Is AI really brain dead?

[ThunderLizard2]

I've been reading reviews that describe the AI as imbecilic: building tons of scouts on islands, not escorting settlers, planting cities all over map. etc. etc.

Is the AI really DOA? Sounds like it's even worse than Civ V at launch which takes a special effort. What have people been finding in terms of AI behavior?

 

[JtW]

Yes, it's absolutely abysmal. It's literally the only thing I dislike about the game, and it's bad enough that I would rate it 6/10 at best.

 

[Ashbery76]

This is not close to CIV5 A.I and I laugh we I read people say that.Granted Civ5 had many years development to make it so.The bad A.I is one we will hear about in the coming months after the shiny wears off.Once again reviews gave it a free pass.

 

[Verenti]

In my first game, I found Russia alone on an island with a single city, a few eras behind. I moved in with a single musket man and reclaimed something like 4 settlers and 6 builders. They were unable to expand at all because of the barbarian threat. Playing as Britain, the settlers were a welcome boon.

 

[pbjciv]

It is the worst AI I've seen in a Civ game--heck, maybe even in a strategy game as far back as I can remember. The AI constantly shuffles its (un-upgraded) units when attacking and can barely destroy a single unit, let alone take a city. The AI does sometimes manage to take opponent or City State cities during the early period where cities lack their own defenses, but then they are also likely to trade the city back for peace. After multiple games I have yet to see the AI take a city after the classical era, and have only seen 2-3 wars.

Diplomacy is also completely broken. In my last (deity) game Pedro threw about 10 AT crew + 5 Catapults (??) at my 2 crossbows and 1 encampment/city defensive line. They lost 5 units without destroying one (because of constant shuffling) and then offered their best city, 2500 gold (their treasury), 75 gold per turn (all GPT they had), all of their luxury resources, and one great work of art, for peace. When I took their capital, they offered 4 of their last 5 cities for peace even though I only had about 3 units left.

When it comes to other victory types, the AI seems just as brain dead, but you don't have to be as proactive with other victory types to win (e.g., I've had deity AI win cultural victories just from normal tourism generation).

 

[Acken]

It's pretty bad,

 

[Fluphen Azine]

I dunno I can tell you this though. I have no idea about what I am doing with districts and a lot of the new game but its close enough to Civ V and Civ IV that I get by. I rolled the AI on a few games already on Immortal and Deity with little resistance. I did take advantage of some exploits like building units and selling them for disband gold. I dunno the game doesn't feel like Civ to me with the new animation and game play. I need Acken to post up and map and do some write ups for me to get excited about playing.

 

[ThunderLizard2]

What a disaster

 

[nokmirt]

Horrifying at best! If they fix the AI it will be a damn good game. That's what I think.

 

[thawking]

Yeah, it's pretty bad when it comes to combat. I don't think the diplomacy is *awful*, but the combat AI def needs some work. So it goes. It'll get there.

 

[isau]

Sometimes its not the AI but the AI in combo with the game rules.

When you capture a Settler, you keep it. And the AI likes to send Settlers out un-escorted. That means all you have to do is run up to their border, wait for the Settler to come out, declare war and run. Its enormously abusable.

 

[Stilgar08]

It's a joke when people claim ANYTHING is worse than CiV in CiVI. You guys forget too soon how awful CiV was on release. CiVI is lightyears ahead.

 

[Selereth]

It is the worst AI I've seen in a Civ game--heck, maybe even in a strategy game as far back as I can remember. The AI constantly shuffles its (un-upgraded) units when attacking and can barely destroy a single unit, let alone take a city. The AI does sometimes manage to take opponent or City State cities during the early period where cities lack their own defenses, but then they are also likely to trade the city back for peace. After multiple games I have yet to see the AI take a city after the classical era, and have only seen 2-3 wars.

