AI not conquering each other kills this game for me

[The Civs 6]

Had a game yesterday where I declared war against the Romans, who was leading in science. I managed to get all three of Romes' neighbours to join my crusade against him since he was too far away from me. Funny thing. Romes' military force were reduced to 0 but none of his enemies neighbours were able to conquer one single city in his empire. That is ridiculous and it gives you an idea on how powerful walls are.

Yeah I had a similar experience. I was fighting the Kongo (who admittedly were pretty strong) and brought in two others, including the Nubians, and they could do absolutely nothing. But when it comes to city states, AIs seem to get their act together. It's almost like AI invaders have two modes: one where they just get to the city and hammer away at it, and one where they randomly move their units around while succumbing to range/city strikes.

Honestly I think they just need to remove range from the game entirely (except for airplanes and some artillery).

 

[Casworon]

Lol just have a single unit called 'army' that you can upgrade every era which is strong enough to defeat cities on it's own

 

[Abaxial]

I have seen an AI conquer all of another AI except the last city - worried about the penalty for that?

 

[oSiyeza]

I agree, but AI's indolence in offensive play was already discussed so many times...be patient. After all having Beowulf or Mulan or King Arthur can only help AI achieve military supremacy.

Yes, players keep complaining that the game they bought is broken, and FXS keeps ignoring them, refuses to fix the game, refuses to let the modders fix the game and expect us to keep paying for overpriced add-ons that only unbalance the game more, cause they dont code the AI to use them properly either....

So if you think heroes will improve the AI, I think you may have not seen the previous ones. The AI has no idea on how to use secret societies, how to play RD, or pirates, or any non standard scenario, or the dramatic ages mode, or the shuffle one. Do you think they will bother this time to code the AI behavior to play this mode? Mark my words, they will not do it, cause they don't care at this point about releasing balanced or polished content.

The sad thing is they may never had, why do you think they never implemented proper AI for air combat? I cannot be sure, but one real posibility most of us refuse to think about is that they know most players already won at the stage planes come at work, so they know is cheaper to just don't do it, and get away with it. They may be doing with the optional content the same thing as with every aspect of the game, do the minimum and cash the maximum: Add a ton of features to sell, but make them all num moddifiers, so they don't really add anything new or complex or interconected. Also make each moddifier as pointless as possible so they dont need to take much effort in balancing them. Throwing here and there new models and animations, cause they are fancy selling points and probably they underpay the modellers and animators anyway.

So, of course players complain about it, and we will keep complaining. What other player reaction could be expected?

 

[Mahi]

Heroes and Legends is probably the last thing I personally wanted in Civ.

 

[jasper]

Be careful what you wish for.

Civs early conquering each other every game would make matches just as bad if not worse. Every game one civ doubles in size and therefore better equipped to utilize advantages to keep conquering. Youd almost have to program ais to rein things in at some point to prolong the match.

People think its ais vs human now. wait until every other civ can sacrifice itself to the one civ until the one comes knocking on your door.

 

[civac]

Just out of curiosity: Why do you feel that? I mean, yeah it sounds miserable, but I reckon sieges were a quite miserable business, but I don't see it being such a bad game mechanism. Of course, such a big change cannot be considered in vacuum, it would certainly encourage you to build many more units in general (not a bad thing imo., I'm tired of going an entire game with a total of a handful of units from beginning to end), and I would certainly also add some drafting mechanism similar to what was in ... I don't recall what iteration of the game that was, to allow some emergency creation of units. Refugees (i.e. transfer of population from one city to another in war time) and units spawning when cities are captured is another thing the game could need that would play into such a feature.

That's my point real sieges were miserable, game mechanisms should not be. Do not inflict misery on your customers. Siege battles with catapults, Trebuchets and the like are not ahistorical either and much more fun. The defending player would also need to bring a relief force in the face of a well constructed army with enough siege or his city falls.

Be careful what you wish for.

Civs early conquering each other every game would make matches just as bad if not worse. Every game one civ doubles in size and therefore better equipped to utilize advantages to keep conquering. Youd almost have to program ais to rein things in at some point to prolong the match.

People think its ais vs human now. wait until every other civ can sacrifice itself to the one civ until the one comes knocking on your door.

Indeed, it will provide a challenge. That's why people want it.

 

[TreVor_ish]

Yes, players keep complaining that the game they bought is broken, and fxs keeps ignoring them, refuses to fix the game, refuses to let the modders fix the game and expect us to keep paying for overpriced add-ons that only unbalance the game more, cause they dont code the AI to use them properly either....

