Passive AI - the fundamental problem

Recently, I acquired the new triumph studio release, age of wonders 3. While not without its flaws itself, it did make me notice a very glaring one after returning to a round of civ:

CIV 5 is not a strategy game, it is a puzzle. A puzzle with the solution "emphasize science techs".

For pretty much every strategy game I know, the basis of making your decisions interesting is weighing short-term versus long-term benefits. Do I build units or hope tech/expansion pay off in the long run? And that decision is always based on interaction with your opponent - use his weaknesses and do not leave yourself vulnerable.

By essentially eliminating warfare, civ has also essentially eliminated strategy. One sign of how little the actions of other players matter is e.g that you never use scouts or spies to actually gather information on an opponent; Playing a good game boils down to "find good tech order", and even that is pretty much "focus science", independently of victory or map type. There is no variety. Which seems somewhat logical-if in SC2 everyone started behind 5 layers of boulders, strategy would also boil down to "fast tech battle cruisers". It just does not make for a long-term interesting game.

I agree that the National College is way too powerful and makes the early game pretty dull with lack of good alternatives.
But even at that point, you have the choice to delay the NC and rush with composite bows, for example. After that, you always have the choice of "war vs science": Universities vs Crossbows/Trebuchets, Cannons/Artillery vs Public Schools, Tanks/Planes/War Ships vs Research Labs and finally Apollo vs Helis/Nukes/XCOM etc.

Of course, after every war or rush you have to play the catch-up game in science but that's the same in every traditional RTS game as well.

CIV 5 lacks verticality of the tech tree though. There are essentially only two options. Science or war. Bottom or top tech tree. A few more options/branches with interesting beelines to dead-end techs would make the game a lot more interesting and complex.

How anyone can speak of "Firaxis eliminating warfare" is beyond me though. CIV 5 is and always was a war game as well.

Well, the AI is very passive in BNW, so warfare is often "eliminated" as long as you don't start it yourself - you're not forced to do wars and Science feels much more efficient - so there is no real "reason" to go to war in many cases (although a midgame-war can have GREAT benefit). However, it's a singleplayer-game and everyone can play the game the way he wants - so if you want wars, start them yourself, add some warmonger-AIs to the game, etc.

I think 'eliminating warfare' is a bit of a extreme statement but the general sentiment is true in that the AI has generally become too passive, especially in the early game in BNW.
I starkly remember my first BNW playthrough where i got half way through and started wondering why i hadn't been attacked by any of my neighbours yet, everyone was my friend and i hadn't seen a single war in the world.

Civs with early military bonuses have really suffered because their bonuses are next to useless because you have nothing to fear in the early game as long as you start sending a few caravans out and early wars are generally more disruptive to your empire building than they are advantageous.

You really have to work at early wars in particular as you aren't pushed into one.e.g. if you used to be placed next to someone like alex, monty or the ottomans you knew that no matter what you did they would come declare war on you in the first 50 or 60 turns because they are warmongers.
Now if i am placed next to them i have to make them DoW me by not sending caravans to them, actively forward settling on them and i mean in their face forward settling not just grabbing a nice city spot they were expanding towards, not accepting their offer of a DoF etc.

My biggest adjustment for BNW has been getting over complacency and having to remember my military because the only times i have been stung by wars was because i got so used to having peaceful games with no threat of war i started totally ignoring my military and occasionally i would get some random mid game DoW because i just had a couple of archers and warriors hanging around as my whole army.

I wouldn't say the AI is more passive in BNW, rather more selective on whom it DOWs. Whereas in G&K all it did was DOW a militarily weaker civ.

The human player is always going to be playing the diplomatic game a lot better than the AI. If one ai civ denounces another ai civ the denounced civ will immediate denounce back leading to lasting tensions, whereas the human player will probably ignore that denouncement for now leading to possible friendly relations in the future. Also the human player is more likely to maximizing their trading potential buy selling everything they can. Another point is the human player can't be bribed to DOW adhoc, you are only going to DOW if you are going to get something out of it(ie a city on your borders for instance).

In my current game only 4 civs have survived. Maria having exterminating The Netherlands and Japan on her continent(Germany will fall soon), and Poland exterminating Babylon and Polynesia on our continent. I just chose to keep out of it.......

