It's the way every version of Civ has worked (and nearly every strategy game), so I'd say it's quite Civilizationy
It does make sense to build the best AI you can, and have the AI play to the best of its ability on all difficulties other than the hardest.
I don't quite agree with this final statement. AIs are usually bad, in every game, because of the enormous complexity of creating them. Civ IV had, imo, better AIs than in Civ V, in term of diplomacy.
Tactically speaking, that's another complete world. CivIV was way simpler for AI developper : build big stacks, move big stacks, crunch the ennemy. Civ V and its gameplay completely change how AIs manage warfare, in a pretty bad way. I can't stop laughing/crying when I see AIs charging again and again my tranched troops in a fortress+hill next to a city. A better tactical AI (and that's totally doable, this is far less complex -in a way- than a good diplomatic and strategic AI) would completly change the game.
A simple example of what could have been done in civ, with the tactical AI, and difficulty level, is something similar the chess games.
Dumb AI : Prepare next turn action (and does not remember what it saw the turn before)
Stupid AI : Foresee actions 2 turns further (remembers troops it saw 2 turns before)
Better AI : Prepare actions 5 turns further (remember 5 turns)
Etc.
This is simple example of how to make an IA "smarter". That can totally be done in Civ V, which is awesome (compared to Civ IV) and could be a total revolution.
The strategic and diplomatic AI is way harder to conceive, I agree. But we can think of similar ideas :
- Dumb AIs place so so cities, and don't optimize production
- Best AIs place the best cities ever in term of ressources (which is actually not the case, even the biggest AIs cities are ... let say, not really good. But bonuses -again- compensate), prepare diplomatic relations hundreds turns in advance for warfare, choose a victory path AND can change it if they realise it's not possible, etc
Frankly I hope they put more efforts into the AIs in Civ VI. I'm sick of fighting 4 years old kids which only advantage is being able to re-produce 10 times faster than me.
Still, I agree, giving them bonuses is a necessity, at the higher levels, but I doubt that the AIs in civ are capable to do half of what I said before (even my examples of really dumb AIs).
The problem with this is that conquest is the main driver of bad relationships (everyone gets annoyed when you start a war, especially the friends of who you attack). So if you're peaceful, then you will be friends with everyone, and no-one will attack you, so you don't need a military, so the game is too easy.
Again, I'm not sure.
First, religion should have much more impact. There is almost no tensions due to religions, except between two really religious players. The religion system itself is a bid weird, imo, and should be tweaked (I would prefer 4 big religions, creating "alliances" and going to war again each others).
Second, warmongers should still consider you as a prey. War should not totally be erased, and they still should act as crazy bastards. But you expect that from them.
Third, big science/cultural civ should still compete with you, but in a more civilized way. There is the problem of the cultural victory, which is pretty stupid to achieve, imo (the peaceful civ going to war because there is ONE guy not under influence).
I don't want to stop wars, wars are part of the game. But giving them reasons, meanings, would make them better.
I haven't tried doing it enough, but this sounds right in principle. If someone is a very good friend, you should be able to bribe them enough to get them to vote for you. It would be interesting to make the diplomatic victory less about just city states.
That's really hard to do. Actually I stopped trying to put AIs in my pocket a long time ago. That's way too hard, and not efficient. I don't recall the last time I managed to have a AIs signing a Defense pact, or, better, to attack someone else.
Never ever managed to make them vote for me, even using diplomats (which are pretty useless).
Maybe... but my concern with this is that the late game is boring enough that when you're winning, it's best if you can just realize the victory condition and win, and then start another game. I'm not sure we want the AIs all to be trying hard specifically to prevent you from fulfilling a victory condition. They should be trying to make themselves more powerful, but it's a bit boring if the end game gets drawn out even more than it has to.
On the other hand, making it so you had to actually defend your city state allies could be interesting too.
I think the late game is boring because you KNOW you are going to win, mainly because no one will try to stop you. Strangely, if the AIs are over aggressive at the beginning, they tend to do nothing after the industrial era (that's a general statement, I have played really active modern games).
Imagine AIs trying to :
- Buy CS because they see you have too much
- Capture them (same reason)
- Change their strategy and rush science to beat you in the space race, instead of doing ... nothing.
Yes, I could have been beaten a hundred times by the AIs, considering their production bonuses, but I've seen AIs stopping wonders 2 turns before finishing, or stopping creating spaceship parts. I guess, that is some kind of "security", to allow the player to win against full bonuses AIs which could crush him if they were not limited.
That's another big problem induced by bonuses. The game gives so many bonuses to the AIs, that it has to stop them from abusing of their power. Another point for smarter AI.
As a result, you end up knowing you're gonna win. If they AIs were active, and tried to stop you, there would still be some challenge to win.
It's hard to tweak. Maybe some AIs (your really close friends) should support you in your efforts, and be some kind of "winners". The others may do the same on their side, and we could see "teams".
Not related, but the AI would stop putting stupid cities if cultural zones could expand/change side. I really think CEP should contain this.
This is very interesting. I haven't played enough naval warfare to notice this. In the past, the AI has been much, much dumber on sea. Very good to hear that its better now (even if that just means throwing units at you).
Considering there is nothing to change the battles (no forests, jungles, hills, moutains, etc) the AIs juste have to rush you, with all they have. Battles are terrible, and if you don't have a science advance you're pretty much doomed, because they will produce way more boat (and retreating/protection your boats is harder than on land).
This has always been the case with Civ, and really with nearly every 4X game. BNW has actually done more than most to make the late game more interesting (with tourism and ideology) than we've had before in the Civ series.
I agree, that's often the case in 4X games. I don't find this better
.
Ideology are not so interesting, except for the diplomacy tension they can create. They are way too similar, and not so different to cultural path. They could have created 3 more cultural paths, and put diplomatic variables linked to culture choices, the result would have been the same...
Tourism, in the other hand, is really interesting on paper. I saw this as a new way to win, close to the cultural domination of Civ IV. But in reallity, if you are too small (compared to the AI) and not playing an expansionnist game, tourism domination is generally completely out of hand. There is also the classic problem : you dominate everyone, except one civ. You need to become a warmonger and kick its ass, to win by TOURISM. I don't follow the logic here.
In general, if winning conditions are all different on paper, the way you will achieve them is usually the same : grow, steal techs, beat the AI in science, grow again. At this point, all victory scenarios are possible, you stop playing because you know you can buy all CSs, or build the spaceship, etc.
EDIT : Here is an excellent link about that :
http://forums.elementalgame.com/446730 . I think the guy explain some good reasons of why AIs are bad.