Anybody else getting a streak of unplayable games ?

[cazaderonus]

So i decided to continue my deity games with every available leaders and it was ghandi s turn. Over an hour, i started 5 different pangea games in which i got dowed by 2/3 civs by turn 25, that spawned maybe 10/15 tiles away from my capital. Playing on deity, i started slingerx3 to archery but never could really defend especially with ai already having oligarchy plus their natural attack bonus.

I can tell you, it was a very frustrating hour... I feel this happens mostly on pangea maps.

Anybody else experienced this ?

 

[bitula]

Yes I actually experienced same thing after the last patch. The AI attacks in big groups. Their effort seems to be well coordinated and well executed. This was a pleasant surprise for me though and somewhat contradicting generic statements on these forums claiming the AI is completely dumb and no improvement is going on.

 

[UWHabs]

I'm not at deity, but even at immortal the AI is pretty fierce early. Debating dropping down a level, although my current game has essentially been saved by Amsterdam. Not because of its bonuses or anything, but because it's basically blocking the path between me and Monty, and it has somehow managed to hang on and fight off every attack of Monty's to stay alive. So because of that, I have basically a full continent to myself to expand on, which should hopefully keep me alive.

 

[Disgustipated]

It's funny because even at Prince level, the AI will declare war after war every 10 turns. They won't stop declaring on me. But of course at that difficulty level the AI is pitifully easy to fend off. Only Macedon was close enough to send a lot of troops, and I had the available troops to take them out. The AI seems addicted to joint wars this patch.

It's also funny because we have a thread complaining about the AI being too friendly post patch. And at first that seemed to be the case, but lately they've been real aggressive. Even Ghandi is chain DOW'ing me. Seriously Ghandi. I really want to know how you can declare war on me without sacrificing your morals.

And I'm no longer warmongering either. I stopped offensive war early in the classical age. Sometimes it seems the only solution is to beat all the civs down to nothing. I believe I'm in late rennassaince now and still getting chain DOW's.

So the game is not unplayable at my difficulty level, just real annoying. I stopped sending delegations because it became a huge waste of money. At one point I had like 4 joint wars against me with 9 civs at war with me. 2/3 of all the civs in the game were at war with me.

 

[DemonMaster]

So some people claim that the AI is to friendly nowadays and some people claim the opposite. Strange.

My experience is that some of the AI in a game is super friendly, most are just friendly(ish) and few is just DoW loving idiots. The endgame turns most the AI to at least unfriendly, but that is ok, it is the endgame after all.

 

[bitula]

I think this scales with difficulty. I only play Diety. On Diety, in the beinnig, they are like 90% unfriendly (based on sample of 10 games). Also tactical AI is much better. They gather their army before venturing forth. Then they try to attack your units, starting with the weaker ones – this is new in this patch – before attacking the city. And they know how to Siege. They surround your city before attacking it. Maybe on lower levels the AI is intentionally bad, but on Diety since the patch I wasn’t able to win a single game. Now it doesn’t seem to work to station your units near your city and decimate all incoming force, then counterattack, because they attack much more intelligently now and far outnumber you. This wasn’t so with vanilla as I remember. In vanilla Diety was quite easy.

 

[Uncle_Joe]

Wonderful. So now players have to crank up the AI's artificial crutches in order to have it behave less friendly? Who thought of that?

This last patch REALLY shook my faith that they have a direction for this game...

 

[stinkubus]

I'm not at deity, but even at immortal the AI is pretty fierce early. Debating dropping down a level, although my current game has essentially been saved by Amsterdam. Not because of its bonuses or anything, but because it's basically blocking the path between me and Monty, and it has somehow managed to hang on and fight off every attack of Monty's to stay alive. So because of that, I have basically a full continent to myself to expand on, which should hopefully keep me alive.

I play Emperor, and apart from a few tough games right after the patch, I think conquest has gotten easier. The AI seems much slower to get walls up now, so warriors and archers are perfectly fine for capturing non-capitals well past T40.

 

[Sherlock]

My disgust with the absolutely insane number of early game (30 turns or less) barb camps and units is well known. Those games are all non-starters.

I've been using the 'nerfbarbarian' mod and that seems to make the barbs just a little tougher than they were in CiV.

But I've had a long string of games with really crappy starting points and no good place for a second city. After about half a dozen starts I finally got a game where I had a half-decent start. And I managed to steal two (or was it three?) settlers from the AI and the barbs. That was like money from home.

 

[cazaderonus]

It's funny because even at Prince level, the AI will declare war after war every 10 turns. They won't stop declaring on me. But of course at that difficulty level the AI is pitifully easy to fend off. Only Macedon was close enough to send a lot of troops, and I had the available troops to take them out. The AI seems addicted to joint wars this patch.

It's also funny because we have a thread complaining about the AI being too friendly post patch. And at first that seemed to be the case, but lately they've been real aggressive. Even Ghandi is chain DOW'ing me. Seriously Ghandi. I really want to know how you can declare war on me without sacrificing your morals.

And I'm no longer warmongering either. I stopped offensive war early in the classical age. Sometimes it seems the only solution is to beat all the civs down to nothing. I believe I'm in late rennassaince now and still getting chain DOW's.

So the game is not unplayable at my difficulty level, just real annoying. I stopped sending delegations because it became a huge waste of money. At one point I had like 4 joint wars against me with 9 civs at war with me. 2/3 of all the civs in the game were at war with me.