To answer the OP, yes it can be a "next-turn" fest as was in my current game, but I chose to to that way. As suggest earlier you can force things to happen by clicking "Declare War".

RealHuhn said:

....
After that, you always have the choice of "war vs science": Universities vs Crossbows/Trebuchets, Cannons/Artillery vs Public Schools, Tanks/Planes/War Ships vs Research Labs and finally Apollo vs Helis/Nukes/XCOM etc.

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In theory, yes. In practice, if you want a low turn win, you pretty much never ever choose war before science, except possibly before arty-/frigate-rushing everything to death. No serious player will deviate much from NC -> CS -> universities.

RealHuhn said:

Of course, after every war or rush you have to play the catch-up game in science but that's the same in every traditional RTS game as well.

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The main problem is that not only is defending vastly easier than attacking in Civ 5, there also simply is not much to gain from having more than 4 cities, at least until ideologies. In a few scenarios it may be long-term beneficial to conquer a wonder-heavy city, but in pretty much every other scenario, cities gained are mostly just additional unhappiness. This is a difference to most games, in which you are usually rewarded for winning a battle.

RealHuhn said:

How anyone can speak of "Firaxis eliminating warfare" is beyond me though. CIV 5 is and always was a war game as well.

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Of course, especially on lower difficulties, you can still wage war if you want to. The problem is that there really is no benefit from it; what I mean by "eliminating warfare" is creating a situation where you mostly just play for yourself, with very little dependency on the local or global situation of other players. There is no scouting or action <-> reaction, pretty much just... action.

What I would love is for example if stacking the world with warmongers would actually force me into building 10 army units, at least 5 of which will die, before my first library. If there actually was an option to create a "dark age" scenario, with a whole world constantly at war with primitive units.

Or if successfully conquering my neighbours would actually give me the same advantage as growth and teching up. Or at least create an even(!) struggle of many low-tech units against few high tech.

While all these scenarios exist in theory, in practice tradition, cbows and science dominate in every scenario. It should be aone of many valid strategies, depending on your situation, not globally uncounterable. That is what bothers me.

It's not really that AIs are too passive. It is that warmongering has been nerved so hard that your diplomacy is basically dead if you wipe out a neighbour early. No good trade, no RA. The AI has been programmed to know this, and so, excepted the most blood-thirsty warmongers, is much more peaceful.

Just look at how Genghis gets piled on after he takes one city-state.

YertyL said:

One sign of how little the actions of other players matter is e.g that you never use scouts or spies to actually gather information on an opponent;

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Basic build order is scout, scout and sometimes a third scout.
I use spy to get information.

It depends of the difficult level. On Deity, I highly need information to continue in my strat, even if it's a science victory, or adapt my gameplay.

I wonder on which difficult level you play and in which way (fun, win to move on a higher difficult level, multiplayer, HoF or so) ?

My problem in Civ V is there is so many information to optimize my game that I can't get them all.

For warfare, I disagree too. You can go to war without NC. There's so many thread or posts on this forum on Deity player who won in early turn (under T100 or at least T150). In my warmonger games, I use to have 6-8 units before my library.

Maybe you need to try later era start. Rennaissance or Modern seems good for you. Or look at mods. It's another interesting thing of this game, after been bored with main game, you can fit a tune to have fun.

If you want a war game with aggressive AI just set it to domination-only and fill the game with Civs that are typically aggressive and Civs that tend to warmonger. It's very interesting and the world is pretty much in constant war

The weak AI is the game's most fundamental flaw. That's true. What isn't true is that 'science is the only option'. There are plenty of strategic considerations to make. The real problem (and the likely cause for your conclusion) is that the AI doesn't sufficiently challenge the player so that creativity is required to win.

Try 'focusing science only' and see how much success the brings you when the neighbour shows up with a Marine/Battleship fleet five times your army's size on your borders.

Yes, there are passive civs. Did the Brazilians, Mayans, or Ethiopians ever attack anyone, unless they were attacked? No. Did the Zulu? The Japanese? Yes. Some civs which were aggressive in real life will declare war if they see you as weak. If the Zulu knew that someone they planned to attack had a much stronger military, would they attack? Unlikely.

Memoryjar said:

Basic build order is scout, scout and sometimes a third scout.
I use spy to get information.

