Fixing AI should be Easy

[DizzKneeLand33]

The truth is you can't "fix" Civ6 AI with those kind of AI, so it's completely unrelated.

Now, could civ6 AI be "fixed" ?

Depending of the definition of "fixing" that would take more or less time, if we had access to its code. But we don't.

Could it have been better ?

Yes, absolutely. And I don't think it's a lack of competence, but a lack of interest for Firaxis. Civ6 has sold millions of copies, Civ7 will do the same, even with a similar AI.

Oh, Gedemon, all we need is for the AI to push its rook pawns all the way down the board like an amateur and we have a perfect AI!

 

[aieeegrunt]

Why build both? Commercial Hub is pretty useless if there's already a lighthouse there. All that really does is make it easier to steal gold from them.

It's not like the AI lacks in gold either.

Sorry that should have been commercial hub OR a harbour

 

[PSG]

Sometimes it makes sense to build both. Build a commercial hub early and then a harbor later to get the food, gold and production bonuses from the harbor businesses. But that would be the least of the AI's problems. The Ai always leaves work ethic and religious colonization for me to chose which I don't mind really since the game cheats in regards to early holy site building. Even if you don't think scripted bonuses are cheating or not the bonuses given to the Ai earlier are not enough to build 4 cities all with holy sites (without owning Hercules) well before the end of the ancient era. That and a wonder in a non-capital city as well.

In regards to Ai civs losing cities to rebellion the Congo in my most recent game just lost all 5 of it's cities at the start of the classic era including its capital to rebellion. It's pretty pathetic.

 

[Aristos]

Yes, absolutely. And I don't think it's a lack of competence, but a lack of interest for Firaxis. Civ6 has sold millions of copies, Civ7 will do the same, even with a similar AI.

Millions minus One.

And yes, it is lack of competence. Lack of interest is lack of competence. And it derives from lack of competition, which is about to change. Let's see how much more they are willing to bet on that lack of "interest".

 

[Kwami]

Millions minus One.

And yes, it is lack of competence. Lack of interest is lack of competence. And it derives from lack of competition, which is about to change. Let's see how much more they are willing to bet on that lack of "interest".

If you think that "Humankind" is going to somehow bring massive competition, then you aren't paying attention. That game needs a lot of work. Honestly, even after a few delays, it's still nowhere near ready. It has a lot of the same problems that Civ VI has, too: bad AI; bad UI; ahistorical, naked, painted Gauls.

I think that you're making too many assumptions when you say that Firaxis lacks competence and interest. They improved the AI in every single patch over the last few years. If it's not good enough, well, what 4X game ever had good AI without horrible turn timers or community patches? There aren't many, that's for sure. Certainly none of Amplitude's games.

 

[ShallowSeas]

It still amazes me that every few months there is a new thread on these forums demanding a Deep Mind style AI. Do these people realize that these AI's are developed by the richest and most powerful companies in the world as part of a long term research strategy? Do they think it is reasonable to expect a midsized game developer to enter the AI arms race and compete with these giants all to appease a handful of whiners on the forums?

Even if Firaxis attempted to create such an AI and succeeded, what would be the point of creating an opponent that would crush even the best human players every single time? Would that be fun, would anyone enjoy that? What financial sense would this make when the majority of Civ players would probably struggle on King difficulty?

Does anyone here have a PC capable of actually running a hyper intelligent AI or are we expecting this amazingly advanced neural network based AI not to use any more processing power than the current dumb AI?

I admit that I can understand some of the frustration when it comes to subpar AI. A dumb AI puts the onus on the player to play sub optimally in order to “find his own fun” and if he can't do that then he may have to give up on a game he otherwise finds enjoyable. This is the reason I could never get into the Total War series; the fantasy of becoming history's greatest general always seemed so paper thin when the AI would hand me victories by doing things like suiciding it's general into my spearmen in the first moments of the battle.

Honestly, I believe that, in general, the solution might be for developers to stop designing games where primitive AI has to compete against human players at tasks that humans naturally excel at. I think if Firaxis is going to create a challenging and engaging AI for Civ VII they may have to make some radical design choices, perhaps even removing “one unit per tile.”

 

[Fluphen Azine]

Civ6 has sold millions of copies, Civ7 will do the same, even with a similar AI.

SPAM sells 7 Million Cans a year that people consume.
That doesn't mean it is good for you.

 

[aieeegrunt]

Millions minus One.

And yes, it is lack of competence. Lack of interest is lack of competence. And it derives from lack of competition, which is about to change. Let's see how much more they are willing to bet on that lack of "interest".

