[GS] How's the AI?

[Deaga]

I'll keep this as short as I can.

My biggest issue with Civ6 was the AI being grossly incompetent in many facets of the game. I mostly played Civ5 on Emperor, which I'd easily win, or Immortal, when I'd easily lose, but on Civ6 even Deity felt way too easy. Sure, the early game was chaotic, but in my experience, if I survived the first 50 or so turns, I had already essentially won the game. This caused me to drop the game really quickly and skip Rise & Fall entirely, as people on this board commented there were no AI improvements.

So how does Gathering Storm fare on this? A lot of the new systems seem a lot of fun from what I've read, but I haven't seen anybody mention anything about the AI. Are they better now? Do they try to win, can they build airplanes? Or is it just the same old Civ6 AI?

 

[Iberian]

Probably going to be an unpopular opinion but I think it is worse. I think the game is a lot more fun with the new features and for me I don't regret at all buying GS but with all the new features comes more ways for the human to separate itself from the AI.

We all study the mechanics and place amazing district clusters that pull 10+ bonuses with cards. We use mountains way better than the AI could fathom. The defensive bonuses walls have now makes it easier to exploit the AI trying to invade your cities. We mass units way more effectively and strike with precise timing. There AI will stream a ton of units at you but never coordinated enough to really threaten. If you just build up an early army and keep an eye on your neighbor you will win. It is the same in that the first 100 turns have decided the game.

It is a lot of fun if you like building an empire, if you want to play a war game vs AI I don't think you will enjoy it.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

It is a lot of fun if you like building an empire, if you want to play a war game vs AI I don't think you will enjoy it.

But that's been the case throughout the series though, hasn't it? People seem to romanticize the past games

I think it's a little better than pre-expansion. Not a mind altering difference and that's just the impression from a few games: I'm sure it still has big blind spots and issues but what doesn't.

 

[Hans Tork]

I'll keep this as short as I can.

My biggest issue with Civ6 was the AI being grossly incompetent in many facets of the game. I mostly played Civ5 on Emperor, which I'd easily win, or Immortal, when I'd easily lose, but on Civ6 even Deity felt way too easy. Sure, the early game was chaotic, but in my experience, if I survived the first 50 or so turns, I had already essentially won the game. This caused me to drop the game really quickly and skip Rise & Fall entirely, as people on this board commented there were no AI improvements.

So how does Gathering Storm fare on this? A lot of the new systems seem a lot of fun from what I've read, but I haven't seen anybody mention anything about the AI. Are they better now? Do they try to win, can they build airplanes? Or is it just the same old Civ6 AI?

It is still not as spammy as Civ 5 deity AI. I was a Civ 5 deity player too and I still remember the carpet of dooms of people like Shaka,Alex,Genghis,Attila and the weridly programmed Hiawatha. Civ 6 deity AI builds sub par units and hardly turns their units to corps or armies. Even then there is just that lack of army of doom in Civ 6 as there was in Civ 5. I managed to beat highly teched Korea ATs with just a motley crew of Currasiers and cannons.

P.S. Also the militray score is misleading and I would like to go as to say buggy. Only city strength seems a good indicator of which player is easy to attack.

 

[Iberian]

P.S. Also the militray score is misleading and I would like to go as to say buggy. Only city strength seems a good indicator of which player is easy to attack.

This is exactly how I determine if I am ready to attack or if I need more units/tech. If the city strength is a decent bit higher than my units I wait, if not its over.

 

[PhilBowles]

I'll keep this as short as I can.

My biggest issue with Civ6 was the AI being grossly incompetent in many facets of the game. I mostly played Civ5 on Emperor, which I'd easily win, or Immortal, when I'd easily lose, but on Civ6 even Deity felt way too easy. Sure, the early game was chaotic, but in my experience, if I survived the first 50 or so turns, I had already essentially won the game. This caused me to drop the game really quickly and skip Rise & Fall entirely, as people on this board commented there were no AI improvements.

So how does Gathering Storm fare on this? A lot of the new systems seem a lot of fun from what I've read, but I haven't seen anybody mention anything about the AI. Are they better now? Do they try to win, can they build airplanes? Or is it just the same old Civ6 AI?

If your concern is that the AI is bad at winning the game, bad news: it isn't any better.

