[BNW] Experiences with AI and Artificial Unintelligence

[IronCrown]

I recently started playing Civ V for the first time since 2011 or so. Main reason was the existence of the DLL mod Artificial Unintelligence because weak AI is a killer reason for me to not play a game.

Unfortunately the creator of the mod seems to have gone inactive and the thread about the mod is dead, last post was in 2016 - by myself ^^

But I'd be interested if anyone else is still playing with this mod and how you would describe its impact. Note that I have not played against the unmodded AI since forever.

Yesterday I finished my first game in Civ 5, easy win on King, Standard Continents map. I was kind of going for Domination, but then that seemed like too much work, so I switched to Science. But then discovered that you need aluminum for spaceship parts and I didn't have any left. So I just bought all the city states and won by Diplomacy.

The AI players seemed to be doing somewhat okay for the low difficulty in terms of how their empires looked. But I noticed that they were unable to even conquer any city states. Repeatedly a major AI would declare war on a city state, but always fail to conquer it, even in the late game, and eventually make peace. Quite pathetic. If they can't even beat one city, how are they supposed to fight against the player? Is the unmodded AI really even worse at this?

 

[Acken]

King AI has always been rather weak. Artificial Unintelligence tries to improve things but I feel its missing a large part of the puzzle by itself. Cant really compare as I have not used AU in a long time. Challenge in a TBS has to come from both AI and balance. That's why I used to make a mod centered around both AI and balance changes in order to create a challenging game (with some of the AI changes coming directly from artificial unintelligence). I'm no longer actively modding it though but I still feel you could give it a go if you want a bigger challenge as it still has gone a long way. For example the only time I've seen AIs win domination is in my mod. This never happens in the base game. For a more complete overhaul and AI integration maybe look at Vox Populi though I don't know where it's at these days.

 

[John.B.C]

If you want play a strong AI that has become so good that it sometimes feels like playing another humanbeing (it's crazy good!). Install the the Vox populi mod or, only the community balance patch that comes with it (if you don't want the overall changes to the game).

Here are a few quotes to chew on from the latest releases:

I don't get nearly as much time to play VP these days, but I was able to start a game in this version and I have to chime in and say that it's absolutely night and day with the AI now between 1-29 and the 12-18 version I was playing before. I thought the tactical AI was good then, but now it truly feels like playing against another human in a multiplayer game. In my current game I started as the Huns with France, Inca, and Zulu as my continental neighbors. I raided France early for their worker units so I could focus my production on military units (and Stonehenge since I was able to found my capital on Marble), and they furiously fought back to recapture their workers. I ended up losing my Pathfinder in the process due to a clever flanking attack from France's own Pathfinder.

Then not much later the Zulu showed up at my doorstep with an invasion army of 4 warriors and 2 archers (with two fresh spearmen and two more archers joining them 5-6 turns later). I only had warriors to defend myself with since I was rushing Military Tactics for Tarkhan (playing with 3/4UC mod) and then Horse Archers, and I had to hold off the invasion for 4 turns before I could pop out my first Tarkhan. Unfortunately the Zulu swarmed to my only improved source of horses and I lost 2 warriors trying to defend it. Sure enough the Zulu pillaged the horses 1 turn before I could spawn my Tarkhan and I had to wait til my (slave) workers finished improving a second source of horses that I luckily had control of. Once I was able to produce that first Tarkhan the conflict turned into an offensive war as I was able to capture both of the Zulu archers and then in turn start killing/capturing the first four warriors they sent just in time for their second wave to arrive with spearmen, more archers, and a chariot archer. The Zulu DID manage to retreat one of their warriors behind my lines and hid them for a few turns before they came back and tried to pillage my improved tiles while my forces were otherwise occupied. I've never seen the AI do that before! In the end I managed to capture and convert 3 archers, 1 spearman, the chariot archer, and a few warrior units before I got a white peace. Considering that I hadn't researched Trapping or Bronze Working this was a huge boost to my military, and I'm sure the Zulu are going to be extremely happy to see their own forces at their borders once the peace treaty expires.

