Civ 5 and Difficulty. Artificial?

[snoochems]

Hi all,

Just wondering, is Civ 5 higher difficulty settings more difficult due to smarter AI, or is it just like the previous game where the AI simply cheats more?

Also, vaguely on topic, does the AI cheat in normal play? i.e, does it just "know" where good resources are and therefore places cities accordingly with this secret-future-knowledge?

 

[sosueme]

From the manual:

Effects of Difficulty

“Prince” is the middle level. On that level neither you nor your AI opponents get any particular
bonuses. On levels below Prince you get bonuses in happiness and maintenance costs,
and you get better results from Ancient Ruins. Barbarians are less aggressive and less smart
on lower levels, as well.

On levels higher than Prince, the AIs receive increasing bonuses in city growth, production,
and technology. They may also get additional starting units and free techs to boot.

 

[Avatar_Ko]

Hi all,

Just wondering, is Civ 5 higher difficulty settings more difficult due to smarter AI, or is it just like the previous game where the AI simply cheats more?

Also, vaguely on topic, does the AI cheat in normal play? i.e, does it just "know" where good resources are and therefore places cities accordingly with this secret-future-knowledge?

I don't think they've said anything about the AI getting to cheat, aside from getting bonuses at levels above Prince.

 

[Zhahz]

There was a (non 2K) podcast today where Peter Murray was asked if the AI cheats ever and he said no - the AI wouldn't magically know where your subs are or anything like that - they have to explore. (The question was about subs in particular but I'd think there's a good chance it applies across the board, especially when you consider that Nappy seemed to be acting without omniscience in the 2K/Gred video).

The AI slides in 2 ways - it has the classic civ/4X bonus resources and possibly techs at higher levels, while the player gets advantages at lower levels (more happy, nicer goodies from ruins, etc).

The AI (roughly speaking) evaluates things every turn and makes a list of possible things to do, ranked by strategic impact (or something like that). At low difficulty levels it might not make the optimal choice - at higher levels, it makes the best choices. This isn't exaclty how Garrett put it in the 2K/Greg video but it's close and the general idea. With the general idea being that at lower difficulty levels the AI might make mistakes or do things less optimally. IMO, this is a good approach because lower level players tend to make mistakes, or even if they know the game concepts they often aren't very efficient or optimized about how they do stuff.

It's hard to make AI tougher at higher diffs - so what they do is make the AI best it can be at higher diffs and then scale it down for lower diffs. Obviously there is only so much the AI can do with all it has to "think" about in the very limited time we as players want to allow it to operate. Nobody wants to sit around for 15 minutes waiting for the AI the way the AI has to sometimes wait for us.

 

[Kruelgor]

The best kind of AI is adaptive AI where it learns how you play and counters that game style, but because AI today can't match the wits of human intelligence I strongly support 'cheating' by the AI.

 

[snoochems]

Ah, so harder levels simply means that the AI just cheats more. Shame no improvement in this area since Civ 1.

 

[Elliot]

I wouldn't trust anything the developers say in interviews. Wait until people read the sdk and then you'll find out the truth. Then again "cheat" is vague and can mean different things to different people.

Most games claim they have amazing, new ai. Then you play the game and look under the hood and find out the AI isn't revolutionary at all. This doesn't prove that CIV 5 will be this way but I wouldn't bet on Civ 5 AI being that much better than Civ 4.

Infact, I can see the AI performing worse than civ4 because certain parts of the game have become more complicated. One unit per turn, flanking bonuses, terrain bonuses, ranged units(attacking from range AND setting up in order to fire) make positioning units, defense and offense much deeper. I hope they've programmed the AI to handle all these new rules.

 

[Crustacean Soup]

Ah, so harder levels simply means that the AI just cheats more. Shame no improvement in this area since Civ 1.

This, plus they intentionally make less-optimal choices at lower difficulty levels, as Zhahz said.

 

[Megestos]

It's very sad, actually, that Civilization's AI still cannot match the AI of Galactic Civilizations 2, although the latter has been released four years ago...

 

[Camikaze]

Moderator Action: Please only bump threads if you something significant to contribute to discussion. Closed.