Is civ 6 the most peaceful iteration ever?

[oSiyeza]

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.

Just to be clear, I think Civ 6, has the most complex and advanced AI of all Civ games.

In Civ, before the one unit per tile limit, siege mechanics, and stuff all the like. The AI was really not smart, it did not need to be smart to challenge a human player, cause they could actually dominate the world and sometimes they did, within the simplistic game rules of the time.

Current game rules make taking cities extremely difficult, and the AI lacks the tactics to do so effectively, and in addition it is programmed to not even try very often. As a result it feels very pasive.

In addition the AI is trapped in a very shallow diplomacy system. As this is the most important way humans interact with it. The problems with the diplomacy are perceived as problems of the AI. The diplomacy does not allow for active complex behaviours that propel the game, so this contributes to that passive feeling.

Finally there is also the hypercomplex city building optimization mechanics that is not very compatible with an general style that tryes to play balancing all strategies, which is what the AI is programmed to do.

So in summary I think all the problems in the game are interconnected make each other worse. All contributing to make the AI enemy civs lack pressence.

This would be my diagnosis for the perceived lack of competition, agency and agression in the AI, and that feeling of them just waiting for the player to act against it.

 

[satchel]

I get a mixture of peaceful games and games with a lot of war in them. I recently tried to move up from King to Emperor and in my first Emperor game Alexander came after me around turn 30 or 40. I held him off for a bit but the archers just. kept. coming. and after a bit some of Alexander's UUs began arriving too. Eventually I had to rage quit; I was about to lose a city and had lost 30-odd turns doing nothing to develop my empire.

In my last King game, I was Cleopatra, and I had Jayavaraman on one front and Lautaro on another front both declaring war on me around the same time and really for no reason I could discern. I spent the entire Classical era and part of the Medieval era at war with one or the other or both of them; took a couple of Jayavaraman's cities (including his capital) that proved useful later in the game; did not take any of Lautaro's cities (his walls were too strong) but picked off a ton of his units. In that game, also, I had a really hard time getting Jayavaraman to peace out, especially when there was an emergency on against me -- he really did not want to make peace while the emergency was still active. I also brought Teddy into the war against Lautaro and they spent pretty much the entire rest of the game at war with one another, a constant stream of Teddy's units marching across my territory into Lautaro's. I thought it was hilarious -- like, you guys go on shooting at each other; I'll be over here building my spaceship.

In my next Emperor game after the Alexander fiasco, it's been peaceful and easy; I am Saladin, and I have had six friendships (five alliances) the whole game through, even though my religious units have been running around converting everyone's cities. The only one who doesn't like me is Kupe, who is so far away that I've yet to even see one of his cities, but he declares on me now and again and then peaces out 10 turns later. I'm more or less coasting to a science victory, though I could probably swing a religious victory sooner if I have the patience to do it.

 

[zxcvbob]

If Gandhi is in the game, there will be wars; he starts them all the time. (he just doesn't start one by himself) He is constantly pestering me to join him in a war with someone I have good relations with, or he and one of my friends declare a formal (joint) war against me with no provocation.

 

[Mahi]

Just had my fourth playthrough without an AI declare war on me. Maybe I just unconsciously got to a point where I know what to do to avoid wars. Not letting my neighbour civs know where I am is the most important one of course, but I don't really count the early surprise wars as anything really. They are so scripted into the AI's behavior that they most of the time hurt the AI going into war because you know it's coming and the result is always a crippled AI ready to pick for an early expansion.
I'm really talking about war through out the whole game. It's almost impossible to not having 6 out of 8 civs being friendly towards you unless you run for war yourself.

I just wanted to know if the diplomacy has been tweaked in the latest patch. It wasn't this bad before the new patch, I think.

Will the AI declare war more often if I turn up the difficulty?
It would be nice if it was possible to set the AI difficulty the same way a chess AI can be set to being harder with a more "intelligent" AI.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Will the AI declare war more often if I turn up the difficulty?

not likely, unless there is a difficulty above Deity that I have somehow missed

 

[zxcvbob]

I'm serious about Gandhi. When you setup the game, add India and see if it makes a diff.

 

[Scrabbler]

My games since Gathering Storm have mostly been peaceful, in the late game at least. By sending delegations, gifts and trade requests I have managed to form alliances with all the AI players by the mid game in nearly every game I have played recently. The exception was the game where I rolled the Mongols as random leader and decided to roleplay them. I guess this reflects my play style, but currently there is not much tension if you are allied with everyone because you know that the diplomatic situation is unlikely to change much and there is no need to build any military at all. Conversely, once you start getting negative diplomatic relations from grievances, it is difficult to improve them.

