Better AI in CIV 6 ?

[darko82]

Modders fixing move & shoot - "they are genius", developers doing the same - "LOL, there are so many problems left".

Just look at the list of CP improvements. This is far beyond move & shoot. Yes, there are so many other things modders fixed. The list is long....

You're speaking about Marbozir? He's very experienced Civ player and did his homework on known Civ6 information, so he's surely far from being "unexperienced".

No, I am talking about this. Have you seen it yet?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0Njw26nkP0

He is new to Civ games.

It's practical point of view. Computational complexity is a measurable thing and processing power is limited. We know AI can't play as effectively as human. And, in general, it's non-goal as AI should provide good game experience, not play effectively.

With this approach, CP would not exist. Does CP AI play as human? Is this satisfying for you? Does it improve lots of issues? This is my point of reference. Quite realistic one if modders can do it.

 

[LDiCesare]

Inability for Civ5 AI to move and shoot. Overall it decreases AI ability to provide challenge, but not significantly. It's more immersion-breaking thing than actual gameplay issue.
(...)
- The problem is only partially in the area of AI and partially in the area of too strong city defense in Civ5. Decreasing city attack, defense and regeneration would do the trick just well.

You mention immersion. A good AI must absolutely provide immersion in addition to being a challenge/obstacle. Otherwise there's be no point in AI personalities, agendas and so on.
So not being able to move and shoot is immersion-breaking.
The diplomatic AI was particularly bad at it (declaring wars it had absolutely no means of winning, against someone who just resurrected them for instance). It managed to ally both strategically suicidal decisions and a lack of gratefulness for being nice to it that made no sense.

The problem is not "too strong city defense" if human players manage to take cities. If they could, then the ai just wasn't able to play the game.

If building enough units will guarantee you from AI attack, the game will become even more boring for those playing on low difficulty levels. So, AI HAVE to attack even against overwhelming forces.

No on both counts.
You are making assumptions that players on low difficulty level want to be attacked. That's wrong. My daughter for instance went so far (in Civ IV, you could not do that in V due to the lack of in-game world builder) as to create mountain walls arounf enemy civs so she could grow peacefully without anybody hindering her, and she would open a breach in the mountaints when she felt like "communicating" with the ai's. So having an AI that never attacks will please some players. The ai will still be a challenge just for having grabbed land. The game will not be boring to those playing on low difficulty level if the ai doesn't attack them. Maybe to some, but likely not to most.
On the second part, I would definitely hate an ai attacking in inferiority unless they have allies. As stated above, that's the kind of behavior that makes me hate civ V ai as it's not challenging and immersion-breakign at the same time. There are already barbarians who fill that niche so the ai doesn't need to do it.

Another thing to note is that the development of ai usually comes late in the development process. I know for instance that the Endless Legend team hired a guy specifically for AI programming in the last months of the game because until that point their tactical ai was a joke. I'm talking about an even shorter timeframe than what exists between the demos/videos and the release of Civ VI.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Just look at the list of CP improvements. This is far beyond move & shoot. Yes, there are so many other things modders fixed. The list is long....

Yes, I know. The point is still valid.

No, I am talking about this. Have you seen it yet?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0Njw26nkP0

He is new to Civ games.

Thanks, I'll try to have time time to watch. If new player has no challenge on Prince level, that's a problem.

With this approach, CP would not exist. Does CP AI play as human? Is this satisfying for you? Does it improve lots of issues? This is my point of reference. Quite realistic one if modders can do it.

Are you saying the mod allows AI to play equally to the most experienced Civ players without any additional bonuses?

EDIT:

You mention immersion. A good AI must absolutely provide immersion in addition to being a challenge/obstacle. Otherwise there's be no point in AI personalities, agendas and so on.

Yes, it should. And yes, I agree stupid mistakes break immersion for large part of the players. You see, I'm not saying Civ5 AI doesn't need improvements, I'm just trying to have the discussion on more qualified level.

You are making assumptions that players on low difficulty level want to be attacked.

I don't make this assumption. Players may want a lot of different things. What I'm saying - defending against AI attack is part of player experience in civilization and AI have to provide it. If players want to play with specific rules (like no AI attacks) - that's area for mods.

