Is civ 6 the most peaceful iteration ever?

[borad]

It’s way too easy to end up best friends with every civ. Civs should care more that you are besties with their arch-nemesis. Maybe not as irretrievably split as Civ IV’s inevitable world wars, but the balance isn’t correct right now.

 

[oSiyeza]

I think it is a somewhat intentional design, to make the human players be the ones starting most wars, avoiding this way any posible frustration for casual players, and also saving themselves the effort of actually codding a AI that knows how to conquer. Maybe also an ideology thing as to make a "war is bad" point. Maybe not.

The reality may just be that the AI seems to be very bad at taking cities, and seems to value grievances too much, so most wars started by the AI end in the same situation they started. Also FXS added some mechanics in the patch to punish even more aggression, like the -5 Permanent DF penalty for capital taken, that applies even in the ancient era, and would make any AI totally pointless in the WC if they ever manage to take a capital.

War is the most fleshed out system in the game, and FXS managed to make it it less rewarding with every patch. The AI definitely needs to be more aggresive, specially late game. This has been a complain since 2016, so I dont think they will do anything about this.

 

[CrabHelmet]

They can be very aggressive in the first 20-50 turns of the game, then nothing again for the entire rest of the game if you keep a reasonable military and do basic diplomacy. Definitely a lot less warlike than IV and V; I haven't played earlier Civ games.

 

[oSiyeza]

They can be very aggressive in the first 20-50 turns of the game, then nothing again for the entire rest of the game if you keep a reasonable military and do basic diplomacy. Definitely a lot less warlike than IV and V; I haven't played earlier Civ games.

I dont recall Civ 3. But in 1 and 2, the AI was actually capable of being very aggresive and good at attacking. Those games had a lot of late game big empire wars.

This may actually be the first game where the AI has, as far as we know, never achieved a domination victory. And is probably incapable of doing so.

 

[Mahi]

For people asking. Emperor difficulty

 

[jozef57]

civ 6 is the worst itiration of civ ever iplay since civ 2 but i realy deeply intensely hate civ 6 i was stupid enough to buy the game pass for both steam and xbox i played civ daily since 2. but now i am disgusted with it, worst spend money ever. i will not touch it ever again

 

[kb27787]

BNW was more peaceful (but then again, depends on which civs are in the game... you can expect a perpetual war game if Shaka, Monty, Oda and Atilla are in the game). Actually in BNW the AIs get massive bonuses at deity such that avoiding war was the optimal way to play. Back then people would have the option to bribe AIs into wars to save their skin.

The greatest mistake they made in civ VI is to essentially make everyone's personality the same, save for the agendas. In BNW the AI's behavior followed a much more complicated matrix with loyalty, boldness, deception, meanness and diplobalance parameters.

 

[AntSou]

The game not letting you declare war against friends or any of the several types of allies is the culprit. It really needs to go, especially the friend restriction.

No it doesn't.

Might as well have an "Activate Cheese" button added to the game.

Anything the human player can easily exploit is probably a bad idea.

However, the threshold required for the AI to accept friendships/alliance should probably be a bit higher.

 

[CrabHelmet]

No it doesn't.

Might as well have an "Activate Cheese" button added to the game.

Anything the human player can easily exploit is probably a bad idea.

However, the threshold required for the AI to accept friendships/alliance should probably be a bit higher.

I'm not clear why this is cheese. In Civ V, it was not uncommon for Civs displaying as 'Friendly' to nevertheless backstab you. Consequently, you had to set aside some miltiary for borders even where you had friends, this was just standard play. Importantly, the AI can do likewise - you can instruct the AI to keep X troops on the border with someone for whom they have a normal attitude, and aX troops on the border with someone for whom they are Friends, reflecting the fact a DoW is less likely but not impossible. It's only "cheese" if the AI is not told how to handle it, but the fault for that would lie with Firaxis.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Ok, it is starting to get ridiculous.. My third game since the new patch and not once did an AI declare war on me. I'm seriously just sitting there for an eternity clicking next turn without anything happens. I swear I'm not even trying to cheese peacemongering AIs. All I built is three slingers and a couple of warriors. Keep upgrading those three slingers to new units and the AI will not touch you..
Is this just a coincidence for my three latest playthroughs?

Same experience for me. I essentially never get declared on. The AI also seems insistent on being my best friend all of the time. It's the polar opposite of Civ 5, which was ridic in its own ways (everyone hating you for no reason).