If your concern is more about immersion, though, the AI does make decisions now which look a lot more sensible. It's still not great with units (air units especially) and some late game issues are immersion-breaking - it creates and stomps around with but doesn't attack with Giant Death Robots, it uses air power but chooses horrible targets, it will nuke the same city multiple times and never invade, and it will sit dumbly around a city it's supposed to be capturing for an emergency objective. When the AI chooses its own wars, though (as opposed to being attacked or voting for an emergency) it is better at targeting relevant civs, only attacking specific nearby cities, and being willing to make peace once it's achieved or failed to achieve its objective. It forward settles little if at all and won't suffer loyalty problems for most of the game (Indie bands aside). Its diplomatic behaviour is broadly reasonable.

The most irritating thing I've found is that it's worse than ever at trade deals and endlessly proposes terrible ones - they really should limit how frequently an AI civ will make a request. It obsessively wants to trade your Great Works for small amounts of gold or for luxuries, or trade one Relic for an identical Relic. The value it places on strategic resources is fairly random as far as i can tell.

 

[lordhaw]

I have seen the AI build planes - fighters and bombers - and use said bombers in wars against other AI's in GS. As to whether the AI is better or not, a bit maybe. I really can't quantify it but it feels a bit better. Maybe it's just the new mechanics at play though.

 

[Icicle]

I actually wish the Civ 6 AI did just spam units at you, it would be much more effective than it's current tactic of building four units and trying to march them towards your worst defended city and all dying along the way. If they would just always build units and always send them for the nearest city that would actually be a huge upgrade in the AI threat.

But yeah, the addition of new features is just the addition of new things the AI doesn't get.

Just finished a rather fun game as the Ottomans, in which the Arab AI built two cities within 2 tiles of Mt. Vesuvius (I had disaster all the way up) and built two holy site districts right next to the volcano. If i had been minmaxing I would have razed them but resettling was more trouble than it was worth so I just let them suffer, they probably lost about 40 pop over the course of the game and those holy sites could never have functioned. The yields from the other four tiles were pretty sweet though.

The addition of resource requirement for late game units pretty much also means you'll almost never see a functional late game AI army. Everything costing oil and the AI almost never having more than one working well is just doom for them.

 

[Deaga]

Probably going to be an unpopular opinion but I think it is worse.

Yikes.

But that's been the case throughout the series though, hasn't it? People seem to romanticize the past games

I don't think Civ5 AI had the best gameplan ever, but at least they kept me on my toes on the difficulty I had an easy time winning (Emperor) or just flat out beat me on higher difficulties. It also had the problem of it being very clear you won (or lost) way before the game was over, which I guess is an issue with the whole genre. My problem with Civ6 AI was that the "you already won, go click Next turn one million times for the special screen yay" came way too soon as the AI felt incompetent at just about every facet of the game. Early on they're a huge threat simply because they spawn with a huge army and unhealthy amounts of bloodlust... But if you survive that, then the game is pretty much won already, still in the Ancient Era. That's fairly disappointing.

It is still not as spammy as Civ 5 deity AI. I was a Civ 5 deity player too and I still remember the carpet of dooms of people like Shaka,Alex,Genghis,Attila and the weridly programmed Hiawatha.

Being spammy was one of the bigger problems with that AI indeed. And what to you mean, "too"? I just said I always lost on Immortal! And many losses came precisely due to how the AI could get away with such spam. So many AIs could just build one trillion cities without ever getting unhappy, growing them on a bunch of snow tiles and taking 1UPT to the very literal sense, having nearly as many units as there were tiles available. It's nice that Civ6 fixed that, but it's terrible that was fixed by... Well, having the AI just plain not build enough units at all.

But yeah, the addition of new features is just the addition of new things the AI doesn't get.

I suspected that would be the case, but I remember seeing a bunch of folks around here very optimistic after GS's reveal. "Oh, they just didn't improve the AI on R&F because they'll add more stuff on the next expansion that they'll have to tweak the AI for AGAIN, they'll just get a good AI once everythings out, surely! " So I thought I might ask how the AI was doing now that the expansion's out. A real shame that it's still in shambles, it looks like.

 

[ExemplarVoss]

Well, its quite capable at filling lakes with galleys.

It will station melee troops in cities to raise the city defense strength.

Sometimes ranged units will shoot rather than leaving the area. Though it prioritizes melee units in cities so heavily it will often move ranged unit out of cities (in front of your melee troops) to accommodate that priority.

Every so often it will focus multiple attacks on a unit to kill it off.

That seems to be the limit of its tactical acumen.

 

[Gen.Washington]

The AI is not perfect, but so far its not nearly as bad as it was.

