Effect of AI on game enjoyment

[stuckatnoble]

To preface, I recently bought civ IV and enjoy it. Have been thinking about buying V.

I see a lot of posts about how dumb the AI is -- as I understand it, to some degree this was hidden a bit in IV by the stacks of doom but with the complexity and micro intensive nature of 1upt I can see how V could be more affected. I don't know anything about the other aspects of V AI to comment.

Given the popularity of V, is it that the AI doesn't detract enough from the enjoyment of the game overall to be a game killer? Or is the vast popularity of the game partly due to the relative (to IV) ease that you can eventually "master" beating the AI at high levels?

 

[Acken]

I doubt the popularity has to do with the fact that Civ5 deity is easier than Civ4 deity. Given how many people beat Civ5 deity...

The game is easier than Civ4 at the same difficulty level, no doubt about that though. Civ4 is a bigger challenge. Now whether or not you enjoy it more is another story.

I'd like a smarter AI yes but Civ5 remains a great game. Also understand that the AI isn't broken at least (unlike Rome 2 for example). It will do stuff and give you a lot of trouble as a beginner. It's mostly that yes the AI has issues fighting with 1UPT and will need to rely on high numbers to beat a human player and also the AI uses a lot of mechanics sub-optimally (but that part is also a balance issue).

 

[phillipwyllie]

I'm afraid the AI can't play this game, and sometimes it's terrible at it. In saying that rarely the AI will surprise you and outplay you but I suspect that's luck.
This game isn't about what others are doing but what you are doing, and perfecting that will take many many hours of play. There's a tonne of civs to play each with a combination of UU/UA/UB which will make you change your play-style.

Get Civ5, you won't be bored again........

 

[budweiser]

As was said, the AI is mostly a speed bump. Its what you are doing that counts. That said, what kills the enjoyment for me is the annoying behavior the AI displays at the highest level. Stuff like forward settling or grabbing tiles in the first ring of my cap. Little things that don't really matter but are enough to ruin your fun for that particular match or force a certain response from the player.

Before long you, know that you have to do X and if you don't the AI will do Y and you will suffer. In the end that's just a speed bump. But its kind of annoying and not good game design.

 

[Strategist83]

People enjoy Civ V because Civ V is a fantastic game. There really aren't any other games that offer this kind of depth of taking from a broad selection a civilization and leading it from the stone age to the stars on a randomly generated map. The game is infinitely replayable and fresh. The AI is inexcusably bad for a game of this caliber with the immense amount of economical backing it has had during development and profit it has generated for the developers (and follow-up patching support was likewise inexcusably bad, to put it mildly), but this still isn't enough to ruin the immense amount of positives the game has. There's nothing like Civ!

I would definitely recommend you buy Civ V. It it by no means a perfect game and it is true that aspects of it is in some sense 'dumbed down' compared to IV but those saying the older game is far better really are rose-tinted nostalgics. There's a wealth of stuff that's been improved in V compared to IV.

 

[stuckatnoble]

Cool good to hear that civ v offers so much that AI is a road bump.

I get the uniqueness of the civ franchise. My perspective is one of playing more of civ IV vs. moving on to V and whether the AI will make me regret the purchase.

 

[Dida]

Cool good to hear that civ v offers so much that AI is a road bump.

I get the uniqueness of the civ franchise. My perspective is one of playing more of civ IV vs. moving on to V and whether the AI will make me regret the purchase.

If you really enjoyed Civ4, Civ5 will probably be worth your money, especially if you can get it on sale. I don't think you will regret the purchase on AI though. I main problem with civ5 is 1UPT make the map clustered, moving units is kind of annoying. City borders often don't coalesce into cohesive national border. Even in mid to late game, you will have civs that look like a loose collection of cities rather than mature nation states.

 

[Callonia]

Well, at the moment, AI don't really put up a threat in war against me often enough is what kills the game's enjoyment for me otherwise this game is good.

 

[Krajzen]

Do you people realize Community Patch actualy makes AI good in civ5?

 

[nokmirt]

Do you people realize Community Patch actualy makes AI good in civ5?

I use smarter AI. The Community Patch takes a lot away from the human player and gives bonuses to the AI. To me it's a bit much.

 

[joncnunn]

How smart or dumb the AI is does determine what level people play on.