I think the game would benefit from being much more dynamic in the mid to late game, for example by introducing incentives to form WW1-style alliance blocks, rather than a series of one-to-one alliances, and maybe have random events affecting leaders' opinions of you. In the real world leaders and governments can suddenly change and countries need to be prepared for many different eventualities. The Civ series is unlikely to go down the road of having leaders changing during the game, but it could easily introduce situations where you are asked to side with one leader or another and where it is impossible to please everyone.

 

[Killer Rabbit]

I think the game would benefit from being much more dynamic in the mid to late game, for example by introducing incentives to form WW1-style alliance blocks, rather than a series of one-to-one alliances, and maybe have random events affecting leaders' opinions of you. In the real world leaders and governments can suddenly change and countries need to be prepared for many different eventualities. The Civ series is unlikely to go down the road of having leaders changing during the game, but it could easily introduce situations where you are asked to side with one leader or another and where it is impossible to please everyone.

@acluewithout has been pushing for a World War mechanic for a while now (along with inclusion of late-game ideologies) and I think it’s exactly what the late game needs. It would be very cool if it tied into the World Congress or the Emergency system as well.

How neat would it be to have a legitimate world war between two (or maybe three) power blocs going at it? It would be particularly interesting or fun if you were trying to stay peaceful too, i.e. if you were going for a science or culture victory, as it would spice up the endgame when it’s often a “next turn” clickfest.

I really hope this is one of the game modes in the NF pack. FXS definitely does listen to suggestions so let’s hope they take this one.

 

[Mahi]

My games since Gathering Storm have mostly been peaceful, in the late game at least. By sending delegations, gifts and trade requests I have managed to form alliances with all the AI players by the mid game in nearly every game I have played recently. The exception was the game where I rolled the Mongols as random leader and decided to roleplay them. I guess this reflects my play style, but currently there is not much tension if you are allied with everyone because you know that the diplomatic situation is unlikely to change much and there is no need to build any military at all. Conversely, once you start getting negative diplomatic relations from grievances, it is difficult to improve them.

I think the game would benefit from being much more dynamic in the mid to late game, for example by introducing incentives to form WW1-style alliance blocks, rather than a series of one-to-one alliances, and maybe have random events affecting leaders' opinions of you. In the real world leaders and governments can suddenly change and countries need to be prepared for many different eventualities. The Civ series is unlikely to go down the road of having leaders changing during the game, but it could easily introduce situations where you are asked to side with one leader or another and where it is impossible to please everyone.

At least spying should cause more grievance. The problem is also that even though you cause grievance to an AI it's not necessarily the same as the AI having the abilities and resources to do anything about it.

 

[Pistol90]

Its actually smart from AI ... why would he declare war when there is no chance for him to destroy single encampment (not to say take a city) and move more than 3 border tiles into your lands if you just put ancient walls there. He dont know how to fight, and those things are stronger than combined force of Roman , Spanish, British empire and today's USA.

 

[AlanC9]

That's what I've seen. The AIs seem to be stuck with a bunch of obsolete units which are simply gong to be chewed up and spat out by any modern city's defense, whether mine or another AI's .

 

[The Civs 6]

For me Civ 5 was the most peaceful. I have found at higher difficulty levels I almost must inevitably swallow a rival just to enable myself to play as peacefully as possible - which takes me back in a positive way to how you had to play 4. But in 5 with your city attacks so early, ranged units just way too good, and big cities being incredibly powerful, it felt really good to just settle in, turtle up, and build a civ.

 

[Liberty Prime]

I feel once you learn a facet of the game it sticks with you forever. Civ VI feels like I have em all at the palm of my hand as its diplomacy feels identical to Civ V, which for me anyways, was the most peaceful game in the series. It wasn't always that way: you make a few fast buildings, go tall, and learn why your next door neighbor wants you and your children dead. Once you learn how to fulfill their checklist, such as having a sizable military score, trading, creating open borders, and declaring friendship, those basic steps stick with you for the next installment. Just use subconscious muscle memory and they should leave you alone for the rest of the game.

Ironically, I find myself declaring war on the AI more often than the AI declaring war on me. I just come to expect them to want me dead if I happen to own a city within the same hemisphere as them like the psychopaths they are. If you check a few core negative diplomacy ticks, they cannot be reasoned with. It can only end in blood shed. You need to expand and exploit their opportunistic nature; incentivize the AI to declare war on eachother to create a diplomatic domino effect which leaves you as their one and only friend. Steal cities, wonders, and workers from the losing team while leaving one city alive to enforce wildly unfair trades until you inevitably win.

