Okay, it's official, the AI in vanilla sucks. But is G&K any better?

I've just about had it with the AI in vanilla. Seriously, whoever at Firaxis programmed the AI in this game should be fired.

The AI in this game comes down to "Oh, you're doing better than me! I'm going to declare war!". It's so stupid. A Kindergardener could program better AI.

Vanilla is simply a war game no matter what you do. Seriously, EVERY AI will attack you for no freaking reason. Just ruins the game for me.

I was playnig as Harun Al-Rashid and had a pretty good start. But then Germany AND Japan declare war on me for no reason. Freaking stupid man. I raged quit because of that BS.

But is the AI in G&K any better? Because vanilla is really ticking me off right now.

It`s better. But it`s not that better, so I suspect you`ll still be rage-quitting.

i got vanilla then g and k

my experience is its still very bad ai, the total inability to use its military better than a five year old is as frustrating as the diplomacy for me right now..

im hoping bnw will improve it, for this sort of game the ai is the most important thing really

Socratatus said:

It`s better. But it`s not that better, so I suspect you`ll still be rage-quitting.

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My main issue is the super aggressive AI. So is that fixed for the most part in G&K?

I mean the AI in vanilla should atleast need a reason to declare war.

The AI plays Civ like a video game; they're in it to win it*, and if they see you as a threat to their victory they will address you in the same way you would.

*The technology unfortunately isn't there to make them particularly good at this but they do try.

Get BNW. Military AI aggression is scaled back to the point where people are complaining about how PASSIVE it is (although it becomes less so on Immortal/Deity).

In BNW the AI is way less agressive. But, at some point, it gets silly. The situation you describe 'I'm going to declare war because you are winning' is actually very realistic and competitive. They don't want you to win. In BNW, while the AI really is smarter, they won't be declaring war when you are finishing your spaceship, or dominating with tourism. They only occasionally will.

The Ai is better in G&K, but it still has a faulty circuit about ending war. So long as you score is a lot lower than the AI's, it won't give you peace. I actually fought over 250 continuous turns against the Ottomans once, it can be irritating. To get a white peace in G&K, you very often have to march an army down and threaten to take a city, and some civs still wont budge.

being passive in BNW is much easier, and I agree that the AI is too passive most of the time. This has been somewhat compensated for by the addition of some civs that make Bismarck look like a conscientious objector...

digrosz said:

In BNW the AI is way less agressive. But, at some point, it gets silly. The situation you describe 'I'm going to declare war because you are winning' is actually very realistic and competitive. They don't want you to win. In BNW, while the AI really is smarter, they won't be declaring war when you are finishing your spaceship, or dominating with tourism. They only occasionally will.

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i actually hate this concept though it is a personal thing

i want a challenging ai, but i dont want an ai that acts as if it is playing a video game, for me that ruins immersion

i want an ai that acts like a leader who is looking out for its nations interets

its hard to explain

Both G&K & BNW AIs are better, BNW even considerably better, but they're still terrible. What you're describing has little to do with the actual problems of the AI, though; what happened in your case was simply that Germany and Japan ganged up on you due to your army strength being too low. Japan is a highly aggressive AI and will attack you if you don't appear strong.

paulcarri said:

its hard to explain

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No, you make sense. I know what you mean.

People say the tech isn`t there to make good AI, but I disagree. In my 20 years of playing strategy games i`ve seen some game AI which is very, very good. It`s very good because the Devs went to the time and trouble to program a GOOD AI.

Unfortunately, with the obsession today for eye-bleeding graphics and multiplayer, the budget for big games goes to that first.

Ai is second which usually means it`s rubbish.

Socratatus said:

No, you make sense. I know what you mean.

People say the tech isn`t there to make good AI, but I disagree. In my 20 years of playing strategy games i`ve seen some game AI which is very, very good. It`s very good because the Devs went to the time and trouble to program a GOOD AI.

Unfortunately, with the obsession today for eye-bleeding graphics and multiplayer, the budget for big games goes to that first.

Ai is second which usually means it`s rubbish.

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Maybee its my age? but to me, ...civ 3 graphics were fine, i dont care about graphics (up to a point, id wince if it looked like civ 1 maybe

Its all about immersion to me, its why i play historical maps so much and have wasted hundreds of hours on marla singers maps over the years


I like civ v , but this is the first time i have not been hooked..usually when i get a new civ i drive my wife mad for a month because i play incessantly. I dare say the civ 5 ai is no worse than civ iv, but it FEELS less like im playing against real opponents if that makes sense

In bts i felt i knew monty, knew ghandi, knew catherine (lying cow lol), and id actually feel different emotions at discovering certain neighbours

Im waffling, in short, the ai is the single most important thing for me...ive held off getting bnw because ive read conflicting reports about changes to the ai

I feel for you. The first few times I played V and my wife asked if I'm coming to bed (like she's continuously done over the years whenever I play civ) in that resigned tone wives are famous for, and I did, the look on her face was priceless.

