AI "Difficulty"....

[Ciek]

Well this is the first thread I've ever actually felt was worth writing, and I apologize ahead of the time if it seems like a rant, (and it does). The purpose of this post is that I felt the need to vent some frustration, as well as understand my fellow high level players, and how they deal or don't deal with these issues. I played consistently at Immortal last patch, and sometimes Deity, for those that care... And as a side-note I do know how make friends, and work the diplomacy, I just think the AI doesn't...


First off, I understand that they "increased" the difficulty of the AI at it's pure base form. So that's not an issue with me, it's how they "increased" the difficulty. I have a long scathing hate for the AI in this game, as some people know. Yet, I must be a very hopeful and optimistic masochist because I continue playing the game, a lot in fact .

Ok, well before the latest patch, I regularly played immortal on all sorts of map types and sizes with a variety of settings, and I understand that the game devs suggested going down a difficulty level. So after playing and beating several games of emperor I move back on up, and a few games are played, some range from just pure early wonder spam by all AIs and no one declares war, to a Pangaea game where EVERYONE declares war with everyone and then the AI still has no capacity to even take a city from me, for instance one city of mine with no walls, on flat land surrounded by 7 warriors with a single archer managed to kill or force all of the 7 warriors with only one attacking the city head on. And in other parts of my empire the AIs literally declared war and began killing off each other while at war with me at the same time. And furthermore later I had a single swordsman just fortify next to my city while I pelted it down....

Now granted the AIs in question for this game were ALL standard warmongers, if I remember correctly they were: Rome, England, France, Japan, Denmark, Suleiman, and two human players who were not teamed, I was Arabia, and my friend was Polynesia( we picked random civs, and I laughed at his misfortune of getting Poly).
So I suppose the extremity of the situation could have been caused by the amount of high rolling warmongers, but the nonsensical DoWs are pretty much universal (I have even tested it on Chieftain for my sanity's sake).

It just seems to be utter frustration with this "increased difficulty". With the immortal AIs breaking their own research agreements with other players and myself, for no apparent reason declaring war and then crippling each other. It seems the human can just make short work of any invading force with minimal losses, and continue until they win... At first look the wars seem to keep the human from just sitting and abusing the AI, which is not the case, because the Human can just trade to the nearby warmongers first and then when they declare, you just trade off to someone else.

So ultimately I understand that many immortal and Deity players understand all of this and undoubtedly work around it, so I ask you this: Do you actually enjoy playing like this? Because I sure as hell do not. I would rather walk right on through an Emperor level game with a 90% win rate than beat up on AI with no idea of self preservation, they're just hordes of mindless drones sent to sting your resources and kill themselves off.


Or of course I'm just an unlucky moron who had a string of insane games .

I would just like to know what other people think about all of this insanity that I see on Immortal and Deity. And If I can use those quotes again, I personally find this "difficulty" not so difficult, and more so just plain "annoying".

PS: My rage might stem from playing some other strategy games while I was waiting for the new patch. So maybe it really hasn't changed and I've just gotten used to working AI. Also, I have a screenshot of the horde of enemies that I may get around to posting eventually.

 

[Exterminas]

They are warmongers.
They intend to win a conquest victory.
No amount of gifts you give them may stop them from trying to butcher you some day.

The only thing you can do to stop them from attempting to do so, is to convince them to butcher someone else first.

So pay them off to declare war on someone else, when you see them amassting troops near your border.

The AI sure isn't a nice and cuddly pet, but I think people are too harsh to it by now, compared to Civ4. In Civ4 you couldn't have piece with certain dudes, like Ghengis Khan and Monty. And that's how things roll in Civ5, with the warmongers.

 

[Johan de Witt]

[...] two human players who were not teamed

I am surprised that you use a multiplayer game as an example. Difficulty in multiplayer =/= difficulty in singleplayer.

I don't usually see AI's breaking eachother's research agreements. I so see some AI players who seem inable to crush their neighbours and get locked in perpetual combat until one of them starts to out-tech the other. (Seen Monty break hordes of tanks and artillery on Japanese riflemen and cannons once).

 

[Pazyryk]

First off, I understand that they "increased" the difficulty of the AI at it's pure base form.

Could you please clarify this statement? Do you mean that they increased AI handicapping bonuses? Or do you mean that they increased difficulty for human without increasing AI handicapping bonuses? I thought it was the latter (which in my opinion is a plus no matter how achieved). If it was the former, then that makes me unhappy...

 

[Aestis25]

As best I can gather, the central point of your post is that you currently find Deity to be far too easy?

 

[bryanw1995]

I am surprised that you use a multiplayer game as an example. Difficulty in multiplayer =/= difficulty in singleplayer.

I don't usually see AI's breaking eachother's research agreements. I so see some AI players who seem inable to crush their neighbours and get locked in perpetual combat until one of them starts to out-tech the other. (Seen Monty break hordes of tanks and artillery on Japanese riflemen and cannons once).

this is your problem.