The AI tactical decision making these days is very strong. On deity, my only really consistent strategy for conquering is naval. Otherwise, they can stop me just like I would stop me. They're even executing naval invasions!

Am I the only one seeing AI found super fast? 140th turn on Epic (roughly 95 on normal) all religions were gone. Like, completely. I had goddess of beauty, stonerhedge, pyramids and some other ancient wonder and the holy mountain of +6 Faith and I FAILED to found. Geyserbo what have you done

AI's very aggressive, too. They attack like crazy, and they're even more efficient. They also pillage way more efficiently. Well done.

In my current game I just watched Genghis rape one of Arabia's cities along my border. Yeah. Definitely more efficient.

I will say, the AI is no longer bashful about pillaging sea tiles. Hot damn, I'm getting torn up in the water right now!

I seem to recall some users saying it was 'impossible' for the AI to ever pillage well. Pie on their faces! Pie on all of you! Sweet glorious pillager's pie! Mwaha.

I won't stop until all of your cities burn.

G

Just reporting. The early game is more dynamic. I (Ethiopia) started in a jungle, with Oda at the southwest, Maria northwest and Harun at the north. It is a little cramped our continent, so we all took Tradition except Harun that went Progress. None took Authority (maybe it should have been me).
Well, Japan dowed me very early. I can't blame Oda, since I placed one city very close to his capital. Defending in the jungle against warriors is quite easy. Once Japan withdraw, he settled too near to Portugal, which caused Maria to attack him and take that city. A bunch of turns later, Arabia attacked Portugal and took two cities for him and liberated the Japanese city. I guess I have to be friends with Maria now. All this before medieval.

Since the AI was teached to defend better last year, I hadn't seen such dynamism in a game.

Yeah, I got the feeling atleast the early game is like playing now one difficulty higher. Starting near Greece is kinda screwing now. Ive seen conquered cities before turn 80 too.

Yeah, I thought Gazebo said some time back, that the AI had become almost "as good as it gets", sort of... Well... Apparently not! I'm really amazed by how good it has become; I couldn't see it coming in my wildest fantasies.

Just noting, that one AI I've noticed has gotten a massive upgrade from the newer tactical AI is Hiawatha. Facing him near forest was scary before, but now he's a nightmare. If you are anywhere near a forest, and that unit is a little bit hurt, he will find a way to snipe that unit. I've gone into full defense mode and I'm still losing units every round. Warfare is a whole different ballgame now.

 

[elotar]

Vox populi mod

Do it still slows down AI turns to a crawl after railroads?

 

[John.B.C]

A little bit naturally, I don't experience the game as a "crawl" and in no way close to how it was before, sometimes my game even froze and CTD due to stuck units (I think), but I think they fixed that and I haven't experienced that anymore in ages.

 

[plus]

i only play with uu mod and it's great.recommend emperor or higher and youll have big massive wars.of course youll sometimes see the ai embark for no good reason but this happens to real armies in life too so no blame

 

[AntiPater]

Vox populi makes the game exciting and challenging from turn 1 , the AI is incredible as they can flank from 3 sides. You can use Really Advanced Setup mod to add 3 warrior 2 settlers 2 scout 1 worker to mimic the original vanilla deity AI starting units for better challenge
The research tree is well optimized, no longer you can slingshotcheat.
Builders are too imbalanced for civ vi, i prefer workers .

 

[Asterix Rage]

Vox populi makes the game exciting and challenging from turn 1 , the AI is incredible as they can flank from 3 sides. You can use Really Advanced Setup mod to add 3 warrior 2 settlers 2 scout 1 worker to mimic the original vanilla deity AI starting units for better challenge
The research tree is well optimized, no longer you can slingshotcheat.
Builders are too imbalanced for civ vi, i prefer workers .

Vox Populi

 

[elotar]

Still playing with Smart AI v3 + Artificial Unintelligence Lite