lets crack this fallacy

[teks]

As for the original poster, he's taking the "in it to win it" idea (which is most often raised as a complaint about the Civ V AI, not in its defence) too literally. The AI does try to win the game (particularly close to the end, when they'll try to stop you achieving your victory condition by whatever means they can, or racing to their own if you seem to be getting too far ahead) - but then as he points out, it probably always did. So if anything the "not in it to win it" idea that the previous Civs' AIs were about enhancing the experience rather than winning the game is an excuse for older AIs that weren't capable of winning the game either.

Yes your exactly right about the old AI. They were in it to win it too, but it was transparent. They never broke character and flat out said they don't want me to win the game. It seems so odd that they went through all this work to make these life-like leaders, who shout at me in their foriegn tongues "We think your trying to win the game the same way we are, and we don't like it!"

In the game previews and interviews they used the 'in it to win it' at a feature new to the franchise. They said that the new AI is much more advanced and is now in it to win it. As opposed to before where they, uh, drank tea I assume. What I mean here is it wasn't raised in the games defense, but it was a selling point.

I don't think its right to say the old AI wasn't capable of winning the game. Civ 4 had so many features most people couldn't play that game

Does anyone else dream of a civilization game with civ 4's features and city-building mixed with civ 5's new combat system? That would be awesome!

 

[Peng Qi]

I would. I've never beaten Civ4 at Deity level. I beat Civ5 on my 4th try.

I've never beaten Civ5 at Deity level. I have beaten Civ4 at Deity level.

ANECDOTES!

 

[Camikaze]

Whether one is harder than the other seems a bit of a moot point anyway, unless you're actually playing on the highest difficulty. If you're sitting around the middle, it doesn't matter how many levels are above you.

 

[Disgustipated]

I still say Civ5 is harder (except combat which is much easier for human vs. AI). err I should say more difficult and use better English. Growing is more difficult in Civ5 depending on the map. On the Earth map I struggle to find enough happiness resources. You never have this problem in the Civ 4 Earth map.

 

[ScubaSteveWA]

This is my one problem I have with Civ 5. It's causing me to play this game much less often, and go to games such as the Total War or Paradox games. The diplomacy in this game is decent at its core, but it has destroyed any feeling of actually creating a civilization. I feel like I'm playing a board game, and this ruins my entire experience. I want to create a real civilization and watch it grow, and interact with AI who actually act like legit civilizations. Diplomacy needs to reflect this and try and gives us a realistic experience. I need allies I can actually depend on. However, I can't ever trust the AI as they tried to make it so annoyingly human-like. It tends to constantly back-stab you and is just way to random with it's views. Yes, a human would act like this, but it's not in any way realistic in the real world. The diplomacy is never reliable. I can't ever depend on another Civ for much, other than reminding me this is just a game with it's human-like remarks.

I have never played Civ 4 as I am new to the series, but if diplomacy isn't made more realistic I'll probably make the switch. If they would remove the board game feeling of Civ 5 I wouldn't stop playing it. Give me the feeling The Total War and Paradox games give me with realistically creating a nation.

 

[elCreepo]

Addressing the point of the AI "is in it to win it" which in a way I think is true, but in another way the AI "thought process"/programming is not sufficient to recognize their actions will cause them to lose:

In GOTM35 (domination, OCC, Askia, standard, continents) I had one capitol left to capture to win the game (Mongolia & myself being the last 2 players still controlling their capitols). I had landed my invasion force to finish this off (about 5-10 turns of fighting inland to Genghis' cap & my victory) when the blood thirsty Romans took the Mongol capitol the very next turn (right after my army landed).

So this ended in an immediate domination victory for me because the Romans couldn't control themselves or seem to realize taking that Mongol city would be the end of the game resulting in a win for the Human player.

 

[strijder20]

Agreed, and Ghandi being so out of character by throwing nukes around doesn't help either.

