Civ 6 Combat AI: Some Thoughts

[Tech Osen]

The AI civ now deploys planes on patrol rather than on the ground, probably why your bomber got hit.
They still tend to be passive as you say

Yep, they just seem to use them as AA cover. Would be more logical if they would just build the actual AA guns, they cost less and don't require an airfield district.
I still think there should be some modern era wall upgrade that gived AA coverage.

 

[Victoria]

Would be more logical if they would just build the actual AA guns,

But then they would have huge amounts of extra maintenance gold at their disposal. Sound rather scary.

 

[Tech Osen]

But then they would have huge amounts of extra maintenance gold at their disposal. Sound rather scary.

More gold to demand on peacedeals!

 

[ChocolateShake]

That's why I think neural networks could be an interesting path for tactical gameplay. Sieging (or defending a city against a siege) is a complex task given all mechanics and possible options, but with quite well defined success criteria (city health), and quite simple way to evaluate a position (city health, unit strengths and health, encampment healths, etc). It should also be fairly easy to automatically generate a vast number of siege situations for the AI to learn from and siege and defend could be trained at the same time. Of course, some other part of the AI would have to control which city to siege, whether to siege or not, i.e. the strategic choices.

I agree, I think a neural network would be great to handle the tactical decisions. It would certainly help it choose the optimal way to get the most out of its army, especially since their units sometimes ignore killing blows. In general it'd be very interesting to have the AI show more capacity to learn from each game it plays in some way, and to have more civ AI studies. I keep wondering why the AI is so uncertain sometimes. A tactical AI directed by neural networks would be very strong, and if it would be combined with a strategic AI that's a lot more decisive, I think we'd start to see a good level of challenge in the game.

There are a lot of aspects to programming AI for a civ game, but I think they really need to focus on the combat AI. I'm hopeful though since it seems like the AI is getting better gradually. I hope they also reconsider some of the city defense mechanics, the AI used to do much better in the stack era I think because city sieges were much easier.

 

[Disgustipated]

After more than 250 hours in Civ VI, I had a bomber damaged by a fighter for the first time ever yesterday).

I lost 2 jet bombers the day before yesterday. I'm surprised yours was only damaged, mine were completely destroyed. I mentioned this in the other thread, but it really belongs here. I thought it was a fluke that a fighter could take down a jet bomber, so I stupidly sent another one in. I'm so used to not seeing any air defense, I'm not sure what to do about cities that have fighters in them. Do I send in my own fighters to attack? I only had one, but he wasn't nearby. I'm just impressed Prince level Kongo AI was able to deploy 2 fighters. I had to use my ships to take down defenses at that point.

AI still doesn't use ranged units placed in a city to fire on attacking I, they will just sit passively in the city center.

The AI attacks me with archers nearly all the time. The only time they don't is when the city health is near 0. Which is strange, it's not like fortifying an archer is going to help the city defense any.

 

[kaspergm]

Having trouble sharing the screenshot, but yesterday the AI half surprised me with its army. Spain DOW'd me and showed up with 2 Trebuchets and 5 Conquistadors (one of them promoted to level 3), as well as a missionary and some other stuff. They came from the ocean, and I did not have a lot of units around this city. I'm pretty sure they could have done serious damage if they'd just pressed forward against the city. However, this was where AI failed - it just held back with its units, not moving them all in, and then when I asked for peace, they were willing to give me some 50+ GPT and stuff for peace.

Here is, perhaps, a screenshot:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xhjf965viwql09k/Spain1.jpg?dl=0

The AI attacks me with archers nearly all the time. The only time they don't is when the city health is near 0. Which is strange, it's not like fortifying an archer is going to help the city defense any.

Also Archers placed within the city? AI uses ranged units quite well - it certainly knows how to move and shoot, unlike Civ5 - but when placed in city center, they always seem to just sit there. Don't know if it can be an issue with mods, although none of the mods I use directly should change AI performance.