 

[Ciek]

Well, actually I'm finding the AI even more difficult in multiplayer games at the high difficulties than I do in single player. I'm beginning to believe that this is intended based upon the recent patch, but it still seems silly that the AI group attacks a human player only to then declare war on each other outside of my archer loaded city... and I never said this was easy, it's that the idea of making the game higher difficulty was that the game was just made into a game of mental fortitude, at least for me...

An example of this: I play any game on either immortal or deity until I just get utterly frustrated with the AI being stupid, and most of the time waaay too predictable... (oh, you're only buying my luxury for 200? AND you have 3 (insert contemporary unit here) patrolling my borders? Well then, why don't I just take all of your money and use it to buy some ranged units for the city you're going to stand outside of while I kill you... And then other times the AI just does not act within it's own interest, like attacking their own trade partners half way across the world(myself included), and then simultaneously bankrupting their economy and their armies by sticking them in the ocean for my frigates to massacre...

I have a feeling that all of the leaders ruling these countries would have been deposed via mass revolution by now.

As best I can gather, the central point of your post is that you currently find Deity to be far too easy?

No no no, not at all, it's just that the difficulty involved in deity is ultimately unsatisfying, the AI has no grand strategies, it's like a battle with yourself and making as little mistakes as possible, because you know that the AI is going to try to fruitlessly murder you while attempting another victory condition, his mindless zombie hordes are merely a distraction, and if you think you're seriously going to lose a city, you just sell it off to someone he's not at war with, and then he declares war on him(more likely) or doesn't, and the crazy AI accepts a city that they nuked into oblivion for a peace treaty...

Could you please clarify this statement? Do you mean that they increased AI handicapping bonuses? Or do you mean that they increased difficulty for human without increasing AI handicapping bonuses? I thought it was the latter (which in my opinion is a plus no matter how achieved). If it was the former, then that makes me unhappy...

I should have been more clear, and I apologize, what I meant is that they increased the difficulty for the human, so the second choice you gave, which I agree is not a plus, it's just plain annoying at most, and unsatisfying at least, that I suppose is the crux of my post.

I am surprised that you use a multiplayer game as an example. Difficulty in multiplayer =/= difficulty in singleplayer.

Well, I normally don't play multiplayer with high level AIs( really only with one friend of mine) and this thread was not specifically addressing that, it was just an example of
an EXTREME occurrence that I felt was worth mentioning, but I find that single player experience still has a lot of the same issues plaguing it, the multiplayer game I used was basically the thing that stuck out the most in my mind, and exemplified my point the most, and really I hadn't planned for there to be so many warmongers on a pangaea map, it just happened that way.

Again, I apologize for being so wordy, it's a bad habit of mine.

 

[Pazyryk]

I should have been more clear, and I apologize, what I meant is that they increased the difficulty for the human, so the second choice you gave, which I agree is not a plus, it's just plain annoying at most, and unsatisfying at least, that I suppose is the crux of my post.

Well, perhaps it was my turn to be unclear. Let me make my two options more clear. Did the game get harder because?:

1. Handicapping changes. Either bonuses to AI and/or penalties for human. This does not include dogpiling or other AI behaviors unless they are treating a human opponent different than an AI opponent. This is not an improvement -- it's simply an adjustment of the current difficulty levels.
2. Anything else that makes the game more difficult for human without adjusting bonuses/penalties that are specific for AI vs. human player. According to me, such changes are always good.

It sounds like you think #2 above, but you think this is a bad thing.

 

[Ciek]

Well, perhaps it was my turn to be unclear. Let me make my two options more clear. Did the game get harder because?:

1. Handicapping changes. Either bonuses to AI and/or penalties for human. This does not include dogpiling or other AI behaviors unless they are treating a human opponent different than an AI opponent. This is not an improvement -- it's simply an adjustment of the current difficulty levels.
2. Anything else that makes the game more difficult for human without adjusting bonuses/penalties that are specific for AI vs. human player. According to me, such changes are always good.

It sounds like you think #2 above, but you think this is a bad thing.

What I meant is that the purest extent to the increase of difficulty is the fact that the AI declares war even more often with even more units, yet the AI is still unable to take any cities without a huge technological lead, as long as the human has an average sized military and knows how to wage war. I would be much more approving of an AI that actually staged it's units in real strategic formations and planned it's attacks on my cities, instead it's "harder" because there's more of them, which is only so much as more difficult as say tweaking the Raging Barbarians to being more Raging.