*Cough*

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indira_Gandhi#Nuclear_weapons_program

 

[Pisskop]

Nooo, that is not Ghandi, or the same mentioned in the game... check it:


"Indira Priyadarshini... Gandhi contributed and further carried out the vision of Jawarharalal Nehru, former Premier of India to develop the program. Gandhi gave authorization of developing nuclear weapons in 1967, in response to the Test No. 6 by People's Republic of China. Gandhi saw this test as Chinese nuclear intimidation, therefore, Gandhi promoted the views of Nehru to establish India's stability and security interests as independent from those of the nuclear superpowers.

The program became fully mature in 1974, when dr. Raja Ramanna reported to Gandhi that India has ability to test the first nuclear weapon. Gandhi gave verbal authorization of this test, and preparations were made in a long-constructed army base, the Indian Army Pokhran Test Range. In 1974, India successfully conducted an underground nuclear test, unofficially code named as "Smiling Buddha", near the desert village of Pokhran in Rajasthan. As the world was quiet by this test, a vehement protest came forward from Pakistan. Great ire was raised in Pakistan, Pakistan's Prime minister Zulfi Ali Bhutto described this test as "Indian hegemony" to intimidate Pakistan. Gandhi directed a letter to Bhutto and, later to the world, describing the test as for peaceful purposes and India's commitment as to develop its programme for industrial and scientific use."

If that chick is the same who freed India from the British than she is fuuuuuugly...

 

[Peng Qi]

The diplomacy is never reliable. I can't ever depend on another Civ for much

One might argue that this is therefore the most realistic Diplomacy in a Civ game ever.

 

[Hormagaunt]

... I've never seen them all gang up on another AI's civ like they do the player.

One of my games, Songhai kept on attacking everybody else. And I do mean everybody, except me. At one point he was at war with 7 other civs simultaneously. I don't recall if it was them declaring on him or him running amok, though.

Oh, and "moot", not "mute".

 

[gingerbill]

I don't agree that CIV5 is easier difficulty wise , i play the same difficulty levels i did on CIV 4 and it seems the same to me.

I agree completely that diplomacy and the AI isnt good , it's never been great in the past but at least it felt like dealing with a real nation who you could make allainces with. Now its just mental.

Diplomacy and how the AI reacts to you is the weakest part of this great game. It is silly how the AI will attack you lose it's army offer lots of money for peace , then 10-20 turns later attack again on another suicide mission,

 

[jjkrause84]

Addressing the point of the AI "is in it to win it" which in a way I think is true, but in another way the AI "thought process"/programming is not sufficient to recognize their actions will cause them to lose:

In GOTM35 (domination, OCC, Askia, standard, continents) I had one capitol left to capture to win the game (Mongolia & myself being the last 2 players still controlling their capitols). I had landed my invasion force to finish this off (about 5-10 turns of fighting inland to Genghis' cap & my victory) when the blood thirsty Romans took the Mongol capitol the very next turn (right after my army landed).

So this ended in an immediate domination victory for me because the Romans couldn't control themselves or seem to realize taking that Mongol city would be the end of the game resulting in a win for the Human player.

This, to me, just goes to show you how LAME the new 'domination' victory is. You can win a domination with only two cities to your name, in theory. Ridiculous. The old "% of Pop. and % of land) was a FAR better system. You actually FELT dominant!

 

[smallfish]

Happiness

e: they really should have left that courthouse bug.

 

[dexters]

This, to me, just goes to show you how LAME the new 'domination' victory is. You can win a domination with only two cities to your name, in theory. Ridiculous. The old "% of Pop. and % of land) was a FAR better system. You actually FELT dominant!

Agreed. Leave the capture the flag business to Revolutions or a smaller scale Civ game.

An easy fix without throwing out what they already have is to require a minimum % of land under your control to win, ie 33% of all settled land or minimum 33% pop.