So if you think heroes will improve the AI, i think you may have not seen the previous ones. The AI has no idea on how to use secret societies, how to play RD, or pirates, or any non standard scenario, or the dramatic ages mode, or the shuffle one. Do you think they will bother this time to code the AI behavior to play this mode? Mark my words, they will not do it, cause they don't care at this point about releasing balanced or polished content.

The sad thing is they may never had, why do you think they never implemented proper AI for air combat? I cannot be sure, but one real posibility most of us refuse to think about is that they know most players already won at the stage planes are at work, so they know is cheaper to just not do it, and get away with it. They may be only doing with the optional content the same thing as with every aspect of the game, do the minimun and cash the maximun: Add a ton of features to sell, but make them all pointless num moddifiers, so they dont really add anything new or complex or interconected. Also make each mechanic as pointless as possible so they dont need to take much effort in balancing them. Throwing here and there new models and animations, cause they are fancy selling points and probably they underpay the modellers and animators anyway.

So, of course players complain about it, and we will keep complaining. What other player reaction could be expected?

I'm with You on all points, and that part about heroes was a pure sarcasm I'm fully aware of AI's inefficiency in finding itself around modes that were added with NFP, and waiting to look at more stupidity with heroes.

 

[oSiyeza]

I'm with You on all points, and that part about heroes was a pure sarcasm I'm fully aware of AI's inefficiency in finding itself around modes that were added with NFP, and waiting to look at more stupidity with heroes.

Noted and granted

 

[jasper]

That's my point real sieges were miserable, game mechanisms should not be. Do not inflict misery on your customers. Siege battles with catapults, Trebuchets and the like are not ahistorical either and much more fun. The defending player would also need to bring a relief force in the face of a well constructed army with enough siege or his city falls.



Indeed, it will provide a challenge. That's why people want it.

Thats what difficulties are for. Anyone not playing diety should start there. Anyone playing diety is sol.

Its ok for war civs to focus on subjugating others because thats their deal. but not for all civs to war just because.

 

[civac]

Nobody was suggesting this. The request was for the possibility of runaways via conquest to exist. Of course those would be usually dedicated warmongers. Peaceful civs also should be resilient enough not to just roll over and die.

 

[Depravo]

How about this: A city under siege as already defined in the game has its attack range reduced to 1 hex, and loses, say, 15% garrison strength each turn.

A well-defended city will be able to hold out for several turns, and probably inflict some whole-unit losses on the besieger, but will eventually fall if the siege lines remain unbroken.

I always thought of ranged city strikes representing long-distance raids by garrison forces, rather than a bowman on the walls hitting a target hundreds of miles away. Obviously a garrison that's holed up in its city isn't going to be able to tackle your siege machines at long range.

No stronghold (least of all one with a large civilian population) was expected to hold out forever, and as others have said, a relief army should be necessary to repel any kind of determined assault.

 

[kaspergm]

How about this: A city under siege as already defined in the game has its attack range reduced to 1 hex, and loses, say, 15% garrison strength each turn.

I really like the idea of reducing range when city is under siege.

I wouldn't mind if putting a city under siege was slightly harder to balance this. Not sure exactly what conditions one could make, but I feel sometimes it's too easy to put city under siege with only a few units.

 

[SuperFly47]

Be careful what you wish for.

Civs early conquering each other every game would make matches just as bad if not worse. Every game one civ doubles in size and therefore better equipped to utilize advantages to keep conquering. Youd almost have to program ais to rein things in at some point to prolong the match.

People think its ais vs human now. wait until every other civ can sacrifice itself to the one civ until the one comes knocking on your door.

The snowball effect existed in every previous civilization game.

 

[Krajzen]

Be careful what you wish for.

Civs early conquering each other every game would make matches just as bad if not worse. Every game one civ doubles in size and therefore better equipped to utilize advantages to keep conquering. Youd almost have to program ais to rein things in at some point to prolong the match.

People think its ais vs human now. wait until every other civ can sacrifice itself to the one civ until the one comes knocking on your door.

What a strange false dichotomy. Each civ should simply care for itself like in real world, not form some hivemind against human. It has worked like this in previous games and in other strategy games.

The snowball effect existed in every previous civilization game.

1) In such case it's even more critical issue to throw this garbage out of the window now, better late than never!
2) It arguably got even worse. The way civ5 ideology system worked (it was brilliant) it could suddenly ruin entire late game empires with enormous happiness penalties, causing eventually city flips, revolutions, rebellions, economic damage and so on. I also consider civ5 diplomatic victory and congress better, but it's harder for me to explain here in few words. Also, in civ5 there was less turtling and more dramatic wars between AIs ending in huge exchanges of territory.

Don't tell me every 4X game ever is forced to have terribly linear mid to late game of slowly increasing yield advantages. Basing on real life you could invent a ton of global events and mechanics introducing dynamism to the late game; reworking victories to 'more rewarding risky actions' is a possibility too. Late game could have revolutions, decolonisation, world wars, powerful technologies, special projects, a lot of things shaking static equilibrium.

