I totally agree with you. The FUN in RTS comes from beating the opponent and being challenged by him in one specific way, efficiency. "git gud, scrub"
Civ6 on the other hand depends on some efficiency, of course... But the FUN comes from other factors, like empire building and believable behaviour. This is why it does not make any sense to apply the same AI principles as in StarCraft2. Perhaps, you could, and then apply the same practices as now, just not to introduce behaviour rules, but behaviour mistakes, to handicap the player.
For me, I'm looking for three things in the Civ AI:
1. That it act as a "pace car", i.e. that it pursues it's own victory in an efficient enough manner that the player feels the need to keep. For me, that's what creates the joy out of getting a good city site, winning a wonder race, etc., and conversely the frustration out of not getting these things
2. That it act as a "speed bump", i.e. that the player can't just build their own empire in isolation, they need to spend time on diplomacy, military, etc. and generally pay attention to what their neighbours are up to.
3. That it provides enjoyable foils to play against, where each leader projects a personality and acts in a manner consistent to that personality. Having Shaka as your neighbour should feel different than having Gandhi as neighbour, and force you to play the game differently.
3. That it provides enjoyable foils to play against, where each leader projects a personality and acts in a manner consistent to that personality. Having Shaka as your neighbour should feel different than having Gandhi as neighbour, and force you to play the game differently.
I feel like civ6 kinda does this pretty well now. In my current game as France, I got Shaka as my immediate neighbor. It did force me to play differently. I rushed Shaka in the ancient era with warriors and wipe him off the map. HA HA. I'd be fine with letting Gandhi be my neighbor but I was not about to sit around and wait for Shaka to show up at my border with corps!
I feel like civ6 kinda does this pretty well now. In my current game as France, I got Shaka as my immediate neighbor. It did force me to play differently. I rushed Shaka in the ancient era with warriors and wipe him off the map. HA HA. I'd be fine with letting Gandhi be my neighbor but I was not about to sit around and wait for Shaka to show up at my border with corps!
That is sure funny. I don't think Canuck meant it. You were forced mainly by your knowledge of Shaka going mad later, based on his bonuses and pre-destined behaviour, not his actual personality in-game. Being peaceful and suddenly changing stance is rather unbelievable. (insert Gandhi meme here)
However if we want personality from an AI we are looking at a very different thing than the current AI vs human competition in games .
That is sure funny. I don't think Canuck meant it. You were forced mainly by your knowledge of Shaka going mad later, based on his bonuses and pre-destined behaviour, not his actual personality in-game. Being peaceful and suddenly changing stance is rather unbelievable. (insert Gandhi meme here)
However if we want personality from an AI we are looking at a very different thing than the current AI vs human competition in games .
Well, this is certainly an aspect of that. I'm not sure Shaka actually will attack you more than Gandhi will in Civ 6, but he definitely did in Civ 5. not the most nuanced of personality differences, but at least it's something!
The problem with this argument is that the company who created AlphaStar also conquered chess and Go. If they wanted to create an unbeatable Civ AI then they absolutely could.
The ideal AI for a civ game (or any single player game for that matter) would be one that adjusts to your level. I.e it detects how good a player you are by evaluating your decisions and then it matches it (with some deviation to make it harder and easier) so that you have interesting games. Of course completely unfeasible, given everything thats been highlighted in this thread.
The ideal AI for a civ game (or any single player game for that matter) would be one that adjusts to your level. I.e it detects how good a player you are by evaluating your decisions and then it matches it (with some deviation to make it harder and easier) so that you have interesting games. Of course completely unfeasible, given everything thats been highlighted in this thread.
With eight difficulty levels to choose from, the player should be able to self-select. I'm not sure the levels below Prince get selected much, even for a beginning player, but that still leaves five.
The biggest complication to Civ's popularity I believe is that games take forever to play. This is compounded with respect to multiplayer appeal, in that waiting for players to complete turns does not make for a particularly engaging online experience.
So what if there was a "speed" version of Civ? A play option which allows players to play simultaneously and cut playtime? Perhaps a mode where every city and unit had a small cooldown ATB before you could take the next action.
Let's say, after familiarizing themselves with the mechanics in single player, players had the option of playing this speed version. Not eliminating the old style of play, but evolving it in a more flexible and accessible direction. Would this draw in new gamers?
The biggest complication to Civ's popularity I believe is that games take forever to play. This is compounded with respect to multiplayer appeal, in that waiting for players to complete turns does not make for a particularly engaging online experience.
So what if there was a "speed" version of Civ? A play option which allows players to play simultaneously and cut playtime? Perhaps a mode where every city and unit had a small cooldown ATB before you could take the next action.
