Between Civ 4,5,6 how would you rate the depth of each game and the AI?

Source? Define unplayable. I think the UI is horrid and turn times suck, and I use CQUI but that gets my achievements. I am pretty sure nobody here would think I am playing a different game than the base one.

If we're going by anecdote, I am well aware that people are really, really bad at games and are full of excuses. Even if they say they are not. My friends and I were never able to even play co-op vs AI in any version of Civ on Prince difficulty because they would flat our refuse to do things to win (most infamously, whip in Civ 4). Yes, there's always bad game design, but there's an overwhelming ton of user error too.

Casual players don't care for figuring out obscure exploits to min-max things. And I'd like to argue that they probably won't get into mods too as that takes time to go get the mods. I never bothered much with mods in Civ 4 and 5 beyond UI ones.

Of course, being bad at a game doesn't mean you can't enjoy it, nor does it define your value in a video game. It's usually not a competition. I Sometimes abandon the early game is simply more fun and you might as well just move on to the next game to more interesting things. I brought that up, but you seem to be suggesting something else.

Many games these days have a casual difficulty where enemies do not really try to kill you so people can at least experience the game. Basically easier than easy. Gaming has adapted to its audience as it has change.

We're discussing the AI and the depth of the base game, no? Why are we talking about mods? We're essentially talking about a different game then.

I mean no offense when I say that most people haven't completed a game on chieftain. But it's evident a lot of people just don't care, either way. There might indeed be a bunch of deity level players that only play the game to a winning point and stop, and that's probably a bunch too. I just don't think that's the average player.

 

Half of the ~2 million owners have played the game for less than 33 hours. I'd say it's entirely possible that 35% simply haven't finished any games.

 

That is true along with people that never played at all. Which is why it shouldn't translate to "35% of people can beat chieftain." though I upped the hyperbole as a feel good moment for people struggling. No doubt that is part of tbe agenda for the achievements.

It is a good point. Personally, I have 60 hours which isn't much but I thought that is a lot of time with 6 games done and a bunch of unfinished but I do play fast impatient

So it is certainly flawed, I know. It'd be nice if we could filter it by time played, but marketing etc.

 

Hmm I skipped Civ 5, but I have a bunch of hours logged for civ 6 and I've probably played it more than any of the others except maybe for Civ II which was my favorite.

I'd give Civ 6 a 9/10 for depth - I think it actually suffers from a little too much depth. Diplomacy and religion for example - they overshot there and introduced too many mechanics and the execution was poor.

For AI I think a 2 or 3 is about right. I'll give it a 3/10 since they have made some improvements. I definitely agree with the one poster who said they don't know how to win. I feel like I should have lost many games that I was able to pull out just due to AI not aggressively pursuing victory. Military is of course still awful, I've tried mods too and didn't notice much improvement.

I remember losing many games in Civ 4 and I was never able to win at the highest levels so 8/10 Depth and 7/10 AI for that one but I played mostly vanilla.

 

My experience is mostly with 4 so I will talk about that mostly.

Civ iv's ai was maybe a 5/10. It could plan wars but heavily weighted on power. Usually the ai came prepared. It also could plan a limited war and just raid /pillage, and you could never be too sure.

The ai is also very aggressive in general with hit and run pillaging. They would also take advantage of defensive terrain so clearing forests and jungles was recommended. Once they get air units, they are relentless at ruining your cities. Demands were made sensibly.

It was terrible at crossing oceans and sometimes would ship over only catapults or something.

However, it was bad at pursuing victory. They might conquer lots of land but did not seek domination. By default they generally went space-- some went culture but those underbuilt military and thus easy to take out.

They did really bad with vassals. You had masters feeding vassals techs so the vassal became more advanced often to their own detriment if the vassalage was voluntary and thus revocable. They would also ranomly change civics and religion because they came across them, not because they needed them.

They would also vote randomly in the un. It was stupid when they screwed themselves.

5's ai seemed more agressive at winning, especially diplo, but had some stupidity like easily bribed to war for some gpt. The tactical part is a dead horse, so whatever. It just seems like it doesn't know how to capture cities.

I do like how they seem to like screwing people over in the world congress.

Vi's ai isn't good at either. It makes threats and declares war on much stronger enemies. Stuff isn't a matter of combat design. But at least it consistently uses ranged attacks.

All and all, if this franchise's success was based on ai quality, we would not be here.

 

The AI of Civ6 will always have a lot to desire and I don't expect significant improvement because this is related to its core elements. There are many good ideas in this version. Unfortunately, most of them involve a lot of micromanagement and planning. District planning and placement, akward movement rules, eureka system, tech-related cost upscaling, choice of great persons with different bonuses, trade routes..... The limited AI will have a hard time to make optimal decisions for so many things.

 

I look at it this way: In Civ 4 I had epic games, in Civ 5 some good games, in Civ 6 I have fun games

The AI with no stacks was militarily poor in Civ 5 and somehow Civ 6 started off worse than Civ5 + AI mod. I mean come on, incorporate the AI mod. They had to make another one for civ 6.... just so lame on devs part IMO.

