I love this game. I hate this military AI.

[johnbutler1982]

I just thought, in light of some of the comments, to add a few things.

People seem to hate the slow build in some cases and think the game is boring. I couldn't disagree more! I am loving civ 5. I just think it takes some serious getting used to. Its not as easy as civ 4. At the end of the day, civ 4 was relatively easy because it was infinitely adaptable - what i mean by that is that in civ 4 you could almost always switch mid-stream and change tactics with almost no penalty. Build a city on a river with five hills, farm, mine, crank out 100 swordsman from one iron mine, etc... It was easy to create a production city (settle near two food resources and hills, worker decisions were easy, etc...).

You can do this in civ5, the difference is that IF you do it, and its a mistake, you're in big trouble. I love this. In my current game as France I had an absurd amount of horse at my start - like 14 within a very small circle. Built a city on river farmed, mined, chopped out a stable and a forge, and I can crank a horseman every 7-8 turns (epic speed). That being said, I used all the forest to chop the stable and the forge. If this is a bad decision, I'm messed. In Civ4, I coulda just built something else, because chopping isn't that big a deal.

My point is that in Civ 5 decisions matter *much* more than in civ 4. You can beat the slow load times and chop out buildings to create a really nice production city for units - but you can't do that AND build the pyramids AND build a huge science city AND do a hundred other things. You have to choose. I love this. Same with social policies - I love how a civ can evolve slowly over time into something special as the need dictates. I just love the game all around. You can have a city that can crank out regiments of calverly - but guess what? its going to grow pretty slowly. Or you can build a granery and water mill instead of stable and forge and get a nice high pop - but it'll take you 22 turns to build a horse. You need to get used to it, but these decisions are really interesting. You cant just pasture a grasslanded pig tile and grow for the next 200 turns. You have to think it through and plan.

I've played each Civ since I. I still remember playing it in my parents house as a kid. I think this is a fantastic game and the best one yet. I love that you can't spam 100 military units, and that if your swordsman gets outflanked and dies its a big deal, just as it would be in real life.

All that being said, the one huge problem with this game is the military AI. Its just awful. I mean, terrible. Like, worse than the AI in Civ2 I think. Like, its without exaggeration the worst AI i have ever seen in game; certainly the worst in a game this established with this much of a development budget. The AI sucks hard. In that france game, Bismark DoW on me. I had a nice army of calvary, which i brought to bear on Hamburg, his second largest city. He had 2-3 spearmen, which he kept BEHIND an undefended Hamburg as my calvarly destroyed it in two turns. At that point, instead of mopping up my calverly with his spearmen, he offered me his entire empire and all his gold for peace (he was beating me by at least 150 points in score at this point). Totally stupid. Montezuma had a nice defense beat-back on me, so the AI isn't horrible (he outflanked a swordsmen with several units) but the AI is dreadful.

If they fix the AI this game would be absolutely amazing. As it stands i love the game but the AI is so bad its tough to have fun sometimes. I can take down a huge enemy civ with 5-6 units because the AI is so terrible.

How can this be fixed? Patch? Firaxis must know how terrible this AI is... the rest of the game is SO good! How could you release it with SUCH horrid AI? Its not just that the AI is bad, but its SUICIDAL. Its just, argh, frustrating - the AI stinks. Totally stinks.

 

[Solver]

Just a quick note on the military AI from experience. It's *much* weaker in the early game than later on. For the first 120-150 turns (Normal speed), the military AI is poor, basically defenseless, so a small amount of units can conquer a civ and then go on to the next one. The AI does improve, as I've definitely experienced, later on. You can actually end up with an AI civ on another continent taking the entire landmass, conquering 2 or 3 other civs. They'll even do decent assaults on cities, most of the time.

But yes, unfortunately in the early game unless you yourself decide not to go to war, the AI will essentially be defenseless.

 

[JtW]

John, you just about summed up my feelings. I LOVE the game. The only sad part is the AI.

However, it doesn't always suck. I think there are some missing parts and the AI is lost sometimes.

Eg., in one game on Prince, I neglected the military a little bit, and at one moment, I had Askia at my doors. He made a perfect assault, with melee in front and a backup from Chariot Archers from behind- yes, it was early game and I was so happy that the AI was able to pull this off.

My impressions: the AI sucks badly with regard to exploration (in my games, it almost doesn't explore). The second weak point is the navy. The third one are chokepoints - the AI gets slaughtered in those. If they manage to patch the AI with some better strategies for these three things, I will be more than happy.

