AI attitude after patch

[Sonereal]

I don't know, I have over 600 hours into this game now, so I'd like to think I have a pretty good grasp on its concepts. Yet the completely bi-polar AI in this game is ridiculous, almost to the point where it makes diplomacy irrelevant.

It isn't bipolar. If you really had 600 hours into the game, the AI should be more than easy to read by now.

 

[bryanw1995]

Talking about opportunism and wanton aggression: I just started a new game and I'm alone on my island save for two city states. I attacked Warsaw to steal a worker and immediately make peace. When I tried it again on Helsinki they refused peace. I have never seen such an early permanent war before.
I'm not complaining about the change, I'm actually happy about it. Getting all your workers from CS' was one of my favourite exploits, but it's an exploit nonetheles.

The 2nd dow on a CS starts a permanent war with several of them. Even better, friendly CS alliances deteriorate twice as quickly once this happens. Overall, not a good plan. However, you can just stay at war with the orignal CS and farm them for xp and extra workers.

 

[PoweredBySoy]

I can't count the number of "diplomacy iz borken" threads I've read where it turns out the person is completely baffled as to why other civs are wary of him "just because I burned four entire empires to the ground after they attacked me, or wouldn't trade a resource I needed, or insulted me, or, you know, I just didn't like the way they looked! It's borken!"

How about the simple fact that an AI will attack you while Friendly, while never have been at war? Is that not broken for you?

It isn't bipolar. If you really had 600 hours into the game, the AI should be more than easy to read by now.

I have down syndrome, but thanks for being a jerk.

Moderator Action: Please don't call another member a jerk.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[King Patrick]

How about the simple fact that an AI will attack you while Friendly, while never have been at war? Is that not broken for you?

Some of the civs are deceptive and will pretend to be your friend right up to the sneak attack. Just like in history.

 

[Sainhann]

Make fair trades
Create a friendship bloc
Honor calls to arms
Maintain and army
Don't take their land
Don't steamroll CSs

I am all for fair trades but when someone ask for my Gems, Silk, Cotton & Spices plus my Iron and Horses for just his Wine. Well, that is not a fair trade.

As to creating a friendship bloc well there are several who I would never ever trust.

Yes you should have that army and make sure that it is trained.

As for the land well if the area that I settled is 4-6 tiles from me and 10-12 from them well then it is my land and not theirs.

 

[ohioastronomy]

9 times in 10 the "problem" someone is having, is that they don't understand what they are doing. But their tone/comment is "The game is broken because I couldn't do X"

People seemed to feel that because the game had/has some problems, this freed them from any obligation to learn to play it, and they just generally proceed straight from "oh that didn't go how I expect" to "OMG this game is broken and sucks and is the worst game ever" and when you ask "Why is that?" 9 times in 10 it is for some complete non-issue.

Then ask questions instead of aggressively assuming that they had no army or the like. A much more honest answer, which I'd give in your position, is that this game simply isn't designed for peaceful builders. It's explicitly designed as an aggressive wargame - unlike previous entries in the series, where the rules made different play styles viable. So when people complain that they can't play the game they want they are *correct.* But that's because this game is designed to be that way, not because they're "doing it wrong." I don't find walking on eggshells, dealing with random attacks (where I'm penalized if I respond in kind), and having no reliable in game allies to be fun; I understand tactics on how to deal with them.

 

[King Patrick]

Then ask questions instead of aggressively assuming that they had no army or the like. A much more honest answer, which I'd give in your position, is that this game simply isn't designed for peaceful builders. It's explicitly designed as an aggressive wargame - unlike previous entries in the series, where the rules made different play styles viable. So when people complain that they can't play the game they want they are *correct.* But that's because this game is designed to be that way, not because they're "doing it wrong." I don't find walking on eggshells, dealing with random attacks (where I'm penalized if I respond in kind), and having no reliable in game allies to be fun; I understand tactics on how to deal with them.

Not interested in indulging endless griping about how a hammer makes a lousy screwdriver; but I'm happy to show people how to use the hammer.