Civ 4, 5 and 6 have gameplay depth, unfortunately the AI's lack of ability made it so that once you hit the mid-game in OK or better shape, you were/are going to win. Not so in Civ 4 where I had many fun games with end-game wars going on while trying to pull off a win while the AI was cranking away. Civ 5 is better than Civ 6, both at launch and especially after the expansion, but it never really 'made it' IMO. Which is a shame since like I said, I believe that the depth is there in 5 & 6. Just can't be shown since one can be lazy and win.

I don't understand the decision, can only guess that most civ purchasers/players don't want any kind of a challenge. But couldn't they set it up like chess? Why can't the raks be AI based instead of production&head-start bonuses? I don't see making the AI good at a science, CV or religion victory all that difficult. The Dom/military takes more work but come on, at least have the other 3 done well.

[edit: I'll add that I almost did not buy civ 6, and waited until it was on sale. I had a feeling it would be like this. Sadly, this seems like it will be my last civ title I will be playing, better strategy games are being made. Not sure how much it will matter if many others who want better AI stop purchasing, not really all that sure how many that play care. The forums will undoubtedly be lopsided on this point, so can't tell from here/posts ]

 

So are people taking "AI" to mean the war AI only? That's what it seems.

 

I once had an enemy AI (just on King difficulty) beat me in acquiring Carl Sagan by purchasing him with faith/gold. Does this count as good AI?

 

I was thinking that "AI" was referring to the ability for the computer to win, including but not exclusive to war. Diplomacy issues are gameplay issues, not intelligence per se. And the modding ability comes into play to show how complete the AI programming is, or isn't.

So, yes, there were some diplomacy things that could be made better in Civ IV, but that wasn't an AI limitation, it was just how the designers saw the game.

 

Not necessarily. I would take into account the Civ 6: "I denounce you! You have the wrong government.", and the more equitable trade deals with Civ 4.

 

That denouncement sounds like a game design issue if it is unnecessary 100% of the time. It's not like the AI has trouble telling one government type with another.

 

Military is the dominant strategy in all 3 games (even in cases where you don't pursue a domination victory), so it's only natural.

Completely peaceful is possible in IV, since leaders are guaranteed to not plot war at friendly, and many at pleased but often times you can't get everyone to that in time before they consider war especially when people start abandoning religion.

The purpose of the AIs varies from person to person. Do you treat them as competitors that are also out to win the game like you are and thus behave like a bot in a multiplayer game, obstacles to victory that have their own goal but shouldn't bother with something as abstract as the player "winning first" , or actual nations that you need to conduct relations with? Or maybe some of each of the three. That will determine what you will want in an AI. But an AI that is suicidal and can't hold its own generally can't fulfill any of this.

Personally, I dislike the idea of longstanding friends betraying you because you are going to "win". Such things make sense if they are being opportunistic but if they're just trying to drag you down with no real benefit to them feels like "we haet the human" of the older Civ and not very fun to me. It also just overemphasizes military wins, which are already the best way to get the highest scores and fastest wins.... especially when this sort of hate is aimed at the human and, seemingly, never at each other.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GangUpOnTheHuman
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SpitefulAI

 

I rate Civ6 AI pretty bad, yet I keep playing this game. I'm not sure why. I think I'm addicted. It's a fun builder game. And each game turns out quite different. I play on the same exact map for the past 15 games or so, but it's never the same. Sometimes the AI expands fast, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they conquer a lot of cities (though Persia and Rome seem to be the only ones who can conquer a lot of cities), most times they don't.

Civ 6 AI: 1
Civ5 AI: 3
Civ 4 AI: 9

And yes I am even comparing Civ 4 vanilla AI, I played that game since it was released.

As for depth (whatever that means, though I get the gist of it)
Civ 6: 8
Civ 5: 4
Civ 4: 8

 

The things most hindering the AI in Civ6 are religion and wonders. They are both have relatively weak returns compared to the investment in most cases, especially religion.

I have played with mods that remove religion and wonders; the AI becomes exponentially better when they don't waste production on them.

I also don't think they have put much time into adjusting yield and pseudo yields functions for the civs because they are still making balance adjustments to the main game.

Combat AI has improved with each patch, I'm fairly optimistic about this continuing.

 

Depth of Game-play: >>>>>>> AI Rating:
Civ IV :BtS -- 8.5 >>>>>>>> 6.5
Civ V: BnW -- 5.0 >>>>>>>> 4.5
Civ VI (vanilla) -- 7.5 >>>>>>> 4.0

 

I'm not sure if I'd rate AI as low as 2, but it does have some serious problems. I think an important point to understand about both Civ5 and Civ6 is that civ players can roughly be divided into two groups: Those who play to win as fast as possible, and those who take a more roleplay-like approach. Those in the first group will be likely to find Civ4 much better than both 5 and 6 to the extent that they'll find the latter two unplayable. Why? Because AI basically throws no real resistance in Civ6. Sure, an early assault by Sumeria or Scythia will most likely be deadly, but if you survive into classical era, you can pretty much steamroll the AI with just a small army. Hence, if winning the game as fast as possible is your main objective, Civ6 will soon be trivial because you can always win an easy domination victory. The same was very much true about Civ5.

