Is BNW a success? The true test.

[Vidszhite]

Oh, I know what you're talking about. This isn't really the case, by my experience - the problem is not that the AI won't attack... more like the peaceful AI's are too passive, while the warmonger AIs are not worth co-operating with at all. It feels like the "schizophrenic" AI has been replaced with two depressingly predictable extremes - those who WILL declare war on you and those who WON'T.

Even the peaceful AI's should pursue their victory through military means when they have the opportunity (a culture giant with no army, for example).

This hasn't been the case for me. A normally peaceful AI, Morocco, has declared war on me twice now, as did Portugal. Both are trade civs who would be better served by peace, but as I am considered a warmongering menace with a dangerous ideology that is slowly overwhelming them, they feel as though they need to stop me. In fact, every single AI in that game has declared war on me at some point EXCEPT Mongolia, because we share an ideology.

What's happening, though, is that the AI takes more factors into account before declaring war, such as diplomatic hits, trade route losses, and your ideology, and is also less inclined to spend all their gold on purchasing units -- they keep a nest egg for emergencies and City-States now. The devs said in the Polycast interview that because the AI was over-interpreting their guidelines for spending gold, they accidentally became too aggressive in GNK. Now that they've fixed it and don't just look at their short term gain and how big their army is before declaring war, they act more realistically.

 

[ahawk]

I've finished more BNW games than in G&K, by a reasonable margin but not a huge one.

The biggest reason why is that we now have some good tools in the terminal (Information) era of the game:

* X-Com Squads for taking that one last capital of some way-behind civ in the far corners of the world, where a regular ship would need 10 turns or more just to get in position.
* The Internet/National Visitor Center to greatly accelerate the new cultural victory
* A Diplomatic Victory change where the vote begins when anyone enters the proper era, rather than waiting (and hoping) that an AI way ahead in tech will build the UN by chance (or having to build it yourself).
* Ideologies that can flip cities if an AI that focused immensely on war (and took over a good chunk of the map) didn't do anything with culture for all that time. City flipping makes it easier to set up an approach to their capital and/or simply hands you places to station aircraft rather than making you fight for them.

Thus, there's less time just clicking end turn (though still some of it, all the same) when you know the game is in hand.

 

[VainoValkea]

This hasn't been the case for me. A normally peaceful AI, Morocco, has declared war on me twice now, as did Portugal. Both are trade civs who would be better served by peace, but as I am considered a warmongering menace with a dangerous ideology that is slowly overwhelming them, they feel as though they need to stop me. In fact, every single AI in that game has declared war on me at some point EXCEPT Mongolia, because we share an ideology.

What's happening, though, is that the AI takes more factors into account before declaring war, such as diplomatic hits, trade route losses, and your ideology, and is also less inclined to spend all their gold on purchasing units -- they keep a nest egg for emergencies and City-States now. The devs said in the Polycast interview that because the AI was over-interpreting their guidelines for spending gold, they accidentally became too aggressive in GNK. Now that they've fixed it and don't just look at their short term gain and how big their army is before declaring war, they act more realistically.

Yeah, large coalitions are a different story - I was DoW'd by William and the Huns, simultaneously, in an earlier game, and Siam and Egypt in another. However, I have yet to encounter a coalition force where I didn't "deserve it" by being a warmonger myself, although being a "warmonger" can be just a matter of taking a single CS by force.

 

[Camikaze]

I always finished Civ5 games in the first place. I mean, I've always played on difficulty levels where I know I'm going to win from the outset, so it's not like that only becomes a concern when I hit Industrial. Sure, occasionally there'll be a crappy start that I just can't be bothered with, but other than that I always finished things off. BNW has made the late game much more interesting though, so instead of just clicking through it, it's actually quite engaging.

 

[Jatta Pake]

I'm still playing my first game so I can't comment yet. But I'm hopelessly behind according to the standards of Vanilla and G&K so if I can manage a comeback, this will be the greatest Civ ever made.