 

[Victoria]

It will station melee troops in cities to raise the city defense strength.

What is wrong with it doing this?

 

[bonafide11]

What is wrong with it doing this?

I don't think he was implying there was anything wrong with it. He was saying that's about as smart as they get though.

 

[_ViKinG_]

Well in my game the map just look the same all the turns. The only cities the AI can take is city states. No one is being concured. Yes there is war here and there but nothing happens it seems. I cant understand it because the wars is quite similar to Civ 5 but they are useless in Civ 6. Havent played 6 so mutch because of this but will play litle more with GS and hope it will get better with patches and mods. It really takes the fun away when they are so bad. And i only play on diety for the challenge but

 

[exince]

Its as bad as its "unplayable" for me.

I've been playing civilization since CIV 1 (yes, i am that old). But civ VI has been by far the biggest disappointment so far and GS definitely is the worst thing ever. It seems that the only addition is "annoy you" with floods, storms and volcanos making you rebuild tile improvements.

Yes, its as bad as i can't stand to play a single player game against the AI. Warfare feels like cheating, because you know, it will give you huge boosts at low costs. The only thing stopping you conquering is not troops but loyalty. Whenever i get a declaration of war from a civ, still using their special units even if they've been replaced 2 eras ago, i just have to close the game.

i still manage to have some fun, on a rainy sunday afternoon with 2 real life friends, playing against each other. but thats about it.

I have owned all civilization releases, all expansions.. civ is MY game... but i will have to seriously reconsider the next expansion / version. In times where machine learning and AI is more actual than ever, it's totally unacceptable that civ VI is just plain out bad.

You survive the first 50 turns and you have won. end of the story. unless you decide to cripple yourself...

 

[Noble Zarkon]

It is a lot of fun if you like building an empire, if you want to play a war game vs AI I don't think you will enjoy it

Which makes sense given Civ is an empire building game not a war game

 

[SupremacyKing2]

The AI can be a bit passive and it makes mistakes but it is quite capable of capturing your cities. I had America declare a surprise war on me and capture one of my cities which I struggled for a bit to recapture. Also, the AI can win a religious victory pretty easily, especially on smaller maps. You got to be very careful about that. I've lost plenty of games because I was minding my own business, aiming for a science or culture victory and missed an AI that wins a religious victory from under me.

 

[kingofsealand]

I definitely noticed what seemed like some combat improvemente to me in my 2nd GS game as Mali. The first, on an archapelago map, not so much.

In my mali game, i started near gorgo who swiftly ate all the city states but who neglected to declare on me until i had gobs of cash.

Finally around 250 (epic) she attacked the last CS nearby i was suze of so i declared protectorate war. At first she was throwing older units at me like chariots but after a couple cities that changed

Altho i had just got to muskets and my unique cav, she gave me a hard time with knights and a ton of crossbows. Previously the AI would just have their ranged units wander around and be lucky if they managed to shoot once before dying. She kept some in cities to fire at me and sent others up in the field to concentrate fire as well. She combined this with bombards from encampents and cities very effectively.

She did well enough that she succedded in taking out a couple corps of muskets and cav, which surprised me. At one point during an assault on the capital i was forced to retreat and heal or else wouldve lost my whole army. First time thats ever happened to me in 6.

Was it perfect? no, but it definitely seems a far sight improved from the crap the AI would pull previously like just strolling ranged units out in front of cav with no intention of firing.

 

[PhilBowles]

I have seen the AI build planes - fighters and bombers - and use said bombers in wars against other AI's in GS. .

So have I.. It uses them to pillage improvements, not to attack cities or even often to attack units.

If they would just always build units and always send them for the nearest city that would actually be a huge upgrade in the AI threat.

That is mostly what it now does - it still builds too few units much of the time, but its target selection is much better. I had one AI that was fixated on attacking my capital even after I built another city between us, but I wonder whether that's because it selected its objective early in the game - before the second city existed - and didn't adjust its preferred target in future wars.

What is wrong with it doing this?

It has the same bug/issue it's always had with melee garrisons. They won't attack adjacent units while garrisoned, and the AI seems unable to register that it can move out and attack with them if a vulnerable unit is nearby. Ranged units will at least shoot while garrisoned (though it took many patches to get even that far).

 

[SammyKhalifa]

WIth religion, I've had the opponents' units actually RUN AWAY from my big Debater Squad instead of coming to attack me and giving free spread.