AI tactics suck even on Diety.

[Tutkarz]

Problem i see is when you defeat AIs army its game over for him. He is not able to create more units until you take all his cities. Maybe there should be option for general mobilisation for peasants
Anyway in my games so far AI makes some stupid moves: he was trying to make invasion near my city and left his uints in water doing nothing so my only trireme just swimmed one after another his whole army. Or hes making assaults where first come catapult, second archer and infantry last, so i just took it by my horsie.
So the AI does have some serious problems: he cant attack or defend himself, so its easy to conquer it. Im thinking roght now how to finish game in less possible turns to beat my record

Anyway. Firaxis should REALLY look at this:
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/game/BattleField.aspx
Pure and simple. Amaizing how simply can AI be done, and efficient.

 

[totallylost]

i took one city from catherine and she practically offered me half her empire for peace. bloody stupid AI. get this... by 1200 AD, Siam, which was not impeded in anyway, well isolated, and safe, had JUST ONE CITY!!! its capital was its only city for gods sake! needless to say i took it and eliminated them.

 

[Dactyl]

I'm playing the Greeks on King level and I've destroyed four of the eight AI opponents using an army of companion cavalry and a general. City walls don't help the AI defenders either. It just takes an extra turn to take the city. It might help if, in the early stages of the game, it were virtually impossible to take a city with walls without the use of siege equipment. That would certainly slow down the early rush.

 

[klokwerk]

Winning on Duel / Small map even on Deity using cheap tactics is hardly an achievement. Large or Huge map would probably be near impossible on Deity even with the current Civ 5 state.

Still, tactical AI could definitely be improved (strategical AI looks okay). I witnessed some nice 10+ units attack on my city but they are the exception, not the rule.

Units generally tend to come one per one and as such, they're easy to kill. They need to use better formations and come in bigger / closer pack, with archers behind melee. They need to avoid traps (catching workers and so on is ok if you're in a group, not alone)

I'm confident patches and BetterAI mod will improve this aspect greatly. It was the same thing with Civ 4, AI improved greatly over years.

 

[alysenne]

Just to be fair, programming AI is one of the hardest things to do. Give them a chance.

They could have delayed releasing the game for another year in order to improve the AI, or release it now when the game is good enough to satisfy most people. From a business standpoint, it's not a hard decision.

If you are good enough to complain about the AI, stop exploiting it.

 

[adecoy95]

perhaps your all just better at the civ game than you where when you first played civ IV?

 

[Coios]

I beat my first deity game last night (duel map-pangaea-quick), and I definitely agree that AI tactics need a huge makeover. But as far as managing their empires, the AI seems to be exactly where it needs to be on deity.

I played as Wu-Zetian against Askia and declared war the second we met. I Didn't rush him or anything, finished the game with my mechanized infantry barging into his capital. The map was a horseshoe with a city state blocking us in the center along a very narrow (one hex) choke.

Something that Askia did which posed a huge problem for me all game, was purchase units. Near the end of the game he had over 10 000 gold, and was relentless at buying artillery, I would kill 4-5 of his units with my my artillery and the next turn he had 5 more to replace them. I was kept back defending the choke with a citadel from swordsman, all the way until infantry. He kept me out-teched all game until maybe the last 30 turns or so, even with me doing the glib - civil service sling, getting the 2tech social policy, and getting gifted great scientists by the 3 city states I was allied with (Patronage tree is great btw!!). The choke and a well placed citadel are what kept me from getting run over I believe.

He did embark his units in the lake that separated us but never once disembarked them (though he may have planned on it, but i quickly bought triremes and had a cho-ku-no firing from land). The city state which was located between us was at war with him as well, being my ally and all, and near the end of the game actually embarked his units, and disembarked them at one of his coastal cities; I found that to be very interesting.

Once I took his first city and kept his units back for years on end, he asked for a peace treaty, along with every city he owned and a large chunk of gold. I couldn't accept any trades as I told myself I would play like it was always war, but the fact that he still proposed, after the patch, is hugely game-breaking.

I am definitely waiting for a patch that completely overhauls the AI's tactical combat ability, and will attempt another deity game to see if this was even close to a deserved achievement.

 

[Vladesch]

As most of you would know, most of the improvements to the AI in civ4 were initially and addon ("improved AI") which were later incorporated by firaxis into the default game. It will probably be the same thing for civ 5. Improving the AI is difficult, and from a corporate point of view, probably not great return on investment. Hence why they will probably borrow AI improvements from mod designers.

I daresay 80-90% of people who buy civ5 find the level of the AI as it is challenging enough if you ramp up the difficulty. I know a lot of people here find it too easy, but we are hardly a typical cross section of the playerbase.

Actually designing a good AI for civ 5 is probably more difficult because of the tactical nature of single unit per square combat. You start getting into the realm of chess programs that have look-ahead, which is way beyond the scope of any AI so far designed for civ.

 

[Buccaneer]

As most of you would know, most of the improvements to the AI in civ4 were initially and addon ("improved AI") which were later incorporated by firaxis into the default game.

This.

 

[ds61514]

Playing on small maps is like -2 difficulty level that's why.

I don't know if it's -2 difficulty level, but smaller maps ARE easier than larger ones. It is totally possible to kill 3 civs using nothing but horseman, but that doesn't mean as much if an AI on another continent has 10x the population you do (yes I've seen this happen).