Does Anybody Else Miss Naval Combat?

[stealth_nsk]

Well, yes, it is too easy. If have annihilated fleets equal in number to mine without loses or with 1/2 ships at the most. It is pretty sad, really. The AI doesn't know how to fight in the slightest.
This tactic is useful against cities and ranged units, though, as well as aliens. It wouldn't make a difference in multiplayer because any competent player would simply chase and retaliate, negating that advantage.

Well, AI can't compete with human in really complex tactical games. CBE has even more tactical depth than Civ5 - with obvious consequences to AI.

All hopes for the next patch to increase Apollo AI bonuses, so we'll at least have to fight larger forces. Skill vs. numbers is a fun thing too.

 

[mb2bm55]

I've played through several BE games now and I have yet to reach a point in which the game was not already decided (more-or-less) by the time I got hover tanks. They are SO late game that claiming they eliminate naval units is pointless. Also, they move slower, the hover artillery (as already pointed out) can't keep up, they receive 25% combat penalties on water and are super vulnerable to krakens. Additionally, I have yet to do an amphibious invasion with them without aircraft carrier and dreadnought escorts. Also hover units are not a match for a dreadnought fleet (which can be upgraded to 3 range, can way outpace hover units, and have devastating ranged firepower).

Naval units are, along with Civ 5, the most important they have ever been in a Civ game. You can't reasonably expect to win a war without them. Aside from moving fast and not having to set up, it's easy to interchange them when they get damaged during sieges, they protect (pre-patch) extremely valuable trade ships from your enemies and they keep those pesky sea dragons and krakens away from your water improvements. every single war should be fought with a large navy.

Do I think they should eliminate one-shotting? Yes, even if ships remain vulnerable.

The AI should be programmed to build significantly more ships

The defense perimeter quest that makes trade units invulnerable to aliens should be removed (at least for sea units)

The AI should aggressively attack trade routes and resource improvements during war, especially naval ones

Aliens should be much more aggressive late game towards players who attack them, attack in force (especially at sea with krakens- I had a group of 5 once spawn and ravage a couple intercontinental trade routes, sent my warships, they didn't even fight back! This was Apollo difficulty), and viciously attack trade/improvements. If you fight aliens, remove miasma, etc. you should be forced to deal with them.

AI should move ships in fleets, stock aircraft carriers with aircraft, aggressively engage smaller and/or technologically inferior fleets, and retreat from larger/more advanced fleets to preserve resources. Cities should be defended from the sea as well as land. I'm so tired of fighting 1 or 2 ships at a time in civ games with fleets of 6 or more ships. Civ4 at least had naval stacks of Doom (though they were rarely a factor- it had to be so late game for an AI to build those the game should already be decided).

 

[Hail]

Well, AI can't compete with human in really complex tactical games. CBE has even more tactical depth than Civ5 - with obvious consequences to AI.

All hopes for the next patch to increase Apollo AI bonuses, so we'll at least have to fight larger forces. Skill vs. numbers is a fun thing too.

games like Panzer General (check out the release date) have been around for two decades. no decent AI yet?

Spoiler :

the tactical layer is a lot easier to programm an AI for, than the strategic layer.

I can see no difficulties in copying a 10x10 hex square with the units inside and doing simulations (*). with adequate weights and heurestics, such process can be made sufficiently fast.

(*) AI takes turns (his and theirs at least once. the AI shall play itself here) in moving/'attacking with' units on the hex square (the 10x10). note the best set of moves and move the units on the actual map accordingly.

skill vs numbers is not a fun thing. sieging tens of AI's fortified cities is not a fun thing.
it's a repetitive, tedious and frustrating experience (imho).

I'm all for giving the AI free affinity levels and/or giving their units free promotions. I, even, will approve of giving the AI some difficulty-based % bonus to base unit strength.

on naval combat: I always play civ5/civ:be on pangaea maps. the AI is clueless about naval combat (and combat in general) anyway.

 

[stealth_nsk]

games like Panzer General (check out the release date) have been around for two decades. no decent AI yet?

Panzer General AI is dumb like a worm. This fact is not obvious, since with huge unit movement range most units have targets to attack, but after defeating initial flow of units, there's no challenge at all. Panzer General shined in its multiplayer.

 

[Roxlimn]

The challenge in Panzer General has always been to conquer a pre-deployed map within a set number of turns. Your ultimate victory is rarely at risk - it's winning in the minimum number of turns that was the game. By itself, the AI was weak, as stealth_nsk points out.

