Anyone else feeling discouraged?

[Aristos]

that's because AI can't handle complex civ 6 system... which they haven't updated from civ 5 version.
Ai civ 6=Ai civ 5.

Incorrect (at least according to their own declarations). AI in civ 6 uses Behavior Trees, a completely different beast from what the AI was until civ 5 (for which the code is available and I have looked extensively into). A few years back, there was extensive and fascinating discussion about the huge differences between BTs and traditional AI systems, and how BTs are the worst possible selection for TBS games. I was part of that debate, I remember.

So, NO, AI civ 6 ≠ AI civ 5, and given the existent research about BTs and how they are perfect for RTS but the worst possible option for TBS, well...

Look it up. It's fascinating reading.

 

[Kupe Navigator]

Incorrect (at least according to their own declarations). AI in civ 6 uses Behavior Trees, a completely different beast from what the AI was until civ 5 (for which the code is available and I have looked extensively into). A few years back, there was extensive and fascinating discussion about the huge differences between BTs and traditional AI systems, and how BTs are the worst possible selection for TBS games. I was part of that debate, I remember.

So, NO, AI civ 6 ≠ AI civ 5, and given the existent research about BTs and how they are perfect for RTS but the worst possible option for TBS, well...

Look it up. It's fascinating reading.

vanilla Ai in civ 5 is just as stupid as in civ 6.
They declare war without any reason and often wast time doing stupid stuff.

 

[youngsteve]

vanilla Ai in civ 5 is just as stupid as in civ 6.
They declare war without any reason and often wast time doing stupid stuff.

That is why people play Vox Populi, which is miles better AI than Civ 5 > Civ 6.

 

[KayAU]

vanilla Ai in civ 5 is just as stupid as in civ 6.
They declare war without any reason and often wast time doing stupid stuff.

It's been a while since I played Civ 5 without VP, so you could be right. I know the AI is far inferior to VP, but...I don't remember it being as blatantly dysfunctional as it is in Civ 6 at the moment. I could be wrong about this, but at least as I remember it, it never got the same feeling of playing on alone as I do in Civ 6.

Of course, one possibility is that it feels this way with 6 because I've now gotten used to VP, where I always need to watch out for the AI...even when I'm far ahead.

 

[Kwami]

It's been a while since I played Civ 5 without VP, so you could be right. I know the AI is far inferior to VP, but...I don't remember it being as blatantly dysfunctional as it is in Civ 6 at the moment. I could be wrong about this, but at least as I remember it, it never got the same feeling of playing on alone as I do in Civ 6.

Of course, one possibility is that it feels this way with 6 because I've now gotten used to VP, where I always need to watch out for the AI...even when I'm far ahead.

The AI in V was very similar to the AI in VI, even if they were functionally quite different behind the scenes. In both games, the AI is mostly passive after the first few dozen turns and mostly doesn't matter. They're both bad at movement and combat. They're both bad at winning games. So, about average for 4X.

 

[MrRadar]

The AI in V was very similar to the AI in VI, even if they were functionally quite different behind the scenes. In both games, the AI is mostly passive after the first few dozen turns and mostly doesn't matter. They're both bad at movement and combat. They're both bad at winning games. So, about average for 4X.

Come on. Unmodded Civ V AI on Deity can and will roll over you, if you're not careful. It will betray you. It will bomb you from the air. AA and and fighters are not optional. It will bombard you from land and sea. It may not have the most brilliant moves, but it can have enough numbers to wipe you out. None of these elements are remotely relevant it Civ VI. AI is so hopeless, it can't even create a credible background for a roleplay. And there are bugs. And more bugs. And even more bugs. For months. For years. Horrible, unfinished UI and poor QoL, for years. It is not a civilization game at this point. It is a simcity builder's puzzle game with some random obstacles to overcome, going against your own best time.

 

[aieeegrunt]

Incorrect (at least according to their own declarations). AI in civ 6 uses Behavior Trees, a completely different beast from what the AI was until civ 5 (for which the code is available and I have looked extensively into). A few years back, there was extensive and fascinating discussion about the huge differences between BTs and traditional AI systems, and how BTs are the worst possible selection for TBS games. I was part of that debate, I remember.

So, NO, AI civ 6 ≠ AI civ 5, and given the existent research about BTs and how they are perfect for RTS but the worst possible option for TBS, well...

Look it up. It's fascinating reading.

Any chance you have a link to that discussion?

Come on. Unmodded Civ V AI on Deity can and will roll over you, if you're not careful. It will betray you. It will bomb you from the air. AA and and fighters are not optional. It will bombard you from land and sea. It may not have the most brilliant moves, but it can have enough numbers to wipe you out. None of these elements are remotely relevant it Civ VI. AI is so hopeless, it can't even create a credible background for a roleplay. And there are bugs. And more bugs. And even more bugs. For months. For years. Horrible, unfinished UI and poor QoL, for years. It is not a civilization game at this point. It is a simcity builder's puzzle game with some random obstacles to overcome, going against your own best time.