For me within base game, I'm an Immortal level player because Deity level would limit my choices down to straight jacket, while Emperor would be to easy with standard play. Sometimes though I do drop down to Emperor under the restriction that I must take as my first 6 policies the full Piety tree (a known inferior strategy), may not go back to pick up either Tradition or Liberty, and in addition may not open Rationalism.

On Mods, I'm currently playing with the "Buffed AI for Skills Player" (includes smarter AI) in combo with my other mod.

Community Patch went in the wrong direction for city placement (it mods it back to what it was under the Vanilla CD release). The AI actually founds cities in better locations if city placement must be one tile further away than in standard game.
(I do wish though there was a way to have city states have a smaller exclusion zone than other cities)
The reason for this is the portion of the fertility rating only looks at tiles that are currently within the cultural boundary to give them the reduction and does not consider that this wonderful resource tile that's 2 hexes away from an existing city but currently outside will be within it very shortly and so founds another city intended only to take in the same resource.

 

[DarkestOnion]

Occasional peculiar/non-alpha strategy AI behavior in Civ 5 is only a minor nuisance imho. For me, this is because I don't play to be red-line challenged in each game. When the AI is too efficient in a game I get stressed out and then my play suffers I think.

 

[Ryoga]

Given the popularity of V, is it that the AI doesn't detract enough from the enjoyment of the game overall to be a game killer? Or is the vast popularity of the game partly due to the relative (to IV) ease that you can eventually "master" beating the AI at high levels?

I think that the 1 UPT and hexes make the AI look dumber than it actually is. Not to say that it doesn't make dumb choices, because it does, but not significantly worse than AI in previous iterations of the franchise.
The main issue is that in Civ V you need to value your units a lot more, they take significantly more time to produce and they get significantly better improvements with experience, but that apart the AI is as much as likely to lose its units as it was before, and that's kind of the problem I guess.

This is often compensated by raising the difficulty, which means the AI can produce a lot more units than you do. And yet that still doesn't help as much as it did in previous CIV games because huge armies cannot be used effectively.


That being said, does that make it less fun? I guess opinions may vary, but honestly, did I enjoy sending to my enemies swarms of mass-produced needlejets in SMAC more than I enjoyed fending off swarms of armies up to 4 bigger than mine with my stronger grasp of tactic by taking advantage of terrain conditions and citadel improvements?

There isn't even a contest.

Civ V by far offered me the most trilling and rewarding battle experiences than any other 4x that I played.

Conquering a city takes actual planning here. You can't just send all your troops to the closest square next to your target and make them whack it. You must carefully place your units around the city, destroy the straggling units, check if the terrain will allow you to snipe without obstructions, and so on.


I don't know, it may be because I'm an avid RPG player, but fighting enemies that are stronger and yet dumber than you is the norm to me.

If there's anything that reduces my enjoyment of the game due to AI issues, is in the diplomacy department.

 

[Primacide]

For my two cents: make sure you purchase BNW. Vanilla was ok, but I felt that BNW really opened the game up and gives you a reason to play into the late game - something you just won't do in vanilla.

 

[Question]

Does the AI get smarter on higher difficulty levels, or do they just seem harder because they cheat with tons of bonuses?

 

[Ryoga]

Does the AI get smarter on higher difficulty levels, or do they just seem harder because they cheat with tons of bonuses?

As far as I can tell it's the same AI no matter the difficulty.

 

[joncnunn]

Does the AI get smarter on higher difficulty levels, or do they just seem harder because they cheat with tons of bonuses?

As far as I can tell it's the same AI no matter the difficulty.

Yup, same AI, if they had known a way to make the AI smarter, they'd have applied it to all difficulty levels.
And in fact Civ IV has the same AI on all difficulty levels, as did Civ III, Civ II, and even Civ I.

(With the note that Civ I & II had a built in AI mercy rule where the AI wasn't allowed to fully use diplomats / spies until the human was at a high enough level)

 

[Mckertis]

Get Civ5, you won't be bored again........

I was. It wasnt the matter of "will i win", but "what score will i win with". Playing on deity in Civ5 doesnt present any challenge. Sure, i like building stuff, but when 95% of units in the game are military, and AI is never a threat, and never declares a war on you - what kind of game is this ? I'd rather play some Anno title instead, as it's a much better building game.

 

[SoupJuice]

For my two cents: make sure you purchase BNW. Vanilla was ok, but I felt that BNW really opened the game up and gives you a reason to play into the late game - something you just won't do in vanilla.

These two cents are worth it: the expansions enrich the game!