 

[mb2bm55]

I certainly agree that the AI can be a lot stronger. Personally I felt that the AI reacted better in previous Civ games.

The AI should respond to the conditions of the game. If a player is being aggressive, militaristic, breaking promises, etc. then the AI should go into a military build up phase. This should include some preset dedication to naval, air, ranged and melee units. Why would the AI build carriers but no planes? Why have no navy or airforce? Air units are not particularly valuable in a siege but are excellent in attacking units- especially when defending. I understand if the first AI I defeat has a small military force, but the moment I am capturing cities, all the AI's near me should go into a build up mode. Its the proper way to play a game. Reacting to the victory condition (domination) that another player is going for.

 

[Halbbruder]

CivBE naval combat could do with some melee ships but the fact that the hover tanks and artillery stack with ships means that CivBE naval combat has broadened the 1upt rule to 2upt on ocean tiles.

As for AI in naval combat, couldn't agree more for improvement. Their use of ships is bizarre at most times and yes, they spam carriers a lot and they usually don't contain any planes. It's even more embarrassing when you see the AI build a fleet...in a small lake.

 

[mb2bm55]

It's even more embarrassing when you see the AI build a fleet...in a small lake.

Lol, just happened to me! Was thoroughly confused

 

[Roxlimn]

They really, really want control of that lake.

 

[Anomandaris]

During the latest challenge (unposted game, though) I had Samatar build a huge fleet (for an AI). There were literally 12 ships in the same screen. I was attacking them with 11 ships of my own, had one of my ships killed (because it strayed too close to a city!). I don't want complex tactical decision making (though it would be nice ). I want the AI actually using their stuff. Building carriers but no planes is . Seeing 8 ships and 3 carriers in a small internal sea was funny the first time (Phasal transport units in, kill them all, phase them out). After that it was just pathetic.
The Starcraft: Brood War AI was also but at least it was taught compositions and actually attacking with them. You could still channel it into an endless meatgrinder but at least you had to build defenses and set them up well to do that (and not lose units). Here, I only ever lose units on the offensive and that is during early attacks. Late game attacks rarely cost anything but time and micro effort.
When the AI has 12 ships and I have 11, I want to lose at least 8. It just has to attack, for s sake!!!

 

[Hail]

The Starcraft: Brood War AI was also but at least it was taught compositions and actually attacking with them. You could still channel it into an endless meatgrinder but at least you had to build defenses and set them up well to do that (and not lose units). Here, I only ever lose units on the offensive and that is during early attacks. Late game attacks rarely cost anything but time and micro effort.
When the AI has 12 ships and I have 11, I want to lose at least 8. It just has to attack, for s sake!!!

yeah! the Starcraft AI did have some tricks up it's sleeve!

from here. toward the end of the writing. scroll about 20% from the top of the page.

Spoiler :

Against other AI, the Templar are bumbling comic goofs. They will drop Psi Storm on single enemy units and hit a bunch of their own guys in the process. They will blunder through fortified territory attempting to reach a unit deep inside, and get cut down before they even get close.

I’ve come to suspect that the AI cheats a bit and detects clusters of units which have been grouped by hotkey by human players. This is very naughty if it’s true. What’s worse is that peeking at how my hotkeys are set up seems to be central to its decision making. Deprived of that bit of cheating info, the Templar is helplessly stupid. Boo.

 

[Silverman6083]

Look, the kind of naval combat in BE right now is actually pretty accurate to how actual naval exchanges go. A "battle" will almost always end in one vessel being shot one time & being sunk, it's not like we're shooting cannonballs anymore.

 

[Callonia]

Dragoons move at 3, the slowest of the Hovertanks. Ships are very powerful units. Using them randomly is a waste of resources.

Well, the thing is that the AI sucks so badly I can actually waste powerful resources by using them randomly for fun and not be harmed in any way.