I haven't experienced a passive AI at all. My planet is a bloodbath of warring nations, and I faced immediate attacks by warmongers and peacemongers alike. Even Ghandi is marching a massive army through my nation to smash his bitter religious rival, the Celts. I have 22 civs in my game though which might be helping encourage the overall chaos.

 

[Uncle_Joe]

This hasn't been the case for me. A normally peaceful AI, Morocco, has declared war on me twice now, as did Portugal. Both are trade civs who would be better served by peace, but as I am considered a warmongering menace with a dangerous ideology that is slowly overwhelming them, they feel as though they need to stop me. In fact, every single AI in that game has declared war on me at some point EXCEPT Mongolia, because we share an ideology.

What's happening, though, is that the AI takes more factors into account before declaring war, such as diplomatic hits, trade route losses, and your ideology, and is also less inclined to spend all their gold on purchasing units -- they keep a nest egg for emergencies and City-States now. The devs said in the Polycast interview that because the AI was over-interpreting their guidelines for spending gold, they accidentally became too aggressive in GNK. Now that they've fixed it and don't just look at their short term gain and how big their army is before declaring war, they act more realistically.

It's not more 'realistically' if they don't take out a weak/rich neighbor who is snubbing them lol.

Obviously IMO there is something wrong in their calculations if it's allowing that situation to occur multiple games in a row. And it's crippling the AIs who are wasting immense amounts of production and upkeep on a military that they don't use to put me down.

And IMO, it's not 'short term gain' if it means they lose due to my ability to funnel everything into research/culture or whatever I plan on using to win while they squander their assets. That's just plain poor decision-making.

They can say whatever they want about this complex new way it decides but it's end result that matters and so far, the end result for me has been 5 easy victories on the same or harder level than I was being challenged on in G&K.

 

[chazzycat]

I have finished all my games so far. The 2nd half of the game is just way more fun and dynamic with the ideology, tourism, and world congress systems.

 

[eewallace]

I've finished way more BNW games than G&K games. Admittedly I've started some I didn't finish--mostly just to get a feel for the new civs and their abilities. I've played through Shoshone, Morocco, Brazil, Poland, as well as England, France and Polynesia. Checked out Indonesia and Venice but haven't finished those--bad map luck on both. (Playing king, standard everything, continents or small continents.)

Definitely having more fun that with G&k.

 

[danieladler]

Yes BNW is a great step forward with more interesting lategame, even though i fear the emphasis on gold for any victory will make it a bit monotone after a while. Trade routes are a bit too important imo and the amount of gold you can get from trading gpt with super rich AI is ridiculous. On the other hand you need to be friends with them in order to do that. But all in all i think BNW has done to CiV what BTS did to Civ4 and that must be called a success!

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

Have you found yourself finishing off more games than before, especially loading up that save in the late game rather than start a new game? How about playing on even when it looks hopeless?

I've been finishing more games for sure.I think the main reasons are late game politics and wars, tourism/culture cant be ignored and is a lot of fun.

So how about you, has BNW succeeded at its stated aims, making the end game more complelling?

I've finished way more games with BNW than G&K and Civ 5 base combined, so it's a success.

Just fix some bugs (like the very rare aggression and not abusing the situation of the player character when he has no army, no money, sits on wonders and the AI is his much stronger neighbour) and exploits in the fall patch, as well as balance some stuff (besides already promised civ buffs, maybe something like make GM, GE and GS all be gained from a separate GP pool, by which I mean getting a Merchant should no longer increase cost of Engineers nor Scientists, and getting an Engineer shouldn't increase the cost of Scientist and Merchant, etc. I just don't like this system.

 

[solistus]

I haven't had much time to play (been on vacation for the past week and a half), and I've abandoned all my games so far just because I'm testing out different strategies and civs, but not because I get bored. The later eras definitely seem a lot more engaging than in vanilla or G&K.

