I figured out whats wrong with the AI, have a possible temp fix

[Kougar7]

I get that completely, but I've seen the AI do that. Not consistently, though.

Rarely. Which is the problem, combined units should make the AI even more dangerous than it was in V but it simply isn't enough to help the VI AI to overcome its issues.

 

[Gorbles]

Rarely. Which is the problem, combined units should make the AI even more dangerous than it was in V but it simply isn't enough to help the VI AI to overcome its issues.

For you it's rare, for me it's less rare. The issue is still the consistency. Well, one of the issues

 

[Kougar7]

I dunno... ya should try a game with the max allowed ~20 AI and watch them duke it out on Emperor and see if that changes your view.

 

[Dicemechanic]

In VI the AI will buy settlers, then the next turn buy workers in sieged cities. I've seen it happen over and over, it's a programming issue. The city can be completely defenseless or even almost dead. The AI buys civilian units when a military unit is fortified in the city because the AI refuses to MOVE that military unit in order to buy military reinforcements. Even when it is deliberately given the ability to do so... instead it buys civilian units and moves them out between attacking forces. Even when the city is capture-ready in one turn it will continue to buy civilians.

I had this in my current Emperor game with Rome. I was besieging 2 of his cities, but struggling to break through because of lack of bombards capacity (his city defences were strong enough to one-shot my catapults, and I didn't have any siege towers or battering rams built or many melee units to man them). I managed to capture 3 workers and 1 settler because he made/bought them and marched them straight out of a besieged city. I plundered thousands from trade routes, as he'd build/buy traders and send them straight out of besieged cities. (oh, not to mention that Rome built at least 1 if not 2 wonders while I had troops at his gates - yes, I couldn't pillage it, but if his main production city had been churning out legions, I would have been toast.

In the end I captured 1 city, continued to ineffectually besiege Rome, and the AI conceded the city I captured plus 2 others (giving me 3 of his 5 cities), when all I really had to offer was a lot of bluster. AI also used really strong Roman legion army terribly - with some coordinated attacks and sorties from cities/encampments, a human player would have neutered my attack in 2 turns. As it was, I patiently ground down his forces as they put themselves in exposed positions (a single crossbowman 3 squares from Rome, protected by a river, being particularly potent in this).

The game knows I'm a warwonger, everyone denounces me regularly to reinforce it, and I have no complaints in this, because I am! E.g. captured the Russian capital, captured 2 cities and 1 City State ally from France, and now 3 cities from Rome. If the AI is "aware" that it's a game and is playing to victory conditions, ceding me 3 cities just makes me stronger for a return to their capital that surely they know is coming. Both Rome and France have no real ability now to counter attack, can't keep up with my military or scientific development, they're just putting off the inevitable (and in fact, making the inevitable more inevitable). Dumb, dumb, dumb.

 

[AmtrakQuebec]

I get that completely, but I've seen the AI do that. Not consistently, though. The same goes for Barbarians - general reports is that Barbs generally know what they're doing better than the faction AI (and I actually think I'd agree in general), but I've had times where Barbs have just milled around one of my cities not knowing what to do.

Identifying why the AI falls over occasionally would go a long way to resolving the issue I think. This is purely based on my own experience, though.

The worst Barbs around cities I find are the Horses. They come on like gangbusters but don't actually do anything when they get to your city... if you have a couple archers, they are easy pickings.

 

[Gorbles]

I've noticed that too. They're very good at going for my units, but even wall-less Cities they leave alone. Well, most of the time.

 

[The Pixie]

I have never lost a city to the AI myself, but they do attack and capture each others' cities and city-state cities too.

 

[smartcanuck1988]

The AI is definitely lacking, but to remove mechanisms just to help it along is the total opposite of progress. Firaxis should continue to add new features/mechanisms in the game to make it a deeper experience, and they should also suffer through our wrath when they fail to produce an AI that can handle 50% of what's in the game. This is how it works.

 

[PendragonWRB]

I think the new district mechanics are making the AI's life even harder. I don't think it was beefed up enough to handle figuring out which districts to build and that combined with strategic resource limitations might be just shutting them down. The AI goes crazy for all the cultural great people, but neglects the basics to keep the civilization alive.

