a second expansion, or improved ai?

[psyde]

i'm not exactly sure how much more the existing ai is capable of being improved upon, but according to most people it's been the biggest drawback of civ games for awhile now. i know it's not feasible or realistic, but if you could have it one way or the other, what would u prefer? new features and mechanics in a new expansion, or instead all of those resources dedicated to improving the ai? i'd take the latter.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I'm 100% certain they will never release an expansion where "improved AI" is the only feature, inasmuch as the bog-standard casual player that they rely upon for sales doesn't give a hoot about that.

In fact, they never even mentioned AI improvements in the sales pitch for R&F, yet it has the biggest AI improvement I've seen in an expansion ever. I think they've grown leery of that promise because it's so difficult for them to live up to the subjective expectations of the few but vocal hardcore fans.

 

[Cuneiform]

I don't want to shut down a thread before it's even started, but this is never an either/or scenario. A Graphic Artist that could be working on a 2nd Expansion would never be re-deployed to help with the A.I. instead.

 

[psyde]

you guys must have missed the 'i know it's not feasible or realistic, but if you could have it one way or the other' part. in an ideal world, what would you want?

 

[DJ_Tanner]

i'm not exactly sure how much more the existing ai is capable of being improved upon, but according to most people it's been the biggest drawback of civ games for awhile now.

There may be some who feel that way here, but AI is not a concern to "most" people. This forum is horrible at being representative of the actual playerbase, that being said I don't even think the majority of users here would consider AI to be the biggest drawback (just those that do are very VERY vocal about it). Features are, and will always be, the focus and the players have agreed with that decision, as the sales remain strong.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

If the situation were truly ideal, you wouldn't have to choose between AI improvements and additional features. You would either get both, or the game already has ideal AI performance and the additional features is the only choice.

 

[ChocolateShake]

Firaxis knows that hardcore players want a lot of investment in AI improvements, but there must be something causing them to hold back on investing further. It could be that hiring an additional AI staff member for more testing/etc. would not be justifiable instead of hiring an artist or marketing team member, etc., where the impact would be more measurable. The best solution I think would be to enable advanced AI modding early, but that's probably not possible at the moment since it would probably take too much time to elegantly separate the AI functions from the rest of the code. I think we'll get the DLL after a year or 2.

I went looking around for comments about a 4X with good AI, and the common trend seems to be the good AI is very difficult to find in a 4X. That seems to be a common theme. Mods are usually the solution. In the end I would guess 5% of the civ-playing demographic want a really challenging AI that will take you out of the game if you don't keep up. The majority probably just want an AI that will give them enough of a challenge at their chosen difficulty level.

A good way to check this might be to see the steam reviews and see how often AI comes up as a negative.

 

[ViterboKnight]

Things could be way simpler than expected.
I remember you all what happened for Civ4. Up to 1st expansion, AI wasn't so brilliant, but SDK had already been released. A lot of "better AI" mods were developed, and at the end one of them made its way up to the 2nd official expansion, finally making the AI one of the most brilliant ever in CIV history.

So the point is: just release SDK, wait for competent mods, and include valid mods in official expansion!!

 

[Zike]

AI isn't just bad, it's utterly worthless. I don't even think theres a reasonable way to ever lose, unless you've entirely messed up and/or are noob.

Getting war'd in classical era is really the biggest risk of losing the game as the AI still has massive starting advantage, every other era should be smooth sailing.

 

[Zuizgond]

With each expansion, AI should be re-designed to take into account the new features. But today, AI can't even handle the base game properly. So what's the point releasing an expansion?

 

[Neia]

I wouldn't consider myself a casual player (considering the number of hours I've spent on the game), but I wouldn't care about AI improvements all that much and I'd rather have new features.

 

[Siesta Guru]

AI and balance is more important for me. Why? Because 90% of the strategic relevance for the currently existing features is not there because of AI/balance.

It's like we're playing chess, but the enemy gets 20 pieces extra because it's dumb. What's the best way to increase depth there? It's certainly not to allow your knight to upgrade to a tank, it's to make the enemy smarter so the game can actually be played as it was designed. Just dumping on more stuff is increasing the width of the game, not its depth. And I greatly prefer depth.

 

[valerislysander]

Each patch and expansion they balance and improve AI in the game. I think the AI is way better now than on first release and on Emperor even I have lost some cities and lost my capital one. Early warring Civs are a challenge now and they surrounded my cities with good numbers and used them well. I'm sure some more patches and second expansion will bring even more challenges and improvements.

 

[Bad Wolf]

No question: better AI, better AI, and barring that, better AI. This game is already complete as far as I'm concerned, heck I thought it was complete on release (it's easy to forget how jam-packed with features the base game was, as compared to Civs IV and, especially, V). R&F is a nice cherry on top, but the thing that will ultimately stop me from playing this game will probably be getting fed up with the incompetent, peevish and irrational AI.