 

[Buccaneer]

Agreed. Leave the capture the flag business to Revolutions or a smaller scale Civ game.

An easy fix without throwing out what they already have is to require a minimum % of land under your control to win, ie 33% of all settled land or minimum 33% pop.

Agreed too. I complained about this loudly pre-release and I was told the capturing capitals would be tough (didn't believe them and I was right). One of the patches did improve things greatly but I still hate cheesy wins. In my last few domination games, I have made sure that I truly was dominant, which was quite fun to do (unlike the tediousness of doing the same in Civ4). They can keep the Domination victory condition for those not having the patience to play out but they should also add a Conquest victory condition.

 

[Kabloosh]

When the irrational behavior of the civ 5 AI is brought up they say the new AI is in it to win it. I really want to break down how the AI is absolutely not in it to win it.

Difficulty not difficult
first off. If they are hinting that the AI is now in it to win it we can assume the AI was not before, yet in civ 5 the difficulty levels are far easier then the difficulties in civ 4. You can blame it all on the new combat system, but lets be honest, was the civ 4 ai any good at the old system? ( I honestly think the new combat AI has improved in leaps and bounds)

Diplomatic Dogpile
Lets look at how the AI uses diplomacy to its advantage to support a play strategy. Before the AI would try to act like a legit nation, but now it uses this as a tool to support its specific game goals, or so we would like to think, but how is a civ going for a peaceful victory doing himself any good by denouncing all the military civs for being war mongers. Wouldn't these peaceful civs go out of their way to seek positive relations. You know, like the player does when hes not trying to get his butt kicked while getting a culture win.
In reality this new AI always breaks diplomacy down into total anarchy where the peaceful civs actually pick fights with the warlick civs, because they are warlike!. Then they fight each other for trying to achieve the same goal. In the end most of this drives them away from their goal, except for the military civs. They love it.
IT would seem more logical for the peaceful civs to band together in defense pacts to discourage war mongers, and until they accomplish that they should be gifting warmongers to keep their hides.

Philisophical phallacy
Alright so in civ5 we have computers pretending to be players pretending to be civilizations. Since we already went this far why don't we do the full monty with it and let the AI know that it is AI, and base its strategy around the fact that the player is not AI. The AI should know better then to mess with the player if it wants to win. It should think to itself "If I attack the player early either I'm going to get knocked out of the game, or the player is gonna reroll, but if I ride on his success maybe I can steal the win behind his back." I mean hell if the AI isn't going to pretend that the game is real it might as well go all the way with it.
Just imagine you hover your mouse over 'friendly' and it says "The AI is afraid you will reroll the map if it declares war on you"

Conclusion
I enjoy civ5, and I think it will beat civ 4 when they finally release all the stuff they snuck away for expansions, but I'm not sure if they can bring back that feel of being a real nation like civ 4 did. I try to get into my great greek civilization. I rename my science center athens, and my unit producer sparta, and then the AI comes and ruins it for me when they say that they think I'm playing the game the same way they are (this is hilarious because half the time I don't know my own strategy). Darnit AI your not supposed to know this is a game! your supposed to be Ghandi, and gangis khan, and act the part. Get back in character I say for all of our sakes!

Right, what do you think about the AI who thinks its a human playing a game? I fear that if it becomes perfected the ai will crash my game when they are losing.

I think the more peaceful civs tend to ride your success. I get a lot of research agreements by these civs when I'm not playing for domination. Its one of the reason why I like not rushing other civs early. They all come to me to trade.

I would like to see more cooperation amongst the civs such as defensive pacts being used. It also sucks you can't bully people into giving you stuff. The "demand" function is useless and all of them act defiant EVEN when you have taken half their cities and have an military 10 times greater than theirs.

Persia is literally the only Civ that goes into "afraid" mode which doesn't do anything anyways. There definitely needs more mutual cooperation where you can get legitimate allies with defensive pacts, shared vision, and opening trade routes similar to city states.