Turning R&F and GS off, all modes off, and barbs off makes the AI a lot better at everything except warfare, at which it is completely useless.

I noticed my AI neighbours expanding nicely, actually improving their lands properly, managing strategics and luxuries.

It just cannot wage war at all

 

[Aristos]

Any chance you have a link to that discussion?

Need to look it up... it was here somewhere in the early years of civ 6, right after their original AI dev (don't know if he is still the same) bragged about their BT based AI...

Come on. Unmodded Civ V AI on Deity can and will roll over you, if you're not careful. It will betray you. It will bomb you from the air. AA and and fighters are not optional. It will bombard you from land and sea. It may not have the most brilliant moves, but it can have enough numbers to wipe you out. None of these elements are remotely relevant it Civ VI. AI is so hopeless, it can't even create a credible background for a roleplay. And there are bugs. And more bugs. And even more bugs. For months. For years. Horrible, unfinished UI and poor QoL, for years. It is not a civilization game at this point. It is a simcity builder's puzzle game with some random obstacles to overcome, going against your own best time.

Thank you for saying it, couldn't have worded it better. On a not-so-side note, playing Old World now... man, you can feel Soren's quality right from the start... such a loss for the franchise, such a loss... too early to judge the AI there, but UI and QoL are there, and classical Soren depth of play... it is impossible to avoid comparisons, and exacerbates disappointment and discouragement about the future of this franchise...

 

[SuperFly47]

Playing HUMANKIND Closed Beta killed Civ for me.

(I hadn't got into the game in the Victor OpenDev).

Same.

I really hope modern warfare is challenging in Humankind. Fighting with tanks and airplanes was a fun part of civilization games. Modern warfare is essentially none-existent in civilization 6.

 

[Kwami]

Come on. Unmodded Civ V AI on Deity can and will roll over you, if you're not careful. It will betray you. It will bomb you from the air. AA and and fighters are not optional. It will bombard you from land and sea. It may not have the most brilliant moves, but it can have enough numbers to wipe you out. None of these elements are remotely relevant it Civ VI. AI is so hopeless, it can't even create a credible background for a roleplay. And there are bugs. And more bugs. And even more bugs. For months. For years. Horrible, unfinished UI and poor QoL, for years. It is not a civilization game at this point. It is a simcity builder's puzzle game with some random obstacles to overcome, going against your own best time.

I just really don't agree. Nearly every game that I won in V back when it was the current iteration of the game was almost entirely peaceful, just like in VI. The AI might as well have not been there.

 

[Aristos]

Same.

I really hope modern warfare is challenging in Humankind. Fighting with tanks and airplanes was a fun part of civilization games. Modern warfare is essentially none-existent in civilization 6.

Speaking of which... this is yet another area of disappointment for me, especially because of the following: after Activision dared to try and challenge Firaxis with their Call To Power gamble, a few of us immediately saw the huge potential in the "combined arms/army" approach that CtP introduced, and started voicing our encouragement (right here in this very forum) for FXS to look into that model of combat for their next iteration... imagine, that was around Civ 3 I think, or even before that... the idea was there, no matter if you liked the CtP implementation or not (for the record, it was much better than the SoD, and ALSO still better than the CoD of Civ 5 and beyond), for a breakthrough in combat for the franchise...

What did they do? Nothing. Not an answer, not an opinion, just ignore it... why? I don't know. It was one of those gifts that came from an attempt of competition... did they ignore it because they thought the ultimate failure of CtP came from their combat model? No idea.

Fast forward 20+ years, and now you have the Amplitude guys taking that idea (well, they did it already for EL) and making it amazing. This is one area where there will not be any debate as to which model is the winner.

The disappointment comes from the fact that Firaxis had 20 years to take one of the best features of CtP, and make it better.

Now they lost the initiative. Discouraging....

 

[Rotomagus]

Yep... totally agree with this, the ignorance and arrogance of F_xis in this regard defies any explanation. Also many other aspects of CtP were 1000 times better than Civ ever even got. It is just... infinitely disappointing...

 

[Kwami]

Eh, to be fair, the combat in Humankind has a lot of potential, but it kind of sucks right now. It's hard to tell which tiles are forests, it's hard to tell which cliffs count as cliffs, it's hard to tell when you'll have line of sight, it's hard to tell where reinforcements will come in. Also, the battlefield isn't always obvious until you get there, at which point you might not have any good tiles to deploy on.

One big problem that these mini stacks have, and which might prevent Firaxis from copying the idea, is that it's really hard to tell on the world map what units are in an army. The graphic can show the total number of units, and it can show the icon for one of those units, but it can't show 4-8 icons to represent all of the units. That means clicking on the opponent's army to see what it is, then deciding how to move or attack. Tedious, and potentially quite problematic in multiplayer (and in single player for Humankind since it has simultaneous turns).

