I’m so glad Firaxis addressed the AI problem in Civ 7

[RedCourtJester]

Can't beat because AI is smart, or can't beat because it got some crazy bonuses? These are completely different things, so I would be cautious.

Well we can't know for certain, however it does seem that simply giving the AI more era-specific bonuses to work with prevents the player from easily pinpointing that civ/leader's "apex" and navigating a game around that. Plus, each AI player now has, effectively, 3 different facets that may vary a bit from era to era, giving them a bit more diverse of a toolkit and more robust infrastructure than a single UB or UU.

To illustrate my latter point, Korea was largely just a "science" civ in VI, due to having the unique observatory. If you could counteract a strict science victory, you had a pretty good idea of how to beat Korea. But a Korea with, say, an expansionist building in antiquity, a cultural building in exploration, and a science building in modern is much more well-rounded and more difficult to circumvent/topple, and that's not even addressing different unit types which add even more robustness.

It's a very cool, elegant system.

 

[Disgustipated]

Are they going to release dll code?

Is that even possible with Denuvu? I don't know much about these things, is why I ask. My instinct says they won't do it no matter how long the game is out.

 

[Gedemon]

IDK, Denuvo will crypt the EXE, but does it need to crypt the DLL ?

Anyway, not expecting it this time, but I do hope the AI is even more exposed to modding.

I mean, for a game without DLL access, civ6 AI was globally a lot more exposed to modding than civ4/5 with XML only (the behavior tree), but some parts were still hardcoded (Air units AI for example, and expansions/DLC stuff IIRC)

 

[ggalindo001]

AFAIK they haven't mentioned anything about the DLL code - and they never released it for VI, right? I wouldn't pin my hopes on it.

In terms of what has been said specifically, I may have missed something but believe it is just: 1) an acknowledgment that there had been negative feedback on the AI in VI, and; 2) that they've doubled their AI team for VII.

Good that they've acknowledged the problem and increased investment, but I remain sceptical that they can fix it. Here's hoping

I'm pretty skeptical as well. I have been listening very carefully for this on the democasts and other than "doubling the size" (which sounds good but IIRC, it is simply going from 1 to 2 people) -- there hasn't been a lot of discussion.

I don't think we can or should expect killer AI, but hopefully we can get to something reasonable.

It would be nice if Firaxis had the same level of dedication here as what I see with Old World. The AI is constantly being improved and is a very stout opponent.

 

[Vitruvian Guar]

This is encouraging to hear.

At the same time I disagree with simplifying the game just for the sake of having a more competitive AI. Also things like workers and tech trees were part of civ when the AI could still pose a threat to the player. The AI started sucking with the introduction of 1UPT because it couldn't handle tactical combat - and that problem will still exist in civ 7.

In civ 6, the AI couldn't scale it's economy into the late game but that had more to do with the AI's choice of which districts to build rather than where to place the districts.

Old World's AI is quite capable with 1UPT combat, so it's not some unachievable fit of game design.

Civ 6 AI is just generally extremely bad. Especially after R&F. It struggles to deal with barbarians. It looses cities due to loyalty mechanics. It goes into death spirals and then is unable to exit them.

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

One of the designers said in an article that he can beat Civ 6 on deity but cant do it on Civ 7.

I hope this isn't one of those monkeys paw situations where it comes out they can't beat civ7 on deity because they removed deity difficulty...

But in all seriousness, that says nothing about the quality of the AI, and it could just as easily be speaking to an as yet unperfected balance of buffs given to the AI on deity to make it challenging but beatable. The AI could be rubbish, but if they start with half the tech tree complete each era, that would be quite hard to beat.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Old World's AI is quite capable with 1UPT combat, so it's not some unachievable fit of game design.

Civ 6 AI is just generally extremely bad. Especially after R&F. It struggles to deal with barbarians. It looses cities due to loyalty mechanics. It goes into death spirals and then is unable to exit them.

It's not a problem of AI, it's a problem of game design.

Let's look at Loyalty mechanics. It's core idea is to prevent forward settling, but the thing is - if it serves its purpose (players, including AI don't forward settle), the mechanic itself (city conversion) just doesn't work. So, in order to demonstrate this mechanics AI have to periodically settle weak cities and lose them.