 

[Kinseek]

In one game (continents, small, emperor, quick) Arabia had conquered the entire other continent, and had decided to try and kick my ass. He did send a somewhat decent invasion force, but they all died on my beaches and he made little attempt to outflank my defenses, try and put the landing force as a cohesive whole on the land (instead of one by one which means piecemeal slaughter) or support by a navy (he had one frigate I think).

What's weird he would not agree to peace for the rest of the game, nor did he try and attack or even harass me further. At one point in time he even had a tech lead into the modern age while I was renessaince. Once I caught up I found his continent filled with a military unit on almost every hex (which saw little usage). I nuked and shelled him from shore into submission.

 

[dannythefool]

Eg., in one game on Prince, I neglected the military a little bit, and at one moment, I had Askia at my doors. He made a perfect assault, with melee in front and a backup from Chariot Archers from behind- yes, it was early game and I was so happy that the AI was able to pull this off.

I've seen this happen in games where conditions were perfect for a perfect attack. I.e., mostly, lots of room.

It appears to break as soon as terrain is difficult (e.g. mountains, or invading a small peninsula) or you know how to defend your front line. E.g. citadels seem to kill an awful lot of enemy unit just because they are moved next to it, AI realizes they take damage, pulls them back, and then proceeds to do the same thing with another unit.

 

[DalekDavros]

What dannythefool said. More than anything, the AI needs to learn to detect when something it's doing isn't working.

I had Siam send wave after wave of Naresuan's Elephants at me despite the fact that I had Formation II pikemen that were tearing them to pieces. The AI never changed its strategy despite the fact that it obviously wasn't working.

While there are massive AI problems, they at the very least (or, very first) ought to have the AI adjust its probabilities based on outcomes (e.g., "this unit got massacred, so I'm going to be 3% less likely to build that unit during the next 100 turns" or "my unit got damaged when it moved next to the citadel on that tile, so I'm going to be 10% less likely to plan an attack through that area"). This wouldn't be enough to make the AI good, but it would at least make it less obviously stupid.

 

[NZV]

Just a quick note on the military AI from experience. It's *much* weaker in the early game than later on. For the first 120-150 turns (Normal speed), the military AI is poor, basically defenseless, so a small amount of units can conquer a civ and then go on to the next one. The AI does improve, as I've definitely experienced, later on. You can actually end up with an AI civ on another continent taking the entire landmass, conquering 2 or 3 other civs. They'll even do decent assaults on cities, most of the time.

But yes, unfortunately in the early game unless you yourself decide not to go to war, the AI will essentially be defenseless.

I disagree. In my experience, the AI armies late game consist of 70% anti-air guns, 20% anti-tank guns, and 10% mechanized infantry. Even when there isn't a single tank or plane on the map and nobody else is capable of making them. Then they get rocked by renaissance units because they decided to build such stupid things.

 

[MadRat]

Yes the anti-air/anti tank gun spam is just sad,

Rat

 

[jarekb84]

Game I'm playing now has the AI sending ranged units up to the front to get slaughtered. One instance was where Japan sent a lone cannon right up to my riflemen in an area that was clear of obstacles (no hills or rough terrain around either unit). So far it seems that the AI doesn't know how to effectively use ranged attack, instead playing as if the rules were same as in civ4.

Maybe the guys at 2k should talk to the developers of Panzer General which had a hex grid and ranged units. The AI in that game was quite good and this was in the early 90's.

 

[MadRat]

Yeah the AI is crap for strategy and ranged units - it almost never uses the latter.

For squeeks and giggles i decided to try a game on Deity and and i found myself falling behind quickly (never played that high in civ 4). I ended up next to a juggernaut of Hiawatha. The AI outnumbered my tiny army 4:1 at LEAST (2x cities higher tech). It attacks with a HORDE of riflemen against my largely medieval army of crossbow men, longswordsmen. My one saving grace was 1 citadel and 1 cannon.

I must have slaughtered 25-30 riflemen with a loss for about 5 obsolete units and my cannon (a glorious final battle) . They just walked into my 3 hex defense line "in the grand old style" - no ranged support - no embarks. In the end I got peace just as my last defender died. They took such a shellacking that the AI must have considered the losses as a defeat - PLUS for a whopping 75g I conned the weaker Ottomans into a DoW on the Iroquois and they are now rolling him up like a fruit snack. Hiawatha essentially expended his ENTIRE army trying to bull rush a fortified line. Had a human player had his tech lead and resources I would have been spread on toast.

