Colossal Deity AI Snowball

[Noam Braumsky]

The general opinion that I've seen among the community is that the difficulty of Deity is weaker than in Civ VI. With just two ages on the difficulty it's hard for me to say. But even on its worst days, I've never seen Civ VI Deity snowball the way Trung Trac has in my Catherine Deity game. On standard speed, turn 84 of Exploration, TT is making 1835 culture and almost 800 science, placing her massively ahead of all other players. Just 15 turns later this became 2,764 culture per turn. I don't know how she did this. She built the most wonders by far in Antiquity as the Khmer, who I have not played, so I assume that had something to do with it, along with Majapahit's high culture generation, but this seems game-breaking. I can only imagine how many times she was able to research Advanced Civics before catapulting us into Modern, where she starts out with a whopping 888 culture and 356 science on turn 1, dwarfing myself and all other AIs.

Has anyone else been torched by a single Deity AI like this? I'd be interested to see how easily she's able to find victory in Modern but it's hard to justify playing against such a massive deficit.

 

[Askia Muhammad]

This is true but it doesn’t matter because no matter what she can never have units that one shot yours like deity AI in Civ VI.

She can’t have tanks while you have pikeman. The ages absolutely prevent that.

 

[teakbois2112]

I'm impressed that they are at or near settlement cap. This does not happen below deity.

I suspect she will rush Hegemony and try for cultural victory, but fail.

 

[Kwami]

This is true but it doesn’t matter because no matter what she can never have units that one shot yours like deity AI in Civ VI.

She can’t have tanks while you have pikeman. The ages absolutely prevent that.

It still matters. She'll beat you to every tech and civic, which makes it harder or impossible for your to build wonders, dig up artifacts, etc. She'll get shipbuilding and she'll increase her settlement limit first, which means that she'll get all of the good new world spots and the treasure fleet resources. She'll get the first religion and the best beliefs.

The game isn't just about conquest.

And on my third game, after having two games in which the AI did just about nothing at all, I had Pachacuti go crazy with ~500 science and ~500 culture in the first age when everyone else was still around 50-80. The AI seems very binary. It's either totally incompetent or crazy good.

 

[CAB]

I think the games difficulty is a joke... I have only played the game for about 15 hours and in my three play throughs with two of them in Deity I have been so far ahead of the AI economically about half way into the Ancient age it was not very interesting to continue those playthroughs through the next two ages. I always stop playing my Civ games when I see that I'm too far ahead in a general sense.

The issue is that I manage to do this with very little experience in the game mechanics not knowing hardly anything about the game and just focusing on building up the economy and focusing on growth and pumping out cities even going over the city cap which will make you grow exponentially at about half into the ancient age where the AI can't keep up.

I can just buy anything I want as soon as it is unlocked in all of my cities... don't understand how the economy in this game was even balanced as there does not seem to be an actual cost to anything, there only are positive growth in all domains all the time which is very simple for the player to abuse over the very inefficient AI.

 

[4Xtra]

So originally I was under the impression during my early playthroughs that the AI's cumulative bonuses gradually ramped up over time, but after a few Immortal games, it feels like there is a sharp difficulty increase after Sovereign. In my games, it's like there will always be 1 or 2 leaders who actually expand and conquer efficiently, while the remaining leaders expand very slowly or have 1-2 super cities. I want to say that this is tied to their leader traits, but that's something that has been really inconsistent for me. My theory is that once the player reaches a certain 'threshold', the game triggers some kind of emergency response to kick the AI into high gear. I noticed this earlier when I was also playing against Trung Trac (hah), we reached the age of antiquity, and then all of a sudden she sent out waves of settlers to colonize nearby land. Mind you, she hadn't settled a city in ages, but she randomly decided to expand. I want to believe that this was because I started a war against her ally (Isabella), who then called her into the conflict, because these two events were very close together. I'm honestly clueless, but it's very weird to see.

(Note that she STILL decided to settle some of the most abhorrent cities east of Egypt, solely to my detriment)

 

[AD1730]

It really appears that there needs to be something done with the ages mechanic to limit the ability to force ages forward. The whole point of this mechanic was the limit the ability to snowball. Yet, tying the length of the age to some sort of overall progress score, which can be mostly influenced by one advanced civ, only serves to allow the very snowballing the mechanic sought to prevent. Sure, you won't see spearmen against tanks anymore. But, other than that, it doesn't appear that the ages mechanic, as currently implemented, achieves its purpose.

 

[Askia Muhammad]

It really appears that there needs to be something done with the ages mechanic to limit the ability to force ages forward. The whole point of this mechanic was the limit the ability to snowball. Yet, tying the length of the age to some sort of overall progress score, which can be mostly influenced by one advanced civ, only serves to allow the very snowballing the mechanic sought to prevent. Sure, you won't see spearmen against tanks anymore. But, other than that, it doesn't appear that the ages mechanic, as currently implemented, achieves its purpose.