If I went back in time to Fallout 76 Launch and said that laziness and monetization schemes would literally bakrupt Bethesda who would have believed me

And now they are Microsoft’s b-word

If you think that "Humankind" is going to somehow bring massive competition, then you aren't paying attention. That game needs a lot of work. Honestly, even after a few delays, it's still nowhere near ready. It has a lot of the same problems that Civ VI has, too: bad AI; bad UI; ahistorical, naked, painted Gauls.

I think that you're making too many assumptions when you say that Firaxis lacks competence and interest. They improved the AI in every single patch over the last few years. If it's not good enough, well, what 4X game ever had good AI without horrible turn timers or community patches? There aren't many, that's for sure. Certainly none of Amplitude's games.

Standing in waist deep poop is ok because other people are standing in knee deep poop

YOU ARE STILL STANDING IN POOP

Civ6 AI is so terrible a few people messing around in notepad changing a few parametes and running a handfull of test games dramatically improved it

That is the level of poop we have here

 

[PSG]

It still amazes me that every few months there is a new thread on these forums demanding a Deep Mind style AI. Do these people realize that these AI's are developed by the richest and most powerful companies in the world as part of a long term research strategy? Do they think it is reasonable to expect a midsized game developer to enter the AI arms race and compete with these giants all to appease a handful of whiners on the forums?

Even if Firaxis attempted to create such an AI and succeeded, what would be the point of creating an opponent that would crush even the best human players every single time? Would that be fun, would anyone enjoy that? What financial sense would this make when the majority of Civ players would probably struggle on King difficulty?

Does anyone here have a PC capable of actually running a hyper intelligent AI or are we expecting this amazingly advanced neural network based AI not to use any more processing power than the current dumb AI?

I admit that I can understand some of the frustration when it comes to subpar AI. A dumb AI puts the onus on the player to play sub optimally in order to “find his own fun” and if he can't do that then he may have to give up on a game he otherwise finds enjoyable. This is the reason I could never get into the Total War series; the fantasy of becoming history's greatest general always seemed so paper thin when the AI would hand me victories by doing things like suiciding it's general into my spearmen in the first moments of the battle.

Honestly, I believe that, in general, the solution might be for developers to stop designing games where primitive AI has to compete against human players at tasks that humans naturally excel at. I think if Firaxis is going to create a challenging and engaging AI for Civ VII they may have to make some radical design choices, perhaps even removing “one unit per tile.”

I don't think many of us expect a deep mind style Ai. It's just at least in my case I expect an Ai that would be better than what could be written in a couple of weeks (if they even spent that long on it). The Ai they use is not that much better than what they had in Civ 1

 

[Kwami]

Standing in waist deep poop is ok because other people are standing in knee deep poop

YOU ARE STILL STANDING IN POOP

Civ6 AI is so terrible a few people messing around in notepad changing a few parametes and running a handfull of test games dramatically improved it

That is the level of poop we have here

I don't care about your whining. I was responding specifically to a post that insinuated that Humankind was somehow going to save the genre. I simply pointed out that for all the complaints about Civ VI, Humankind is currently worse in the ways that matter most (AI, UI, depth).

Also, you're wrong. The AI sucks, but the AI always sucks. It's good enough for the vast majority of players.

 

[leif erikson]

Moderator Action: Please let us keep our discussions civil.

 

[aieeegrunt]

I don't care about your whining. I was responding specifically to a post that insinuated that Humankind was somehow going to save the genre. I simply pointed out that for all the complaints about Civ VI, Humankind is currently worse in the ways that matter most (AI, UI, depth).

Also, you're wrong. The AI sucks, but the AI always sucks. It's good enough for the vast majority of players.

The AI in Civ6 is by far the worst in both the series and the genre. We are talking about an AI that doesnt improve luxuries in a mode that literally revolves around it, and regularly has to disband it’s army because it runs out of money and/or resources

That isn’t whining, those are facts. This is unacceptable

 

[Kwami]

The AI in Civ6 is by far the worst in both the series and the genre. We are talking about an AI that doesnt improve luxuries in a mode that literally revolves around it, and regularly has to disband it’s army because it runs out of money and/or resources

That isn’t whining, those are facts. This is unacceptable

It's really not, though. The AI in IV was just as bad before the community mods became official. The AI in V is still just as bad if you don't play with community mods. The AI in every Endless game is absolutely worthless. The AI in Humankind is really bad, too. If anything, the AI in Civ VI is pretty typical of the genre, slightly above average in some ways, worse in others. Especially when you consider the complexity of the game. The last few patches introduced some bugs with AI in game mods, and I do hope that Firaxis patches them, but let's not pretend that's representative of the overall AI. It's not.

And again, the AI works just fine as a challenge to the vast majority of players without making turn times too long. That's what it's supposed to do.