 

[Anomandaris]

Thanks Hail, a very interesting read! Of course, from my own experience I already expected precisely this rating for a very simple reason - if there is no proper micro, protoss armies win every time and terran armies are horrifyingly bad.
Anyway, I wasn't talking just about cheats like that. The AI is programmed to challenge your expansions and not allow you to expand freely - you always HAVE to invest in defenses because you 100% know the attack is coming. It still cannot even remotely approach killing a competent player but at least it can offer an opposition because it uses its units, however badly (and let's face it, Brood War is a 16 year old game. Things, including AI, are supposed to evolve, not devolve, right? The AI is programmed with a few builds that it follows closely and they are pretty efficient in the early to mid game... however the AI was never programmed how to micro its units and lost them horribly against a decent defense (I suppose it was too difficult at the time to accomplish and BW was always a primarily multiplayer game so the AI was not at all important). In BE, on the other hand, all the AI gets are cheats. It gets extra money and extra resources but not instructions what to do with them. It doesn't follow a build but rather semi-randomly makes stuff. It doesn't use unit synergy, rarely keeps armies together, and usually gift wraps sets of units and gives them to you. It never knows which positions it can break and which it cannot, in a million years. It's just bad.

 

[Lord Shadow]

Starcraft AI is also a bad example for "good" AI, when we're talking about a game with extremely rudimentary resource collection and where it's all about build orders. The AI can be honed to do very well at such mechanical gameplay, but it's substantially less complex than any Civilization game, and therefore a far cry from what all-aspect strategic gameplay would require.

As for Panzer General, yes. Even the modern Panzer Corps is all about a fixed map with pre-deployed units which act either by script or default to defensive play, often just staying entrenched where they are. The AI is little more than a barely intelligent wall the player's meant to tear down in the least possible time. Civ has players compete on an entirely random map, with resource, production and research systems (at the very least), has little in the way of scripts dictating AI behaviour, and requires both offensive and defensive play (and not only on a strictly military context).

All games sporting true strategic reach suffer from imperfect AI, because the requirements for a competent one are much higher than for the average strategy game.

 

[Pietato]

How do you shoot down satelites that are over water? Only way I found was with hover-artillery, which is ridiculous.

 

[Lord Shadow]

How do you shoot down satelites that are over water? Only way I found was with hover-artillery, which is ridiculous.

If ships don't have an anti-satellite ranged attack and Firaxis doesn't fix that on their own, it's easily moddable.

Unless there's some special animation units use exclusively when shooting down sats.

 

[Anomandaris]

Currently, you cannot shoot down satellites with ships. Hopefully that will be resolved. In any case, animations shouldn't be a problem because since there is an option for quick combat, the units can evidently function perfectly well without animations.
About the Starcraft AI - I never said it was a good AI. I gave it as an example of a very simple AI that gets a job done - providing a modest challenge to new players, which is what it was supposed to do as almost zero competent players play against the AI and not against each other in multiplayer. More accurately, I used it as an example of an AI doing something very simple to hinder the player, doing a simple build, making units and attacking. Even if/when it fails horribly, it has impeded the player from the shortest path to victory, which is a step up from what the BE AI does. I used it in regards to a previous experience of mine with the AI having a -ton of units and not using them at all and simply losing them.
Another example - the Starcraft AI builds interceptors for its carriers, the Beyond Earth AI does not.

 

[Pietato]

If ships don't have an anti-satellite ranged attack and Firaxis doesn't fix that on their own, it's easily moddable.

Unless there's some special animation units use exclusively when shooting down sats.

I think there is a special animation. They definitely fire something into the sky.

 

[Lord Shadow]

About the Starcraft AI - I never said it was a good AI. I gave it as an example of a very simple AI that gets a job done - providing a modest challenge to new players, which is what it was supposed to do as almost zero competent players play against the AI and not against each other in multiplayer. More accurately, I used it as an example of an AI doing something very simple to hinder the player, doing a simple build, making units and attacking. Even if/when it fails horribly, it has impeded the player from the shortest path to victory, which is a step up from what the BE AI does. I used it in regards to a previous experience of mine with the AI having a -ton of units and not using them at all and simply losing them.
Another example - the Starcraft AI builds interceptors for its carriers, the Beyond Earth AI does not.

CivBE bugs aside, you're still comparing AIs which are worlds apart.

I'm not justifying the lack of aircraft for carriers in CivBE, but Civ AI has a hundred more concerns competing for its attention simultaneously, and building units in a city which could produce any number of things (depending on ever-changing circumstances) and getting those to the intended carrier is a tad more involved than mandatorily setting a Protoss carrier to auto-build interceptors itself for a negligible fee with a single command. To the point the need for even that single command is questionable: there's no decision nor intelligence, artificial or otherwise, required. But what is simple in Starcraft isn't necessarily so in Civilization.