AI Upgrading Units?

DonPato

Chieftain
Joined
Jul 18, 2013
Messages
98
Hello everybody! I've just gotten back into Civ VI after a year long hiatus as a result of buying a new computer that could actually handle the game. I seem to remember that one of my biggest gripes about the game when it first came out was that the AI never upgraded its units, so I was fighting warriors with gunpowder, which was immersion breaking and boring. Is this still a thing? If so, are there any good AI mods out there that I should look into? Or, in general, is there a standard AI mod that folks are using the enhance their Civ VI experience?

Thanks!
 
I do not use mods so someone else will have to tell you about those
But the AI has become better at fielding updated units on the higher levels. I think they do not have enough units and underestimate aggression in late game but it is better than where it was at a year ago.
 
They should just make it so that the AI's units get automatically upgraded for free once they reach the required techs. Seeing warrior and archers in the modern era is immersion breaking and has been a problem since Civ II.
 
I cannot remember seeing that much of outdated military lately. The main problem is not enough military and not the right kind and obviously how to use them.
I do see city states with archers and such late in the game though
 
Part of the problem is the AI not having the right resources and not looking for them. I think giving AI 1 free iron in the late medieval era, and free Nitre in the late Industrial, would resolve the most egregious of those problems.
 
I think they should remove niter as a requirement for muskets. Right now, it's even possible that in the time I see niter to the time I get the aforementioned niter, I already have infantry. So either I sell the niter or use it for bombards. And perhaps infantry needs to be moved further down. Having a resource requirement for And also bring back the bazooka for machine guns to do something with.

Iron is also insanely rare sometimes. In one game, I captured like 15 cities and still no iron.

The other problem is that the AI seems to like getting a lot of odd things. It has an odd obsession with AT crews and not enough regarding siege weapons.
 
AI should also be made more aware of the 2 resource requirement for land units. Right now I have an impression that it doesn't know about it (and it attempts to by the 2-nd copy of the strategic resource from me all the time, which is annoying). Might also reduce the Encampment spam now that the Holy Site spam has supposedly been dealt with :D
 
AI should also be made more aware of the 2 resource requirement for land units. Right now I have an impression that it doesn't know about it (and it attempts to by the 2-nd copy of the strategic resource from me all the time, which is annoying). Might also reduce the Encampment spam now that the Holy Site spam has supposedly been dealt with :D

I wouldn't fault that to the AI. Bad luck spawns can make it hard for anyone to get 2 of a resource, and encampments are the only thing you can do sometimes. At least encampments actually do something during a war. We don't need them as much because the AI is bad at keeping their invading units alive. I'd imagine medieval walls and encampments would become much more typical if the AI was a threat.
 
They should just make it so that the AI's units get automatically upgraded for free once they reach the required techs. Seeing warrior and archers in the modern era is immersion breaking and has been a problem since Civ II.

Or maybe just remove the resource requirement for both AI and players once the Civ is in the next era (for both science and culture) so that a Civ is never more than one era behind with their unit quality. It is rather silly that I can build entire factories but not a single swordman if I lack iron.
 
Part of the problem is the AI not having the right resources and not looking for them. I think giving AI 1 free iron in the late medieval era, and free Nitre in the late Industrial, would resolve the most egregious of those problems.
Or maybe just remove the resource requirement for both AI and players once the Civ is in the next era (for both science and culture) so that a Civ is never more than one era behind with their unit quality. It is rather silly that I can build entire factories but not a single swordman if I lack iron.
Yes, I think an era+1 mechanism here would be a good solution - in fact, that could go for players as well as AI. I'm not keen on having the AI units upgrade for free, but bypassing some restrictions seems reasonable both from a realism and gameplay perspective.
 
Biggest problem is that AI consistently wastes any money it saves. Most of the time, whenever they have 200-300 gold saved they it will buy whatever it can, or will just trade the money away.
To solve this - they would really have to program a specific behaviour that plans on upgrading the units.
 
I think the AI upgrades sufficiently when it's got the resources. The problem is that you can have a vast empire and still lack strategic resources. The human player can actively work around this by beelining the next military technology and/or building more of certain units, but the AI makes no such efforts. I recently had a game where Japan was ahead in everything, but didn't have niter or iron. He could have purchased a couple of third-ring niter resources to "modernize" his army, but obviously he didn't. Beat him with my muskets a bit later on.

So, yeah, I'd say it's mostly down to strategic resources. Varies greatly from game to game how big an impact this is.
 
On the flip side I think the AI "knows" where the not yet discovered resources are long before the tech so that gives it one advantage
 
Well I think so. Why else do they build those cities in the tundra and then later - yes oil will come there
 
That's not really my observation. The AI seems to often settle just outside of a strategic resource - or not rush to get a strategic resource close to them that I can than claim with a city of my own. Also, those tundra cities, the AI is settling them so early that I can't think that's due to their strategic resource acquisition, they would have much more places to choose from. There's a lot to improve about the AI in Civ 6, but I can't say my complaints include the AI seeing through the fourth wall.
 
That's not really my observation.
I don't know what to tell you, but it's been well documented for a long time. The AI knows everything that is happening in-game all the time, it's only because of the programming that we perceive it doesn't. Just because the AI may know the locations of future resources doesn't necessarily mean it will settle a city ONLY to obtain those resources or even actively work toward acquiring those resources. There are many factors involved in the AI's decision tree, especially in later incarnations of Civ. Meaning their choices may not always appear logical.
 
I don't like the hard resource requirements for units (except nukes). If instead units were -7 strength if you had no resources, -3 if only 1, and full strength with 2 or more it would eliminate the upgrade issues and let everyone have appropriate units while still making a real impact on combat effectiveness. Heck iron and niter are found pretty much everywhere in real life. Everyone should be able to come by enough.
 
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