvements that would very problematic, even if it costs them units (because ranged attacks are powerful in civ5) it would be better than just sitting there.

Anyways, I hope civ6 is just civ5 with greatly improved AI. It is all I want, the game mechanics of civ5 or civ4 are very enjoyable/work well for the most part.

BrokTheFanatic said:

I basically agree. I will say that in civ4 I have had to nuke opponents to stop them from finishing a spaceship but in civ5 science races happen more often. The diplomatic victory has never really worked right, and cultural always takes too long or is easy to stop with military action. Even though civ5 diplo has some oddness I like it better since it is possible without having to basically subjugate your opponents with military or religion. And they made some changes w.r.t. city states and diplo victory.

And I don't really care if domination victory is possible for the AI, but the AI really needs to be a threat. At least force a player to want to keep them 'appeased' while they fight someone else. As is, 2-3 opponents can be handled, especially if terrain is in your favor. If you don't have terrain then they will muck about a city with their forces but that isn't nearly as much of a threat as is needed. If they could at least roam around destroying improvements that would very problematic, even if it costs them units (because ranged attacks are powerful in civ5) it would be better than just sitting there.

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Only randomly-rolled raging barbarians seem to consistently pillage improvements - which is mildly annoying but doesn't seem to be as severe a problem as it was in Civ IV. The AI does need to be programmed with one specific instruction: If you have a unit in an enemy Citadel, always pillage. The AI will still have its current difficulty dealing with Citadels, but at least it won't park its units in an enemy citadel for several turns while they take damage, and it can allow them to break a defensive line for long enough to move troops through.

@PhilBowles
I rarely ever see the AI pillage in CiV either. Whereas in CIV sometimes I felt the AI's whole goal in warfare was to pillage. It's weird and I don't get it. The AI also does not usually destroy citadels (I've never seen it but others say it happens occasionally) which is dumb because occupation doesn't flip ownership.
@BrokTheFanatic
I also dislike the diplomatic victory in CiV. Not only does the UN not do embargoes and the like from CIV, but the whole way someone can win by showering gold on City States at the end just feels cheap. There have been many times where I could build the UN and win the game but I don't because it just feels...lame. I still leave the diplo VC open just to see if the AI would ever go for it. They don't in my games.

PhilBowles said:

The AI does need to be programmed with one specific instruction: If you have a unit in an enemy Citadel, always pillage. The AI will still have its current difficulty dealing with Citadels, but at least it won't park its units in an enemy citadel for several turns while they take damage, and it can allow them to break a defensive line for long enough to move troops through.

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What's weird is that sometimes AI will pillage citadels, just no asuch as they should (which is always). Even in AI vs AI wars I've seen one civ lose dozens of units to a citadel and do nothing about it. Just like you say, it should be an automatic move as soon as a unit steps on one.

More adventures in parking: when Dido is moving workers over mountains and they get the -50, they enter 'cover heads and wait for a miracle' mode. What are you doing?! There's a farm tile right there! Just get off the mountain! Your wives are worried!

hobbsyoyo said:

@PhilBowles
I rarely ever see the AI pillage in CiV either. Whereas in CIV sometimes I felt the AI's whole goal in warfare was to pillage. It's weird and I don't get it. The AI also does not usually destroy citadels (I've never seen it but others say it happens occasionally) which is dumb because occupation doesn't flip ownership.

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I've seen it a few times, but it seems to be largely at random - Attila had a hard time getting to one of my cities through the adjacent citadel; in fact I'd even left the city itself undefended since he really couldn't work out how to get past it. He eventually hit on pillaging it, but once I'd driven him off and repaired it, he never subsequently did so again, despite having several later opportunities. I'm not sure how difficult it would be to develop an algorithm that tells the AI that, if by chance it has greater success doing something than it had before, repeat that behaviour in this and future games - nothing as complex as a full-blown neural net or any particularly developed ability to learn, just a priority list with some kind of scoring system that will make certain behaviours rise in priority if they prove successful.

@BrokTheFanatic
I also dislike the diplomatic victory in CiV. Not only does the UN not do embargoes and the like from CIV, but the whole way someone can win by showering gold on City States at the end just feels cheap. There have been many times where I could build the UN and win the game but I don't because it just feels...lame. I still leave the diplo VC open just to see if the AI would ever go for it. They don't in my games.

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They rarely build the UN, but if you have it they'll try their hardest to go for a win through the UN - but only by trying to grab city-states, not by winning favour with other civs, and even your closest competitor will vote for you just because he likes you more than anyone else. I've taken to playing a lot of games recently where I play the neutral party and just end up farming everyone else's votes.

I've only once had to resort to gold-buying CSes to wear down an AI rival going for diplo, and it's also the closest I came to losing through diplo (indeed I did lose by 1 vote but reloaded). It can work, but it's not the most reliable or efficient way to do so and is easy for the AI to counter by seizing your allies and declaring war (a tactic it knows) - it's less easy (due to AI difficulty taking cities) for the AI to counter by invading your city-states, but it can happen. I mentioned one game before in which the deciding vote ended up going to England (which I'd liberated early in the game) because I'd lost Jakarta to a Cathaginian invasion.

Besides which, of course, making enough money to have the reserves to outbuy all competing AIs is a challenge in its own right, so it's not clear why a "make lots of gold" victory would be any more "lame" than a "make lots of culture" victory.

