Zeusmoltar9
Chieftain
- Joined
- Oct 22, 2016
- Messages
- 52
I used to run AI battles in Civ 5, it's something that we currently were unable to do without hacking in with fire-tuner which doesn't really work very well with Civ 6 (and it shouldn't, it was designed for civ 5). After Gedemon over at Civfanantics was able to open up the games in-game auto play I was excited to see the Civ 6 AI in action without an human element.
My disappointment was quite great when I found the AI to still be a bit anemic when it came to domination victory and conquest in general. I had done a test on the AI on the original when the game first came out and the changes from the fall patch although drastic didn't really solve the AI's inability to 1) create and army 2) use that army to capture a city 3) continue on to expanding and capturing cities.
I decided to run some tests that would both be help me find an AI that could possibly win via domination and explore some of the AI mods available to the modding community. I recorded my findings via time-lapse video and uploaded them to YouTube. Here is an overview of what I found.
Testing structure:
Video of Results battle starts at 4:06
The first test was very balanced, I predicted the AI would be able to expand, create districts and overall be able to tech up and may even be able to take a city or 2. I was correct in my assumption and 2 cites were taken with a strong showing by Germany in the mid to late game. overall the aggression was high but the fallow through of the AI after a city was taken made them unable to push to victory in 2 different cases.
Vanilla AI Results
City States taken 0
Cities Taken 2
Civilization eliminated 0
Total cities founded 20
Test 2: AI+ V7
Video of Results battle starts at 0:58
A drastically different result. Much of the battles is concentrated on war with very pointed attacks on close civilizations. 1 city was taken and 1 civilization was killed which in all my tests with other AI never happened. The AI didn't concentrate on expansion until local threats were resolved and because of Sumeria's early game they were able to sweep the map. Probably the most promising AI aggression. A constant war occurred between Rome and the Aztec and nearly resulted in Rome demise.
AI + V7 Results
City States taken 0
Cities Taken 1
Civilization eliminated 1
Total cities founded 11
Test 3: Delnars AI Cleanup
Video of Results battle starts at 1:10
A super expansion AI was the result of this test, most of the map was taken by turn 100. However even though some major wars occurred the AI never captured any cities. I believe this was down to the late game pushes that happened and the overall strength that city walls have late game.
Delnars AI Cleanup Results
City States taken 0
Cities Taken 0
Civilization eliminated 0
Total cities founded 23
Test 4: Harder AI 1.6
Video of Results battle starts at 1:23
A quick expansion game again with this mod which is to be expected seeing as it uses a mod pack that included Delnars AI cleanup. Very interesting that all civilization teched up very fast and use of religious units and swarming parties of units were used. Most notably is the AI inability to handle city happiness which resulted in many rioting barbs on the map, stagnation occurred around turn 175 or so and overall aggression petered off.
Harder AI 1.6 Results
City States taken 0
Cities Taken 1
Civilization eliminated 0
Total cities founded 21
Conclusion: I think that in all cases the AI preformed differently, however we can conclude that the AI isn't as aggressive as previous Civ iterations. Problems with AI are down to 1) diplomacy 2) city wall strength late game 3) religious wars. I think that with time I can work on modding some of these things to create some interesting AI battles. A "constant war mod", editing the wall strength, and editing the creation of religious units would be interesting.
edit: I posted a similar thread to reddit, but also posted here for a bit more exposure
My disappointment was quite great when I found the AI to still be a bit anemic when it came to domination victory and conquest in general. I had done a test on the AI on the original when the game first came out and the changes from the fall patch although drastic didn't really solve the AI's inability to 1) create and army 2) use that army to capture a city 3) continue on to expanding and capturing cities.
I decided to run some tests that would both be help me find an AI that could possibly win via domination and explore some of the AI mods available to the modding community. I recorded my findings via time-lapse video and uploaded them to YouTube. Here is an overview of what I found.
Testing structure:
- 4 scenarios were chosen using 3 different AI mods and the vanilla AI for a control.
- Mods used were Gedemons auto-play (Link to mod) and KinetiKam zoom mod ( link to mod)
- Tests will use the settings same game settings: 4 leaf clover map, online speed, domination victory only (with score also turned on), 250 turns, no barbs, no goody huts.
- Civilizations used Germany, Sumeria, Aztec, and Rome.
- Mods used:
- AI+ V7 (link to mod)
- Delnar's AI Cleanup (link to mod)
- Harder AI 1.6 ( link to mod)
Video of Results battle starts at 4:06
The first test was very balanced, I predicted the AI would be able to expand, create districts and overall be able to tech up and may even be able to take a city or 2. I was correct in my assumption and 2 cites were taken with a strong showing by Germany in the mid to late game. overall the aggression was high but the fallow through of the AI after a city was taken made them unable to push to victory in 2 different cases.
Vanilla AI Results
City States taken 0
Cities Taken 2
Civilization eliminated 0
Total cities founded 20
Test 2: AI+ V7
Video of Results battle starts at 0:58
A drastically different result. Much of the battles is concentrated on war with very pointed attacks on close civilizations. 1 city was taken and 1 civilization was killed which in all my tests with other AI never happened. The AI didn't concentrate on expansion until local threats were resolved and because of Sumeria's early game they were able to sweep the map. Probably the most promising AI aggression. A constant war occurred between Rome and the Aztec and nearly resulted in Rome demise.
AI + V7 Results
City States taken 0
Cities Taken 1
Civilization eliminated 1
Total cities founded 11
Test 3: Delnars AI Cleanup
Video of Results battle starts at 1:10
A super expansion AI was the result of this test, most of the map was taken by turn 100. However even though some major wars occurred the AI never captured any cities. I believe this was down to the late game pushes that happened and the overall strength that city walls have late game.
Delnars AI Cleanup Results
City States taken 0
Cities Taken 0
Civilization eliminated 0
Total cities founded 23
Test 4: Harder AI 1.6
Video of Results battle starts at 1:23
A quick expansion game again with this mod which is to be expected seeing as it uses a mod pack that included Delnars AI cleanup. Very interesting that all civilization teched up very fast and use of religious units and swarming parties of units were used. Most notably is the AI inability to handle city happiness which resulted in many rioting barbs on the map, stagnation occurred around turn 175 or so and overall aggression petered off.
Harder AI 1.6 Results
City States taken 0
Cities Taken 1
Civilization eliminated 0
Total cities founded 21
Conclusion: I think that in all cases the AI preformed differently, however we can conclude that the AI isn't as aggressive as previous Civ iterations. Problems with AI are down to 1) diplomacy 2) city wall strength late game 3) religious wars. I think that with time I can work on modding some of these things to create some interesting AI battles. A "constant war mod", editing the wall strength, and editing the creation of religious units would be interesting.
edit: I posted a similar thread to reddit, but also posted here for a bit more exposure