The real test that proves BNW is a success to me: I no longer feel tempted to go back and play Civ 4 instead. I was a huge Civ4 fan (it was my most played game for about 4 years), and even after G&K I would sometimes get frustrated with 5 and go back to 4 for a couple games, but I finally feel like BtS has a worthy successor.

I'm ridiculously excited to see what modders will do to make BNW even more fun, especially if Firaxis gives them more access to DLL level stuff. I need more time to soak in the unmodded gameplay before I know what I'm really looking for in a balance mod, but I've been continually impressed with the quality of mods produced by the Civ community and I'm sure BNW will be no exception.

TL;DR: I effing love BNW.

 

[Thuellai]

BNW has definitely been an improvement for me.

I played a lot of Vanilla, burned a good thirty hours in G&K, but I've found myself playing a truly ludicrous amount of BNW - the sort of 'one more turn' all-hours games I haven't played in years

I have yet to grab a science victory in BNW though. My problem is that when I hit the Information age, my computer rivals are putting those economic bonuses to good use to snatch up CS and I simply have to shut down their diplomatic victory - and if I'm already capable of stealing their city-state allies, why not diplo out myself?

 

[Vidszhite]

It's not more 'realistically' if they don't take out a weak/rich neighbor who is snubbing them lol.

Well, technically, I AM the rich neighbor to Morocco, he started on his own continent then hopped onto my own to fill in my deserts, so he's immense, and the most powerful person on the planet. I'm only close to matching him because I conquered two other civs and own my own continent as well. He had no reason to DoW anybody until I gave him one. All of the other AIs have been warring with each other as well, with Alexander and me ganging up on Washington in the ancient era, then Alexander wiping out Washington and turning on me, forcing me to wipe him out, Austria and Poland murdered Mongolia, then Austria turned on Poland and then tuned on Portugal, then turned on me. Portugal was my only DoF and then she backstabbed me... really, it hasn't been peaceful, I'm just saying that two people who aren't normally aggressors are sending armies at me, and even despite that, Austria and Morocco are both warring me to prevent me from influencing their culture, Portugal was well on her way to winning Diplo, and Poland is ahead in the Space Race, so despite all my power, and all my work, I'm still not done.

I'm still on the same difficulty level I was on before, and in my first game, which was on a difficulty lower than my usual, the AI really did leave me alone and let me win, but I also found in later games back on my usual that you don't necessarily win if you get left alone anymore. In fact, if you're not proactive yourself in setting up multiple avenues of victory, you'll get beaten to your chosen victory by someone who is, and the most common is a big peaceful dude winning Diplomatic Victory. In one of my last games, I was next to Kamehameha, and we left each other completely alone the whole game, he was friends with me, we had trade going back and forth, we had research agreements, my diplomat never saw him plotting against me, he didn't covet any of my lands, but since he had the ability to cross the oceans, he had colonized half the world, hosted the first WC, and even though he was a diplomatic peace-monger who NEVER declared war on anyone, he was untouchably powerful, and so well-liked that his denunciations meant you would be cast out. If I went to war with him, I would either lose or forever be the villain, and I was nowhere close to any of the victories I wanted even though I had sat there wonder spamming, trading, and teching up with no DoWs the entire time.

Egypt plotted against me, and since his land was my key to victory, it was mutual. He was not as powerful as Kamehameha, and as soon as I invaded his CS ally to prevent them from ganging up on me, he told me he had long awaited the day he got to crush me legitimately and declared war. I beat him up in the initial push, but his production was too great, and he beat me back on the counterstrike. I'd lost.

The only solution I can think of to your problem is to increase the difficulty again, so that being left alone won't cause you to win, it will cause the AI to win.

