If by "tactical AI" you mean the actions of units in actual combat, then it was weak but not all that terrible. But if you mean the management of units in general, then yes it was terrible.
Ed Beach believes that the Tactical AI for military units in CIV 6 was working very well... Do you agree ?
- Thread starter tedhebert
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Another point that was mentioned is that you may no longer need to even keep them alive. It was mentioned that if a commander died your next commander would be that one....potentially with the same promotions. So late game everyone may have a few super promoted commanders. (unless they lose a few levels/ expire with eras)
Boris Gudenuf
Deity
The considerations in Civ VI combat that I have seen, and seen commented on most, were Traffic - getting troop units to the battle at all, Ranged Units Over Strength, and Siege - which is part of the Ranged Unit overstrength in that a walled city could mangle your units pretty badly if you didn't handle the Traffic problem well.
So, in addition to the new Army Commanders getting an entire army into battle at once, which appears to be aimed directly at solving the Traffic problem, there are still two problems to solve.
Given the 'continuous combat' mode Beach has referred to, one wonders how vulnerable Ranged Units are in the new system. If they can fire continuously into a combat, they will devastate. If they are subject to being attacked by melee units unless protected and they have much reduced melee-type factors, then Tactics comes into play: historically, the answer to Ranged Fire was to charge the blighters, whicg forced them to either die in place or run for it, unless they were safely on top of a high stone wall. IF you have fast-moving tactical units (read: Cavalry) and flanking, I think Ranged Units will be severely cut down to size in battles compared to before.
On the other hand, taking a fortified city should be hard. Successful sieges or storms of cities were always Big Events with big rewards - in Europe, successfully prosecuting a siege was one of the criteria for promotion of the Commander to Field Marshal, the highest military rank in most states.
All in all, while the details remain to be seen, the system has the potential to be much more engaging.
So, in addition to the new Army Commanders getting an entire army into battle at once, which appears to be aimed directly at solving the Traffic problem, there are still two problems to solve.
Given the 'continuous combat' mode Beach has referred to, one wonders how vulnerable Ranged Units are in the new system. If they can fire continuously into a combat, they will devastate. If they are subject to being attacked by melee units unless protected and they have much reduced melee-type factors, then Tactics comes into play: historically, the answer to Ranged Fire was to charge the blighters, whicg forced them to either die in place or run for it, unless they were safely on top of a high stone wall. IF you have fast-moving tactical units (read: Cavalry) and flanking, I think Ranged Units will be severely cut down to size in battles compared to before.
On the other hand, taking a fortified city should be hard. Successful sieges or storms of cities were always Big Events with big rewards - in Europe, successfully prosecuting a siege was one of the criteria for promotion of the Commander to Field Marshal, the highest military rank in most states.
All in all, while the details remain to be seen, the system has the potential to be much more engaging.
kaspergm
Deity
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One thing that always struck me in Civ6 was that the AI seemed far more capable of handling Barbarian units than Major Civ units (and City State units was a complete and utter disaster). Barbarian units seemed program to kill maximum number of units with little regard to surviving themselves, and this made them a tremendous nuisance. On the other hand, as others have pointed out, Major Civ units seemed too focused on protecting themselves - which was not necessarily a bad choice, given the horrendous cost vs. production ratios the game had, one of the major design flaws imo. - but this generally ment that Major Civ units failed to provide a serious thread, unless they were vastly outnumbering you.
Pretty sure they fixed this, or at least did a pass on it.
It took a long, long time, but they did it.
No, they never fixed it.
In its current state, the Civ6 AI will sometimes build air units, but they still have no idea how to use them.
Oh it definitely can use them. Just not very effectively. I remember a game where I was very annoyed, because I was a bit behind in tech and the AI would use its fighters to kill every unit that got near its cities and there was nothing I could do without a unit that could do something against fighters. Once I got units to fight back, the air power of the AI quickly folded. But if it happens to position a fighter in range of your units, it will use those fighters.
I modded fighter planes to not require the aerodrome district to be built and that made a world of difference in the AIs production of airplanes. They still used them about as well as they do their naval units, though (ok defensively, terribly offensively).