 

[James_Champagne]

There are a few things about the CIv VI AI that baffle me. One of the main ones is why they never bother to raze cities. In all the games I've played I can't think of one occasion where I've seen the AI raze a city that it conquers. This, I think, takes some of the suspense out of warfare. By that I mean, when the AI takes one of my cities it's hard to care too much because more often than not I know that either I'll be able to take the city back by force myself at some point, or that they won't be able to hold onto the city's loyalty and eventually it'll revert back to me. But if your city is under attack and you know at the back of your mind that the AI MIGHT raze it and you MIGHT lose it for good, that might give you pause.

While on the subject, I also find it maddening when civs keep trying to make deals for resources like coal or oil or what have you: then you look at their lands and you can see they have all of these resources, and are even at the proper technological level to locate these resources on the map and utilize them, and they just... don't. Very strange.

I'm starting to wonder if maybe I should try graduating to a higher difficulty mode, Prince has become too easy. In the current game I'm on I made Gran Columbia one of the civs for the AI figuring that maybe here would finally be a formidable military opponent, but for hundreds of years of game time now their military strength has been 0 (though they did at the very least wipe out one of their neighboring civs in the early game).

 

[BakouKai]

It's far too peaceful, it feels like nothing ever happens.

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. As it stands, too many games are just boring endless friendships and alliances between every empire.

Got a similar experience.
Only had a few games. I remember getting often attacked early. And despite hard retaliations (I often raze cities I do not like, placement wise) and many warmongers threats (basically, everyone complains about me every three of four turns, except a few friends), my games ends desperately peacefully ... (Why I am more a of builder, enjoying long, well prepared, end game wars).

I guess I will have to trigger the fun

 

[Sostratus]

I think right after civ5 BNW dropped there a period where you COULD have entire games without any war in the whole world.

One of my few gripes about how combat affects the AI is that cities are so darn resistant to melee attacks (more resistant to melee than ranged on an equal strength basis; 85% vs 75%, although it’s a bit closer compensating for ranged units having less attack than a melee.)

This prevents the Conquest strategy of “go punch them until they die” from working properly, which is the go to AI warplan, and if this one variable were changed they would do a lot better vs humans and each other.
Maybe in the 65-70% range would be best.

 

[agonistes]

@acluewithout has been pushing for a World War mechanic for a while now (along with inclusion of late-game ideologies) and I think it’s exactly what the late game needs. It would be very cool if it tied into the World Congress or the Emergency system as well.

How neat would it be to have a legitimate world war between two (or maybe three) power blocs going at it? It would be particularly interesting or fun if you were trying to stay peaceful too, i.e. if you were going for a science or culture victory, as it would spice up the endgame when it’s often a “next turn” clickfest.

I really hope this is one of the game modes in the NF pack. FXS definitely does listen to suggestions so let’s hope they take this one.

Dear god please.

And revamp the unit resource stuff. Its really wonky.

 

[DWilson]

Watching some AI only games on TSL maps, the AI is painfully bad at getting through walls. They'll wipe out most of their military trying to do it, frequently fail at getting one walled city, and usually if they somehow manage to succeed in getting through one set of walls they will no longer have the strength to get through another. Prior to walls, cities can do flip. Afterwards, it's an insane AI investment and luck based on whether or not loyalty wipes away their efforts anyway, devastating their game progress after the sacrifice of 75-85% of their hard produced military resources (though if they have walls, you might guess that other AI tend to struggle to take advantage of it).

 

[agonistes]

Watching some AI only games on TSL maps, the AI is painfully bad at getting through walls. They'll wipe out most of their military trying to do it, frequently fail at getting one walled city, and usually if they somehow manage to succeed in getting through one set of walls they will no longer have the strength to get through another. Prior to walls, cities can do flip. Afterwards, it's an insane AI investment and luck based on whether or not loyalty wipes away their efforts anyway, devastating their game progress after the sacrifice of 75-85% of their hard produced military resources (though if they have walls, you might guess that other AI tend to struggle to take advantage of it).

Oddly, city-states, in my experience, are much better at conquering.

 

[Starwars]

Oddly, city-states, in my experience, are much better at conquering.

Both barbarians and citystates that are allied with the AI civ that declares war on you are usually much bigger threats than the actual civ itself. I guess because there are not that many calculations being made underneath their behaviour, they can just push forward.

The AI for civs just feels like... there's too much going on in the brain that governs them so they fly back and forth across the battlefield without getting anything done, unless it's very early in the game. And if they somehow manage to capture a city, chances are fairly high that it will loyalty-flip back anyways. I don't think other civs ever raze cities.

But yeah, it makes for an odd game where barbarians and city-states are the ones that you have to really watch out for from a military perspective.