AI teching ludicrously fast?

[Park Hyun]

Came back after the updates and started playing my typical epic speed, Immortal-difficulty, huge-map games. Tried Babylon and got just about every single eureka but still could never seem to catch up. Just played some Byzantium and as soon as I got my fourth city up and was starting to get production going, suddenly hit medieval. Looked at the tech tree - Teddy was in the renaissance.

I'm not a noob! I've played this game a lot. Have been able to survive deity. I shouldn't be getting my first government at the same time the AI is getting musketmen.

Did the difficulty levels just get more... difficult?

 

[hhhhhh]

AI is changed to prioritize science a bit more. How is your early culture? Are you getting your first government by T75-T90 (on epic speed)?

 

[slavaskii]

AI is indeed teching much quicker, but they still struggle to actually get the win condition. Just played against a monster deity Germany that had upwards of 700 science per turn with an extremely small, peaceful empire - I still can’t figure out where they were getting all the yields from. However, despite launching the final project right before me, they never once attempted to speed it up.

As another example, Cree had an army of like 7 GDRs walking around, but didn’t attack anyone with them, including the Khmer, who literally surprise warred their alliance a long time before.

So no, I wouldn’t say the game got harder, rather the AI now just keeps better pace with the player.

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

So no, I wouldn’t say the game got harder, rather the AI now just keeps better pace with the player.

The early game is certainly harder, as you have less of a window to take someone out early (before higher tech units and walls arrive) while the AI has a longer "lead window" before you are able to catch up. After that point it's business as usual.

 

[IsabelBraganca]

In one of the updates, one of the changes was that non-religious AI has more incentive to build Campus than Holy Sites. I find easier to found a religion but the AI researches faster. I also play Immortal/Epic, usually standard or large maps. I usually manage to more or less to keep up. I really go for Eurekas with all civs. With Babylon, I also found a Religion and get the believe that gives science per population. The science you get from founder believe is not halved and it is about 1/3 to 1/2 of all my science most of the game. I don't get all Eurekas with Babylon, I chose some techs to hard research, I guess 1 in 5.

 

[Virdrago]

I've been playing random Civs, on Large Continents and Islands, with 12 civs per game lately. I don't normally play RV, but the AI is so into teching over religions that I am now accidentaly getting Great Prophets after building one Holy Site, usually for a CS quest. I have had more than a few games now where I was the second or third to get a religion, in the late classical/early medieval. Sometimes the last Prophets won't be taken until late Medieval, even with civs like Khmer, Poland, or Spain.

So it seems that even the religious civs are starting with Campuses.

 

[Siddharth Venkatesh]

I've noticed the AI prioritizing walls a bit more. Not sure if it's just a sampling bias, but it's become slightly harder to do a horseman rush.

I have noticed them getting noticeably better at science but not by that significant a margin that they are still above me past the Medieval age.

 

[Victoria]

The game favours a science rush.
People good at the game work this out and perfect science rushes
They then complain the game is too easy
The developers make the AI rush science more
Everyone else suffers

different approaches can be suggested to resolve this but the bottom line is the top line above.

science adjacencies, linear scaling science with cities that are not limited in their spread, blah de blah de blah. I guess we are falling to the end of the lifecycle and I hope the next iteration has a more balanced approach to civilization growth.

 

[Park Hyun]

All good points. It seems my starts are also getting a lot more sluggish - it feels like there's more competition to get out different districts or units and that as a result, I'm not making things fast enough. Partly that may be due to natural disasters increasing the need for builders and diverting production to repairs. It's also likely just due to playing Babylon and Byzantium, which need a lot of everything.

Whatever the reasons, the game is definitely harder. I'm not sure if it's more fun.

 

[Archon_Wing]

I think they're spamming projects and taking free inquiry.

The game is harder as a result, but I guess that is fine too. (they still can't pursue a victory condition anyways)

 

[James_Champagne]

Whatever the reasons, the game is definitely harder. I'm not sure if it's more fun.

This is something I've kind of felt recently. On the one hand I like that they're adding in all these modes and how you can customize the game to your own ideals, but... one thing that REALLY drives me nuts is that the eras are just whipping by too fast, and I think a big reason for this might be due to the AI's focus on science. I was looking up the info of some past games, and I saw that in a pre-GATHERING STORM game the world hit the Renaissance around 1000 AD. Ditto for a game I played during the early days of the GATHERING STORM era (before you started seeing those patches). But by my first game with the Ethiopia/Secret Societies pact the Renaissance hit around 660 AD... then for the Byzantium/Gaul pack, it was 550 AD. For my most recent game, the Babylon pack, 130 AD. That's insane! It makes me worry that by the next pack the world will be hitting the Renaissance era in the BC's! I know this might sound like a minor complaint but it really bugs me.