 

[Roxlimn]

I'm having a lot of wars as well. I haven't had any problem manipulating AIs to declare war on me. They generally still respond to the same triggers. What may be the issue is that the AI now responds to additional triggers that foster peace, even when they hate your guts. Trade is one of those factors. Even if they hate your guts, if you're sending them upwards of 15 bpt and 50 gpt in trade every turn with just your own routes, they're not going to declare. This is especially true if they have no other viable trade partners (all their routes are going to you).

 

[eewallace]

I must admit I really am enjoying the "deadly peacemonger" aspect to the game. So far, none of my losses have been military--they have been someone I'm not at war with beating me to cultural or diplomatic victory. Maybe on higher levels (I'm on king now) I will seen more military might in the end-game. So far, though, endgame wars have been brief skirmishes, then everyone gets back on their path to a more peaceful victory.

 

[Qwynn]

I'm definitely finishing less games now. I'm used to winning cultural victories by the end of the Renaissance as Egypt with wonder and production bonuses, and I'm not a huge fan of tourism or the new changes to culture/wonders. I've never liked the post Renaissance eras (I find them ugly and boring), and BNW hasn't really changed that for me. While I like the trade mechanics and the World Congress, it's just -- Meh.

 

[Uncle_Joe]

but I also found in later games back on my usual that you don't necessarily win if you get left alone anymore.

You do if you can plan for it. Sure, if you decide to handicap yourself by building a military that you don't need 'just in case', then ya, you don't necessarily win (since you're choosing to drop to a level playing field). But once I had played a few games and realized that the risk of being attacked by anyone but a balls-out militarist were extremely low regardless of my own military level, I started to pull ahead faster and faster.

Take all of the production/upkeep you normally would spend on military and invest it into your econ/culture/tech/whatever instead. You'll quickly find that this gives you a MASSIVE advantage. And later in the game when you have comfortable lead and nearly unlimited cash you can build up a military on the off-chance that the Industrial age and Ideologies puts you at odds with other Civs (but again, even at that, I was never attacked so it's more of a feel good to have a military at that point).

It really doesn't take long to translate all of that saved resources and convert them to a major lead, which once you have, is very hard for the AI to take away even they did manage to wake up and try and attack. The 'vulnerable' period is the early game when cities are easier to take and when you have less money/tech to gain an advantage. Once you're out so far ahead, it's game over for the AIs who could EASILY have stopped me earlier in the game when they just being 'peaceful'.

 

[Vidszhite]

Buddy, I know you keep saying its because I built an army, but I swear I've gone zero army MANY times, at least my first 15 attempts at Immortal games were no-army Wonder spam, and the only time having no army didnt result in a DoW was when my neighbor was Gandhi, and again, didn't even pay off because Alexander ran away with the game, owned half the world, owned all the city states and could out buy me even with all my gold. Every other game, "your weakness is my opportunity! It's now or never!" I've had it happen with Sweden, Spain, America, England, Polynesia, Egypt, Ottomans, Poland, and all of them faked friendship, waited for me to build wonders they coveted, then backstabbed me. Some waited until I picked the wrong ideology, but they always DoW. You have been nothing but extremely lucky.

 

[vra379971]

I guess I'll be the dissenting voice but at this point, I have more or less lost interest in playing again.

I like all of the new concepts and units and whatnot, but the AI is just completely passive in my experience.

In 5 games (4 on King, my G&K level and 1 on Emperor) I was not ONCE attacked. Not one time. Little to no army, telling everyone to bugger off for many things, voting against them in the Congress and cruising to easy Diplo or Science wins and nothing...not even a measly declaration of war to kill off my (unprotected) trade.

So that has taken the fun/challenge/interest out of the game for me to the point where I don't even feel like firing it up again. :/

I truly hope they identify and patch a bug with this (soon!) because I can't imagine that this is the intended behavior or if it is, they solidly removed all interest from at least the first 100-200 turns of the game.

In any case, IMO, BNW is a conceptual success, but so far, a failure for execution when it comes to the AI.

Go up a difficulty level sire, I assure you that you'll find the AI is rather good at fighting.