I sincerely hope Civ7 does a better job with naval and air unit AI.
I sincerely hope Civ7 does a better job with naval and air unit AI.
rschissler
King
There are no multiple units per tile mods, that the work with the AI. Only with you, as the player.
Disgustipated
Deity
I actually feel like the AI got worse near the end. It might have been best right around rise and fall. Lately with civ 6 I see units not actually attacking when they could. And I don't remember that being a thing early in Civ6's life.
Voidwalkin
Emperor
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I think the tactical AI wasn't very good.
However... I think the movement change will help the AI greatly. One of its biggest problems was actually moving its troops up on a tight time frame. Units got in each others way all the time. The shortest path to target the AI seldom took.
All that wasted time and wasted movement allowed the player to blast the AI with ranged units. It let the player rotate and heal with much more leisure than they would enjoy under a more concise attack. It allowed AI walls to devastate advancing AI armies. Whether they meant it to or not, if the AI actually moves better, it'll fight much better.
That said hopefully other lacking AI arenas were also focused on.
However... I think the movement change will help the AI greatly. One of its biggest problems was actually moving its troops up on a tight time frame. Units got in each others way all the time. The shortest path to target the AI seldom took.
All that wasted time and wasted movement allowed the player to blast the AI with ranged units. It let the player rotate and heal with much more leisure than they would enjoy under a more concise attack. It allowed AI walls to devastate advancing AI armies. Whether they meant it to or not, if the AI actually moves better, it'll fight much better.
That said hopefully other lacking AI arenas were also focused on.
Disgustipated
Deity
I did want to expand on what I mentioned above. But I do believe one of the DLC updates post GS messed up the combat AI a little bit. I'm fairly certain it was better during R&F and GS. But I know that's subjective.
As for air units I occasionally saw the AI use them. I even had them destroy my GDR a couple of times. When that happened I actually built the SAM unit for the first time. And Navies were mostly nonexistent, but I occasionally saw them build a big Navy like one time on an Earth TSL map I saw Rome with a big navy. As for AI use of GDR's, it's pathetic. I once saw an AI with 17 GDR's. At first I was worried when I attacked them until I saw how badly they used them.
As for the AI in general, they can certainly be trapped/lured. But keep in mind, maybe they don't want to necessarily make the AI TOO good. If I wan't able to lure out enemy archers and crossbowman, there would have been cities I would have been unable to take. Maybe this would have been a good thing, but I think no city should be unconquerable. And especially if they had things like mountains and water allowing only a few units access, if they parked a crossbowman in that city, you can just basically give up taking it. Unless you can draw them out. It doesn't work all the time, but usually you could do it. An AI city with medieval walls and a crossbowman was pretty tough, especially if you still have mostly archers.
Some of the issues were with the ruleset, and can't be blamed on AI. Things like ranged units being so OP. But usually the AI would build something stupid like a chariot. Not that that is a bad unit, they can be lethal to your own archers, but usually if you have enough archers it's not a problem.
I'm not entirely convinced commanders will fix issues. Often most of my fighting is done near AI cities. So their units are still going to spawn in their cities. I'm still going to pick them off unless they do get smart and park units inside cities and never remove them. Commanders will only help if the AI is attacking another AI or the human civ. It will be interesting to see how that plays out.
Do we know if Commanders stay all 3 eras or just 1 era? Seems like it should be 1 era/age, but I have a feeling it's all 3. And do they have combat strength on their own? Or can your own melee unit take it instantly? And as mentioned above, what happens if you attack one that has units embedded? All questions I hope will be answered.
As for air units I occasionally saw the AI use them. I even had them destroy my GDR a couple of times. When that happened I actually built the SAM unit for the first time. And Navies were mostly nonexistent, but I occasionally saw them build a big Navy like one time on an Earth TSL map I saw Rome with a big navy. As for AI use of GDR's, it's pathetic. I once saw an AI with 17 GDR's. At first I was worried when I attacked them until I saw how badly they used them.