Let's say, after familiarizing themselves with the mechanics in single player, players had the option of playing this speed version. Not eliminating the old style of play, but evolving it in a more flexible and accessible direction. Would this draw in new gamers?
1. Make building things in your cities (other than Wonders) happen instantly, the same way Builders now make improvements instantly.
2. Limit the number of actions you can take in a single turn. The rest of your civ operates on autopilot. The number, and possibly the relative strength of your actions, increase as the sophistication of your government increases. But generally the "weight" of the game stays consistent from the first turn to the final turn, the length of time each turn takes is roughly equivalent, and the relative importance of each decision on the outcome of the game stays roughly equivalent throughout the game.
1. Make building things in your cities (other than Wonders) happen instantly, the same way Builders now make improvements instantly.
2. Limit the number of actions you can take in a single turn. The rest of your civ operates on autopilot. The number, and possibly the relative strength of your actions, increase as the sophistication of your government increases. But generally the "weight" of the game stays consistent from the first turn to the final turn, the length of time each turn takes is roughly equivalent, and the relative importance of each decision on the outcome of the game stays roughly equivalent throughout the game.
I actually like that wonders and buildings take time to build. It makes them feel special. I do think that districts could probably be instantaneous though since I always resent waiting on just getting the district on the map to begin with. But in a speed game I think it would be very difficult to balance structures if everything could be built instantaneously. Not to mention the dramatic contours of playing would be deadened if you could plop down a structure immediately after you acquired the tech for it...a leetle delay I think makes it more exciting.
I would only be okay with your second mechanic if the limitations included the ability to aggregate and automate common mundane actions. It's not much of a strategy game if you're not maintaining a reasonable degree of control.
1. Make building things in your cities (other than Wonders) happen instantly, the same way Builders now make improvements instantly.
2. Limit the number of actions you can take in a single turn. The rest of your civ operates on autopilot. The number, and possibly the relative strength of your actions, increase as the sophistication of your government increases. But generally the "weight" of the game stays consistent from the first turn to the final turn, the length of time each turn takes is roughly equivalent, and the relative importance of each decision on the outcome of the game stays roughly equivalent throughout the game.
I certainly think they could take a few hints from other games.
Allowing resources to be produced and stockpiled rather than usually be used up as they are produced. They have moved a little towards this with stockpiling strategic resources.
Projects were a good idea, a city doesn't always have to be constantly building.
Have low quality units quickly produced, better quality units take longer but for the same type of unit resource costs would be the same
The biggest complication to Civ's popularity I believe is that games take forever to play. This is compounded with respect to multiplayer appeal, in that waiting for players to complete turns does not make for a particularly engaging online experience.
So what if there was a "speed" version of Civ? A play option which allows players to play simultaneously and cut playtime? Perhaps a mode where every city and unit had a small cooldown ATB before you could take the next action.
Let's say, after familiarizing themselves with the mechanics in single player, players had the option of playing this speed version. Not eliminating the old style of play, but evolving it in a more flexible and accessible direction. Would this draw in new gamers?
They tried to use the Online speed for this (which wasn't in previous Civs), where you can sometimes build warriors in a single turn. Also the dynamic timer allows to speed up games, and is usually set to 2mins and yet the games draw on for 4-6 hours. All of this to allow "shorter" (multiplayer) sessions, but with little success.
Your experiment would further push the game towards speed, for sure, but what will it cost?
Civ is a turn-based game and enjoyed for it. You can walk away at any time, save and replay. The game waits for your input. The "One more turn..." is integral to the experience as well.
I don't think the game engine would handle this well, and the AI would have to be rewritten completely, plus adjusted to the game difficulty.
Also, one speed is hard for human to watch, as right now I have problems with the online games where other players can attack faster than me, so I just autolose. Sometimes I have much to do and sometimes nothing, if it switched to cooldowns, they would either be checked too often or not effectively as the empire grows. With the lag moving the screen around creates, the AI would be at terrible advantage at even low intelligence.
I will give an AI one full edition behind the current full edition. Such an AI for Civ VI would accomplish the goal after two expansion packs for Civ VII are released.
Moderator Action: Threads merged as both relate to same discussion point --NZ
No, it's not possible to 'program' the AI to beat the best human players. Such a programmed AI will merely follow instructions put by lesser human players and fail spectacularly.
It might be possible for a neural network to learn to do that, but, compared to the approaches used for Go and SC, the Civilization series lack a readily available database of thousands of pro-games (pro being key here) to be fed to the network for initial analysis.
Finally, AlphaGo ran on nearly 20 then-latest-gen video cards and still took a sweet while to do its turns. You're not getting this setup at home.
Pretty much this exact thread has already been done... specifically on starcraft.... and that thread is a merge thread of multiples. Basic question re AI: RTS versus TBS
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