[R&F] Expectations for AI?

[ThunderLizard2]

What are people's expectations for the AI improvements from R&F? I've held off buying because of the lame AI but am considering the Humble Bundle deal but still reluctant given terrible AI.

 

[Trengilly]

Combat wise? I'm not expecting any improvement. From what we have seen of the pre-release youtube games the AI is just a bad at warfare as always.

But there are so many game changes in R&F and many of them could help (or hurt) the AI. The loyalty system appears to be stopping the AI from crazy forward settling. And the start location setup really looks fixed - so no more civs starting on top of each other.

 

[Starwars]

Not expecting any change or improvement in the AI in itself to be honest. But like Trengilly says, it may be that mechanical changes and additions might end up boosting the AI in some cases (or nthe opposite of course).

As far as straight up combat goes, fully expecting it to still be as bad.

 

[ChocolateShake]

It does seem to be better, I was reading that on the Quill18 stream Chandragupta could've taken his capital, he only made the mistake of offering a peace deal rather than capturing it? That should be relatively fixable. I'm not expecting it to be great, but better than before.

I do have hope that more modders will try to tackle the AI with Rise and Fall, I'll take another quick look at it to see if there's anything that can be tweaked. Once the DLL is released (hopefully) I think we'll get a pretty great combat AI.

 

[Victoria]

Bad is a bit vague.

The AI has improve since release. It makes less silly moves than it used to but it still makes plenty. I feel the best they can do with the current design is tweak and see.

One of the most abusive designs is the AI’s lack of memory. This has many ways to make opportunities from.

Cities not always shooting confuses me but it happens often. Are they short on rocks or niter?

Lack of city siege ability is a big one, they can lightening strike well against troops but mainly when massively over powering you and lack of memory hinder this approch.

Walking away from certain victory happens all too often and I just cannot put it down to war weariness like others.

Settlers are often escorted now, more so than players do I suspect, but not always.

Troops seem to upgrade when they can and archers are used a lot better, damaged troops withdraw, it’s not all bad.

As said, R&F playthrough shows little difference so if you have played in the last 6 months and cannot play because of all of this, walk away until CPU’s get a lot faster. Even then, I am not convinced it’s all unintentional. Walk away or cope, the game still has its challenges or play MP and you will find yourself dying often.

 

[drubell]

One of the major critiques I had for the AI was that regardless of map type, AI would never prioritize naval as an option for fighting. This made naval a very easy option for players to use to conquest since the AI wouldn't put up a fight.

In that video that ChocolateShake is referring to, one thing that made me go "oh hey, that's nice" was that the AI used two frigates to break down a capital's walls. So it looks like at least some effort to change naval UI has been made.

In the most recent Scotland Alliance stream from Firaxis, I could see that the AI was using (arguably way too much) units to escort a settler, so the AI is making an effort there.

Some videos make it clear too that the AI now knows how to how to retreat. This is good; the AI never used to retreat in situations when they should, and would instead prefer to suicide themselves on units than consider moving back to save them. However, in those videos sometimes it seemed that the AI would retreat often even if the AI was by far the bigger threat. Hopefully that gets tweaked before release.

AI seems to acknowledge that alliances are good and want to make them now.

It's hard to say honestly since 99% of us haven't played the game with the AI that will be released on launch. But we do know that it's not the same AI scripts.

 

[RohirrimElf]

Personally i’m excited about all the changes coming to R&F. Just the improved pacing due to many changes to nerf science will be amazing. It should also improve issues on production a good bit. When i finish an epic game in 650/750 turns due to less science available. This is much preferable then finishing a game in 450/750 turns as i can do at the moment on immortal.

Some AI changes mentioned above will improve the AI. I’m forgiving firaxis for not improving the combat AI at this point.

Never expected an expansion this big so early Before announcement R&F.

 

[jokii]

From what I seen from those preview game-plays, combat AI is exactly the same or very similar to vanilla Civ 6 AI. You can still crush the AI with only few units.
Also, despite of the new features, diplomacy is still suffering from extreme stupidity...
I saw AI constantly offering really stupid deals. For example, flat 6 gold for luxury.
One thing is if they can't make AI better, but I don't understand how they are unable to make diplomacy deals fair and logical. I mean SMAC diplomacy from 1999 is still better than this.

I seems this is going to be another SIM CITY civilization game with new features.

 

[alancsilver]

I honestly do not expect any AI improvement and dear it may be wise than before. R&F had some nice feature added in and I appreciate that a lot. But I fear that adding those features was where devs spent their time instead of making improvements to the AI (and UI) for that matter.

I can't see how they had development time for improving the AI. So at this point, probably like @Victoria and others, I am playing for fun and to set my own challenges rather than challenging the AI directly. Certainly a change for me from the Civ4 days, but it is what it is....

 

[Victoria]

AI seems to acknowledge that alliances are good and want to make them now.