Personally, I belong to the second group. I enjoy Civ6, and I choose most often not to go full-conquest, even if I know it would give me a fast victory. Don't get me wrong, there are games where I *do* go full conquest, but more often, I like to play a game where I try to build up an empire, build up diplomatic relations, etc. Sure, I'll wipe out a pesky neighbor if I need his land or if he DoW's me, but still ...

When that's said, Civ6 AI has some really horrible flaws. Not only is it completely inept at combat. It also seems completely clueless about districts, to the extent that it will spam holy sites encampments and maybe theater squeares in every city, yet never build a commercial hub, campus or industrial zone until late in the game. I have yet to lose to a science victory on difficulties up to and including emperor - the AI will build loads of space ports and will research all the techs, but only in one game did I see one of them actually build space ship parts (Gorgo build all but one part in one game, which is the closest I've been to losing a late game). It spams religious units endlessly but is completely without any concept about religious victory. Some civs will do well in hoarding great works, but I have yet to see any come close to a cultural victory. It does poorly in developing infrastructure and will settle cities in horrible places while having juicy spots in their backyard completely empty. And don't even get me started on the diplomatic AI ...

 

But Civ 4 is better at supporting peaceful games too, and suits builders as well, In fact, a lot of Civ 4 players don't build anything but warriors-- yes even archery is considered a waste of beakers-- until they feel like attacking if they have diplo under control, or at most use hill cities, archers catapults, and walls at borders if forced into war. Lots of people showcase their space/culture wins with only warriors defending their cities in the modern era.

And remember. IV"s combat system is simpler. Which is also good for people that don't care for war. Oh, and don't forget there's no warmongering penalities, so you can retaliate freely against them and then go back to building. Peaceful players that have mastered diplomacy can often get a lot of buddies to help in the war too.

In 6, even if you can hold your cities, if you can't drive the enemy off your land, then you will get pillaged to oblivion and suffer heavily as a result (more so than 4 and especially 5 where individual tiles were w/e)

4 is very open, because unlike say 5 where you have to be balanced or you'll get conquered or fall victim to public opinion if your culture sucks; you can callously neglect various aspects of the game to your liking. Religion, science, and culture can be powerful, but you don't need them. Incidentally, 6 is following 4's approach a bit more to great benefit I must say. And the thing did 5 better than 4 or 6-- its version of religion-- also falls under the same category. Ironically it didn't have a religous victory.

One common type of culture victory involved stopping tech almost completely in the middle of the tech tree, which would amount to suicide in 5 and 6. In all fairness, 5 and 6 have a much more fun cultural victory, in particular 5's take on tourism.

And as a final detail, unlike 5 and 6, IV's domination victory was possible without having to conquer everyone's capitals. You just needed to conquer enough land, though conquest (wipe everyone out) was a separate victory. What that means though is that you could leave your small allies perfectly intact if you had enough land to win. There were also humorous scenarios (mostly on lower difficulties) where you could cover the map through culture and flip people's cities, possibly getting a peaceful domination as well.

That is not to leave out options like peaceful vassalage, and also permanent alliance with an AI where you could win together with one. Most people don't turn that on because it makes things too easy.

It is pretty funny but I look to 5 and 6 for the combat. Stacks are a buzzword but to me, the buzzword is actually RNG. The freedom from RNG in combat by and large especially early on is what I like better. Sea combat in 4 was also terrible for the same reason before air power and often a numbers game. Microing transport ships (and hoping they'll make it before your battleships get sunk) is not a thing I'd ever want to see again.

So yea, no surprise people would like a better combat AI. Though I differ from a lot of people and like watching hated enemies fail miserably in their assaults. So.....

 

IV: 6/10 Unit stacking allowed it to convert its economic bonuses more effectively into military bonuses. It could mass produce stuff and throw it at a city, but the units it built and where it sent them were often rather unwise. It did not, for example, mass produce knights while beelining (what was it, military education?) to mass upgrade into cavalry and launch a blitz with the first fast unit that could bypass wall strength. I have a pic of an AI massing ships in an icelocked city somewhere.
V: 6±2/10 A chaotic AI with the flavor system, but if the AI rolls the correct flavors (build workers and science infrastructure) it can be very competitive.
VI: 7/10 I don't have all the DLC, but I feel it is subpar to 5's AI with good flavors. I like the agenda system, better than giving AIs default flavor values that divide the game into feeders and eaters.

 

Each Civ game from 1 to 6 becomes deeper and AI in each iv game become better. But the problem is - the deeper is the game, the more challenging it's for AI. Tactical combat in Civ5 made this to the new level, so as strage as it sounds, while Civ5 AI is much stronger than in Civ4, it's also much easier to beat.