The AI is still so horrid that they are basically giving me workers to enslave and throwing their Great Persons at me as if they were military units, as well as not upgrading their military units at all at times. Maybe my problem is that I expected to much from this latest patch. I haven't *actually* looked at the files so I'm not sure if they got a bigger handicap, but from what I can tell the AI definitely was reworked to attack with more units and more often, with less provocation, without any change to their strategic mind. They declare war so much that I have won emperor games by domination without ever declaring war on anyone else, this should not be, they should not be so willing to commit suicide like that.

In summation: I think they made the game more difficult by tweaking the AI's tendency to declare war on both humans and each other more often and with more units, without regarding anything beyond attacking now for a supposed quick gain. The thing that I do like about the increased difficulty is that it is somewhat harder to rob the AI blind. I really do hope that clears up details about what I'm saying here.

 

[Pazyryk]

Well, I agree there is a big problem that the tactical:AI can't follow through on what the diplo:AI decides to do (except sometimes because the swarm is overwhelming). Would you rather have the AI say "Oh, I have overwhelming force but I suck at warfare so I won't even try"? I guess I thought it was silly (pre-April-patch) that the AI was given overwhelming unit/production/everything advantage, but then Deity players could get through the game without building a single military unit. If you're going to give the AI so many units, they should at least use them. Tactical AI still has a long way to go, clearly.

 

[DaveMcW]

Tactical AI is a hard problem. Firaxis knows it, but they can't afford to fix it.

 

[Ciek]

Tactical AI is a hard problem. Firaxis knows it, but they can't afford to fix it.

Well, that actually reminds me of another question: Has anyone been able to sufficiently mod either the tactical AI or mod the AI to where the AI can actually do something with the mechanics already in place?

Well, I agree there is a big problem that the tactical:AI can't follow through on what the diplo:AI decides to do (except sometimes because the swarm is overwhelming). Would you rather have the AI say "Oh, I have overwhelming force but I suck at warfare so I won't even try"? I guess I thought it was silly (pre-April-patch) that the AI was given overwhelming unit/production/everything advantage, but then Deity players could get through the game without building a single military unit. If you're going to give the AI so many units, they should at least use them. Tactical AI still has a long way to go, clearly.

Ok, what I would prefer under the current system(obviously not with an improved tactical AI) is that the AI would actually weigh it's pros and cons before declaring war, like whether it's actually diplomatically a viable option, maybe they could actually bring war allies, instead of other AIs that will actually backstab them once I weaken their invading force. As well as not be so eager to depart with their gold. They should not be so willing to commit suicide.

 

[aimlessgun]

Well, that actually reminds me of another question: Has anyone been able to sufficiently mod either the tactical AI or mod the AI to where the AI can actually do something with the mechanics already in place?

Unfortunately 2k has not seen fit to release the tools to do such in-depth modification. It remains to be seen if they ever will (maybe in a few years after they sell all the expansions and DLCs they plan to make lol)

 

[DaveMcW]

A brief history of Civ4 tactical AI.

November 2005: Civ4 released with horrible naval transport AI.
April 2006: AI SDK released.
November 2008: Modders teach the AI how to use transports correctly.
November 2010: Civ5 changes transports from a unit to a promotion.

Like aimlessgun said, you're going to be waiting for a while.

 

[Tabarnak]

Another solution is to only play against humans. This almost always turn somewhere in a bloodbath, but at least you fight against real tactical thinkers and they not cheat.

It's one of the principal reasons why i play almost exclusively multi. AI need to cheat so bad to have a decent competition(deity) and they do random brainless stuffs.

I like wars too, so a builder in heart will never like play multipayer unless under some specific contests like who will throw a spaceship first, etc. with friends only(but in fact, with some good thinking you can do everything even when at war).

If i can play against a decent AI(like at emperor but still very hard to beat) i would be very happy for me but certainly for other players too.

 

[Ciek]

Another solution is to only play against humans. This almost always turn somewhere in a bloodbath, but at least you fight against real tactical thinkers and they not cheat.

It's one of the principal reasons why i play almost exclusively multi. AI need to cheat so bad to have a decent competition(deity) and they do random brainless stuffs.

I like wars too, so a builder in heart will never like play multipayer unless under some specific contests like who will throw a spaceship first, etc. with friends only(but in fact, with some good thinking you can do everything even when at war).

If i can play against a decent AI(like at emperor but still very hard to beat) i would be very happy for me but certainly for other players too.

Yeah, I've always played multiplayer, and have several friends I play regularly with over the last few patches, and I'm right there with you at the wanting to fight a decent Emperor level AI. In most games I like the war, every once in a while I'll play a builder game. It's just that most people I play ANY strategy game turn based or RTS my friends end up only wanting to play cooperatively against computers and not against me, because eventually I learn their tricks, and I usually spend a lot more time playing said strategy game. I think it ultimately stems from playing Risk, chess and Stratego against my relatives growing up. It's like a curse .

I don't plan on stopping my civ play any time soon, because every once in a while I get a good game, and I can always hope for better experiences down the road. Thanks for the responses!