Lord Parkin
aka emperor
So I just started up a team game with the AI to see whether any more thought had been put into it than the rest of the game. Nope. Silly me, what was I expecting. Glaring bugs and issues right the way through. Did no-one even play the first few turns of a team game before release? (Of course not.)
Glaring Problems with AI Team Play:
- Your teammates are just as rude, disparaging and hostile in their diplomacy towards you as regular civs. They are disinterested in diplomacy and keep saying "Oh, it's you", "You again?", and "Get on with it". They keep telling you your military is the laughing stock of the world and that "someone will soon put you out of your misery". What the **** kind of team spirit is that? Civ4 got this right first time around by putting the teamed AI as perma-friendly with one another. In Civ5, there is no "Friendly" option, so your teammates are just as big jerks to you as everyone else.
- AI teammates refuse to discuss declaring war on someone when you ask them in diplomacy, you have to force them into it by declaring war yourself.
- When you do declare war on someone, they sit on the sidelines and complain about your "lust for blood". "Hope your little war isn't going well", my AI teammate says. WHAT THE FRIGGING HELL? You're my ALLY, dude! How on EARTH was this overlooked? Answer: nobody bothered to check it.
- There's no way to tell the AI teammates where they should focus their military. There was such an ability in Civ4, even if it didn't work that well. What's up?
- No ability to see into your teammate's cities. Consequently, there's no way for me to check how much gold, research or culture my teammate is producing. Your could do this in Civ4 easily. HUGE oversight.
- Friendly units from the same team are unable to mix - for instance, my Workers are unable to improve tiles where my ally's units are wandering. What. The. Heck.
- AI teammates refuse your requests for gold (or apparently any) help. (You stupid git, we're supposed to be a team - why are you refusing to send me a few extra gold so we can get that City State as an ally?)
- AI teammates refuse requests for resources. What kind of alliance is that? Stark contrast to Civ4 where they were only too happy to help.
- AI teammates offer excess resources to other civs with preference over your own. This is backwards; in Civ4 they always offered excess resources to you first.
- Gold from meeting City States (and probably other bonuses) seems to get applied to every teammate in full (e.g. 30 gold apiece). This probably shouldn't be the case.
- City State bonuses (food, culture) are only applied to ONE team member. You're KIDDING, right? This was overlooked? Excuse me, but he's my ally, and you're my ally. Shouldn't you be his ally too? (There are many ways to balance this - for a team of two, double cost of gold gifts, or halve influence given through gold gifts, or halve the benefits of the city state.)
- No option to suggest to the AI teammates what they should do with their gold, e.g. which city states they should focus on buying. Isn't this kind of necessary for functioning teams?
- Social Policies are apparently completely separate for teammates. I'm pretty sure this shouldn't be the case. Shouldn't your culture (like research and military) be combined (with corresponding higher thresholds), and you adopt policies together? How does it make sense that one teammate can adopt policies his teammate has no idea about? There should definitely be some sort of a tie-in here. Otherwise one teammate can just sit back and head for a Social Policy victory on his own. Seems like a pretty big oversight. [Further thoughts]
- No way to swap tiles between you and your teammates. This is the case even between humans in teams. Civ4 at least had "friendly borders" between teams, where teammates would get access to tiles in the big fat cross even if their teammates owned more of those tiles culturally. In Civ5 with no way to culturally convert tiles, it's critical that there be some mechanism to switch tiles around between teammates. This presently doesn't exist.
- There doesn't seem to be anything to stop my own allies buy City States out from under me. Again, there's the issue with City States only giving benefits to one member of a team.
- AI opponents on teams come to you separately looking for pacts of cooperation and secrecy. This should instead be a team-wide effect.
- The Great Library was built by an AI teammate, and it didn't appear to give me their free tech. The Pyramids was built by an AI teammate, and it does not seem to have sped up my Worker speed. I suspect this is going to be the case for all wonders. In Civ4 they had shared benefits in teams, which made sense. What's up with Civ5?
- No control over which City States your AI teammates go to war with. This not only means they can attack a city state you were hoping to ally with soon, but they can ruin your chances to gain future city state allies because of their warmongering ("City States band together" event). The power to control wars with City States in a team with one human player and the rest AI players should ALWAYS reside with the human player.
- The above also makes me suspicious that AI teammates may be able to declare war on other civs without your consent. As before, in a team with one human player and the rest AI players, this power should always rest with the human player.
Anyway, that's just the short list I've come up with in LESS than one hour of play.
There's certainly no clearer proof that little thought was put into the AI than watching it mega-fail in the team environment (especially in diplomacy). Just further evidence that the AI has no concept of friendship or alliances. Not good.
There's also no clearer proof that practically no testing was done of this part of the game at least. All of the issues I mentioned above I discovered in less than an hour of play. I'm sure I'll find many more as I continue to play. Seriously, what the heck?