I think there s a case now to use joint wars as early as possible, even just to steal a settler, for the sole reason of taking away a joint war opportunity for the AIs.
Also, i think the issue comes from the map seeds. Pangea seems to just stick you right next to the other civs, making impossible to avoid at least a war vs 2 civs before turn 30. Which, unleds you have a civ with powerfull classical unit is basically impossible to repel now.

Cause yeah, land combat ai is now much more effective even though it remains flawed. But early, with the extra starting units and production boosts, it s just insane

 

[mckinney156]

I guess it depends on what you define as unplayable. Getting DoW by 2/3 AI in the first 30 turns isn't unplayable to me. I did have a game where I started in the middle of an ice patch with not a single lux or farmable tile in site. That's unplayable to me.

 

[UWHabs]

I guess it depends on what you define as unplayable. Getting DoW by 2/3 AI in the first 30 turns isn't unplayable to me. I did have a game where I started in the middle of an ice patch with not a single lux or farmable tile in site. That's unplayable to me.

Some games are just tougher. Or one I tried recently where I had I think 2 nearby barb camps that were spawning horse units. I almost killed the camp, had it empty with my unit next to it, and then suddenly 3 horsemen spawn and kill my archer. I'll try to fight through a lot of games, but some just aren't fun to deal with that much adversity that early on.

 

[Hep Roc Heretic]

I guess it depends on what you define as unplayable. Getting DoW by 2/3 AI in the first 30 turns isn't unplayable to me. I did have a game where I started in the middle of an ice patch with not a single lux or farmable tile in site. That's unplayable to me.

I agree -- a bad starting position is more unplayable than having lots of barbs and forward-settling neighbors. You can develop strategies to deal with barbs and aggressive civs, but it's time to fold 'em when you dealt a bad starting position.

As to the OP, post-patch, I'm on my third attempt to play Japan. All three games have had me start between mountains and barren ocean tiles, lots of desert, and few (if any luxuries). I didn't finish the first two, but I'm 300+ turns into my third -- I guess I'll finish this one.

I've had similar streaks before the patch, so I can't blame it all on the patch.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Two things will make me reset.:

1.) Barbarian naval units from the start, especially if you start on a peninsula.
2.) Excessive mountain ranges. Vanilla interface and moving units through that = no.

A close third which isn't fatal but unfun is excessive barb horse units.

 

[Biz_]

this has always been civ6's problem

you aren't playing the game. the game is playing you

 

[Victoria]

I'm stopping for a while. Diplomacy was OK before with a few silly things, now it's just bad.
The agressive nature at deity is fine, just start with warriors and slingers and you will be fine. Starting any other way nowadays risks being taken out early. I find circling my capital with my warrior about 6-8 tiles out can catch the early cam before it goes stupid and this gives a big advantage over your enemies.
My problem is I like diplomacy but now allies are broken it's fairly worthless and so just war your way to any victory which is dull.

 

[cazaderonus]

Some games are just tougher. Or one I tried recently where I had I think 2 nearby barb camps that were spawning horse units. I almost killed the camp, had it empty with my unit next to it, and then suddenly 3 horsemen spawn and kill my archer. I'll try to fight through a lot of games, but some just aren't fun to deal with that much adversity that early on.

I agree to a limit. The games i refer to ended up with 3 civs dowing me with their units already close to my capital. Meaning that there was 10+ enemy units from 3 different AIs in the 3 rings of my city, when i would have had maybe 4/5 units of my own if i had decided to just spam units. when there's basically nothing you can do (even played the diplomacy sending delegations, and offering open borders asap for positive modifiers, and selling my first copy of horses), it's unplayable.

I'm stopping for a while. Diplomacy was OK before with a few silly things, now it's just bad.
The agressive nature at deity is fine, just start with warriors and slingers and you will be fine. Starting any other way nowadays risks being taken out early. I find circling my capital with my warrior about 6-8 tiles out can catch the early cam before it goes stupid and this gives a big advantage over your enemies.
My problem is I like diplomacy but now allies are broken it's fairly worthless and so just war your way to any victory which is dull.

To be fair. Warring your way to victory has been the most obvious choice for good performance since vanilla civi.

 

[Sherlock]

In the beginning of the game you go to war with your closest neighbor.

In the end of the game you go to war with the biggest AI civ.

It's pretty predictable and getting boring.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Unwinnable games? No...but if we're talking 15+ cities and micromanaging that in a won run then that at least approaches "unplayable", even if it's technically playable.

 

[Thorrez]

So i decided to continue my deity games with every available leaders and it was ghandi s turn. Over an hour, i started 5 different pangea games in which i got dowed by 2/3 civs by turn 25, that spawned maybe 10/15 tiles away from my capital. Playing on deity, i started slingerx3 to archery but never could really defend especially with ai already having oligarchy plus their natural attack bonus.

I can tell you, it was a very frustrating hour... I feel this happens mostly on pangea maps.

Anybody else experienced this ?

I have only played two games with the last patch, both deity dom wins one of which Kongo and England was right on top of me. In my experience, if you have a very close neighbor the best defense is to dow as early as possible (read once at least two slinger are ready) and use a choke point to take out some units.

Also note the the choke point could very well be your capital. You will not have any infrastructure anyway so as long as you do not lose it, there is little to lose.

Make sure you do not lose any range units, the real trick is to use terrain and your initial warrior to do this.