AI not building walls?

[js1701d]

I'm in the relatively early start of a deity game (around turn 100? I'm at work so I can't check for certain) and the AI for some reason refuses to build walls to protect its cities. Russia declared war on me relatively early so I responded by taking 3 cities, including their capital. I didn't do this quickly, mind you, as I had a relatively small military. I had no siege units, just warriors and archers, so I hadn't even intended to take Peter's capital, which I assumed would be walled. When I found it wasn't, I pew pew-ed it with arrows and took it with some warriors.

Later, Japan + Rome double dow-ed me. I make sure to upgrade my warriors to swordsmen and my archers to crossbowmen. Then I grab some 'pults and head over to Japan town. Again, much to my surprise, not a single city is walled. I just blow through Japan's cities with ease.

Finally, after some time passes and Peter denounces me, I decide to eliminate his final city. It's got around 48 defense, but still no walls. I'm actually taken aback because as soon as I get there and declare war, a frigate pops up and begins one-shotting my units. If he'd bothered to have any sort of walls I would have had to retreat. What gives?

I know the AI is bad at war, but come on! Even Rome couldn't put up a fight on the other side of my empire. It brought over some horsemen and siege units but could not mount any sort of attack. They even took a city state right smack next to the city they wanted to attack, which quickly resulted in a unit swarm. My walled city wasn't even attacked once!

I know that complaints about the AI are nothing new, but I'm tempted to take a break until they fix things. The Civ 5 AI proved to be very difficult on deity but in Civ 6 it's a joke.

For the record, in this game:
My civ: Gorgo
Map size: Normal
Speed: Normal
Map type: Fractal (seems to be a big continent)
Difficulty: Deity

 

[bladex]

try the rise of mankind mod they deff build walls in that

 

[js1701d]

Thanks! I'll give that a try. The weird thing is that in other games the AI has walled up its cities pretty well. I've even seen walls pop up just as my army has arrived, so the AI in the past has definitely been smarter about it. I'm wondering if the recent patch had something to do with it or if the game I described above was just an anomaly.

 

[whyidie]

I've about 130hrs under my belt and I see walls enough that I'm always excited when I don't see them. If I had to put a number on it I'd say 65% of the time I encounter walls. Number goes up or down depending on if the city is a core city.

Your game sounds like an anomaly to me.The larger problem of the AI letting you roll over it with a handful of units isn't as rare.

 

[Timothy001]

In my current game, using Spain. Went after Germany first. Had Walls, and an Encampment in Aachen. Took it down, and eliminated him, it was his only city. Pedro has denounced me as a war monger, he has 6 cities, no walls in any of them. Bringing Bombards (4, one has lvl 4 upgrade) Conquistadors, and Knights. Hopefully will see some walls, otherwise, bye bye.

 

[js1701d]

Thanks for your input, Whyidie. I've got a similar number of hours under my belt as well, although maybe not quite as many! Civ 6 has been a blast and it definitely has that "one more turn" addictive nature. Lots of weekends spent playing late into the night.

You brought up a great point about the AI letting you roll over it with a small force. I find this to be even more of a problem in the mid to late game when you have highly promoted corps or armies that can tear through vast swathes of the AI's nonsense.

Timothy001, best of luck in your campaign against Pedro. Bombards should be able to pretty easily deal with even walled cities, unless their defenses are too high.

 

[Timothy001]

Just walked over him. Only Rio had walls. The other cities were basically undefended.