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[member66170]

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[bbbt]

I agree that the current AI are more like 'NPCs' than competitors - they are more likely pursuing their own victory, but not necessarily actively hindering the player.

Honestly, I think a lot of players probably prefer that. Just the amount of complaints alone I've seen about previously 'friendly' civs suddenly becoming hostile in civ 5.

I think the ideal would actually to be have a 'slider' setting where you could set the AI to more competitive or more 'NPC' like on game startup. But that's probably a lot more development than firaxis can afford.

 

[Ryika]

I don't see it as a problem. If the AI is competent enough that it poses a serious thread of winning _before_ me if I don't play well and/or don't intervene, then that's all I need. I'd even say I'm rather happy that the AI doesn't try to "emulate" human players when it comes to winning the game, being able to "trick" the AI into letting you win is one of the great things that can only ever exist in PvE-settings, otherwise every single game would just end in a big, all-out war.

 

[Xur]

The "win" is just the ending, and I don't really enjoy losing or winning. I play for the experience that, the road to a win or loss gives. So I wasn't really the biggest fan of an AI that plays to win.

I usually play emperor/immortal on huge+/marathon games. I don't want to spend several days on a game that I know 100% that I will win, but I don't want to play a game that I know 100% that I will lose. The best games are the ones where the AI is ahead and you really need to struggle to get ahead...I disabled diplomatic victory, time victory and science victory because they are too easy, anticlimactic and can't really be countered.

So, I don't really know if that's a third category?

 

[Lord Shadow]

Personally, the main thing I expect from the AI is for it to be able to keep up with technology, and defend itself properly, which has been rather flawed in recent installments. I like to play the full extent of the game, and despite enjoying the variety in victory types, I usually have no interest in ending the game before the 20th century.

I tend to play around King difficulty, because I prefer a slightly disadvantaged setup without giving the AI the chance to run away with any particular victory. Higher difficulty levels don't really appeal to me, given they don't seem to affect my adversaries' ability to defend themselves, and at best they'd force me to rush to a victory, or eliminate an AI civ sooner than I'd like, to counter the effect of sheer mechanical bonuses.

I haven't really tried, but I'm open to suggestions about difficulty modding to find alternative settings more suited to my preferences.

I think Civ5 and possibly earlier Civs had a mechanic through which the least advanced civilizations get the most commonly researched technologies for free. If possible, that should be worth tinkering with in Civ6, to increase the effect the closer you get to the modern era so that, at worst we'll see industrial era units once a few civs have started researching modern techs, instead of spearmen and swordsmen. But that's a subject for another thread.

 

[thecrazyscot]

There's always been a "Raging Barbarians" option in civ, why not add a "Raging AI" option as well?

 

[stealth_nsk]

Win/Lose is not just the end of the game, it's what justifies all the decisions in the game. You may build military units to protect your land to not lose to conqueror, or to start conquest yourself, or to grab some cities, get more science and in the end win science victory. Actions which don't have any victory-related consequences don't make in-game sense. That's what makes game strategic. It's possible to act out of role, but you generally need to lower your difficulty for this to work as the actions will not be optimal.

What is the best approach to me is to act efficiently, but look at the things going on from immersion standpoint.

 

[need my speed]

There's always been a "Raging Barbarians" option in civ, why not add a "Raging AI" option as well?

This existed in Civilization IV.

As for the topic, I don't care at all about winning, and almost never end my games. I want to have fun, with AI's with personality, with whom I can interact.

 

[GauntZero]

For me it is primarily role-play.

Winning is of course something I prefer to do at the end, but it is not the main focus of my actions.

What I do, I will try to make as efficient as I can - but I wont do a playstyle just because it would be better.

 

[Lord Shadow]

Win/Lose is not just the end of the game, it's what justifies all the decisions in the game. You may build military units to protect your land to not lose to conqueror, or to start conquest yourself, or to grab some cities, get more science and in the end win science victory. Actions which don't have any victory-related consequences don't make in-game sense. That's what makes game strategic. It's possible to act out of role, but you generally need to lower your difficulty for this to work as the actions will not be optimal.