 

[Park Hyun]

This is something I've kind of felt recently. On the one hand I like that they're adding in all these modes and how you can customize the game to your own ideals, but... one thing that REALLY drives me nuts is that the eras are just whipping by too fast, and I think a big reason for this might be due to the AI's focus on science. I was looking up the info of some past games, and I saw that in a pre-GATHERING STORM game the world hit the Renaissance around 1000 AD. Ditto for a game I played during the early days of the GATHERING STORM era (before you started seeing those patches). But by my first game with the Ethiopia/Secret Societies pact the Renaissance hit around 660 AD... then for the Byzantium/Gaul pack, it was 550 AD. For my most recent game, the Babylon pack, 130 AD. That's insane! It makes me worry that by the next pack the world will be hitting the Renaissance era in the BC's! I know this might sound like a minor complaint but it really bugs me.

Yes, absolutely. It makes the UUs less useful and the game therefore less interesting, because the window for using them is so narrow. Just thinking out loud here, but I wonder if splitting the tech tree actually wound up creating more of an emphasis on science. Civ 5's scroll of techs was wider and had more tranches to go down, which may have helped control runaway science civs - making a beeline to a tech was possible but left behind a lot of useful stuff, which just is not the case in Civ 6, where the bottom tranche can be effectively ignored by all but religious civs.

 

[Xur]

I had a "problem" with an AI getting 10 times the science than me per turn. I don't know if you are using mods, but I disabled "religion expanded", and the game is back to normal again. India spammed campus and holy sites and somehow picked all the worship building, pantheons and beliefs that had to do with science - this problem is even worse on giant maps. That mod is seriously unbalanced in regards to science. I would recommend disabling every mod that has to do with science.

 

[HiRezAudio]

I had a "problem" with an AI getting 10 times the science than me per turn. I don't know if you are using mods, but I disabled "religion expanded", and the game is back to normal again. India spammed campus and holy sites and somehow picked all the worship building, pantheons and beliefs that had to do with science - this problem is even worse on giant maps. That mod is seriously unbalanced in regards to science. I would recommend disabling every mod that has to do with science.

This is one of the main reasons I don't use any mods at all, except for the occasional 'quality of life' UI ones - every mod I have ever tried causes problems somewhere along the line.
As for being too easy, well I am not so sure. These days I don't play on anything except Deity mode and I lose 4 times out of 5 which to my mind is the way it should be.

 

[Abaxial]

Yes - playing Babylon I got one Kittybum UU and then it was obsolete.

 

[agonistes]

This is something I've kind of felt recently. On the one hand I like that they're adding in all these modes and how you can customize the game to your own ideals, but... one thing that REALLY drives me nuts is that the eras are just whipping by too fast, and I think a big reason for this might be due to the AI's focus on science. I was looking up the info of some past games, and I saw that in a pre-GATHERING STORM game the world hit the Renaissance around 1000 AD. Ditto for a game I played during the early days of the GATHERING STORM era (before you started seeing those patches). But by my first game with the Ethiopia/Secret Societies pact the Renaissance hit around 660 AD... then for the Byzantium/Gaul pack, it was 550 AD. For my most recent game, the Babylon pack, 130 AD. That's insane! It makes me worry that by the next pack the world will be hitting the Renaissance era in the BC's! I know this might sound like a minor complaint but it really bugs me.

There is a great mod on steam, ultimate tech/culture or something, that I always use.

It lets you set a static increase cost for civics and techs, then scale up the cost per era, plus manage costs associated with such, i.e., great person costs and length of eras.

I play marathon set to x7 for base cost, with extreme scaling for eras.

That is probably too slow for sane people, but the x7 with extreme scaling is a good tandem for advancement moderation.

 

[Park Hyun]

There is a great mod on steam, ultimate tech/culture or something, that I always use.

It lets you set a static increase cost for civics and techs, then scale up the cost per era, plus manage costs associated with such, i.e., great person costs and length of eras.

I play marathon set to x7 for base cost, with extreme scaling for eras.

That is probably too slow for sane people, but the x7 with extreme scaling is a good tandem for advancement moderation.

I looked it up - "Take Your Time Ultimate" is the mod, and yes, this seems really important. I've started playing with City Lights and it makes the tech race even more obnoxious, since there's so much other stuff I want to build.