AI still cannot win the "domination only" challenge

[Adam Hall]

Played a couple of games two levels higher than Prince (forgot the name). Duel size map. Only victory condition is Domination. And rocked the AI both times. I guess it will never be able to compete for a domination victory.

Has anyone actually seen the AI win one? I haven't except on Deity and only when I declared war on it first.

 

[Ownsya]

You could try Real Strategy mod. It tries to improve AI decision making and helps it focus towards specific goals. The mod also checks for disabled VC's to "better handle disabled victory conditions". Also try including AI civs that are natural warmongers. I believe the mod takes civ natural tendencies as a factor in decision making meaning leaders with war focus are more likely to attempt a domination victory.

I haven't tested it enough myself to give a good review of the mod but from the one game I tried with it before september update, I noticed some significantly larger armies than usual. They still weren't too much of a fight though since my military was a few techs ahead (tanks vs cavalry and bombards). I'm hopeful that it's a worthwhile mod and after seeing what september AI improvements feel like, will play with the mod again to see how the game differs.

 

[Victoria]

Nope. The AIis showing more signs of strength and is taking other civs out but I have never seen a runaway let alone one getting close.

 

[Bangau]

In my current game Scythia has actually taken over all of America and half of Canada. Unfortunately then she stopped... It's my first game on the September patch still, so I'm hoping I'll see more of that aggression in the AI from now on.

 

[oSiyeza]

I use often Real Strategy and Smoother dificulty mods. They increase the challenge of the AI for me.

A bit after GS, too much job kept me away from the game for a while. I think also I got tired on being the only civ on my games playing a military game.

After the last two patches I am noticing a lot of comments about agressive AI plays, maybe aI should start a new game with a clean vanilla AI.

What do you think?.

 

[MrRadar]

<...> maybe aI should start a new game with a clean vanilla AI.

What do you think?.

Why not, give it a try.
Don't expect miracles, if you concentrate on military, you'll come on top of things, but it may take more effort, depending on who your neighbours are. Say what, try standard Terra (without reducing civ and CS numbers). Chances are, your start won't be boring.

I see AI fighting more and trying to rebuild their forces. I see Mansa Musa pushing around quite a few tank armies ~T250 and taking a neigbour's capital and successfully resisting emergency coalition against him.

And although AI Kupe failed to take the New World for himself (he settled only some fringes and then sent a few settlers to the Old World, where his attempted colonies flipped, of course), with only a few cities he has twice the military force I have with four or five times more cities than him, and he drowns me in his rock-band music. It is insane, I've never seen such a rock attack before. I see he's gaining up to over ten thousand tourism with his concerts in my lands. I'll see if he actually manages a CV

 

[Abaxial]

Try it on autoplay. The game will end in a draw because no AI will be able to put a win together.

 

[Dustbrother]

I was really hopeful for this patch. AI is still pretty usless though. I was playing as Japan and was quite surprised to see Brazil rock up with an epic huge carpet of Cuirassier armies. I should have been dead twice over, instead what followed was the AI truffle shuffle. He moved all of them into the centre of my territory, some of them into the sea and then shuffled them round as my walls killed them all. I got a huge number of era points from dispatching the armies with my meagre forces. Even if the AI had just attacked the nearest thing to each unit he'd have wiped me from the face of the earth.

Oh well. At least they're building and upgrading units now. Maybe in a year or two the year the AI will actually manage to use them. Looks like I'm back to Planetfall!

 

[Adam Hall]

I was really hopeful for this patch. AI is still pretty usless though. I was playing as Japan and was quite surprised to see Brazil rock up with an epic huge carpet of Cuirassier armies. I should have been dead twice over, instead what followed was the AI truffle shuffle. He moved all of them into the centre of my territory, some of them into the sea and then shuffled them round as my walls killed them all. I got a huge number of era points from dispatching the armies with my meagre forces. Even if the AI had just attacked the nearest thing to each unit he'd have wiped me from the face of the earth.

Oh well. At least they're building and upgrading units now. Maybe in a year or two the year the AI will actually manage to use them. Looks like I'm back to Planetfall!

"Age of Wonders : Planetfall". I had never heard of it. I actually bought it and started trying it. I like it so far. Thanks for referring to it. So I see there are multiple victory conditions like CIV 6. Can this AI actually win a domination-only victory? And please note, I never expect human-level AI or anything near it. But CIV6 AI is incapable of it unless feed it so many buffs that it is silly (deity).

 

[kryat]

I’m still fairly skeptical that the AI even looks at the allowed victory types. I think they just play to win however they feel like at the moment. It also wouldn’t surprise me if the AI wasn’t programmed to achieve a domination victory, but was instead programmed to “look” aggressive.

 

[steveg700]

You know, I begin to think that if the AI ever got good at winning using the currently available mechanisms, the rejoicing would be brief for most of us.

We'd just quickly become alienated by how rudimentary it is for the AI to hammer away at the same regurgitative, spammy tactics human players use. It would usually just boil down to "most cities generating stuff wins".

 

[Dustbrother]

You know, I begin to think that if the AI ever got good at winning using the currently available mechanisms, the rejoicing would be brief for most of us.

We'd just quickly become alienated by how rudimentary it is for the AI to hammer away at the same regurgitative, spammy tactics human players use. It would usually just boil down to "most cities generating stuff wins".

Nobody's currently asking for good, just asking for possible. Currently it's not possible for the AI to win a domination victory even against other AI, which is really the bare minimum of what it should be able to achieve.