Is it still unplayable? - From an expert strategic player view

[xienwolf]

Is it still unplayable?

For me is a game playable when the AI can manage to defeat me and have some good routines to handle the different parts of the game like - ie for Civ V:

- tactical AI
- diplomatic AI
- AI have some global goal which he tries to reach
etc.

Well from all the tests i read and what i heard from different strategy players its was not playable on release.

Did patches changed it already or is there any plan when the AI fixed?

Thanks!

Most of the people who complain right now haven't played a game to the end. Hence them complaining within 12 hours of release (when they should just FINALLY be getting to the end of a full game).

AI has some minor issues with proper defense in the beginning that you can exploit. But if you don't go that route you'll see that they DO have longterm strategies which they act towards, quite unlike Civ4's dagger system too. The AI's endgame is actually quite a fair approximation of a (simple) player's endgame.

 

[SuperJay]

I wish I was an expert strategic player. My views are just so... so... ordinary.

 

[ohioastronomy]

Most of the people who complain right now haven't played a game to the end. Hence them complaining within 12 hours of release (when they should just FINALLY be getting to the end of a full game).

AI has some minor issues with proper defense in the beginning that you can exploit. But if you don't go that route you'll see that they DO have longterm strategies which they act towards, quite unlike Civ4's dagger system too. The AI's endgame is actually quite a fair approximation of a (simple) player's endgame.

I wish this was the case, I really do. But it isn't. I try culture and tech wins, which involve leaving the AI alone while you do something else (pretty much). I watch city-state allies get attacked by AI players with swarms of units...which just sit there and get bombarded to death. Every once in awhile they wake up and attack, then it fizzles out. Ironically, gifting units seems to give the AI something to beat up on and they die...so the best defense is just to let the city wipe the army out.

A good example actually came from a clever AI strategy: I was in the middle of wiping out AI#2 on a standard Earth map, Emperor level; my civ was in the Black Sea area and my main forces were fighting the Ottomans in southern Africa. The Iroquois had a lot of cities in central Asia/Russia, decided I was a threat, and declared war on me while the army was away. Clever! I thought I was in trouble when the army appeared, large and menacing....

Then they led with their archers, which my city and a couple of defenders demolished. They followed up with their special warriors, bushwhacked a horseman in the woods...and then abruptly fell back onto the plains, milled about, and got pasted. And that is as good as I've seen from the AI.

 

[dannythefool]

Most of the people who complain right now haven't played a game to the end. Hence them complaining within 12 hours of release (when they should just FINALLY be getting to the end of a full game).

Just to get this sorted, I've played upward of 40 hours if I include the demo, and I've won and lost several games.

AI has some minor issues with proper defense in the beginning that you can exploit. But if you don't go that route you'll see that they DO have longterm strategies which they act towards, quite unlike Civ4's dagger system too. The AI's endgame is actually quite a fair approximation of a (simple) player's endgame.

They definitely have long term strategies. If you look for them, they're recognizable. This is working well enough. The two main problems with it are that diplomacy is just plain random, and that it's bad at tactical combat.

The random diplomacy is just annoying - they turn hostile for just about anything you could do, including liberating them - but the tactical combat weakness can be somewhat alleviated if you play at higher difficulties and don't rush the AI immediately. Once it has enough units, it does sometimes mount halfway convincing assaults. If it doesn't have enough units, it does things like send single archers across a sea tile every ten turns and pointless stuff like that.

If you do exploit the combat weakness, the game immediately becomes trivial. So I guess if you can restrain yourself, or pursue other victory types, you're going to be fine, but it's somewhat hard to not crush them when they keep attacking you just because you have a smaller army.

 

[cembandit]

This is interpretation and for me games which have a "strategy" focus needs either a good MP part or a real good and challenging AI.

So in my eyes a strategic game which lacks exactly this is unplayable.

You realize your arguing about a game you haven't played to people who have played it, using "I heard" as an argument.

