Update: Now compatible with Rise & Fall
Hi, this mod will be an ongoing project that attempts to make the Civ VI AI more competitive.
During this project I'll try to maintain the following points as a design philosophy:
- Stick entirely to changes that only impact the AI without impacting the larger game.
- No changes to the AI difficulty bonuses
- Improve the AI's ability to win without using cheesy strategies that reduce game enjoyment, such as all players declaring war on the player the moment they meet him.
- Maintain and improve upon the 'flavor' of the AI through distinct personalities and playstyles.
Changes
- The ability of the AI to wage aggressive wars. They will get more troops in faster and will use them more effectively. It won't be as distracted by enemy units, will not retreat as fast, will stick more to clustered formations and will be significantly less likely to stare your city down. It will also keep the pressure up throughout the entire game, with it now capable of capturing lategame walled cities. Occasionally you'll see a civilization completely take over another.
- Settle behavior, it now settles more appropriate locations at faster rates.
- Tuning on the AI's production choices. With extra changes based on whether it's at war, or under siege. Whether it has a religion, what difficulty setting we're on, etc. Overall you should see the AI develop larger, better cities, without neglecting their military.
- Leaders now have more distinct personalities when it comes to district/building/unit/etc choices.
- Many other small improvements.
Limitations
There's unfortunately a few strong limitations on this work. The worst is of course that we have no access to the game code, so most of what I can do is working within the system that Firaxis designed. This offers some flexibility, but there's many areas I just can't touch at all like many of the finer details of combat behavior, policy choices, repairing improvements, unit upgrading, agenda logic and much of the diplomatic system.
On top of that, testing changes out takes extremely long, so changes will be slow.
Any feedback on AI behavior and balance both with and without this mod is greatly appreciated. Especially when it comes to the later eras, slower gamespeeds, water maps and difficulties below prince.
At this point, the AI feel will definitely feel more solid than that in the base game, but still comes nowhere close to being on the level of actual players. I'd say it's now on a level similar or slightly higher than the unmodded Civ V AI, with different weaknesses and strengths. However, since the AI bonuses are much lower in Civ VI, the game will probably still feel easier.
Changelog
(The exact values and tweaks are way too numerous to name here and can be found in the files)
Other mods and compatibility
Please note that this mod can end up behaving badly with other mods that impact the AI, and mods that impact some game aspects like production costs. In most cases though it'll cause small problems at most.
This mod already includes some of the more important fixes made by Delnar Ersike in Delnar's AI Cleanup and I would for now not recommend running them together.
Some mods that you may find worth considering that can help make the game more difficult as they help the AI play a little better:
- Smoother difficulty by RushSecond
- Strategic Resource and Tech Tree Rebalance Mod by Novemberisms
- AI Siege Help by Gort
- Quo's Rocketboots by isau
Install instructions:
Make sure you have at least the Australia patch installed (older versions won't work), then download the mod here, or get it through steam at:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=878717347
To install without steam, unpack the file into:
My Games/Sid Meier's Civilization VI/Mods
(So that it now contains the folder AI+)
Then launch the game, select Additional Content and enable AI+. The next time you launch your game this mod will be loaded. I wouldn't recommend loading old games if you install or update this, it can cause crashes.
To update from an old version, make sure to close the game completely first, and then disable/enable AI+ again after replacing the files.
Hi, this mod will be an ongoing project that attempts to make the Civ VI AI more competitive.
During this project I'll try to maintain the following points as a design philosophy:
- Stick entirely to changes that only impact the AI without impacting the larger game.
- No changes to the AI difficulty bonuses
- Improve the AI's ability to win without using cheesy strategies that reduce game enjoyment, such as all players declaring war on the player the moment they meet him.
- Maintain and improve upon the 'flavor' of the AI through distinct personalities and playstyles.
Changes
- The ability of the AI to wage aggressive wars. They will get more troops in faster and will use them more effectively. It won't be as distracted by enemy units, will not retreat as fast, will stick more to clustered formations and will be significantly less likely to stare your city down. It will also keep the pressure up throughout the entire game, with it now capable of capturing lategame walled cities. Occasionally you'll see a civilization completely take over another.
- Settle behavior, it now settles more appropriate locations at faster rates.
- Tuning on the AI's production choices. With extra changes based on whether it's at war, or under siege. Whether it has a religion, what difficulty setting we're on, etc. Overall you should see the AI develop larger, better cities, without neglecting their military.
- Leaders now have more distinct personalities when it comes to district/building/unit/etc choices.
- Many other small improvements.
Limitations
There's unfortunately a few strong limitations on this work. The worst is of course that we have no access to the game code, so most of what I can do is working within the system that Firaxis designed. This offers some flexibility, but there's many areas I just can't touch at all like many of the finer details of combat behavior, policy choices, repairing improvements, unit upgrading, agenda logic and much of the diplomatic system.
On top of that, testing changes out takes extremely long, so changes will be slow.
Any feedback on AI behavior and balance both with and without this mod is greatly appreciated. Especially when it comes to the later eras, slower gamespeeds, water maps and difficulties below prince.
At this point, the AI feel will definitely feel more solid than that in the base game, but still comes nowhere close to being on the level of actual players. I'd say it's now on a level similar or slightly higher than the unmodded Civ V AI, with different weaknesses and strengths. However, since the AI bonuses are much lower in Civ VI, the game will probably still feel easier.
Changelog
(The exact values and tweaks are way too numerous to name here and can be found in the files)
Spoiler :
Other mods and compatibility
Please note that this mod can end up behaving badly with other mods that impact the AI, and mods that impact some game aspects like production costs. In most cases though it'll cause small problems at most.
This mod already includes some of the more important fixes made by Delnar Ersike in Delnar's AI Cleanup and I would for now not recommend running them together.
Some mods that you may find worth considering that can help make the game more difficult as they help the AI play a little better:
- Smoother difficulty by RushSecond
- Strategic Resource and Tech Tree Rebalance Mod by Novemberisms
- AI Siege Help by Gort
- Quo's Rocketboots by isau
Install instructions:
Make sure you have at least the Australia patch installed (older versions won't work), then download the mod here, or get it through steam at:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=878717347
To install without steam, unpack the file into:
My Games/Sid Meier's Civilization VI/Mods
(So that it now contains the folder AI+)
Then launch the game, select Additional Content and enable AI+. The next time you launch your game this mod will be loaded. I wouldn't recommend loading old games if you install or update this, it can cause crashes.
To update from an old version, make sure to close the game completely first, and then disable/enable AI+ again after replacing the files.