I recently got G&K, and while it has improved Civ V, I'm still not as immersed in the game as I was in previous iterations of Civ. As for BNW, I too have read conflicting reports of issues/problems with it, so I'm in no real rush to buy it.

lol u would not believe how many times ive

looked at the clock, and gone 'oh damn its 2am'

tried to sneak into bed quietly

and had her wake up, and go 'youve been playing that game all night havent you'

maybee its a good thing im not as addicted

paulcarri said:

lol u would not believe how many times ive

looked at the clock, and gone 'oh damn its 2am'

tried to sneak into bed quietly

and had her wake up, and go 'youve been playing that game all night havent you'

maybee its a good thing im not as addicted

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Mine has actually placed small alarm clocks strategically around my computer desk, just out of arms reach, in order for me to get off of the comp when playing Civ .

Socratatus said:

No, you make sense. I know what you mean.

People say the tech isn`t there to make good AI, but I disagree. In my 20 years of playing strategy games i`ve seen some game AI which is very, very good. It`s very good because the Devs went to the time and trouble to program a GOOD AI.

Unfortunately, with the obsession today for eye-bleeding graphics and multiplayer, the budget for big games goes to that first.

Ai is second which usually means it`s rubbish.

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Do you have any specific examples of tactical turn based games (and I do specifically mean TACTICAL, the combat system is where the AI is weakest and you can't really compare that to something like Age of Empires) where you felt the AI was particularly competent? I've been playing Fire Emblem for quite some time (not twenty years, haven't even been alive that long), which is generally considered one of the most brutally difficult tactics franchises in gaming, and I can tell you that the difficulty in that game has nothing to do with the AI playing smart. The kinds of things the AI does to stay competitive with the human mind would have Civ players burning down Firaxis's studio in retribution if they were applied here.

If it is aggression , yes It is by far smarter with BNW.
Basically if the AI has decided he can take you on peacefully , using tourism or a peacefull science victory for instance , it won t declare for the simple reason that you are his neighbour. And that s a plus , both for challenge and for immersion.Because you have this annoyingly nice neighbour , who is sending you a lot of gold through caravans , welcoming open borders and religion , and building wonders like crazy (all of which basically increases his tourism output to you, or just its gold for a diplomatic victory) ... and he stays crazy nice. He even has more than one friend ...In fact you start to become the vanillia IA and just declare on mister nice for no other reasons than 'you are my neighbour and you built wonders we coveted' , just like some psychopatic IA nation (and become the wretch of the world in the process) Talk about irony ...

paulcarri said:

i actually hate this concept though it is a personal thing

i want a challenging ai, but i dont want an ai that acts as if it is playing a video game, for me that ruins immersion

i want an ai that acts like a leader who is looking out for its nations interets

its hard to explain

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I think I follow...but be careful what you wish for - can you imagine what a much smarter AI might do?
"Alex was attacking my walled city with a huge armed force but I was holding him off OK - so he went away after leaving me a huge ornamental horse, which I have just moved into my city..."

Now that would be a really fun event.

Socratatus said:

In my 20 years of playing strategy games i`ve seen some game AI which is very, very good.

Click to expand...

Arachnofiend said:

Do you have any specific examples of tactical turn based games (and I do specifically mean TACTICAL, the combat system is where the AI is weakest and you can't really compare that to something like Age of Empires) where you felt the AI was particularly competent?

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Chess? Very turn based, very tactical and today very good!
And this might be the major problem: the Civ series was never intended as a tactical wargame, it was intended as a strategic empire builder - and while all the previous game designers in the series (Meier, Reynolds, Johnson) were directly involved in the AI programming, Shafer was not. So the first three had profound knowledge of what game elements an AI could be programmed to deal with properly and what not. And they made their game decisions based on that knowledge. Shafer (and he actually admits it in his recent "At the gates" interview!) designed something that looked good and worked on paper and then handed it over to the actual programmer who had to come up with the real coding that made Shafers design work in the real world. And I suspect that Shafers vision might have been a bit too bold for what was implementable with the given ressources.
Which is a pity - because instead of a big move forward V Vanilla at release was a big mess. And even BNW - although I admit I haven't played it, but there are enough complaints about phlegmatic AI - sounds to me like instead of trying to fix the tactical AI they just put so much culture and tourism and world congress icing on the cake and tuned down AI aggression that you simply don't see the bad tactical AI no longer for what it is: bad tactical AI.
Which brings us back to the initial question: why force a tactical 1UPT component into a game that does not really need it - if you're not capable of doing it properly?