Is the AI better? yay or nay.

[Gufnork]

I'm not sure if it's a perception error, but I think it depends on the leader. Montezuma is a complete idiot. Huayna Capac isn't too bright either, neither is Mao. They have no clue when or how they should attack. They declare on you despite being on another continent, launch a tiny attack force that's easily beaten back without me losing a single troop then wait and try again. Morons! Some other leaders have shown really impressive abilities though. Ceasar is always someone to look out for and while Napoleon will eventually backstab you, he generally knows when.

 

[MrCynical]

A definite yay. The AI can now for instance launch a credable attack from the sea, instead of just dumping a couple of units ashore from a galley. It's slightly better at diplomacy, though a lot of the options it couldn't handle have been removed. It also doesn't seem to make some of the blatantly wrong decisions that the Civ 3 AI was prone to.

I would also like it if they found a way to stop the AI moving every non-fortified unit every turn regardless of whether it acheives anything as it wastes a lot of time and has been in since at least Civ 3. As I recall their attempt to fix this in C3C merely broke the barbarian AI without noticeably improving the situation.

 

[jrice77]

This may be a bug, but Alexander declared war on me when he was "friendly" toward me! After declaring war he was still "pleased". This is after Monti declared war on me, so maybe Monti made Alexander an offer he couldn't refuse.

Oh yay, the AI is much better than in Civ3 ! Then don't do stupid things when they attack, they pillage a lot, but more importantly when an AI is your friend they will not betray you ! That's pretty cool

 

[MosquitoE]

Yea. Maybe not necessarily smarter, but more realistic in its reactions. E.g. an AI's opinion of you actually seems to determine their behavior toward you.

Exactly what I wanted to say. The importance of this for game enjoyment can not be overstated.

 

[Shillen]

I'm not sure if it's a perception error, but I think it depends on the leader. Montezuma is a complete idiot. Huayna Capac isn't too bright either, neither is Mao. They have no clue when or how they should attack. They declare on you despite being on another continent, launch a tiny attack force that's easily beaten back without me losing a single troop then wait and try again. Morons! Some other leaders have shown really impressive abilities though. Ceasar is always someone to look out for and while Napoleon will eventually backstab you, he generally knows when.

I can't remember what leader it was but I remember one of my games a civ on a different continent (connectable through coast squares though) declared war on me with a lone empty galley. Not only that but the galley then sailed immediately back home after entering 1 square into my borders. It didn't even try to pillage anything. I never saw the AI again the rest of the "war".

That said, the answer to this thread is a definite yay. While the AI can still be stupid at times, there's no denying that it is vastly improved over the AI in Civ3.

 

[Sprint]

My first game on Noble was very passive, but that's because I quickly conquered a small continent and there were no footholds on it. From a pure cost/benefit analysis, it wasn't really worth it to try and invade me, since I kept up with my military and was a pretty hard target. I was also totally self sufficient in resources, so I had no real reason to go conquer them. Won via spaceship in the 1940's.

Later games have been much more lively.

 

[Marvin77]

This may be a bug, but Alexander declared war on me when he was "friendly" toward me! After declaring war he was still "pleased". This is after Monti declared war on me, so maybe Monti made Alexander an offer he couldn't refuse.

It is not a bug It happens a lot actually - and this is why: Based on my experience, almost all aggressive leaders will try to backstab you (when they have what to gain), not matter what your reputation with them is. So watch out for Monty, Alex, Chengis Khan, Tokugava and so on.

 

[DaveMcW]

I think most of the improvements are in the game rules, not the AI itself.

-No infinite railroad movement.
-No ROP rape.
-No phony peace treaties.
-More consistent reputation system.
-No artillery stacks of doom.

The AI couldn't understand these concepts in Civ3, allowing a clever human to run circles around them. There are still a few AI weaknesses in Civ4, such as poor military coordination. But their coordination is good enough to leverage an overwhelming numbers advantage into a win.

The single best AI change is their unwillingness to give up a monopoly tech, even for another monopoly tech. This has the effect of both slowing down the tech leader, and increasing opportunities for slow researchers.

 

[Shillen]

But their coordination is good enough to leverage an overwhelming numbers advantage into a win.

You got that right. But that is partially game rules also. Since they get lowered unit support cost they can make a horde of units without hurting their tech rate. I tried waging a war on monarch against montezuma. Unfortunately he was far away and he declared war on me first, but he was tech backwards. But I didn't have a large army I could send at him all at once. Anyway, even though I was using cavalry/catapults/musketmen and he was using horse archers/longbowmen/pikemen he still was able to prevent me from capturing more than 1 of his cities before I was completely overwhelmed by war weariness. He was losing units at at least a 5-1 clip to each unit I lost but managed to build another 10 units every turn and I just couldn't stand up to the sheer number of units he had.

 

[Lorteungen]

I haven't really seen it do anything impressive yet, in fact it seems pretty much like in civ3 but a lot less aggressive. With aggressive AI it feels a lot like civ3. The reason the AI didn't use mixed forces in civ3 and does now is not because it has become smarter but because using mixed forces in civ3 was stupid due to the combat system (there was always one unit that was the strongest and it was never much more expensive than the weaker units). It still feels like the AI somehow knows when my city is poorly defended. It also sometimes does stupid things like ending it's turn on already pillaged grassland next to my city when there's a forrest right next to it. All in all I like the AI though, but I thought it was pretty good in civ3 too, much better than people gave it credit for and certainly a hell of a lot better than in civ2.

 

[Shillen]

In civ3 I never saw the AI stack 3 galleys on top of each other with 6 swordsmen in them, sail around the continent, and then drop those 6 swordsmen off next to my city with 1 archer in it for defense.

I think the AI still sucks at fighting defensive wars. But when the AI builds up for war during peacetime and then attacks he's usually much more coordinated now than he was in civ3.

I might as well list another bonehead move the AI made in civ4, though. I declared war on Saladin who had his empire to the west of me, except he had one lone town south of my empire. I didn't know when I declared war but I guess he had a war elephant and a horse archer in that city. As soon as I declared war he sent those two units towards one of my cities, which happened to have a phalanx in it (5 str, +100% vs mounted units). That was like the only city in my empire with a phalanx in it and the AI picked that one for some reason. (It wasn't even the closest city to Saladin's city and was quite far from his main empire.) I don't know what was up with that but my phalanx beat them both easily.

 

[Lorteungen]

In civ3 I never saw the AI stack 3 galleys on top of each other with 6 swordsmen in them, sail around the continent, and then drop those 6 swordsmen off next to my city with 1 archer in it for defense.

Well I haven't seen the AI doing anything to that effect, one galley at the most is what I have seen (prince level, aggressive AI). Attacking other continents have always been a major shortcoming in civ AI though. The landing-right-next-to-your-most-poorly-defended-city-even-when-it-should-have-no-way-of-knowing part sounds familiar though. Civ3 was notorious for this but I thought I read this was fixed in civ4.

Speaking of pikemen, I've noticed that the AI sometimes seem to ignore the mounted bonus that pikemen get. In one game I had a lone pikemen defending a small city and the AI had a horse archer and a swordsman. For some reason the AI attacked with the horse archer and then with the swordsman. He still got the city but he could've kept his horsearcher if he had attacked with the swordsman first.