So, potential. But as with almost everything else, Humankind falls far short of its potential. We'll see if Amplitude gets it working by next month, or if Civ VII or some other game gets it working later. I'm sure that someone can do it right.

 

[blackbutterfly]

I really hope modern warfare is challenging in Humankind. Fighting with tanks and airplanes was a fun part of civilization games. Modern warfare is essentially none-existent in civilization 6.

In fact Civ: Beyond Earth makes great use of air units, which IMO makes it a better game for warfare than Civ VI (both playing AI and MP).

 

[Leucarum]

I guess we'll find out how much emphasis firaxis puts on AI in Civ7... But I suspect the size of the audience clamouring for better AI is pretty small relative to the entire Civ6 gaming player base. If so I wouldn't be surprised if it is pretty low on their priority list.

I tried the humankind beta and found it pretty slow. Lots of ideas I liked in there (the different ways to accrue fame, the prehistoric section), but I got bored very quickly. Reading this thread I have to say it was might be partially because the AI just felt completely passive. Almost a non-entity. I refunded the purchase in any case. I guess that's one 4X I'll be skipping...

 

[youngsteve]

I guess we'll find out how much emphasis firaxis puts on AI in Civ7... But I suspect the size of the audience clamouring for better AI is pretty small relative to the entire Civ6 gaming player base. If so I wouldn't be surprised if it is pretty low on their priority list.

I tried the humankind beta and found it pretty slow. Lots of ideas I liked in there (the different ways to accrue fame, the prehistoric section), but I got bored very quickly. Reading this thread I have to say it was might be partially because the AI just felt completely passive. Almost a non-entity. I refunded the purchase in any case. I guess that's one 4X I'll be skipping...

I think many people, like myself, might not be interested in Civ 7, due to the develops attitude in not fixing Civ 6 or enabling modders to do so. Have to wait on that one.

As for Humankind, I agree with your concerns about it. I keep reading how great this game is but nothing I have seen convinces me so far, though that might change. All I see are people building up their empires with seeming no opposition, whatever their ability, & I know this is only a beta but there are issues that is for sure.

 

[Aristos]

Eh, to be fair, the combat in Humankind has a lot of potential, but it kind of sucks right now. It's hard to tell which tiles are forests, it's hard to tell which cliffs count as cliffs, it's hard to tell when you'll have line of sight, it's hard to tell where reinforcements will come in. Also, the battlefield isn't always obvious until you get there, at which point you might not have any good tiles to deploy on.

One big problem that these mini stacks have, and which might prevent Firaxis from copying the idea, is that it's really hard to tell on the world map what units are in an army. The graphic can show the total number of units, and it can show the icon for one of those units, but it can't show 4-8 icons to represent all of the units. That means clicking on the opponent's army to see what it is, then deciding how to move or attack. Tedious, and potentially quite problematic in multiplayer (and in single player for Humankind since it has simultaneous turns).

So, potential. But as with almost everything else, Humankind falls far short of its potential. We'll see if Amplitude gets it working by next month, or if Civ VII or some other game gets it working later. I'm sure that someone can do it right.

I did not have any issue with any of those points while playing the betas. In fact, all of them were pretty clear to me in the UI before entering any battle. To the point that I could even select the angle of approach for each battle depending on where I wanted the deployment of my army to happen, including reinforcements. All of it was very clear in the UI.

Tedious is a word that I would use with much more frequency when talking about Civ 6 "combat" and army movements.

 

[Kupe Navigator]

I did not have any issue with any of those points while playing the betas. In fact, all of them were pretty clear to me in the UI before entering any battle. To the point that I could even select the angle of approach for each battle depending on where I wanted the deployment of my army to happen, including reinforcements. All of it was very clear in the UI.

Tedious is a word that I would use with much more frequency when talking about Civ 6 "combat" and army movements.

You make ot sound like HumanKind is a perfect game without faults.... everything has faults

 

[Kwami]

I did not have any issue with any of those points while playing the betas. In fact, all of them were pretty clear to me in the UI before entering any battle. To the point that I could even select the angle of approach for each battle depending on where I wanted the deployment of my army to happen, including reinforcements. All of it was very clear in the UI.

Tedious is a word that I would use with much more frequency when talking about Civ 6 "combat" and army movements.

Well, I guess you're special. The complaints that I had about the combat system are repeated numerous times in Steam reviews and on the G2G forums.

 

[Kupe Navigator]

Well, I guess you're special. The complaints that I had about the combat system are repeated numerous times in Steam reviews and on the G2G forums.

He is just determined to think HumanKind is superior version of Civ with no faults whatsoever.