 

[Horizons]

It's easier for the AI to cheat its way to a science or culture victory than to win by conquest.

 

[PhilBowles]

In my recent post patch game I was playing as Cree and everything was very peaceful and I had 5 alliances. Suddenly out of the blue in about the Renaissance or Industrial, my neighbour Maya surprise warred me with levied troops from Akkad and took a city away from the border where I had neglected to build walls in about 2 turns. Gave me a real fright but I managed to peace out and got it back through loyalty.

I wonder whether map type has an impact on AI aggressiveness as the AI tends to attack land neighbours rather than those over water

I definitely think it's possible that the recent patch has increased AI aggression, but need to play more to get a clearer impression whether that's the case. My first post-patch game was entirely peaceful in the early game, despite Saladin being a close neighbour from the start. I do get the sense that AI wars are now more strategic - AIs seem to declare war once I have a city spot they want, and they no longer just rush for the capital ignoring anything in the way.

 

[Mahi]

I think the "problem" is that I actually build my three slingers much earlier than I used too and going for x-bowmen early as well just to ensure a capable defense if the AI wanted to declare war. But sadly the early military units just works as a scarecrow against AIs declaring wars. So now there isn't even a early war from the AI anymore.

 

[fantsu]

I dont have much knowledge on civ 3, played only few games of it.
Civ 6 is pretty peaceful sure.
At least AI DoW'ing isn't as scary as in many others.

 

[Archon_Wing]

There's a lot of war early game, but nonexistent later in the game. I usually get war about 1/3 the time in ancient era

 

[Abaxial]

It would be interesting if, just as there is a slider to control disaster intensity on game start, there was another slider for AI aggressiveness.

 

[OmegaDestroyer]

In my past few games with Hungary, it has always launched suprise wars against me. In the one as Gran Colombia, I was able to repel the ancient era invasion due to building up to eliminate Germany.

 

[FinalDoomsday]

The biggest problem is the AI's inabilty to conquer each other at any point beyond early game the map feels undynamic and lifeless because everyone more or less exists unchallenged for most of the game barring player intervention of course.

Its always down to me to play the Big Bad and while I enjoy being the villian it would be nice for someone else to do it every now and then...

 

[PhilBowles]

One thing that occurs to me: Are people experiencing a lot of wars inviting people to 'visit their capital' on first meeting? I learned to stop doing that, as that basically gives the AI a scout that tells it whether it's a good opportunity to attack - and since I no longer do that to adjacent civs, they don't seem to attack.

I'm in an interestingly unusual game at the moment, as Rome. My closest rival is Cleopatra, who needless to say dislikes me. I was prepared for early war but it never came - she did start amassing an army on my border at one point, but I had a walled and garrisoned city and was next to Singapore, one of my vassals and which had a reasonable army of its own. She turned right round and attacked an adjacent Hungarian city.

The Hungarians themselves were in a strange position - America had captured Buda, but the Hungarians seemed to be surviving well enough without it and had already founded several cities - America was too far away to overcome that loyalty pressure, and so currently Hungary has an independent capital that it doesn't seem to be rushing to take back, focusing more on the war with America.

For my part I declared war on Cleo - my intent had been to catch most of her army out of position and have it wiped out by Singapore, which had several adjacent units, ideally before it took Székesfehérvár (the city adjacent to Egypt and Singapore). I'd forgotten to denounce her and my own units weren't close enough for a surprise war, so she'd already taken the city by the time I was able to attack, and also saved most of her army. It did however trigger an emergency in mine and Mattias' favour, so I continued the war until I recaptured Székesfehérvár and got the reward (I gave it back to Hungary).

That left Egypt licking its wounds but having lost nothing significant (though I did capture a settler to replace one that had been wiped out by a volcano even while escorted - I didn't realise that could happen), a capable and competitive Hungary that has everything except its capital, still independent, and the ongoing America-Hungary war, all some time not far off turn 100.

 

[Aabraxan]

I dont recall Civ 3. But in 1 and 2, the AI was actually capable of being very aggresive and good at attacking....

Civ 3 is the only other Civ game I've played, so I don't have much to compare in terms of aggression, but the AI wasn't very good at fighting wars in C3C. It tried to make up for it with unit volume (build & support bonuses), but it wasn't that hard to bait the AI into making bad moves.