If real life worked like civ6, Soviet Union would never fall, modern China would never rise to might (neither Asian Tigers or Arab Oil States), and to this day top powers would be European colonial empires.

 

[slavaskii]

My problem is with planes, as has been briefly discussed here before. Planes are the siege weapon of the modern era, and the fact the AIs can’t use them effectively means they’re never going to be successful in later warfare. Honestly? They should just remove the aerodrome district and nerf walls. Planes worked wonderfully in Civ V because you could just build them wherever, without this stupid necessity of needing a district for them. If planes need their own district, why not also require tanks to be made in encampments? I see what they were going for, but if the AI can’t use it, it needs to be axed.

Regarding walls, they’re simply too hard for the AI to break because they’re too obsessed with suicide-slamming units into cities. That’s why the ancient era is the most dangerous, after all. I kinda like the idea of giving every city a default attack and have the walls provide an extra, weaker defense (or just the ability to attack an additional time).

It makes me think, however - how did they make barbarians stronger than the AIs themselves?

 

[8housesofelixir]

My problem is with planes, as has been briefly discussed here before. Planes are the siege weapon of the modern era, and the fact the AIs can’t use them effectively means they’re never going to be successful in later warfare. Honestly? They should just remove the aerodrome district and nerf walls. Planes worked wonderfully in Civ V because you could just build them wherever, without this stupid necessity of needing a district for them. If planes need their own district, why not also require tanks to be made in encampments? I see what they were going for, but if the AI can’t use it, it needs to be axed.

To my knowledge AI is able to use planes effectively when attacking cities, at least the AI after recent AI changes. Try to open a game with a Modern Era Start and initiate a war between several AI who have aluminum.

The problem being AI will not prioritize building planes, not to say that the player can win the game before AI begin to mine aluminum.

 

[Quueg]

So, of course players complain about it, and we will keep complaining. What other player reaction could be expected?

One possibility would be for folks to stop slobbering over each new DLC they pump out that just adds more colors and flavors of AI incompetence. I bailed when they announced the New Frontiers DLC -- pay in advance for a variety of new ways to watch the AI fail.

I know AI is always tough to implement, and it has never been close to perfect in any Civ game. But there's never in the series been a bigger gap between what a game promises and what the AI can actually deliver -- and the developer seems to have chosen the path of just widening that gap.

 

[oSiyeza]

One possibility would be for folks to stop slobbering over each new DLC they pump out that just adds more colors and flavors of AI incompetence. I bailed when they announced the New Frontiers DLC -- pay in advance for a variety of new ways to watch the AI fail.

I know AI is always tough to implement, and it has never been close to perfect in any Civ game. But there's never in the series been a bigger gap between what a game promises and what the AI can actually deliver -- and the developer seems to have chosen the path of just widening that gap.

I dont think that is totally fair. This new content would be good, maybe great, if polished. Even if it is not the kind of content I would like for the game. As in all communities, some people is very vocal in defense of their fandom, and some people is in the complete opposite side. Because that is how internet works, but the most vocal people is never the best representation of the real opinion of the players or of the reality. Like in many other aspects of our society, there is a black or white divission in the media, with people in both sides shouting in demmands for attention and not caring mouch about the game (or reality) itself. That is how it is nowadays.

Despite this, as also with any subject, many nuanced and honest opinions can be found buried in the noise. It just happens that these are not the most salient ones because we live in a impact culture now. But once you recognice this, you start to see that the overwhelming majority of the community is aware of the shortcommings of the game, and is very frustrated about them. While at the same time they apreciate the genuine effort in some game elements, and the talent and hours of work behind the game. It is only a shame that Fxs missmanaged so much of the project, and that so many decissions can only be described as intentionally harmful to the players in an effort to reduce costs and improve the business profits.

 

[Askia Muhammad]

I know people don’t like these kind of solutions but if the problem is truly the walls why not remove the combat penalty for attacking cities with walls for the AI on deity and immortal? I don’t think that would be too hard for us players to deal with and since the AI they attack will also benefit I’d call it balanced.

Also I STRONGLY agree with changing siege to support class units and allowing them to be stacked.
As wonderful as 1UP is for us players, I think it’s crippling.

I hope we eventually get access to the DLL for mod teams to work on the AI because every patch that there is “AI improvement” in the notes I feel it’s just adjusting numbers on the tables which is something we can do ourselves. I did notice some small improvement the first patch or so of NFP but the last few patches have seemed to make things worse. For anyone who isn’t aware, you can get the AI to trade many of their cities away again now.