impossible to win vs. impossible to loose

[cannon-fodder]

I'm playing immortal on continents. I have taken over my continent completely, although it was hard work. Another race has taken over the other continent completely and his is bigger than mine.

AI can't handle watter. This is known. So now I think i can't loose. He is massivley military focused with a score of about 25000 on pointy sticks and I have about 800pnts left from conquring on my continent. Despite having fewer cities, I am well ahead in tech, culture and production, presumably because the AI is building useless rubbish and millions units he doens't know how to use.

This game mechanic is flawed. I don't think I can loose, and yet if the AI played sensibly - that is either stopped building rubbish and went for culture / tech / diplomacy - I think he would beat me easily in the time left, as he has a larger continent than mine and his bonuses mean he make use of cities in terrain that are no good to me. Or if he attacked over the water he would sweep over me in minutes. Even if I went totally military I think I would only be able to hold him off for a bit.

it seems a shame that a good game comes down to this, and that the game mechanic can not handle the end game peoperly. CIV IV was always fun up to the end for me. My games always seemed more balenced in Civ IV, with the final victory coming down to a slim margin either way.

Civ 5 seems all or nothing which makes a dull end game.

 

[Andvare]

And coupled with that you only need his capital to win (which is usually easy). Yeah, send this to the mechanic, and hope the warranty isn't up.

 

[dublos]

Just one picky side note..

Loose <> Lose.

Loose is the opposite of Tight.

Lose is the opposite of Win.

 

[dexters]

If you play continents against the AI, the battle IS your continent.

I've never once had an issue with worrying about an AI invasion in any Civ game because they usually fail and you can anticipate.

The continents game where I lose are
1) poor starting condition and got whooped by the AI in my own continent
2) the other continent gets so far ahead AI wins by domination, Space Race
3) Start out alone and everyone else are together, they trade techs/contact and just get so far ahead in tech, it's not worth it.

Civ5 is actually interesting in that you can start out alone and still catch up in techs later. Just save all your gold, go for navigation, find the rest of the world and sign RAs. No need for wonder gambits.

The problem is Civ5 right now is the AI rarely uses naval power and seemingly never even tries to invade. Once they fix that, we'll be right back to where we were with Civ4.

 

[Udey1]

Watch this video please its on CIV A.I.

Part of the complaints that keep coming up have to do with the the "play-to-loose" AI protocol. Sometimes in order to lengthen the game they(The AI) do some victories slowly or do silly things. As not to whup on the player too badly.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJcuQQ1eWWI&feature=player_embedded#!

This applies to alot of "stupid AI" complaints excluding combat currently (which needs a general AI fix)

 

[Udey1]

And coupled with that you only need his capital to win (which is usually easy). Yeah, send this to the mechanic, and hope the warranty isn't up.

Are you seriously following a bunch of threads just to submit these 1-2 sentence posts about how much the game is "teh suck" right now?

Not to flame but I am seeing you all over these strategy forums and you're not discussing strategy. Maybe you need the general complaints thread instead.

 

[Druin]

I'm playing immortal on continents. I have taken over my continent completely, although it was hard work. Another race has taken over the other continent completely and his is bigger than mine.

AI can't handle watter. This is known. So now I think i can't loose. He is massivley military focused with a score of about 25000 on pointy sticks and I have about 800pnts left from conquring on my continent. Despite having fewer cities, I am well ahead in tech, culture and production, presumably because the AI is building useless rubbish and millions units he doens't know how to use.

This game mechanic is flawed. I don't think I can loose, and yet if the AI played sensibly - that is either stopped building rubbish and went for culture / tech / diplomacy - I think he would beat me easily in the time left, as he has a larger continent than mine and his bonuses mean he make use of cities in terrain that are no good to me. Or if he attacked over the water he would sweep over me in minutes. Even if I went totally military I think I would only be able to hold him off for a bit.

it seems a shame that a good game comes down to this, and that the game mechanic can not handle the end game peoperly. CIV IV was always fun up to the end for me. My games always seemed more balenced in Civ IV, with the final victory coming down to a slim margin either way.

Civ 5 seems all or nothing which makes a dull end game.

I have experienced a similar result especially on deity where the beginning of the game is close and I am vying for dominance on my continent, while on the other some civ is mopping up, then for the second half of the game the other civ has 10x my science, 10x my production and 100x my military and never wins. I then chose to win via diplo, culture, science, or domination (maybe) if he has a coastal cap.

I am not terribly worried about this though, as long as the race is tight THEORETICALLY, it will only take a little tweaking by the devs to move that runaway AI from being boring to making spaceships in record time ... thus making my deity games hard to impossible again

Edit: you also have to keep in mind, no AI will ever play as well as a human. In Civ IV, the deity AI would ALWAYS win if it played even remotely close to a human, but instead it would happily AP cheese itself into a loss or conquer 9/10ths of the world while loving your spaceship building empire because you were both Buddhists

So yes, the massive bonuses the AI gets make it impossible for that AI to lose if it acted like a player, but there is a happy medium between human skill and the inane dolt that the AI currently represents

 

[Lanstro]

Hopefully an AI patch will make it decent at naval invasions. And endgame that resulted in you desperately fending off waves and waves of embarked enemies while trying to complete a diplomatic or science victory would be more enjoyable.

 

[Andvare]

Are you seriously following a bunch of threads just to submit these 1-2 sentence posts about how much the game is "teh suck" right now?

Not to flame but I am seeing you all over these strategy forums and you're not discussing strategy. Maybe you need the general complaints thread instead.

Wha? I have four posts without any contribution in two forums. Out of, what, 20-30 posts? I'm not all that active, and most posts, though not all, actually have something to do with the subject at hand, which yours, in this case, doesn't.

Mayhaps you just have noticed my brand spanking new avatar.

 

[edcrane]

Watch this video please its on CIV A.I.

Part of the complaints that keep coming up have to do with the the "play-to-loose" AI protocol. Sometimes in order to lengthen the game they(The AI) do some victories slowly or do silly things. As not to whup on the player too badly.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJcuQQ1eWWI&feature=player_embedded#!

This applies to alot of "stupid AI" complaints excluding combat currently (which needs a general AI fix)

The point of "playing to lose" is to provide a correctly calibrated experience for the player. At deity (and to some extent immortal), this means a very, very difficult game. Civ 5 falls short in this regard, even if you put aside combat. The AIs squander their substantial production and maintenance advantages at every point--for example, building the Colossus in a city with no water resources or building up huge surpluses that are never spent on upgrades or CS bribes. This is irksome because you want to believe that the AI is playing approximately the same game as you.