What is the best approach to me is to act efficiently, but look at the things going on from immersion standpoint.

Well, yeah, I agree. I try to find a balance between challenge and freedom, and that generally involves playing at a middle or middle-high difficulty level due to the number of "sub-optimal" decisions you'll be making. The higher levels progressively force you down specific victory roads, require more planning and have you rush to the final objective so that the AI doesn't beat you to any. It's a very mechanical, chess-like playstyle I'm not particularly fond of, and detracts from my immersion.

Like you, I prefer to play efficiently across the board, and eventually decide which victory to pursue, depending on the global scenario and the resources at my disposal.

 

[Acken]

Thats what difficulty is supposed to be about. You raise it because you want to feel more pressure. If someone preffers taking his time then just lower it.

We also dont want a totally win driven AI because civ always had mecanics that are incompatible with it. See open borders for tourism bonus as an example.

Ther is a problem when the AI is too passive or too weak. It no longer provide any pressure on the player. The weak prince ai of the lets play are a good example. It cannot defend or be a threat making most of the lets plays pretty boring to watch for me.

 

[qadams]

For me it's all about winning. I love to win and hate to lose. I do enjoy the role-playing along the way, but that's a secondary pleasure.

 

[Gedemon]

In Civ4 we had a role-playing AI that could end allied with the player for a coop victory, in Civ5 we had an AI emulating a human player trying to win alone a computer game.

I don't know how the AI is acting in Civ6 yet, but if I had to design it, I'd go for an AI emulating a leader trying to put his Civilization at the top of the world.

 

[demidyad]

This is really a very deep and unsolved tension at the heart of Civ's game design throughout the series. Different people view the civ series differently.

For me personally, I wouldn't really say I play for "roleplay", but I prefer the AIs to not just be other players competing against me to win at a boardgame. I prefer Civ to feel more in the genre of something like the Caesar series, where you are building your own society and have to struggle against outside forces - not that you are competing against other AI players to complete an arbitrary goal.

In classical narrative terms I see Civ as being a story of "man versus environment", not of "man versus man". In this case, "player versus game system" not "player versus player".

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I'm definitely on the role-play end of the spectrum, but I do like the AI to challenge me.

 

[rastak]

I don't play optimally, I'll usually play a Civ based on what I feel like doing that game and what the map/opponents dictate. Therefore I am usually on King or so difficulty despite having a ton of hours into the series. I've never been hardcore into winning at all costs, or building a million units and steamrolling the AI.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

This is a game with rules and win conditions. The AI should not play a different game. The player can with mods or lower difficulty. Game throwing is not acceptable by default.

 

[agonistes]

I RP mostly.
My first 1-3 games with VI, if I buy it, I will play just for the pure pleasure of the fresh experience. I will drift around and go nice and slow. And rp most likely. Somewhere in my first 10 games, probably, and if I buy it, I will put it on max difficulty/settings and trounce it just to be sure I can. But mostly I rp, usually as Germany or Russia, sometimes as one of the other civs.

Although RP sounds kind of funny. I mean, I'm not pretending to be Otto and like, running around the house with a pipe in my mouth and shouting German swears at the kids, or anything like that.

But I am assuming roles, I guess.

 

[Cerilis]

Role-play to win!

 

[Vaclac]

I think having AI role-play is necessary to feeling like you can play/manipulate the diplomatic part of the game. Sometimes this is interesting, particularly if trying an extreme strategy that depends on you maintaining a delicate diplomatic balance and not getting DoW'ed, like cultural victories in Civ IV. I think with the variety of agendas, this will be hard to do completely in Civ6 if you have a lot of neighbors. Of course if you only have one neighbor, then it should be pretty easy to keep them happy and pursue a peaceful game. I certainly would have no problem with an AI toggle though, so you could choose to play some games with more aggressive AI who are trying to win and stop you from winning. I think the actively stopping you from winning is the most annoying/immersion breaking, compared to just trying to win the game themselves. Even in the default settings it would be interesting if AI focused a little more on attaining victory conditions themselves, like if as the game progresses, they devote more of their efforts to achieving the victory condition they are closest to attaining, rather than continuing to try to just develop generally.