It depends of the difficult level. On Deity, I highly need information to continue in my strat, even if it's a science victory, or adapt my gameplay.

I wonder on which difficult level you play and in which way (fun, win to move on a higher difficult level, multiplayer, HoF or so) ?

My problem in Civ V is there is so many information to optimize my game that I can't get them all.

For warfare, I disagree too. You can go to war without NC. There's so many thread or posts on this forum on Deity player who won in early turn (under T100 or at least T150). In my warmonger games, I use to have 6-8 units before my library.

Maybe you need to try later era start. Rennaissance or Modern seems good for you. Or look at mods. It's another interesting thing of this game, after been bored with main game, you can fit a tune to have fun.

Click to expand...

I am aware of the double scout standard build, but their main purpose is to find goody huts and trade partners, not to gather information on enemy troops. The same with spies, I find it difficult to believe that their main purpose for you is information and not free tech.

I don't play deity myself, but from the let's play videos I have seen...for me, higher difficulties seem to restrict even more to "optimal builds", not less. That is not to say you cannot pull something else off, but honestly, there is a reason the first win on a higher difficulty for most people is Babylon/Korea science.

If you honestly were to argue that in a normal setting early conquest is better long-term than growth/tech...that I would find interesting.

My games is usually filled with rather angry AIs. Because I have a tendency to push the AI around and do whatever I want?

I see silver. I want it.

But I will acquire red marks for next 300 turns for taking this silver?

Oh well sucks to be the AI and proceeded to take the silver by force.

I don't kiss ass.

Because I don't kiss ass, it has led to more interesting scenarios for me.

The AI is the one keeping me shiny because they're too damn afraid of my military size even when they're marked as HOSTILE to me.

I even accidentally triggered Gandhi to be a warmonger once and he conquered several of his neighbors by medieval era.. with lots and lots of knights. But he couldn't push into my lands because I had alot and alot of landskenchts, this occurred before the patch removed landsknechts as german UU and replaced it with Hanse.

The game does often become very static and stale since BNW. After the early expansion, unless you actively try and war, it's almost effortless to never get into wars.

Lately, there is often never a war in the game at all until mid-game or later, often despite several warmongers being in the game. My last game had Atilla, Alex and Genghis in it, all bordering each other and there was no war until rifles and only after Genghis ate a city state(a war he almost lost....).

There does seem to be a huge impetus against early war for the AI. There are always late game wars though. Which given that they come out of 3000 years of friendship seem random and contrived. Some games it feels like the game just decides the year 1700 means world war and magically everyone starts hating each other.

Personally I would enjoy the game if it was more realistic to early humanity. I would like the game to instead of starting with 8? AI, standard map, start with 16 and simply expect 8 or more have died by turn 100.

I think people should also remember the history of Civ V. When the game first came out (vanilla), it was pretty much all about conquest and puppet. Ad nauseum. It was a shameless land grab and it lacked depth - the game didn't force you down any other paths, like culture or diplomacy. My entire strategy consisted of waiting for the AI to fill the continent with cities and then rush attack. I for one have enjoyed the change. Suddenly I have to focus on more than racing to arty.

I can't lie though. I still race to arty.

I like the idea Nashoa, the first ~100 turns should be carving out an empire amongst your rivals. The next 100 should be consolidating your kingdom with the last 100+ being the fight for a civilization that will stand the test of time, or something like that.

Currently if you select extra Civs all you do is hamper the AI.

It would be more fun if you actually had to use early wars. As it is most of us avoid war, go 4 tall cities, win with arty.

No, no, no, this is stupid. Difficulty should arise from the AI's ability to reach a victory condition prior to the human player, not just attacking the human player for the sake of attacking the human player. The AI gets bonuses to gold, science, culture, production, and happiness that (should) make its economy stronger the longer the game goes on. Attacking the tactically superior human player before it's advantages can take root would but suboptimal play on the AI's part.

A major factor as to why most AIs flounder in the midgame is because they have flavors that make them favor objectively bad play. Most AIs have tile improvement flavors of 4 or 5, science flavors of 7 or under, and a growth flavor of 5 or 6. By contrast, a human player would be 10 in all three, because optimal play consists of improving tiles to grow your population to generate science.