 

[Hammurabbit]

I agree, I think a neural network would be great to handle the tactical decisions. It would certainly help it choose the optimal way to get the most out of its army, especially since their units sometimes ignore killing blows. In general it'd be very interesting to have the AI show more capacity to learn from each game it plays in some way, and to have more civ AI studies. I keep wondering why the AI is so uncertain sometimes. A tactical AI directed by neural networks would be very strong, and if it would be combined with a strategic AI that's a lot more decisive, I think we'd start to see a good level of challenge in the game.

There are a lot of aspects to programming AI for a civ game, but I think they really need to focus on the combat AI. I'm hopeful though since it seems like the AI is getting better gradually. I hope they also reconsider some of the city defense mechanics, the AI used to do much better in the stack era I think because city sieges were much easier.

I guess the risk is that the neural network, after playing thousands and thousands of sieges, would discover and use exploits and unintended tactics and end up being quite weird to play against. But at least that would give the developers a chance to balance things out before we start complaining on this forum

 

[pgm123]

I also think the ranged unit in the cities do shoot. I cannot verify that it shoots 100% of the time but it does shoot

I had a U Boat attacked with a crossbow several times. I had to switch retreat and just bombard with my battleship because I was taking too much damage and my infantry was too far away to take the city. (Spain was really, really far behind this game)

It might have missed a turn attacking me, but not many.

 

[PhilBowles]

I lost 2 jet bombers the day before yesterday. I'm surprised yours was only damaged, mine were completely destroyed.

I ended up running the jet fighter gauntlet several more times, and never lost a bomber (not even jet bombers) - although after the second I took to deploying my own jet fighter in the flight path. It struck me as off that a tier 3 fighter couldn't destroy a tier 1 bomber, even a highly promoted one.

I mentioned this in the other thread, but it really belongs here. I thought it was a fluke that a fighter could take down a jet bomber, so I stupidly sent another one in. I'm so used to not seeing any air defense, I'm not sure what to do about cities that have fighters in them. Do I send in my own fighters to attack? I only had one, but he wasn't nearby. I'm just impressed Prince level Kongo AI was able to deploy 2 fighters. I had to use my ships to take down defenses at that point.

Deploy a fighter within range of the enemy city (or at least use AA support units - I never have but I presume they do the same job. The enemy fighter was gone before mine finished production). You can't attack the fighter directly, but when it comes out to attack it will automatically be intercepted. The bomber will still take damage, but less than it would otherwise (mine went into the yellow instead of the red) and the enemy fighter will be heavily damaged. As it also takes a small amount damage from the bomber it might be destroyed - that's how I eventually got rid of it (it heals completely in about a turn otherwise).

 

[liv]

Two minor points
AI chases down the weaker unit and may put several of their units on this task. This is not always the right thing to do so obviously there should be other considerations kicking in
AI disbands its units. Once it decides for a science victory it often just gets rid of its military. This is not good.

 

[Cagarustus]

I suggest using Gedemon’s Combat and Stacking Overhaul. It allows you to stack ranged units and siege units with melee/cavalry units. It also reduces the range of ranged units to 1 tile.

Personally I always play with it and I think it’s ingenious. To me it doesn’t make sense to have archers alone on a tile in most cases.

Try it out.

 

[Hauptman]

I avoided civ 5 because I knew 1upt was a bad idea. Kinda wish I avoided this game as well... it's so annoying to move armies around. Jebus, at least let me stack them to move, just dont let stacked units attack. But hell let me move a stack!!!!

Why pray tell, are they still stuck on this 1upt nonsense? It ruined civ. and it isnt going to work or get better. Civ 4's Stacks of doom could be a real challange for a player. Having 300 units come at you was a real threat and you had to plan ahead for it. You could never ignore military (although you could limit what you needed with a single well placed fort and a few longbows/machine guns).

