Is the AI better than a chicken with its head cut off yet?

[Karpius]

I love all the differences in opinion!

Its improved. Its not. Its a zero. Its 7 out of 10.

Makes one wonder, yes?

 

[kb27787]

Depends... I find they build (or even rush buy it seems) archers more often, making wiping a civ out with just archers quite tough really.

On offense they kamikaze more into your cities rather than just sit and fortify... You can actually die very quickly on deity IF the AI focuses on killing you.
I say if because some AI will be building stonehenge etc. While still trying to early war with you... Of course when that happens usually they are beaten back, but once you invade their lands they just go mass archers.

Which, as stated above means that you can win an early war, and maybe get a city or two and some gold but to conquer them entirely with the archer rush is much more difficult. You will need horses for that. (Whereas previously you can wipe out one civ with just archers)

 

[RealHuhn]

After a couple of post patch games, I'd say the AI is a lot better at AI vs AI wars as well. This often creates more scary opponents in late game. However, it still sucks at winning the game and late game wars are still way too easy, especially on defense. The battering ram is still a big part of that problem because it makes walls and siege units completely obsolete. Likewise, the AI never uses rams or siege weapons properly.

In one Deity game I had an actual frigate/caravel battle against Spain after he used his navy to shut down a land attack on his coastal cities. He had like 8 frigates and a couple of caravels. Little improvements like that are certainly noticable.

 

[Unconquered Sun]

I love all the differences in opinion!

Its improved. Its not. Its a zero. Its 7 out of 10.

Makes one wonder, yes?

Once you've seen Warlords Deity overrun sizable civs in just three turns, Civ6 patches amount to baby steps.

 

[Eliminator_Sr]

It's a little better continuing their trend of gradual improvement, though I will say this is the most noticeable improvement in a patch. It's probably not enough to keep me interested in playing in the near term. The AI will now attack with more force using a better variety of units and they target cities with a little more priority, however they were still failing to make full use of bombardment and were not firing and killing units when they were able to. In my recent immortal game I think I lost 6 units total in two major wars - about a 10:1 kill ratio and military tech was about equal (AI probably had a slight troop advantage). I was surprise attacked both times. They did take out an encampment and damaged my city walls and forced me to rush buy units so that's progress!

 

[Archon_Wing]

Once you've seen Warlords Deity overrun sizable civs in just three turns, Civ6 patches amount to baby steps.

I gather the point that Civ 6's difficulty pales in comparison, but is Civ 4 Warlords really a good standard for nostalgia? It was basically just carried by its bonuses and the reason why BTS is easier is they actually made a better AI even considering the additional features in the final expansion.

The AI in civ has always feigned competence, though I must say in the last 2 games it can't even do that and it's more of a issue of the player tripping and dying as opposed to actually getting outplayed.

 

[Bitterman]

AI Egypt conquered one of my cities the other day (first time in 230 hours or so). She attacked by surprise with lots of galleys and quadri's and 3 melee units. She down'd my city to 0 hp with her quadri's and could have conquered it in that moment, but she waited until I had killed one of them to come and finish with a galley.

I reconquered a few turns later but ok that was better I guess.

 

[ChocolateShake]

I guess the AI is somewhere in between a robotic death chicken and a regular chicken flailing around.

I get the feeling someone/some team will eventually decide to make a 4x game that sells just on the idea that it has a really strong AI. I look forward to that and the competition and investment it will hopefully bring with it. Until then I think we just have to wait for modders or for the second/third expansion.

 

[Quoth the Raven]

If you want good AI, Civ 4 BTS is still the best. The AI beats me about half the time on REGULAR difficulty, and it knows how to use its military. I really hope they update and re-release Civ 4 in the near future.

 

[Unconquered Sun]

I gather the point that Civ 6's difficulty pales in comparison, but is Civ 4 Warlords really a good standard for nostalgia? It was basically just carried by its bonuses and the reason why BTS is easier is they actually made a better AI even considering the additional features in the final expansion.

The AI in civ has always feigned competence, though I must say in the last 2 games it can't even do that and it's more of a issue of the player tripping and dying as opposed to actually getting outplayed.

Civ6 Deity gets enormous, previously unheard of, bonuses: its units being better than human, three settlers; on top of traditional bonuses across the board. Its weakness arises entirely from its AI.

I'm not in any way suggesting past AIs were comparable to human. But they were successful in fulfilling their role between their scripting and their bonuses. CIV Deity could legitimately hit early dates on science victory, fairly early on culture victory, could conquer territory/vassalize and eventually win domination victories.