Death spirals are also part of the game (and the ones which Civ7 tries to reduce), so some AIs falling to them is actually normal game. AIs not falling into death spirals would require a lot of cheating, which would be probably even visible for the player (invisible cheating doesn't count).

 

[Vitruvian Guar]

Let's look at Loyalty mechanics. It's core idea is to prevent forward settling, but the thing is - if it serves its purpose (players, including AI don't forward settle), the mechanic itself (city conversion) just doesn't work. So, in order to demonstrate this mechanics AI have to periodically settle weak cities and lose them.

Are you claiming that FRX intentionally made AI occasionally lose cities to highlight the loyalty mechanics?
This sounds like such a clearly terrible idea, that I find it extremely unlikely that it was the intention. My obvious null-hypothesis is that AI was just not adjusted for the loyalty mechanics good enough to never lose cities and then FRX decided that it's fine as it is.

Death spirals are also part of the game (and the ones which Civ7 tries to reduce), so some AIs falling to them is actually normal game. AIs not falling into death spirals would require a lot of cheating, which would be probably even visible for the player (invisible cheating doesn't count).

When AI on Diety keep falling in a death spiral because they can't handle barbarians... this is indeed a part of the game in Civ 6. But it really shouldn't be.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Are you claiming that FRX intentionally made AI occasionally lose cities to highlight the loyalty mechanics?
This sounds like such a clearly terrible idea, that I find it extremely unlikely that it was the intention. My obvious null-hypothesis is that AI was just not adjusted for the loyalty mechanics good enough to never lose cities and then FRX decided that it's fine as it is.

When AI on Diety keep falling in a death spiral because they can't handle barbarians... this is indeed a part of the game in Civ 6. But it really shouldn't be.

AI is not an opponent and it doesn't play the game. It's a set of game mechanics which are designed to look like an opponent for players to provide roleplaying on top of game challenge. There are some games where AI tries to simulate human opponents (it's pretty common in genres like RTS or fighting), but Civilization never had this as a goal, it always was single player focused. Moreover, in most civ games diplomacy was pretty dysfunctional in multiplayer as it contained mechanics only AI interacts with (AI opinion about player) - actually Civ7 looks like the first civ game which tries to bring diplomacy to multiplayer.

So, with all this, yes, it's absolutely normal for AI to interact with other game mechanics in a way, which is not optimal from human player point of view, but allows reacher interaction with game mechanics. This part if right actually. The real problems are:
1. If game mechanic only works in full with AI, it limits game value for multiplayer. The more such mechanics are in game, the worse.
2. If AI playing not optimal (from human player perspective) is visible to human player, this creates a perception of AI being "dumb", which makes game experience worse. Game mechanics need to allow more subtle showcase.

 

[Vitruvian Guar]

AI is not an opponent and it doesn't play the game. It's a set of game mechanics which are designed to look like an opponent for players to provide roleplaying on top of game challenge. There are some games where AI tries to simulate human opponents (it's pretty common in genres like RTS or fighting), but Civilization never had this as a goal, it always was single player focused. Moreover, in most civ games diplomacy was pretty dysfunctional in multiplayer as it contained mechanics only AI interacts with (AI opinion about player) - actually Civ7 looks like the first civ game which tries to bring diplomacy to multiplayer.

So, with all this, yes, it's absolutely normal for AI to interact with other game mechanics in a way, which is not optimal from human player point of view, but allows reacher interaction with game mechanics. This part if right actually. The real problems are:
1. If game mechanic only works in full with AI, it limits game value for multiplayer. The more such mechanics are in game, the worse.
2. If AI playing not optimal (from human player perspective) is visible to human player, this creates a perception of AI being "dumb", which makes game experience worse. Game mechanics need to allow more subtle showcase.

The point of AI is to be a fun challenge for the player. An AI that settles cities just to lose them is not fun to play against. Playing against free cities instead of a coherent civilisation with its own identity and uniques is not a richer experience.

 

[stealth_nsk]

The point of AI is to be a fun challenge for the player. An AI that settles cities just to lose them is not fun to play against. Playing against free cities instead of a coherent civilisation with its own identity and uniques is not a richer experience.

Yeah, and that's the problem with this game mechanics. No matter how AI interacts with it, its unfun for human player in one way or another.