Acken
Deity
It's just normal Civ release drama.
Civ 6 AI Battle Royal
- Thread starter bite
- Start date
Yes, for what I've seen and read, the problems are not really a result of a bad AI but more the result of designs decisions.
For example if the AI doesn't declare war because the warmonger penalty is too high, well that's the sign of a smart AI not a bad one, and if that's true, we just need change the warmonger penalty.
In a game as complex as Civilization, you have to design the gameplay with the AI in mind as you can't expect it to be smart and fast if you keep adding tons of specific rules that are here to provide fun to a human, and the real difficulty is to balance the fun/challenge ratio.
For example if the AI doesn't declare war because the warmonger penalty is too high, well that's the sign of a smart AI not a bad one, and if that's true, we just need change the warmonger penalty.
In a game as complex as Civilization, you have to design the gameplay with the AI in mind as you can't expect it to be smart and fast if you keep adding tons of specific rules that are here to provide fun to a human, and the real difficulty is to balance the fun/challenge ratio.
This whole FORUM is just normal Civ pre-release drama and hysteria.footslogger
Warlord
I haven't seen the live stream and certainly won't bother now. Fortunately I enjoy the empire management aspect of civ games more than combat, so I hope to have a bit of fun that way at release. After a few games I will put the game aside until it has been patched and, if still not happy, I'll wait for some mods. I'm now thinking in terms of a 6-9 months period before the game represents a worthwhile gaming experience. I think it'll get there in the end.
timmyfiction
Chieftain
- Joined
- Oct 16, 2016
- Messages
- 3
My biggest takeaway from the AI battle is that the late game looks infuriating for any kind of science/culture game. The Aztecs had the game won by turn 350 and yet it took another hundred turns or so for them to finish it out. The Firaxis guys basically stopped commenting because there was nothing really to say besides "Wow the Aztecs are really far ahead on every victory condition but still haven't won yet..."
Maybe it was just a bad playthrough, but this also came up on a lot of the Let's Plays. Even when they had a gigantic lead in tourism, the actual number of tourists grew super slowly. When they were in the Information Era by turn 200, it took another 150 turns to build the six different space projects with maxed out production. Theoretically, this could give the other civs the opportunity to war you and stop you from winning, but it feels like kind of an arbitrary mechanic right now (plus the AI doesn't seem to have much inclination to fight after the classical era).
Still pumped for launch though -
Maybe it was just a bad playthrough, but this also came up on a lot of the Let's Plays. Even when they had a gigantic lead in tourism, the actual number of tourists grew super slowly. When they were in the Information Era by turn 200, it took another 150 turns to build the six different space projects with maxed out production. Theoretically, this could give the other civs the opportunity to war you and stop you from winning, but it feels like kind of an arbitrary mechanic right now (plus the AI doesn't seem to have much inclination to fight after the classical era).
Still pumped for launch though -
- the early and mid-game look way more interesting than Civ V
- Firaxis seems to be aware of some of the weakness of the AI (calling out the crappy joint wars and tile improvements, for example)
- They also appear to be very encouraging of the mod community
Txurce
Deity
The devs also appeared very encouraging of the mod community from the start with Civ 5. But ask most modders whether there was any proof in the pudding.
Some things I liked:
- the map actually being filled with cities (vs. Civ5 or BE)
- the AI actually working on infrastructure and victory conditions instead of pointlessly waging war after war (vs. BE), even though they apparently got side-tracked easily (spain never repairing their improvements, england having a big lead in space race but not following through).
Things I disliked:
- missionary spam, looks like it may be even worse than in Civ5
- pointless joint-wars
- AI silly settling (russia..)
- the map actually being filled with cities (vs. Civ5 or BE)
- the AI actually working on infrastructure and victory conditions instead of pointlessly waging war after war (vs. BE), even though they apparently got side-tracked easily (spain never repairing their improvements, england having a big lead in space race but not following through).
Things I disliked:
- missionary spam, looks like it may be even worse than in Civ5
- pointless joint-wars
- AI silly settling (russia..)
stealth_nsk
Deity
I don't understand why people think it's silly to settle a distant city in those conditions? Smolensk was near natural wonder and Russia is quite religion-focused.
Because in general that makes it harder to defend, grow, and make use of other features/synergies (district buildings with area effects for example, or trade routes that have a limited range before trading posts show up along the way, etc). Sure it makes sense if you only consider the natural wonder. If you were playing though, along with, let's hypothesize some moderately-competent players (AIs or not), would you found your 2nd city there, so far away from home? It's a decision more complicated than merely "of course because there's a natural wonder there!"
isau
Deity
- Joined
- Jan 15, 2007
- Messages
- 3,071
I'm somewhat confident they can tame some of the weird AI behaviors. Pretty much expected this. The question is now going to be will they pour the time into fixing it. Some of it might be easy (e.g. increasing weight of nearby tiles versus distant tiles for city settling). Other stuff might be more complex.
Most worrisome is the Domination Victory. I don't think even Civ IV AI would have done well at that if the condition was "seize all enemy capitals." That's why the original Domination Victory, "Control x% of tiles" was far superior. The AI can taught to do that very easily, and was a real threat in Civ IV because of it. I don't understand why they are sticking to Civ V's Dom victory. We tried it out, it doesn't work, need to go back to what does.
Most worrisome is the Domination Victory. I don't think even Civ IV AI would have done well at that if the condition was "seize all enemy capitals." That's why the original Domination Victory, "Control x% of tiles" was far superior. The AI can taught to do that very easily, and was a real threat in Civ IV because of it. I don't understand why they are sticking to Civ V's Dom victory. We tried it out, it doesn't work, need to go back to what does.
Its fine to settle far away cities, I actually expect the AI to do that. But not the first city you found after your capital. Its a huge danger to walk a settler so far due to barbarians (spain lost at least one settler just walking a short distance!), and it will definitely lag your empire's progress. Not even speaking of making competing civs angry for no good reason.
Martinus
Emperor
Also, by doing so Russia is effectively playing to its strength - their "thing" is being able to get a decent city out of a spot that would be fairly useless to other civs, because of the tundra production bonus. It's only natural for Russia to thus have a far-flung empire.
One thing I think is a little weird is the tech pacing. You reach the eras very early so teching appears to be waaay to quick, but the late game techs and space race components take quite long to get. What is the earliest science win we've seen so far?
Brackenspore
Prince
- Joined
- May 5, 2015
- Messages
- 599
Clown Battle 
instead of Royal Battle 
instead of Royal Battle
stealth_nsk
Deity
There's a huge difference between stupid and not optimal decisions. AI surely takes into account the distance (as other cities are settled ok), but it may hunt resources and NW. That's not optimal in this case, but surely not stupid.
I agree with that, times a million!
Regardless it's a questionable decision, as many AI decisions are in Civ games, but it did stand out as suboptimal. Hard to disagree with that. In and of itself it doesn't indicate a major flaw, it's just one among many things that are making people question what is going on.
Zantetsuken
Chieftain
I can adjust to settlers staying settlers when captured, but not both that fact, and then they send the settlers out completely unescorted, that's just.. No..
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