All in all team play seems to be very botched, especially with the AI.
Glaring Problems with AI Team Play:
- Your teammates are just as rude, disparaging and hostile in their diplomacy towards you as regular civs. They are disinterested in diplomacy and keep saying "Oh, it's you", "You again?", and "Get on with it". They keep telling you your military is the laughing stock of the world and that "someone will soon put you out of your misery". What the **** kind of team spirit is that? Civ4 got this right first time around by putting the teamed AI as perma-friendly with one another. In Civ5, there is no "Friendly" option, so your teammates are just as big jerks to you as everyone else.
- AI teammates refuse to discuss declaring war on someone when you ask them in diplomacy, you have to force them into it by declaring war yourself.
- When you do declare war on someone, they sit on the sidelines and complain about your "lust for blood". "Hope your little war isn't going well", my AI teammate says. WHAT THE FRIGGING HELL? You're my ALLY, dude! How on EARTH was this overlooked? Answer: nobody bothered to check it.
- There's no way to tell the AI teammates where they should focus their military. There was such an ability in Civ4, even if it didn't work that well. What's up?
- No ability to see into your teammate's cities. Consequently, there's no way for me to check how much gold, research or culture my teammate is producing. Your could do this in Civ4 easily. HUGE oversight.
- Friendly units from the same team are unable to mix - for instance, my Workers are unable to improve tiles where my ally's units are wandering. What. The. Heck.
- AI teammates refuse your requests for gold (or apparently any) help. (You stupid git, we're supposed to be a team - why are you refusing to send me a few extra gold so we can get that City State as an ally?)
- AI teammates refuse requests for resources. What kind of alliance is that? Stark contrast to Civ4 where they were only too happy to help.
- AI teammates offer excess resources to other civs with preference over your own. This is backwards; in Civ4 they always offered excess resources to you first.
- Gold from meeting City States (and probably other bonuses) seems to get applied to every teammate in full (e.g. 30 gold apiece). This probably shouldn't be the case.
- City State bonuses (food, culture) are only applied to ONE team member. You're KIDDING, right? This was overlooked? Excuse me, but he's my ally, and you're my ally. Shouldn't you be his ally too? (There are many ways to balance this - for a team of two, double cost of gold gifts, or halve influence given through gold gifts, or halve the benefits of the city state.)
- No option to suggest to the AI teammates what they should do with their gold, e.g. which city states they should focus on buying. Isn't this kind of necessary for functioning teams?
- Social Policies are apparently completely separate for teammates. I'm pretty sure this shouldn't be the case. Shouldn't your culture (like research and military) be combined (with corresponding higher thresholds), and you adopt policies together? How does it make sense that one teammate can adopt policies his teammate has no idea about? There should definitely be some sort of a tie-in here. Otherwise one teammate can just sit back and head for a Social Policy victory on his own. Seems like a pretty big oversight. [Further thoughts]
- No way to swap tiles between you and your teammates. This is the case even between humans in teams. Civ4 at least had "friendly borders" between teams, where teammates would get access to tiles in the big fat cross even if their teammates owned more of those tiles culturally. In Civ5 with no way to culturally convert tiles, it's critical that there be some mechanism to switch tiles around between teammates. This presently doesn't exist.
- There doesn't seem to be anything to stop my own allies buy City States out from under me. Again, there's the issue with City States only giving benefits to one member of a team.
- AI opponents on teams come to you separately looking for pacts of cooperation and secrecy. This should instead be a team-wide effect.
- The Great Library was built by an AI teammate, and it didn't appear to give me their free tech. The Pyramids was built by an AI teammate, and it does not seem to have sped up my Worker speed. I suspect this is going to be the case for all wonders. In Civ4 they had shared benefits in teams, which made sense. What's up with Civ5?
- No control over which City States your AI teammates go to war with. This not only means they can attack a city state you were hoping to ally with soon, but they can ruin your chances to gain future city state allies because of their warmongering ("City States band together" event). The power to control wars with City States in a team with one human player and the rest AI players should ALWAYS reside with the human player.
- The above also makes me suspicious that AI teammates may be able to declare war on other civs without your consent. As before, in a team with one human player and the rest AI players, this power should always rest with the human player.
Anyway, that's just the short list I've come up with in LESS than one hour of play.
There's certainly no clearer proof that little thought was put into the AI than watching it mega-fail in the team environment (especially in diplomacy). Just further evidence that the AI has no concept of friendship or alliances. Not good.
There's also no clearer proof that practically no testing was done of this part of the game at least. All of the issues I mentioned above I discovered in less than an hour of play. I'm sure I'll find many more as I continue to play. Seriously, what the heck?
All in all team play seems to be very botched, especially with the AI.