 

[DWilson]

Spain just raped me (England). Captured two cities, destroyed my units before I could retake them (even after pulling Cyrus in on my side, and starting an Emergency which granted me bonus strength and movement against him). And he did this despite having just survived an invasion by Cyrus.

Moderator Action: Rape is a serious matter and it is time for us to find a better term to express this. Please do not use the term on the forums. leif
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[magha77]

Much better but not complete. Played a Prince game as Persia, Sumeria surprised attacked me. They took my second city, concentrated on the city and not other units. Had to work to get it back but after that I swept through and took two of their cities and my Kabul suzerian took and razed their third city. When defending against a city attack, I’ve noticed the AI still turtles in the city instead of using the garrisoned unit appropriately. I did see the AI bring in reinforcements from outside the city to completely ruin my attack when I was about to take Moscow from Germany. Overall, improved.

 

[tedhebert]

IMHO, yes the patch made the AI much better tactically... it's is now very possible to get an early wipe on higher difficulties, and people will come here on this forum and complain about map and starting positions... I'd say the game can now be a challenge up to around turn 80-100, but than, in most situation, you've handled the specific early map, early positioning issues and you'll probably still cruise on to victory in most cases, and people will then come here on this forum and complain that the AI is bad, that the end game is too long ...etc

My playing level is immortal... Emperor is just too easy for me, deity a little too stressful early games for my tastes... it was like that before the patch and having checked again, is still exactly like that.

But I find that my immortal games offer me a much better challenge than before. So yes, it HAS gotten better, especially at early attacks on cities and naval warfare... air warfare still break the endgame IMHO, because you always have air superiority, and it's just too strong an advantage. I tend to use them only to speed up end games when I'm winning by suc a margin that the issue is obvious

anyways, my 2 cents... people will ALWAYS come here on these forums and complain about something...myself included

 

[Archon_Wing]

Civ6 Deity gets enormous, previously unheard of, bonuses: its units being better than human, three settlers; on top of traditional bonuses across the board. Its weakness arises entirely from its AI.

I'm not in any way suggesting past AIs were comparable to human. But they were successful in fulfilling their role between their scripting and their bonuses. CIV Deity could legitimately hit early dates on science victory, fairly early on culture victory, could conquer territory/vassalize and eventually win domination victories.

Well, that I woudn't argue. Having 3 settlers and still not managing anything is weak , and Deity players have frequently remarked that this Deity is not really Deity enough; it may just be Emperor if even. Even if we added a deity+, I'd expect the same thing. So while the series has used bonuses as a crutch, this functions as life support.

Though I would say that the forms of AI cheating has been zigzagged a bit though, like happiness and war weariness never really affecting the AI in Civ 4 and they play by different rules in diplomacy as well as effectively no upgrade costs. Not to mention they could engage in strats the human can't, such as peacevassaling. And Civ 5's AI's "even" level was actually chieftain, making it a blatant lie since Prince is regarded as the neutral difficulty.

That being said, I just wanted to contend that while Civ IV BTS may not be as hard as Warlords, it was so for better reasons than what we have here.

 

[leandrombraz]

It still far from ideal but it's arguably a lot better than it was at launch, there isn't even comparison. I want to remind everyone that the AI at launch couldn't even update units, you would face warriors in the information era.

Personally I think Civ VI AI doesn't owe anything to the Civ V AI, so if you can play Civ V and still enjoy it despite the AI, Civ VI won't be much different. The only exception is air combat, it still non-existent compared to V.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Personally I think Civ VI AI doesn't owe anything to the Civ V AI, so if you can play Civ V and still enjoy it despite the AI, Civ VI won't be much different. The only exception is air combat, it still non-existent compared to V.

I disagree. Civ 5's AI offers a significant challenge throughout the whole game, from the initial settling through to the race to finish your victory condition before the AI can finish one of theirs. And you worry about an attack in Civ 5, because when the AI attacks it will disrupt your plans, forcing you to spend resources on diplomacy or military.

The AI in Civ 5 was terrible at certain tactical aspects of war (no move and shoot, a propensity to send units into the water), but it was superior to Civ 6's in two key ways:

• As a "pace car": at higher levels , you had to be efficient in your pursuit of victory or the AI would beat you
• As a "speed bump": you couldn't ignore the AI Civs or they would disrupt your plans; you had to deal with them, either diplomatically or otherwise