I’d agree if it weren’t for the fact they delete half your army, revert your cities to towns, reset relationships, end wars, and throw out the tech and civic tree every age transition

 

[AD1730]

I’d agree if it weren’t for the fact they delete half your army, revert your cities to towns, reset relationships, end wars, and throw out the tech and civic tree every age transition

And all of these things are easily dealt with if you were already way ahead.

 

[Selezin]

The AI seems very binary. It's either totally incompetent or crazy good.

Exactly the same feeling. Depending on some incomprehensible starting conditions, I either easily beat the AI, or it rolls me across the map. And it is impossible to determine from the start - whether session will be extremely easy or incredibly difficult. - sometimes you "divide and conquer", sometimes you wage war against this world at once.

 

[Noam Braumsky]

Exactly the same feeling. Depending on some incomprehensible starting conditions, I either easily beat the AI, or it rolls me across the map. And it is impossible to determine from the start - whether session will be extremely easy or incredibly difficult. - sometimes you "divide and conquer", sometimes you wage war against this world at once.

I've noticed this too. It seems to cause issues especially in the new world, where one AI tends to dominate the others in the absence of the player and just expands like crazy. When I encountered this trend on earlier difficulties I was never confronted with another civ that makes anywhere close to as much yields as this. What surprises me in this case is the extent of Trung Trac's advantage - she's blowing away even other AIs with the same amount of cities. I wish I could load into their empire in the save and see what exactly is fueling her advantage.

 

[Noam Braumsky]

And all of these things are easily dealt with if you were already way ahead.

I was hoping to try to use my navy to snipe some cities and distract Trung Trac long enough to make a play for victory, but just 7 turns in, her yields have already spiked back to their exploration levels. I mean should it even be possible for the human player to beat an AI like this? You'd hope a Deity AI would completely annihilate the player with such a huge advantage. I'm not sure that I care to play and find out.

 

[AD1730]

I was hoping to try to use my navy to snipe some cities and distract Trung Trac long enough to make a play for victory, but just 7 turns in, her yields have already spiked back to their exploration levels. I mean should it even be possible for the human player to beat an AI like this? You'd hope a Deity AI would completely annihilate the player with such a huge advantage. I'm not sure that I care to play and find out.

Yep, what’s the point of the crisis and age mechanic if it doesn’t rubber band the players more? I’m not a fan of rubber-banding, but, if you’re going to do it, you should do it well.

 

[pokiehl]

I’m having a hard time keeping up with Governor AI.

I find that the era reset on that difficulty is good. One age I’m killing it in Science, the next age I’m falling far behind and Confucius is so far ahead in every yield it’s ridiculous. Then in modern, Ashoka ran away with the game.

 

[teakbois2112]

I was hoping to try to use my navy to snipe some cities and distract Trung Trac long enough to make a play for victory, but just 7 turns in, her yields have already spiked back to their exploration levels. I mean should it even be possible for the human player to beat an AI like this? You'd hope a Deity AI would completely annihilate the player with such a huge advantage. I'm not sure that I care to play and find out.

What are the chances this is a visual bug? Do we know for sure shes really getting this?

 

[Yzman]

I think the games difficulty is a joke... I have only played the game for about 15 hours and in my three play throughs with two of them in Deity I have been so far ahead of the AI economically about half way into the Ancient age it was not very interesting to continue those playthroughs through the next two ages. I always stop playing my Civ games when I see that I'm too far ahead in a general sense.

The issue is that I manage to do this with very little experience in the game mechanics not knowing hardly anything about the game and just focusing on building up the economy and focusing on growth and pumping out cities even going over the city cap which will make you grow exponentially at about half into the ancient age where the AI can't keep up.

I can just buy anything I want as soon as it is unlocked in all of my cities... don't understand how the economy in this game was even balanced as there does not seem to be an actual cost to anything, there only are positive growth in all domains all the time which is very simple for the player to abuse over the very inefficient AI.

Maybe you should actually finish a game? Kinda strange to say you are ahead of them...this game doesn't work like the others.

 

[StargazingDog]

Maybe you should actually finish a game? Kinda strange to say you are ahead of them...this game doesn't work like the others.

You took the words out of my mouth.

I'm reading and wondering how on earth this dude had "three playthroughs" in 15 hours. It turns out that he just quits a few hours in and claims victory. This iteration of the game is not like the others.

 

[Noam Braumsky]

What are the chances this is a visual bug? Do we know for sure shes really getting this?

I'm not sure that it's possible to check, but she was spamming late game wonders in the middle of the exploration age. I also got a notification for her finishing the advanced civic research and adding +10 to the age timer. Her science gain was definitely apparent, so I don't have any reason to believe it's a visual bug.

 

[Yzman]

You took the words out of my mouth.

I'm reading and wondering how on earth this dude had "three playthroughs" in 15 hours. It turns out that he just quits a few hours in and claims victory. This iteration of the game is not like the others.

Like does he even realize the other ages have completely different goals and it's easy to win one without having won the others? This process kinda specifically was designed to help prevent snowballing.

 

[ggmoyang]

I had runaway AI in exploration age, and it didn't matter. I had good relationship with them, there was no problem completing all 4 legacy paths for me.
And in the modern age the AI lost most yields, and it was easy to get ahead of them.