I have not had any issue making alliances once a friend is declared since the last patch. The AI was always making alliances also. More benefit now so if you do not make alliances nor take cities you will slip behind more.

Also, despite of the new features, diplomacy is still suffering from extreme stupidity...

Diplomacy works for me, extreme stupidity? Perhaps the odd thing like ceding but the rest is just down to preference.

So at this point, probably like @Victoria and others, I am playing for fun and to set my own challenges rather than challenging the AI directly.

Game last night I just played on deity until the AI won, my best game this year because I just played how I wanted to.

 

[PYITE]

I think most of the recent AI work will be aimed at dealing with the new mechanics. Hopefully some more minor unit movement/attack choice improvements. Although I expect the gap between human and AI to increase because of the complexity of the new features, especially governors.
I does seem that they have increased the AI desire to build more military units. I think this is in response to moving the religious units to their own layer. It seems like the the devs have been very cautious about having to many units on the map causing traffic jams and slow turn times.

 

[Stilgar08]

My expectations concerning AI are low. To see they are low enough would be a pleasant surprise...
It still is an awesome game, say what you want.

 

[Goliht]

Ah the Win - Win complaint.. there will never be a good ai.. in Civ.. because it there was, noone would beat it. It is that simple. There are improvements to be made, ie I'd like to see the ai actually using aircraft to attack with, not building them and flying them around as defensive pieces.. I'd also like to be able to use the anti aircraft gun to attack aircraft with.. not move it around as a defensive unit that usually just sits there staring at enemy planes.. I bet the ai often sits there thinking "this human sucks at war", he hasn't even tried to shoot my jet down.

Someone complains an ai offers peace before capturing a capital.. maybe the ai calculated that if he took it, it would cause more warmongering penalty than was acceptable. So the ai offers peace which puts it in a better political position. But the human objector.. would never think of this. They think killing everything is the point of Civ. Because us humans do it, the ai must do it. Not the case actually.. in many respects the ai does suck, in many others they are already way better than any human could ever be.

For me, the ai is fine like it is. It just needs more avenues opened to it to work better. Pathing also needs to be fixed so it works correctly and a few other bugs. The issues many seem to complain about aren't actually ai issues.. they're actually just bugs that affect everyone in the game.

 

[Starwars]

Another AI thing in one of the quill streams...

Rome declaring war on Preslav, sieging it down to zero health. Does not take it cause he has the city surrounded by ranged units and the melee units are in the back. And apparently the AI is unable to shuffle around so the melee units are upfront to take the city.



EDIT: Rome finally took the city-state after several turns of nothing happening. Will make a guess that it was probably due to Preslav finishing off one of the ranged units so Rome could get a melee unit in there.

 

[Goliht]

Another AI thing in one of the quill streams...

Rome declaring war on Preslav, sieging it down to zero health. Does not take it cause he has the city surrounded by ranged units and the melee units are in the back. And apparently the AI is unable to shuffle around so the melee units are upfront to take the city.

This is because you cannot pass units through enemy lands like you can in neutral lands. You cannot even swap units in many cases that are in combat. These are pathing bugs, not ai bugs.

 

[ThunderLizard2]

I seems this is going to be another SIM CITY civilization game with new features.

This is what I was afraid of. I still play Civ IV and like the challenge of knowing the AI can and often does win rather than just building a Civ like a Simcity game. I think I'll wait another year to see if Firaxis/2K invest in fixing the AI.

In the meantime, I'm considering Endless Legend - I heard it was very Civ like but has a much more robust AI. Any thoughts from those who've played both?

 

[pietro1990]

I hope they will upgrade their units and don't fallow certain tech paths wich results in not seeing certain units in to play.

 

[bbbt]

This is what I was afraid of. I still play Civ IV and like the challenge of knowing the AI can and often does win rather than just building a Civ like a Simcity game. I think I'll wait another year to see if Firaxis/2K invest in fixing the AI.

In the meantime, I'm considering Endless Legend - I heard it was very Civ like but has a much more robust AI. Any thoughts from those who've played both?

Endless Legend had a lot of cool features, but didn't do much for overall, though I know a lot like it. I don't think I was personally that big of a fan of the combat system, and it's mostly a domination focused game. I don't remember the AI blowing me away, but I only played the game when it was pretty new. I tend to play Age of Wonders (though it's much closer to something like homm, with far less empire management than civ or endless legend) for my fantasy 4x domination itch. I wouldn't call the AI in that awe inspiring either.

Have you played Civ 5 with any of the AI mods (or like the community patch project and the like)?

 

[ThunderLizard2]

Have you played Civ 5 with any of the AI mods

Civ5 with mods is not working on my computer - endless loading times

 

[Tech Osen]

Odd thing in my last game. One of the AIs was Poland. She had about a dozen cities but when I was looking for a target for a fresh spy I saw she had no commercial hubs at all. So she makes no use of her unique building...