Diplomacy is also completely broken. In my last (deity) game Pedro threw about 10 AT crew + 5 Catapults (??) at my 2 crossbows and 1 encampment/city defensive line. They lost 5 units without destroying one (because of constant shuffling) and then offered their best city, 2500 gold (their treasury), 75 gold per turn (all GPT they had), all of their luxury resources, and one great work of art, for peace. When I took their capital, they offered 4 of their last 5 cities for peace even though I only had about 3 units left.

When it comes to other victory types, the AI seems just as brain dead, but you don't have to be as proactive with other victory types to win (e.g., I've had deity AI win cultural victories just from normal tourism generation).

The shuffling is the real Achilles Heel of the AI, imo. At least in Civ V the AI would actually try to attack your units, which meant that you of course would take casualties. Here, it's like they're too afraid to attack. I was playing as China and Arabia declared war on me in the Atomic Era (surprisingly). He was ahead of me in tech and had mech infantry, modern armour, and submarines, all armies too, not just the basic versions. He could have easily stomped on me but for some reason decided to instead leave his units right by my city without even trying to take it (didn't even bother pillaging my tiles). I literally had no army (it was crushed by his vastly superior units) and yet he couldn't even take one of my cities because he was too busy playing Shuffle-the-Army.

 

[GeneralTaco]

I agree, the AI is pretty bad. I mainly mind how they deal with military. They upgraded none of their units, and produced way too much of a single type of unit(from what I have seen so far). Additionally enemy units skipped their turn when next to my units/city sometimes, without even pillaging.(at least when I was at war with Scythia and Brazil separate times). I do not think the Government difference modifier in diplomacy should be that negative until late game. Also the warmonger penalty is a bit harsh at times(again, from my experience), although I believe it is better compared to Civilization V. This because it dies down like EU:IV aggressive expansion.

But this is all from my experience, does anyone else have experiences that contradict any of mine?

 

[dturtle1]

@ Stillgar .Yeah agree A.I is better than Civ on release for sure,

i havent seen an un-escorted settler yet at all., on occasion the Settle logic loses the plot though . I have been getting a few DOW with no actual units to back it up though, pretty weird. Overall i would say the A.I is glitchy rather than really dumb, lots of Joint DoW that dont amount to anything. Harald was trying to spread is religion to me.... God he was failing badly, missionaries just walking around all over the place not actually converting, i mean i didnt even have a religion. I noticeed that the Unit A.I can glitch out a bit too when they just dance around in spot for a few turns .,Barabraians need to pillage more too, A.I better than Civ 5 on release, especially in regards to tactical, it will all be sorted out soon enough. The one time i was swamped by units there was a bit of shuffle going on though in its defence they were warriors and my City had Walls and they took a lot of casualties when they did actually try

 

[Abraxis]

I have seen them do really smart things, so the potential is there. My first game I lost because 3 civs DoW me on the same turn. for a good 10 turns I didn't see anything and thought they were just being stupid. Then all three armies show up at the same time, all in coordinated lines to wipe me off the map.

More recently I've had some pretty abysmal attempts at AI invasion. It's just very inconsistent, which is to be expected.

Better than consistently awful, at least.

I suggest you guys add +4 to the default number of civs for any given map size. Of all the games I've started so far, I've seen a trend of AI seeming more competent when there is more competition.

 

[Jabulani]

You do not have to blame the AI but the ones who developed it, there are many Tube videos about them......

 

[Abraxis]

You do not have to blame the AI but the ones who developed it, there are many Tube videos about them......

... aliens

 

[isau]

I think the first mod I will install is something to disable random agendas. They make the AI feel schizo. Diplomacy right now seems to consist of everyone being permanently furious with each other and no one explaining why. Not that you can do much even if you know why they are upset.

 

[Jabulani]

Aliens

Yep, we all spent lot of hours in the last month watching the devs bragging for this and that and now that the AI is pathetic those devs become aliens.

Their names and faces are well known among the community, Ed Beach included and above all I would say. He is devs leader so now he has to face his responsibilities.