As for the AI in general, they can certainly be trapped/lured. But keep in mind, maybe they don't want to necessarily make the AI TOO good. If I wan't able to lure out enemy archers and crossbowman, there would have been cities I would have been unable to take. Maybe this would have been a good thing, but I think no city should be unconquerable. And especially if they had things like mountains and water allowing only a few units access, if they parked a crossbowman in that city, you can just basically give up taking it. Unless you can draw them out. It doesn't work all the time, but usually you could do it. An AI city with medieval walls and a crossbowman was pretty tough, especially if you still have mostly archers.
Some of the issues were with the ruleset, and can't be blamed on AI. Things like ranged units being so OP. But usually the AI would build something stupid like a chariot. Not that that is a bad unit, they can be lethal to your own archers, but usually if you have enough archers it's not a problem.
I'm not entirely convinced commanders will fix issues. Often most of my fighting is done near AI cities. So their units are still going to spawn in their cities. I'm still going to pick them off unless they do get smart and park units inside cities and never remove them. Commanders will only help if the AI is attacking another AI or the human civ. It will be interesting to see how that plays out.
Do we know if Commanders stay all 3 eras or just 1 era? Seems like it should be 1 era/age, but I have a feeling it's all 3. And do they have combat strength on their own? Or can your own melee unit take it instantly? And as mentioned above, what happens if you attack one that has units embedded? All questions I hope will be answered.
Unfortunately, but good to know. I've always kind of wondered if I might like V with multi-unit-per-tile, but it would have to be for the AI as well. But I haven't followed the modding scene for V (or really VI) close enough to know if I'd missed something.
I remember a good bump in AI quality during the New Frontier releases. At some point there, I had Gitarja actually invade me across a body of water and do some damage, so I could no longer treat water as an impenetrable defense. Then again, that's around the same time as airplane AI broke, it's a shame as the AI just stopped using planes.
Short Answer NO
A little more detailed answer:
NO, the AI in CIV 6 is the worst of all the AI seen in relation to its game system, worse even than Civ 1 and 2 where at least you had AI that updated/produced advanced units based on the technology achieved while the AI of civ 6 couldn't even do this and I found myself in games where I had tanks and fighters while the AI responded with ancient units (and it took the FINAL PHASES of game development to get some use of aviation from the AI). If he thinks this about the work done on the AI of CIV 6 I see it as tough for Civ 7 too (I hope not, but I have no hope)
Mr Jon of Cheam
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That's not "tactical AI"
There's obviously problems with the AI - they don't always have a great balance of troops, they don't have updated troops, they forget to fire sometimes, etc...
But that being said, when they actually have some of their stuff sorted out, they aren't terrible. I was playing a bit last night, and they did manage to pick off a few of my straggling troops. I mean, I was invading with an era ahead tech-wise so it didn't make a difference in the end. But if I had a partially injured cavalry in the open, they could actually send a couple units and a city attack to finish them off.
I do think there's other things they don't respond to - they don't realize how quickly I might be able to reinforce an area, and like in the above example, they might strategically be smarter in sacrificing a unit to take out my artillery rather than a cavalry that won't do much against their walls. But the amount of games that I quit because of that early immortal/deity rush from the Ai that can take me out, I'd say the AI all in all is at least OK. Certainly compared to early on, when they would routinely be walking catapults in water to try to shoot at cities.
But that being said, when they actually have some of their stuff sorted out, they aren't terrible. I was playing a bit last night, and they did manage to pick off a few of my straggling troops. I mean, I was invading with an era ahead tech-wise so it didn't make a difference in the end. But if I had a partially injured cavalry in the open, they could actually send a couple units and a city attack to finish them off.
I do think there's other things they don't respond to - they don't realize how quickly I might be able to reinforce an area, and like in the above example, they might strategically be smarter in sacrificing a unit to take out my artillery rather than a cavalry that won't do much against their walls. But the amount of games that I quit because of that early immortal/deity rush from the Ai that can take me out, I'd say the AI all in all is at least OK. Certainly compared to early on, when they would routinely be walking catapults in water to try to shoot at cities.
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