 

[NukeAJS]

As far as moving units around, the AI is never going to get better at it. There are simply too many branches to calculate and the AI has to move hundreds of units as the game goes on. Even if you gave the AI one second per unit, we're talking 4-5 minute turns and the results probably wouldn't be much better because a "good" overall move relies on several individual moves. This comes somewhat naturally to people because people are just better at prioritizing small stratagems in pursuit of a larger strategy that serves an even larger strategy. In vastly simpler games where each player can move multiple times, computers are generally terrible because they lack intuition. Here's just one example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Arimaa

However, the devs can definitely make heuristic improvements to moving units around -- namely: ability to attack walled cities, retreating, and cross-oceanic invasions.

They can also make improvements to the strategic layer especially when it comes to who should be attacked and changing production to deal with "crisises" (not the game mechanic). I can't count how many times the AI declares war on me, I fairly easily fend him off (see attacking walled cities) and then counterattack. Of course, the AI is now building three wonders in their 5 cities and they refuse to switch to units even though they know exactly what I have and there's a good chance I'm coming for them. They'll keep chugging along with their wonders even if I've 6 units outside the gates.

So, as far as tactics and stratagems are concerned, there's little hope. However, I believe the heuristics of the strategy layer can be improved even more than it already has been. (I've noticed general improvements in the AI since the expansion)

 

[Karpius]

In fact, they never even mentioned AI improvements in the sales pitch for R&F, yet it has the biggest AI improvement I've seen in an expansion ever. I think they've grown leery of that promise because it's so difficult for them to live up to the subjective expectations of the few but vocal hardcore fans.

Can you imagine the outcry if Firaxis had even 'hinted' it was taking a stab at the AI? There would have been lynch mobs on R&F's release!

Firaxis knows that hardcore players want a lot of investment in AI improvements, but there must be something causing them to hold back on investing further. It could be that hiring an additional AI staff member for more testing/etc. would not be justifiable instead of hiring an artist or marketing team member, etc., where the impact would be more measurable. The best solution I think would be to enable advanced AI modding early, but that's probably not possible at the moment since it would probably take too much time to elegantly separate the AI functions from the rest of the code. I think we'll get the DLL after a year or 2.

I was recently talking to a friend of mine who works for Hewlett/Packard and works with AI coding for hi-rise building systems. Compared to Civ6, he explains, the coding he does is fairly simple because the AI is only handling a few decisions at a time based on what is being asked of the system; such as which elevator out of six available to send to answer a 3rd floor down call. So the AI has to calculate current position, current direction of travel and current load of each elevator and decide which one can get there fastest but won't unduly interrupt the travel time of other passengers already in transit. Pretty simple stuff compared to our game. He also tells me that the lines of code just for that are pretty intense and it cost a pretty penny just to put that together. Also, the more complex the coding, the greater the chance of unintended or 'weird' results. Example; the AI might 'zone' elevators a different floors when demand is low and the elevators are otherwise not moving. The AI might zone one elevator to the thrid floor because it has been the floor with the most demand. And it will try to leave that elevator to instantly respond to any demand. However, someone presses the button at the fourth floor, which has otherwise had no demand and the AI, in order to maintain the priority established by the third floor, sends an elevator that has been waiting several floors away to answer the fourth floor. Might seem silly, but the AI has been prioritized by the thrid floor. Several other things would have to happen to change that priority. The code for such an algorithm is actually quite simple (or so I am told because I wouldn't be able to make heads or tails of it). According to my friend, the code that goes into the average gaming AI is far, far more intense - an order of magnitude, according to him, but that depends on the game.

So I am sure Firaxis would LOVE to put out a version of Civilization that can think and learn more like a human, and I am sure they would LOVE to be able to adjust all that coding as they pleased based on difficulty level and do all of that in an architecture that can run smoothly on the average home PC and still be affordable to the average gamer. Can you imagine the money they would make???

 

[King Rad]

I wouldn't consider myself a casual player (considering the number of hours I've spent on the game), but I wouldn't care about AI improvements all that much and I'd rather have new features.

I also have a ton of hours in this game; but I'm certainly not an expert player, and I don't play to maximize my score or win in the fewest turns, etc. I play because I thoroughly enjoy strategy games and have since the Avalon Hill games of my youth [before there was such a thing as a personal computer]. With that said, while I would like to see the AI continue to improve [and as some have noted, in at least certain areas it seems to have done so], I'm really looking forward to a couple of more features I anticipate in the next expansion, such as a diplomatic victory [will require more use of AI, of course] and possibly an economic victory, maybe with something along the line of corporations and economic influence on other civs [and again, more AI].

 

[liv]

What are the areas the AI has improved. I have not played that much since the expansion but what I have I have not seen much for difference
Are they fielding more units?
I have seen some battering rams but they are just wandering around without any reason.
AI seems to "cheat" more on healing but not absolutely sure about that

 

[Bad Wolf]

From what I've seen in R&F they are more aggressive now and are actually able to take walled cities, but they still suck at certain things. And no I'm not talking about troop movements, although they aren't very good at that. I mean for example they are absolutely incapable of launching a naval invasion.

 

[fuad]

Definitely improved AI , better at war especially in the Air Force and naval force , the game is v enjoyable in all other features but ain’t good or Intresting in warfare