Give the AI combat bonus instead of hundreds of units

Disclaimer: This is not a substitute for improving the AI, which is strongly needed, but can be combined with an improved AI or at least a short term solution until we get one.

As it is right now the bonus to the AI on higher difficulties give them the ability to field many more units than the human player to make up for their horrible combat tactics. However, there are a few problems with this:

-Human player will position units better and most of the time have the advantage of terrain, great generals, flanking, promotions and so on. This usually adds up to 40% or more combat advantage in my experience
-You are usually unable to use more than ~5 units efficiently in a battle at a time, having more units does not help much because most battles happens at choke points
-Friendly AI units makes it too difficult to move your units because you get blocked everywhere
-Human's units get huge amount of XP because of the AI's hordes of units, which snowballs into even more unbalanced battles

As most of you who have played on higher difficulties have noticed, it is not particularly hard to beat the enemy in battle on immortal/diety even when they have 10 times the units and even a slight tech advantage. If the enemy instead of having so many units simply had stronger units the battles would be more fun and more challenging. I am not sure how much of an advantage they would need, but I would start with a 20% advantage. This way the human player still has an advantage when he catch the AI on a plain or is defending a fortified hill, but wont slaughter them as much as today.

Comments? Does people agree that it may make the game more challenging?

TL;DR
On higher difficulties, give the AI less units but a ~20% combat advantage

More challenging, yes. More fun - not so sure. Recently I had a game on immortal where my opponent was running the +33% strength in own territory policy, as well as the discipline policy. Pushing through that choke point was like taking a city on a hill from Sitting Bull in BTS. Quite painful. Lost a few of my experienced dudes.

Add another 20% on that... ugh.

none of the above

100% agree. Giving the AI more units doesn't help them, and clogs up the map.

Also it would help the AI dramatically if they actually used some of their horde for DEFENSE instead of sending 50 units across the entire map. I'm so sick of watching powerful AI empires get crushed because of this. 50 units and not one unit is where it is supposed to be.

and convince the AI to use their generals a little

The big benefit of bonuses instead of extra units is that you would have less turn time slowdown from the AI having too many units.

I'm going to be blunt. This may be the one idea that is worse than the way they already implement Civ difficulties.

EDIT: Couldn't vote in the poll because nothing approaching my opinion is represented.

Well it would certainly be an easy change to make in a mod and try it out. Sounds interesting.

If it didn't work you could also try strengthening AI armies by reducing their XP requirement for promotions.

There are legitimate criticism in this game, however, why should Firaxis reduce some features in higher settings like AI massive unit production for the benefit of some players that can't handle the challenge? More problem like catapults running around in the front line and other things are much more important to be addressed.

If you can't handle all these waves of waves of units being thrown at you, then go back to an easier setting that can accommodate your playing style.

None of the above. Can you imagine the already OP mounted units running over spearmen? They already dominate easily on clear terrain; with these combat buffs they'll win on rough terrain too. And yes, the AI is dumb enough to charge across river on to fortified spears in a forest - something I'd never see in cIV...

Thoughtful Thug said:

There are legitimate criticism in this game, however, why should Firaxis reduce some features in higher settings like AI massive unit production for the benefit of some players that can't handle the challenge? More problem like catapults running around in the front line and other things are much more important to be addressed.

If you can't handle all these waves of waves of units being thrown at you, then go back to an easier setting that can accommodate your playing style.

Click to expand...

The point isn't that the massive number of units are too hard, the problem is that it's too easy. I am mostly playing on Immortal these days, and declaring war is pretty much instant victory. I haven't played that many games, but I haven't been close to losing any of the games I've played on deity or immortal simply because the enemy has too many weak units.

Option 2 is what we have today. Of course I want the AI to actually be competent, but it will never be as good as a human player, and then I would prefer to lose some units instead of the current massacre. In my current immortal game most of my units have over 100 experience and I think I've lost 2 units so far until 1590 AD, now I've got mech inf and artillery so I guess I wont lose any more. The current state of warfare is ridiculous.

I'm hoping that:

"* Military – Corrected an issue hampering movement of AI armies, especially when in close proximity to enemy forces"

from the patch notes will make a big difference.


In regards to the poll, I think a combat strength advantage would be bad, despite the fact that fewer units would be good. Perhaps: Option 3) Give the AI more science advantages and fewer production advantages. This would mean you end up fighting fewer, stronger AI units. They'd probably still lose, but it might change the feel.

I was wondering if Shafer will use a trick like that to resolve AI weakness... i think it's te worst possibility... Giving bonus to AI troops to make up Ai inconsistency?
No i refuse to fall into a blackhole of gameplay as that. It's absolutely out of mind and only a way to avoid the problem...

Better Ai or refund, no way out with tricks like level bonus on combat too....

I agree with a combat bonus ranging from 10% on King to maybe 40% on Deity. More units are not the answer, nor are production, research or happiness enhancements. It would at the least be a nice mod to see. Of course, with changes to make the AI have Prince settings at higher difficultly. The bonus could be "rationalized" as better trained troops, better equiped, etc.

Problem is they dont just give the AI a ton of units.. they give them production bonuses that help them in other areas as well.. a simple combat bonus wouldnt make up for the lost production bonuses.

I just glaced thru the XML and I didn't see anything that would give a combat bonus to the AI based on difficulty level.

IMHO, this is a horribly clumsy way of solving a problem. You can't rectify a broken feature by breaking it some more, in the opposite direction.

If you are assuming that the AI cannot be improved to effectively deal with it (1st line of OP), then a better way to deal with unit spam would be to simply up the cost of units.

Unfortunately, I have to disagree with the idea of combat bonuses.

Given, how low the number of units is that would put the human player at an disadvantage against which he cannot work anymore.
Any lost unit (especially in the beginning) can be desastrous. How bad would it be to lose that unit, although you've done everything right?

Furthermore, with even odds on both sides you can somehow develop strategies and make tactical adjustments. I don't foresee this being possible with combat bonuses for the opponent.

Third, I don't think that the majority of players would accept this, as the inevitable frustration factor would rocket into the skies.
When I am facing a chokepoint situation where my spear is confronted by an enemy's spear plus archer, I don't expect to be successful.
How would it feel, if otherwise his spearman would be enabled to break through my chokepoint? Would this still be fun?

I severely doubt this. And Civ0.V is unfun enough already, we don't need additional punishing elements.

Instead of a straight up combat bonus, perhaps the AI could be given free militaristic buildings that give XP, according to level. The techs for these buildings would need to be researched before the free buildings are received, obviously, and add to that the AI being able to moderately understand that it needent turn as much production into units.

Key point is having the AI know not to build quite so many units if they are given a combat bonus of any sort, otherwise it would break it even more.

No I don't really want 'hordes' of enemies, but I sure a hell don't want the AI units having combat bonuses to make up for bad AI!

So, if I have to choose an option in this silly poll I'm going to go with the lesser of two evils: "Disagree, hordes of enemies are better"

I'd rather have shorter production times for new units, with maybe slightly higher upkeep but the best solution would ofcourse be better AI