 

[Camikaze]

Moderator Action: Please get back on topic. This thread isn't about posting styles.

 

[Martin Alvito]

A much more honest answer, which I'd give in your position, is that this game simply isn't designed for peaceful builders.

It sure isn't designed to make it easy. But Deity Space OCC is still possible; I've done it in this patch already. So the builder style can still work under the right conditions.

The main result of the last few patches' AI changes is that the peaceful builder style is no longer an option in every game on Deity. If you start in the middle of the map, it's going to be kill or be killed.

This isn't all that different from Civ 4 at the end of the day. If you had a nearby neighbor crowding you out of sufficient space for a peaceful game, you had to rush the neighbor. It's fairly evident that Firaxis wants to force us to "play the map" rather than use canned strategies in order to win consistently; the last few patches have principally been aimed at taking eliminating every good, existing canned strategy.

However, Firaxis keeps creating work for themselves by overbuffing things. I'm guessing that the support team doesn't want to get laid off.

 

[kaltorak]

It's not about beeing a builder. The part I enjoy most about civ is war. I don't want the civs to be peaceful. I want them to have personallity. I don't want to play a game about building civilizations against AIs who are playing chess. I want to play against civilization leaders.

I don't play civ to win as soon as possible and then move on to the next game. I want to like my empire. I like political relations. I don't destroy an enemy just because I can and it will get me closer to winning the game. I may decide to try to be friends. I may decide to protect a weak nation from others.

Civilization leaders should have personalities like in civ4. I don't want them to just be peaceful. It's fun to have a warmonger shaka or a crazy montezuma. Or a religion fanatic izzy, a peacefull ghandi, a researcher and trader mansa musa, and so on. THAT is fun. Not having random AIs who just care about winning.

Remember we are talking about a game of building civilizations. I don't want personalities in starcrtaft or even panzer general. Those games need an AI just good at winning. But not civilization.

That doesn't mean the AI should not be good. Make it as good as possible in warring, unit management, city placement.... It's just in diplomacy where you shoulnd't have tried to make it good at only winning.

 

[ohioastronomy]

The net effect of the current AI is that the path of least resistance is always warfare. And I'd disagree about this being the same as prior games in the series (although I do agree about the universal importance in the series of staking out turf early.) You didn't have the AIs lining up to try and prevent a spaceship win with warfare, for instance. This makes no sense if you view the Apollo launch as being the equivalent - in that case the winning strategy would be to build your own ship first, and if you lost you lost without starting world war 3.

In the traditional Civ game mode you could make choices that allowed you to play the game pretty much unmolested, after clearing out the local real estate, and do so without random warfare. Everything in this game is tilted towards war - see, for example, the utterly ahistorical removal of war weariness (because the 23 year old designer didn't find it "fun.") You can choose to include a grace period in the early game where attacks are hard to do (city defence) and players/AIs have a chance to build up - or, as in the current game, you can make the computer AIs on a hair-trigger.

I guess my point is that a lot of the people most disappointed with this game are disappointed because they simply can't play it in the same way that they've been able to in earlier games. And they're not wrong about that.

 

[Clement]

If you had a tiny army, AIs will dow you, no matter if you are a good guy...

Absolutely. If the AI perceives you as weak and not being able to defend yourself

Well then that is complete rubbish diplomacy, because by that logic in real life usa should declare war on england or any other smaller country regardless of the destruction and loss of life that would follow, even though they are good friends or at least on good terms, human beings do have feelings and honour, and they don't always attack just because they can, but of course i understand that representing this simple concept would be too deep for this game.

I'm liking the increased hostility. It also seems more purposeful than before...the AI backstabs you because it wants to kill you.

Civ used to be a nation building game, not all countries want to wipe each other out in real life, Civ 5 diplo AI provokes war as often as possible and uses the most ridiculous pretences to make it happen, simply because the game has so little to offer of even mild interest other than war, there are no subtle ways to deal with enemies in the game as it has been simplified so much, so of course war is always the only option when dealing with conflicts of interest, no sabotage, no cultural pressure can be relied upon, just war, and it doesn't even do that particularly well either.