Better AI in CIV 6 ?

[rastak]

In Marbozir video Aztecs keep attacking city states when their capitol is under attack - I dunno if this is a sign of good AI... - no strategic awareness at all.

That's a big issue, that said, it's not a recent build so who knows what state it's in now.

 

[Wizard-Bob]

The Engine being multi threaded will have no bearing on how good the ai will be, it may perhaps improve turn times as you get more resources to do the thinking.

That is one possibility. Another is that multiple threads give the devs more bandwidth to perform more processing / decision making. That could have the effect of making the AI "smarter".

 

[Ryika]

Probably heavily depends on the problem. Not that I know much about AI development but from what I understand I don't think there's an easy solution to things like: "The player's unit moved into the fog, let's make the AI "remember" that" or "There is a unit on a hill that seems exposed, but there are tiles where there could be other units waiting to ambush me, let's factor that in" can be solved simply be having more processing power available.

Anything that is just calculations can probably be more precise, but was that really the problem so far? Most of that stuff has just been balanced reasonably well with higher bonus yields.

 

[ehecatzin]

I think it'll be better this time around (not incredible). Also game mechanics like easier road building and siege stacking should make it easier for the AI to mount better attacks.

 

[Growth]

• Feed all the players game turns into a massive online DB.
• Feed that to a Deep Learning Algo, the kind that are superhuman at Atari games, i.e. DeepMind.
• Improve on learning for a few months.
• Offer an online Subscription tailored to hardcore Civ players.
• Have the cloud/servers perform all the calculations and decision optimizations.
• Make Civ one of the most advanced Human vs AI experience on a PC ever since Chess.

When? Keep Dreaming!

 

[Aristos]

AI? Only when we get a hand on it in Vox Populi 2...

 

[Sansa_Stark]

People who make polls like this (without "better" option) don't deserve better AI imo.

 

[Ryika]

• Feed all the players game turns into a massive online DB.
• Feed that to a Deep Learning Algo, the kind that are superhuman at Atari games, i.e. DeepMind.
• Improve on learning for a few months.
• Offer an online Subscription tailored to hardcore Civ players.
• Have the cloud/servers perform all the calculations and decision optimizations.
• Make Civ one of the most advanced Human vs AI experience on a PC ever since Chess.

When? Keep Dreaming!

And then realize that the amount of players that use that system is very tiny, make the service go offline again a few months later.

 

[IronfighterXXX]

If its at least on civ5 level and allow for mods then we ll be able to make a challenging game.

If you are waiting for Firaxis to do that for us you will be disappointed.

I appreciate your good job with your mod Acken, but as you probably know I very like competitive SP games (GOTM, HOF) and it's unlikely that your possible mod for civ 6 will be included in them

Also necessity to install mod and learn how to play with it would reduce even further amount of players interested in this kind of playing (competetive), that's why I still delude myself that civ 6 AI won't be so bad

 

[Captain Queeg]

Well it won't be hard to teach AI not to build barracks in puppet cities if they can't build military units. So I would expect some obvious AI glitches to be fixed.

But Firaxis has a limited budget for beta testing, and there have been a lot of changes vs Civ 5, so I am expecting "plus ca change" for Civ 6: a terribly unbalanced game for the initial release, followed by a bunch of patches, and hopefully a reasonably playable game with a semicompetent AI within a year. AI will still need a pile of growth / happiness modifiers at the higher levels though. I am not expecting a Deep Blue level of AI play for at least a few more iterations. (My guess is Civ 8 in 2025)

 

[Atlas627]

What is with all of the polls being so biased? You didn't even offer an option to say "other", let alone the obviously necessary choice of "better than V"!

I don't think the AI will be good. If you know anything about programming AI, its tough, time-consuming, and unrewarding. Modders will eventually make it better.

I think it will be better than V, though. Some of the big issues with Vs AI were some specific oversights, and others were base game mechanics being inherently difficult to make an AI for.

For example, the entire cultural system was based around having to foresee your gameplan way ahead of time, because you were stuck with the bonuses you chose for the whole game. The AI is notoriously terrible at seeing several steps ahead, and always will be. It doesn't have infinite time to process every possible option ever and assign probabilities and values to them.

Another example is that the AI was physically incapable of moving and shooting. This is a small thing that will probably be fixed, but even if it isn't fixed, the inherent game mechanics make this less of an issue. Ranged units are weaker and movement is slower (so us being able to move + shoot isn't as strong because we often can't do it either).

So I don't hope for good AI, but it will probably be better than V at least.

 

[jokii]

Most players case little about the AI, so it usually has low budget. Civ 6 AI will, undoubtedly, be underwhelming to those who hope for a good AI.

Also, is that a joke-poll? Allowing multiple answers and not having an answer for a better AI?

There was a third option, better AI, but I must have screwed up something....

 

[jokii]

I do not expect miracles from AI because I realize it is hard to make god AI for any 4x game, and CIV is pretty complicated 4x game
But two months before release AI should be better than this...and it is very unlikely it will be much better on release date... ( AI needs time, and testing )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oXVzy3IwlY

I already see myself...I will start the game, explore new fun featurs of Civ 6 and then I will realise....I am playing against no one !!!

 

[x2Madda]

No option for "better than".
Thanks to support units and better stacking options, the AI will possibly be able to wage war better.
Outside of war, the AI has always been very poor however when you turn the difficulty up the AI gets cheats to better cope so the none combat side will be fine.

 

[Acken]

I appreciate your good job with your mod Acken, but as you probably know I very like competitive SP games (GOTM, HOF) and it's unlikely that your possible mod for civ 6 will be included in them

Also necessity to install mod and learn how to play with it would reduce even further amount of players interested in this kind of playing (competetive), that's why I still delude myself that civ 6 AI won't be so bad [emoji38]

Oh me too bro. Its just that I have come to be pessimistic about it.

Hof etc are fun but lets be honest theyll probably remain mostly about optimizing turn times rather than being challenging. Ive become a bit bored by it personally considering how randomness plays a role.

 

[joncnunn]

Also, is that a joke-poll? Allowing multiple answers and not having an answer for a better AI?

Poll lacks alternative for better AI.

Also, what I'm most afraid of is highest difficulty set to BE-level. Should be at least CiV deity level, whatever AI-boni it takes.

Unfortunately I can't change a multiple answer poll to a single answer poll.
And the poll already has too many votes to add a new option, so what I've done is change the previous "same as" option to "same as or better".

 

[frenzyfol]

Realistically you could get metrics of winning and losing games and use them to with data analysis to find broad trends like what tech routes, unit makeups, expansion rates etc are more optimal. Use this info to patch the ai

• Feed all the players game turns into a massive online DB.
• Feed that to a Deep Learning Algo, the kind that are superhuman at Atari games, i.e. DeepMind.
• Improve on learning for a few months.
• Offer an online Subscription tailored to hardcore Civ players.
• Have the cloud/servers perform all the calculations and decision optimizations.
• Make Civ one of the most advanced Human vs AI experience on a PC ever since Chess.

When? Keep Dreaming!

 

[darko82]

With the current AI, I could probably ignore the AI, their attitude and many other features in the game, and still be able to win. I mean, angry AI is meaningless. I hope they can improve the AI.

 

[Ryika]

Well, that's a low difficulty AI. Deity may have tons of units to make up for that.

 

[rastak]

With the current AI, I could probably ignore the AI, their attitude and many other features in the game, and still be able to win. I mean, angry AI is meaningless. I hope they can improve the AI.

With the current AI?

Are you a mole in the Firaxis office or do you refer to the press build which I believe they said was from early/mid July.

If it's the later I agree it's not good, it's also not close to done.