 

[aieeegrunt]

It's really not, though. The AI in IV was just as bad before the community mods became official. The AI in V is still just as bad if you don't play with community mods. The AI in every Endless game is absolutely worthless. The AI in Humankind is really bad, too. If anything, the AI in Civ VI is pretty typical of the genre, slightly above average in some ways, worse in others. Especially when you consider the complexity of the game. The last few patches introduced some bugs with AI in game mods, and I do hope that Firaxis patches them, but let's not pretend that's representative of the overall AI. It's not.

And again, the AI works just fine as a challenge to the vast majority of players without making turn times too long. That's what it's supposed to do.

“We remember Budapest very differently”

 

[Socrates99]

I dont really care how "good" the AI is really. I've never seen a game where the AI was even marginally challenging without a massive built in advantage. As a human player my challenge has always been beating apparently impossible odds. In civ VI most of the bonuses are front loaded but the AI can't seem to capitalize on that. I've seen a few posts that lead me to believe it's intentional and it's not meant to win under 310 to 320 turns on any difficulty. Like it actively avoids winning before 310.

The thing is it should be tuned in to win faster victories the higher the difficulty is set. Give it bonuses galore to make sure the deity version can pull off at least a sub 275 turn victory on deity. I dont care if it gets a % bonus to science or whatever in later eras. When it comes to playtesting this is my biggest gripe. Each difficulty level should reduce the time a player has to pull off a VC.

The difficulty should be present throughout the game, not just the beginning. If gpt or resources are preventing it from keeping a standing army capable of challenging the smarter player reduce its maintenance costs and give it free resource income on discovery. If poor culture or science yields are slowing progression, fine, give it a % bonus in whatever era.

Tune it to win. That's all I'm saying

 

[aieeegrunt]

I dont really care how "good" the AI is really. I've never seen a game where the AI was even marginally challenging without a massive built in advantage. As a human player my challenge has always been beating apparently impossible odds. In civ VI most of the bonuses are front loaded but the AI can't seem to capitalize on that. I've seen a few posts that lead me to believe it's intentional and it's not meant to win under 310 to 320 turns on any difficulty. Like it actively avoids winning before 310.

The thing is it should be tuned in to win faster victories the higher the difficulty is set. Give it bonuses galore to make sure the deity version can pull off at least a sub 275 turn victory on deity. I dont care if it gets a % bonus to science or whatever in later eras. When it comes to playtesting this is my biggest gripe. Each difficulty level should reduce the time a player has to pull off a VC.

The difficulty should be present throughout the game, not just the beginning. If gpt or resources are preventing it from keeping a standing army capable of challenging the smarter player reduce its maintenance costs and give it free resource income on discovery. If poor culture or science yields are slowing progression, fine, give it a % bonus in whatever era.

Tune it to win. That's all I'm saying

I am NOT a power gamer by any definition and I find this AI trivial to beat. This is a problem

 

[Elhoim]

Because they really CANNOT. The last very good Firaxis coder was Soren Johnson. He was also the one who had enough self esteem and reassurance about his own skills to come up with the idea of releasing the dll source code.

The Soren spirit (and skillset) is all but gone from Firaxis. And IMHO, for ever.

Yes, and you can see that spirit in Old World. Really well designed, great balance between gameplay and historicity, and very good AI. Let's hope it does great.

 

[Kwami]

Yes, and you can see that spirit in Old World. Really well designed, great balance between gameplay and historicity, and very good AI. Let's hope it does great.

It'd probably do better if he hadn't sold out to Epic and made it Epic exclusive for a year. Oh, well. I wish him the best, regardless.

Soren isn't Firaxis. There are many talented people are Firaxis. Let's stop hating on them, eh?

 

[Elhoim]

It'd probably do better if he hadn't sold out to Epic and made it Epic exclusive for a year. Oh, well. I wish him the best, regardless.

It will be out in Steam soon enough, that's a given. I think it was a good call after all to focus on a single store for Early Access. TBH, a year ago it was VERY rough.

Soren isn't Firaxis. There are many talented people are Firaxis. Let's stop hating on them, eh?

Never implied that. The thing about Soren was that his talent is on programming, so having a lead designer that's a programmer and is interested in AI results in a game with a good focus on AI, which is what seems to be lacking in Firaxis at this point (a good AI programmer as a lead designer).

 

[Aristos]

Soren isn't Firaxis. There are many talented people are Firaxis. Let's stop hating on them, eh?

It is very clear by now that Soren is not Firaxis (anymore). Post-Soren products tell a lot. By the same measure, that is, the products, sorry but not sorry to at least challenge the idea of real talent being present post-Soren...

Also, why is it that when arguments lack, the word "hater" always comes to the table?