Can we do anything to make Firaxis devote more resources to improving AI?

I agree. I don't see the industry getting any better either.

Speaking of which, does this site have an official connection with Firaxis or its developer Take2?
no, no official connection.
 
Maybe we should sticky this thread so that we can collect all the different views on the ai in one place. This subject gets brought up often enough that it should have an official thread.
 
Not much ourselves. Video games create somewhat of a need for new products now and then. Like movies you'll keep seeing some even if it's not very good. Players will keep buying 4X games. And the bigger issue than civ6's AI is that the whole 4x genre has been plagued by terrible AI for years. It's also a genre where as far as gameplay is concerned not many games are a direct competitor to civ. There is no incentive for a 4X developer to invest into AI if the status quo on that front is maintained. And it's pretty obvious that it will be maintained for still some years. It may not even be worth it for now. I wont buy the expansion but I'm the minority. The AI issues are not that important for my girlfriend and she will get the expansion.

It is pretty simple and can be resumed as: A majority of players dislike the bad AI. A minority of players would not buy the game because of it.
 
The best way to tell firaxis they messed up is not to buy the game wich results in low sales figures for them but we all know everyone going to buy the new expansion so... yeah and then complain on this forum.

If we all didn't buy the exansion firaxis will noticed they did something wrong
 
Lol if the live streams have been anything to note, you can’t make good AI if you don’t know how to play the game... :p
Well, to be fair, playing while talking and trying to demonstrate features may not be as easy as it seems. I have heard this from streamers before, and I believe it.

Anyway, while I do like the game, I am also frustrated with how poor the AI is. I don't know that we can do much about it besides continuing to ask for improvements. If there was a way to pay for AI development directly, I would.
 
Yes agree this topic has been discussed to death yet it is my favorite topic so I always read posts regarding the AI. :) The answer always comes out to be the modding community. The sooner the devs make the SDK available, the sooner we can get mods like Vox Populi that makes the AI a tactical genius through weekly iterative testing and continuous improvement. I'm getting goose bumps just thinking about it..
 
Well, to be fair, playing while talking and trying to demonstrate features may not be as easy as it seems. I have heard this from streamers before, and I believe it.

Anyway, while I do like the game, I am also frustrated with how poor the AI is. I don't know that we can do much about it besides continuing to ask for improvements. If there was a way to pay for AI development directly, I would.

No no, I mean the lead designers don’t even know some of the basic strategies. I’m not talking about production overflows, I’m talking tech switching when you’re going for the boost anyway. It’s one thing to be in front of a camera, it’s another to not know how to walk at all.
 
No no, I mean the lead designers don’t even know some of the basic strategies. I’m not talking about production overflows, I’m talking tech switching when you’re going for the boost anyway. It’s one thing to be in front of a camera, it’s another to not know how to walk at all.
A positive is that the AI does half research techs/civics and wait for the eureka/inspiration.
 
Haven't tried Reus. I'll take a look. As an indie dev, I get the love of indies. There are so many quality indie teams these days.

Not much ourselves. Video games create somewhat of a need for new products now and then. Like movies you'll keep seeing some even if it's not very good. Players will keep buying 4X games. And the bigger issue than civ6's AI is that the whole 4x genre has been plagued by terrible AI for years. It's also a genre where as far as gameplay is concerned not many games are a direct competitor to civ. There is no incentive for a 4X developer to invest into AI if the status quo on that front is maintained. And it's pretty obvious that it will be maintained for still some years. It may not even be worth it for now. I wont buy the expansion but I'm the minority. The AI issues are not that important for my girlfriend and she will get the expansion.

It is pretty simple and can be resumed as: A majority of players dislike the bad AI. A minority of players would not buy the game because of it.

Spot on. Also, I'd say the ebtire industry has gotteb away with the same AI code for a very, very long time with only modest improvements. A big part of this is that more and more games abandon AI in favour of PvP competitive play or casual paces that don't require challenge.

well, maybe the only way to make the AI more challenging is by using self-learing AI.
Someone once did that with FreeCiv

Total overkill and frankly not recommended. Lots of bad players to learn from and it would be learning off of player strategies designed to counter itself. Would be ever-changing and perpetually stupid.

Potential fields would handle a LOT of the tactical AI's issues. I think the diplomatic/trade AI is the lowest hanging fruit right now though. It is attrocious and also the easiest to improve.
 
Last edited:
The only way to make a difference is with money, if people didn't buy their DLC's and expansions they might make a change but with high sales they don't have any reason to make the AI change
 
The only way to make a difference is with money, if people didn't buy their DLC's and expansions they might make a change but with high sales they don't have any reason to make the AI change
I think the idea that if people don't buy the game and extras, that the developers will take that as a sign to fix the AI, is unrealistic. Who looks at a game and says "I'm buying it because of the AI."
 
I think the idea that if people don't buy the game and extras, that the developers will take that as a sign to fix the AI, is unrealistic. Who looks at a game and says "I'm buying it because of the AI."
Somebody who actually wants to be challenged,you know like strategy game fans.
 
I think the idea that if people don't buy the game and extras, that the developers will take that as a sign to fix the AI, is unrealistic. Who looks at a game and says "I'm buying it because of the AI."
Also, who looks at sales figures and thinks, “Was it the AI?”
 
Another possibility is they are waiting to invest resources in AI until all the expansions have come out because it's too much work to constantly re-code to take into account new changes.
 
No no, I mean the lead designers don’t even know some of the basic strategies. I’m not talking about production overflows, I’m talking tech switching when you’re going for the boost anyway. It’s one thing to be in front of a camera, it’s another to not know how to walk at all.
To be clear the guy who made that surprising comment about how smart Ed (the base game Lead Designer) was for using eureka's strategically on the Live Stream was Andrew Frederiksen (aka "the bald guy"). Andrew is a Producer, not a designer/developer. His job isn't about the in-game details like that.
 
Back
Top Bottom