 

[LDiCesare]

Defending from AI attacks is not anecessary part of Civ. Defending from enemy units is, and as I said, barbarians provide this.
On archipelago maps and hte like, you could often play with no warfare whatsoever.
Warfare, and in particular AI-induced warfare, is not a necessary part of Civ. By saying this, you are trying to force your view of the game unto others, but I'm sorry, you're wrong. Unmodded Civ can be played peacefully and some people enjoy it this way. Therefore, there's no reason for a low level AI to attack when it's sure it's going to lose. There are already barbs to fend off for that.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Defending from AI attacks is not anecessary part of Civ. Defending from enemy units is, and as I said, barbarians provide this.
On archipelago maps and hte like, you could often play with no warfare whatsoever.
Warfare, and in particular AI-induced warfare, is not a necessary part of Civ. By saying this, you are trying to force your view of the game unto others, but I'm sorry, you're wrong. Unmodded Civ can be played peacefully and some people enjoy it this way. Therefore, there's no reason for a low level AI to attack when it's sure it's going to lose. There are already barbs to fend off for that.

Well, that's one of the points of view. I don't think developers share it though. More common approach would be to consider low difficulty levels to be some kind of tutorial before going up.In this case demonstrating all aspects of the game is important.

 

[darko82]

There should be aggressive AI option like in Civ IV.

 

[kaspergm]

If Ai problems are due to a balance issue, for example ranged units being way too efficient in a human hands then people expect it to be balanced.

I think this is an important point with regards to Civ5 AI challenges. AI in Civ5 was bad, but game also had some design decisions that disfavored AI a lot. One example was how extremely difficult it was to capture cities due to high city defense and massive city ranged-attack damage. This meant that the AI advantage of being able to produce many units was eliminated because it was easy to defend with only a few units. In fact, if one changes Civ5 parameters so that cities have much less defense and you need to rely much more on units to defend yourself, AI will start to fare much better in warfare simply because the advantage it generally has - numbers - becomes much more important.

My biggest beefs with the AI was that it frequently made non-sense decisions, both on the strategic and on the diplomatic level. Units embarking right in front you your ranged units is an notorious example of this (and we see that happen again in one of Marbozirs videos). On the diplomatic level, making alliances was completely futile, because AI would turn on a platter and denounce or DoW you if someone bribed them to do it, even if their army was clearly worse. Again, from what we've seen in preview videos, AI in Civ6 seems possibly even more schizophrenic than the one in Civ5.

 

[stealth_nsk]

My biggest beefs with the AI was that it frequently made non-sense decisions, both on the strategic and on the diplomatic level. Units embarking right in front you your ranged units is an notorious example of this (and we see that happen again in one of Marbozirs videos).

If we're speaking about the same thing, I'm not sure it was that bad. Aztec units were cut from their capital by Marbozir's units and only way to retreat was by sea. It could be quite smart move, with chances for some units to reach homeland.

Other than this case I didn't see units jumping into water.

 

[King Jason]

No, I am talking about this. Have you seen it yet?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0Njw26nkP0

He is new to Civ games.

Judging any aspect of the A.I. performance in a version of the game where a player is able to trade away a couple of resources for 3 cities just seems a bit odd to me. Even though the inner workings of Diplomacy and how an A.I. moves it's units across the map are entirely unrelated systems - the absurdity of the former naturally suggests the game is simply unplayable in it's current state.

Improvements that need to be made have yet to be made. The concern over A.I. performance is certainly valid since most agree it wasn't all that impressive in civ5 and nobody wants a repeat of systems they didn't like. But watching Alpha builds and bemoaning how the A.I. is handling any specific system seems premature.

Again, even though the systems are unrelated - Just Imagine if people watched that Aztec video and then came here and started a thread saying how civ6's A.I. is going to be the worst this series has ever seen because it gave the player 3 strategic resources, 3 luxuries, near 300 gold and 2 cities, all for one luxury in return?

Every one of us would say that - clearly, the A.I. needs work in that area, and we shouldn't expect it to suck so bad on release.

Well... Clearly, the A.I. needs tactical improvements. We shouldn't expect it to suck so bad on release.

 

[kaspergm]

If we're speaking about the same thing, I'm not sure it was that bad. Aztec units were cut from their capital by Marbozir's units and only way to retreat was by sea. It could be quite smart move, with chances for some units to reach homeland.

I hope you're right.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I hope you're right.

Anyway. Even though AI seem to retreat much better, that's not there we'll be judging it. We'll have to wait and see how well it attacks and defends having better army.