So far in the month I've played... I have had one single attack come at me that wasnt a border skirmish. Just once did an ai decide an invasion was warranted... It surprised me, but failed of course... because the AI has no AI when it comes to war... it just sends units to die. Just took me longer to kill off that group because I had to manually walk my border guard through this 1upt nonsense the 10 tiles to the invasion one unit at a time. For the love of god, somebody mod out 1upt and give me back my doomstacks. I like the rest of the game but that alone breaks this game.

 

[Cagarustus]

@Hauptmann. There is a mod which kind of achieves what you want. Please see my previous post just above yours.

I think it makes sense to have at least a limit on how many stacks: at least 3 in my view. The mod above allows at least 2 per tile.

 

[Hauptman]

@Hauptmann. There is a mod which kind of achieves what you want. Please see my previous post just above yours.

I think it makes sense to have at least a limit on how many stacks: at least 3 in my view. The mod above allows at least 2 per tile.

What you offered isnt quite the fix I'd desire. Isnt going to help the AI. Nor make the game challenging and less annoying.

Sounds like they simply made ranged units into balloons, which opens up an entirely new UI failure to annoy the hell out of me. I really wish balloons and generals didnt keep getting selected once they are attached... I always end up deleting generals, but ya cant live without the balloons, so have to deal with them.

So much wrong with this game... and it's concept is ingenious. Has some real potential.

 

[Hauptman]

All of this is of course completely pointless in a game that does it's darndest to make warfare undoable.

Although, I did have a war yesterday that not only gave me zero warmonger, but made the world love me. Still took my target city and made the world ally me in the process... Obviously another glaring bug i discovered... will test more before details.

 

[Cagarustus]

Sure, it doesn’t go all the way but it find that it helps significantly. I now never expose my archers and stack them with melee.

I would suggest you give it a go; you might find it all right. You can also stack three units at once if using a GG or builder. If you link them it comes up with a triangular icon showing all three units.

Second, if you want to stop selecting them, just sleep them. That’ll stop them from being selected.

 

[Hauptman]

My biggest problem is "unit needs orders" button will bring me straight to the attached unit. Which can cause me to Moderator Action: <SNIP> up something badly. Like say... I get the baloon selected, and wonder why my arty cant attack the city from it's position, so move it (thus losing it's attack) only to realize later It was the balloon selected. Then of course there is the rams kill workers/settlers issue that also makes me insane. Oh look a free settler... Oops, the ram killed it... again.

Traffic jams galore is also just so much fun. Just finish a war? Want to get your troops home before the promise to move them timer runs out? Too bad! Sucks for you.

Really need to hook up that iron pronto to rush that neighbor before he has walls? Hahahahahaha Kongo parked a scout on it!!!!! He's such a griefer.

Finally figure out how to make a samurai rush work? Cool... too bad you cant use them because you only have a single tile to attack that city from, and the catapult works better.

The list is endless... I could go on all day.

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[V. Soma]

I suggest using Gedemon’s Combat and Stacking Overhaul. It allows you to stack ranged units and siege units with melee/cavalry units. It also reduces the range of ranged units to 1 tile.

Personally I always play with it and I think it’s ingenious. To me it doesn’t make sense to have archers alone on a tile in most cases.

Try it out.

I love this mod and never play without it...

 

[Tech Osen]

I suggest using Gedemon’s Combat and Stacking Overhaul. It allows you to stack ranged units and siege units with melee/cavalry units. It also reduces the range of ranged units to 1 tile.

Personally I always play with it and I think it’s ingenious. To me it doesn’t make sense to have archers alone on a tile in most cases.

Try it out.

Might try it but it sounds like it will help humans more than the AI. Does the AI actually put it to use?

 

[Wingednosering]

Game dev perspective: they should lessen their reliance on A-star and use potential fields for close proximity avoidance, dynamic targeting and prioritization of objectives.

It takes a lot of tweaking to get it right, but civ's systems pretty much beg for it. I've recently begun using them in my own projects and the amount of things they can do for AI is just mindblowing.

If they are already using potential fields, they need to add more modifiers, because it isn't obvious.