 

[Marshall Thomas]

Until the combat AI is improved, I'm considering modding in a -25% penalty for combat as the player. So I'd need a great general within two hexes just to get default odds.

Has anyone else tried something like this? I'm going to play my next campaign on either emporer or immortal. Both of these levels give bonuses to the AI, which give it more troops; but they don't (as far as I know) give the AI any bonuses (or the player any penalties) to combat odds.

When I play Europa Universalis 3, I play on "very hard" difficulty (my own custom version of it actually) and the AI gets a +0.5 bonus to combat morale, while the player gets a -0.25 penalty to combat morale. Without this AI combat bonus/player penalty, battles wouldn't be even close.

So until the Civ 5 combat AI improves, do you think that this is a decent solution? Thanks in advance

 

[franoculator]

At any level the AI cannot conduct a competent naval invasion, nor can it compete in tactics, nor does it engage in competent grand strategy.

Registered just to call B.S. on this tired line. The AI can and does do naval invasions. Not sure why people keep spreading this around, but I've seen it twice now (on King difficulty).

And not only that, they play good defense. I landed a few units, backed with a carrier group. I ran into submarines that made quick work of my escort ships and caused my carrier to flee. And they have air defense too.

Seems pretty damned good to me.

 

[eewallace]

I'm not sure I can claim expertise, but I am a very experienced Civ player (since Civ II). I would say that the AI for Civ 5 seems easier to beat--at least for military victories, I haven't really tried cultural or diplomacy yet--than for Civ 4.

I'm not sure that is a bad thing. Creating a game designed to be a serious challenge to those that have already mastered the earlier verions might put it out of reach of new players.

Modding will no doubt create some nice challenges for the more experienced civvers.

 

[bruntfca]

There is no combat AI to speak of. There are also some serious graphical issues. Engame the map is spammed with laughable "tent cities" aka trading posts....maybe the devs lived in Detroit and are trying to tell us something about the 21st century.

Not only are the trading post/city graphics terrible, but placing any unit on a trading post makes it almost impossible to see, and frankly makes your eyes bleed. If I play the game, half the time I'm in the 2D mode, kinda reminds me of 1990s...

 

[aziantuntija]

Registered just to call B.S. on this tired line. The AI can and does do naval invasions. Not sure why people keep spreading this around, but I've seen it twice now (on King difficulty).

And not only that, they play good defense. I landed a few units, backed with a carrier group. I ran into submarines that made quick work of my escort ships and caused my carrier to flee. And they have air defense too.

Seems pretty damned good to me.

I play at King difficulty and i see AI's warships (stonger than mine) idling in shore while i pound their ground troops just a few hexes away. I made a test, i saved my game and went beside the enemy frigate with my caravel and shot it, well it did shoot back put then i just leaved it there and went on contiuning bombardment on their land units.


I was also able to keep huge American forces out of my allied city state with just 1 Pikeman, 1 Longswordman and 1 Longbowman (that makes total of three units). Americans were using lots of their unique unit Minuteman and with that they had loads of pikemen and crossbowmen. I must say that i made one mistake and i have to load the turn again from the start but basicly the AI is no match for me.

EDIT: So it doesnt look like too convincing AI to me.

 

[calmon]

You realize your arguing about a game you haven't played to people who have played it, using "I heard" as an argument.

Well actually i have a lot war gamer friends and some of same gave Civ 5 a try and reports to the rest.

Also there are a really good game testing site but its in german:

http://www.gamersglobal.de

The tested Civ5 a lot in SP and MP mode and both lacks somehow. They wrote a long statement how AI lacks in current strategy games and in Civ 5 in special.

I tried the demo some weeks ago and played all other Civs in the past. I really think Civ 5 can make fun but like said i really can't play it when it no challenge.

Its the same btw with stardocks Elemental - War of Magic. It will be a really good game in future and is surely "playable" for fun in moment but it has sirious AI/Balance problems to be a real challenge.

However thanks for all the answers. Any statements from firaxis about the AI? Do they work on a big AI patch in moment?