Diplo is by far my favourite victory condition, all the moreso since G&K - there are more varied approaches to winning it, it brings in more aspects of gameplay to succeed than just a tech rush to the end, and post-G&K your relations with other civs can be as or more important than your relations with CSes.

GhostSalsa said:

What's weird is that sometimes AI will pillage citadels, just no asuch as they should (which is always). Even in AI vs AI wars I've seen one civ lose dozens of units to a citadel and do nothing about it. Just like you say, it should be an automatic move as soon as a unit steps on one.

More adventures in parking: when Dido is moving workers over mountains and they get the -50, they enter 'cover heads and wait for a miracle' mode. What are you doing?! There's a farm tile right there! Just get off the mountain! Your wives are worried!

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Isn't the -50 on a mountain effect bugged? I'm pretty sure it's supposed to apply to helis but it doesn't...Not sure if it works for Carthage units or not.

The_Quasar said:

Agreed, if you're not getting enough challenge, you're not playing on a high enough level...

Try Immortal, that will be more of a challenge for you.

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Nah! The AI does not get smarter just because you play on immortal. The AI is just bad.

Play Civ IV. Civ V has an atrocious AI, and don't get me started on how the AI cheats above noble don't help.

Thry said:

Play Civ IV. Civ V has an atrocious AI, and don't get me started on how the AI cheats above noble don't help.

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People usually don't want to be backward. Moreover, they don't want to play again the same game they used to play for years.. Civ V is the revolution of our beloved Civilization and as with G&K expansion, it will continue to get improved in all aspects.

@ Xhijiru : You are saying that this game is too easy when u still haven't played @ the higher levels... I guarantee u that playin @ Immortal (as many before have stated) , will ensure more "drama" in ur games. I'm not THAT skilled player, but ive been playing this series since civilization no1. Although im considered to be an "experienced" player, i find myself winning like half of my immortal games. (Sometimes, is just too hard to spawn between Attila and Alex ;D )

illusiondrmr said:

People usually don't want to be backward. Moreover, they don't want to play again the same game they used to play for years.. Civ V is the revolution of our beloved Civilization and as with G&K expansion, it will continue to get improved in all aspects.

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Excuse my ignorance, but why is it "backward" to prefer a game with a more challenging AI? Aren't we in fact taking several steps backward if we play a game with a poorer AI, a more shallow diplomacy and fewer options? You seem to define the term "backward" in a pure chronological sense. Using this definition, wouldn't Master of Orion 2 be backward compared to MOO3? Dragon Age backward compared to DA2? Indiana Jones 1-3 backward compared to the 4th film?

Once again, excuse my nitpicking of the term "backward". Actually I'm pretty sure we agree that moving forward is the optimal way to go. I.e. more options, better AI, better diplomacy, better design. Unfortuantely I don't get the feeling that I am moving forward when I play Civ 5.

Civ4 has no strategy to speak of. It's just quantity and sheer brute force (stacks of doom). The only strategy is in the very beginning. After that, it's just volume.

Civ5 has strategy but less at high levels due to the AI cheating bonuses. At the highest levels, the strategy becomes playing the loopholes in the algorithms rather than actually having strategic planning for the game content and AI behavior.

However, the main problem being mentioned appears to be randomness. Some people here claim that the AI is bad even at high levels and never is a threat, but that is far from the case in my games (and in the experience of other players here, too, as can be seen by posted replies). The example of the OP seems to be due to the specific map setup. I haven't seen such a thing happen in any of my games, but I can believe it might happen due to the random map generation. There are many interconnected factors: map size, game speed, resources allocation, terrain allocation, specific civ chosen by player, AI civs as opponents, city state placement, etc. Many of these elements can be customized by options, and others can be customized by world builder or mods (if desired). Some people like to play totally random generation while others prefer to have some level of control, and still others like to have complete control but analyze different approaches (the last option is closer to standard strategy games like chess).

hobbsyoyo said:

Isn't the -50 on a mountain effect bugged? I'm pretty sure it's supposed to apply to helis but it doesn't...Not sure if it works for Carthage units or not.

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-50 on mountains is specific to Carthage, since that's the only non-helicopter unit that can traverse mountains. I don't think it's intended to affect helicopters.

Well I am going to play another game soon. I will relay the odd things the AI does during that game. One thing I can say is that the AI is no naval threat, like they led us to believe before GnK came out. That AI naval invasions will come out of nowhere and be deadly and devastating.

Just a few notes.

1. The Helicopter Gunship has the following description: "Unit specialized in fighting Modern Armor and Tanks. It is capable of hovering over mountains, but takes damage if ending its turn on one." So, it should take damage on mountains.

2. The AI in Civ IV got cheater bonuses, too. That isn't new to Civ V.

3. Stacks of doom aren't strategic. They're boring. The tactical combat in Civ V is much more enjoyable, even if the AI kind of sucks at it.

nokmirt said:

Well I am going to play another game soon. I will relay the odd things the AI does during that game. One thing I can say is that the AI is no naval threat, like they led us to believe before GnK came out. That AI naval invasions will come out of nowhere and be deadly and devastating.

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It would be true-ish if water oceans weren't a billion tiles wide. In practice AI naval invasions are hampered by the units becoming obsolete by the time they reach you.