Rat

 

[cdcuase]

I think Firaxis were a bit ambitious when they decided on the 1UPT mechanic. They settled on a system without making sure first they could actually create an AI that could handle it. I'm really hoping their AI programming team is currently working on improving it as we speak.

 

[AriochIV]

The AI does built ranged units, but it seems to have difficulty using them. Siege units tend to run around a lot and not fire much.

And the AI civilizations seem to ignore naval units entirely (except for Barbarians). They'll use transports, but don't even try to protect them. I had a trireme running around completely unopposed (except for shore fire) killing enemy infantry and artillery transports trying to do an end-around.

 

[aziantuntija]

I dont yet have too much experience about the combat AI in civ5, but if it is as bad as some people say it is, then we need to get it fixed somehow.

EDIT: Maybe we need difficulty settings invividually for combat AI to please both the warmongers and easy combat lovers.

 

[dannythefool]

I disagree. In my experience, the AI armies late game consist of 70% anti-air guns, 20% anti-tank guns, and 10% mechanized infantry. Even when there isn't a single tank or plane on the map and nobody else is capable of making them. Then they get rocked by renaissance units because they decided to build such stupid things.

Actually I've taken entire cities with *one* anti-air gun. They are fairly powerful. I guess that's why the AI loves building them, it sees that they are powerful but doesn't really understand that an army that only consists of one type of unit is easily countered.

 

[HeavyTwenty]

I dont yet have too much experience about the combat AI in civ5, but if it is as bad as some people say it is, then we need to get it fixed somehow.

EDIT: Maybe we need difficulty settings invividually for combat AI to please both the warmongers and easy combat lovers.

If a difficulty setting can fix the AI's useless shuffling outside of my cities while trying to siege, then sure. But I doubt that's a setting... its some sort of pathing bug or something.

Edit: Last couple games I've seen the AI coming at me with big siege guns, and I say to myself, "oh crap, this is going to be a good battle." Then they just march the cannon/artillery right up to my melee units and suicide.

 

[dvandyke]

Totally agree with the original post. The combat AI is a personal insult to experienced civilisation players. I’m stunned by how bad it is, a genuine contender for the worst AI in any game ever produced.
Absolutely love the rest of the game though; this feels like a real Civilization game to me, far more so than the previous incarnation. It has that gradual epic build up in common with the older games in the series.
I love the game but need Frixas to come out and say what they are doing to improve the combat AI.

 

[Yoshimune]

It's not just the in-combat AI, but the civ leaders offering peace. In a Prince game, Babylon started a war with me because our borders touched, he swept through 3 of my cities since I didn't have much built in terms of army. He did pretty well in bombarding with archers and attaching with swords/spears.

I set my cities to all produce longswords, and after I popped out 5 of them I took two cities back and was about to move into the third when he went "I give up! I'll give you all my cities except the capital!" The computer crumbles way too easily and is more than happy to give you all their cities, and the only thing that makes domination victories difficult is the massive unhappiness you have to endure before courthouses are built.

 

[HeavyTwenty]

Well to be fair, after you defeat an AI's initial army, it would take them at least 10-15 turns to start producing new units, then a couple turns to mobilize them. In 20 turns, half his empire could be ash .

 

[dannythefool]

I set my cities to all produce longswords, and after I popped out 5 of them I took two cities back and was about to move into the third when he went "I give up! I'll give you all my cities except the capital!"

In Civ IV it would have offered to become a vassal state first, that's something I'm missing in Civ V. Makes a lot more sense than this, even though I can understand that a leader who knows he's going to fall might try something like it. It happens irl, too.

 

[aziantuntija]

If a difficulty setting can fix the AI's useless shuffling outside of my cities while trying to siege, then sure. But I doubt that's a setting... its some sort of pathing bug or something.

Edit: Last couple games I've seen the AI coming at me with big siege guns, and I say to myself, "oh crap, this is going to be a good battle." Then they just march the cannon/artillery right up to my melee units and suicide.

Yes but i meant that Firaxis would first fix the combat AI and then also give the combat AI a difficulty setting of its own separated from game difficulty level. Now those who dont care about tactical combat in civ game can adjust it to 'easy' and exploit the weak combat AI, and those who love the tactical combat can adjust it to 'hard' and enjoy from great tactical battles.