As I was rolling through Germany last night, with more resistance coming from barbarian mech infantry spawned by their unhappiness, I noticed EVERY city had a space port. What is with that? You can build a space port in every city, but almost no defenses?

 

[Kougar7]

Another thing I forgot to mention was on Deity, I gave the AI 30 turns warning by going to war to kill his prophets to block him from winning. I then spent 30+ turns building and moving forces to his coastal capital. The AI had an encampment district on the coastline that it never used once for units.

On Deity level the AI never bought defenders in the encampment district despite the ability and gold to do so. Half the time it didn't even attack with its encamp district. It was a full era ahead of me in tech. I didn't lose a single unit in a sustained seige on a Deity level AI far ahead of me in all respects, which is just unacceptable.

The AI in V was never this helpless. The AI even had a military on the continent, but it never moved them back to defend its own capital. The only thing it did was buy two sub fleets, which it didn't even attack with and just moved them around until they died.

The AI is definitely lacking, but to remove mechanisms just to help it along is the total opposite of progress. Firaxis should continue to add new features/mechanisms in the game to make it a deeper experience, and they should also suffer through our wrath when they fail to produce an AI that can handle 50% of what's in the game. This is how it works.

I completely agree. But the AI logic in V, even as ineffective as it sometimes was, is better than the AI logic in VI RE the above. For example in V the AI understood citadels and would attempt to use them. In VI they don't even use their own encampment districts, for defense or for unit purchasing when the city is under high odds of capture.

 

[Rathelm]

I hope we're not too far off from the day that a developer can rent time for an AI like Watson to get better at their game by playing 1000s of games. The idea would be to snapshot at various times, this of course would require Watson to spit out some useful code to import into the game, and that would define your difficulty level. So the real difference between Prince and Deity would be how good the AI was. Ah... One can hope, maybe we'll see it in less than 20 years.

 

[smartcanuck1988]

I completely agree. But the AI logic in V, even as ineffective as it sometimes was, is better than the AI logic in VI RE the above. For example in V the AI understood citadels and would attempt to use them. In VI they don't even use their own encampment districts, for defense or for unit purchasing when the city is under high odds of capture.

I think we are on the same page, but what was being suggested here (to use your example) is to remove the ability to build encampment districts until they write an AI that can use them. That's not progress in my opinion. I find the problem in the game is due to lack of attention, care, time and maybe also enough skill to write the AI. Not a case of VI having way too much to think about compared to V.

I think it is the better problem to have. I'm optimistic things will get better in the future.

 

[Kougar7]

That'd be pretty silly to remove encampments IMO. Borrowing a few lines of code from V where the AI prioritized holding citadel hexes with its units would be far better short-term fix.

 

[orasis]

-In civ 5 I loved getting enough GPT to be able to fund wars against the next biggest power, or using city states for a sort of "cold war.

-The AI will not attack a unit unless it has a chance to kill it that turn. this is why they rarely kill your units, even on deity. Barbarians do not have this mechanic which is why they seem to have a much better AI and seem to be more difficult, even when you have +5 combat strength.

-Units value self-preservation too much. This is why in the late game, we see 20+ helicopters/tanks looking like they are preparing for an invasion, but only seem to line up against each other.

-The AI is completely incompetent with air units, and i question whether or not air units actually have any algorithm at all.

I loved that too. I can only imagine that the developers removed it due to the quirky AI. I hope they bring it back but add consequences, something that was sorely lacking in V. Maybe spies can be used to raid archives and you have a chance to discover who the war was funded by and gain a casus belli.

I noticed that as well. They will sit around and heal before doing anything again. I said they were too risk averse but same difference they do value self-preservation too highly. We need a happy medium between that and a suicidal ai.

I have yet to see the AI use a plane in any rational way... bombers should be far more suicidal in the ai calculations. Bombers are not long-term units anyways. You build them for a offensive purpose, if not you do not build them...

 

[Gort]

-The algorithms used for bombard units are absolutely useless. They do not know that they can't fire after moving so they try to move, realize they cant fire, then pillage. Repeat until dead. In the rare occasion that they don't move, i've only seen them fire on units.

Sounds like we could solve this by just removing the "can only fire at start of turn" modifier from bombardment units.

 

[Gort]

Sounds like we could solve this by just removing the "can only fire at start of turn" modifier from bombardment units.

I've made this mod, please let me know if it helps matters.