Honestly, it seems impossible to know. It's easy to shake one's hand at the youth these days not being as committed to strategy games as they used to be, something I see a frustrating amount on the internet. As you've already discussed, it's so dependent on what meanings people are bringing to this. Purely by achievements on Steam you could make the opposite argument; 82.3% of players have founded a second city, something about as hard as the achievements we used previously as a benchmark for "has booted up the game" compared to ~75% for our Civ 6 benchmark, and only 3.1% of people have beaten Deity to Civ 6's 6.4%. You could plausibly argue we have an increasingly large proportion of the fan base beating Deity; you could also argue Deity is harder in Civ 5, or it has been out for long enough that a large chunk of people to buy it for a few bucks and not really engage with it, or any number of arguments here really. No-one knows what proportion of the user base is highly skilled players; I would say that a larger proportion of the casual fan base is able to discuss the game now than when CivFanatics was founded. If you were talking about Civ on the internet in 2001, you were probably pretty committed - nowadays, someone might post on the Civ reddit the first day they get the game to try and answer a question. That can look a lot like an increasingly casual user base, even if it's just increased visibility of those players.
Likelihood we'll get a decent AI
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Honestly, it seems impossible to know. It's easy to shake one's hand at the youth these days not being as committed to strategy games as they used to be, something I see a frustrating amount on the internet. As you've already discussed, it's so dependent on what meanings people are bringing to this. Purely by achievements on Steam you could make the opposite argument; 82.3% of players have founded a second city, something about as hard as the achievements we used previously as a benchmark for "has booted up the game" compared to ~75% for our Civ 6 benchmark, and only 3.1% of people have beaten Deity to Civ 6's 6.4%. You could plausibly argue we have an increasingly large proportion of the fan base beating Deity; you could also argue Deity is harder in Civ 5, or it has been out for long enough that a large chunk of people to buy it for a few bucks and not really engage with it, or any number of arguments here really. No-one knows what proportion of the user base is highly skilled players; I would say that a larger proportion of the casual fan base is able to discuss the game now than when CivFanatics was founded. If you were talking about Civ on the internet in 2001, you were probably pretty committed - nowadays, someone might post on the Civ reddit the first day they get the game to try and answer a question. That can look a lot like an increasingly casual user base, even if it's just increased visibility of those players.
I think the problem with a lot of this discourse is people are assuming that the people they're discussing this with are arguing against having an improved AI, period.
I don't think that's the case. It certainly isn't the case for my opinions on the topic, and I've said as much in previous posts. The AI should be better. How much better, how realistic it is to expect improvements X, Y and Z . . . now these are arguable.
DeckerdJames
Prince
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Like others have stated, I also hope the civilizations are distinct in their personalities when all victory conditions are open. Hopefully civilizations will be arranged or developed noticeably different on the world map depending on their personalities.
I think that on a normal difficulty level, such as Prince in Civ 6, the game should be conducive to having fun with some challenging times, i.e. war, dark age, etc. occurring at moderate frequency. The game should be on the more relaxed side more than the challenging side, perhaps 55/45. So, more than half the time you can be building and planning your empire without trouble. That is the fun stuff for many players. They generally want peace and a fun race to a victory condition.
I hope the civilizations still have the same personalities on the highest levels. If a civilization tends to like peace, trade, and to pursue scientific victories, then if it discovers you on turn 3, I hope the difficulty comes from competitive land grabbing and the efficiency of their scientific progress, and a robust defense of their territory if they feel threatened. However, if they like wide empires and early era warfare, then you can count on an attack if they can muster one.
I hope their is little or no randomness you can expect from the personalities, unless unpredictable behavior is their personality. Now, I am for the player having control over that in the game settings. For example, it could be a slider between 0 deviation from their personalities to 100% unpredictable. The default should be 0 deviation. This will allow experienced players to know how to develop their game from the beginning. The computer AI will also know of personalities and they could treat human players as unpredictable.
These personalities would be the same on easy difficulty, but the difficulty and intensity of the challenges posed by the civilizations will increase as the difficulty becomes greater. On higher difficulty, Warmongers will plan bigger. They will produce and maintain larger standing armies even in peace time if they can afford it. They will have farther reaching goals including world domination if it seems viable. Scientific civilizations will strive to be on the cutting edge. They will seek technologically superior military defenses but invest mostly in infrastructure and development.
You get the idea. Hopefully they can do all this without giving any bonuses. However, I think having settings that could add bonuses to any difficulty setting would be ok. The simplest would be a slider that adds a 4x style bonus. Could be a slider from no bonus to 2x bonus to yields, or a slider like that for each yield.
I think that on a normal difficulty level, such as Prince in Civ 6, the game should be conducive to having fun with some challenging times, i.e. war, dark age, etc. occurring at moderate frequency. The game should be on the more relaxed side more than the challenging side, perhaps 55/45. So, more than half the time you can be building and planning your empire without trouble. That is the fun stuff for many players. They generally want peace and a fun race to a victory condition.
I hope the civilizations still have the same personalities on the highest levels. If a civilization tends to like peace, trade, and to pursue scientific victories, then if it discovers you on turn 3, I hope the difficulty comes from competitive land grabbing and the efficiency of their scientific progress, and a robust defense of their territory if they feel threatened. However, if they like wide empires and early era warfare, then you can count on an attack if they can muster one.
I hope their is little or no randomness you can expect from the personalities, unless unpredictable behavior is their personality. Now, I am for the player having control over that in the game settings. For example, it could be a slider between 0 deviation from their personalities to 100% unpredictable. The default should be 0 deviation. This will allow experienced players to know how to develop their game from the beginning. The computer AI will also know of personalities and they could treat human players as unpredictable.
These personalities would be the same on easy difficulty, but the difficulty and intensity of the challenges posed by the civilizations will increase as the difficulty becomes greater. On higher difficulty, Warmongers will plan bigger. They will produce and maintain larger standing armies even in peace time if they can afford it. They will have farther reaching goals including world domination if it seems viable. Scientific civilizations will strive to be on the cutting edge. They will seek technologically superior military defenses but invest mostly in infrastructure and development.
You get the idea. Hopefully they can do all this without giving any bonuses. However, I think having settings that could add bonuses to any difficulty setting would be ok. The simplest would be a slider that adds a 4x style bonus. Could be a slider from no bonus to 2x bonus to yields, or a slider like that for each yield.
GeneralZift
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Mostly agreed, but disagree about deviation. I think their personality should deviate according to the map, circumstances, and more.
With a little randomness to ensure that the games aren't the same every single time.
For example if push comes to shove, the peace guy will declare war, if you are so blatantly disrespectful, the nice guy will eventually snap.
This is so they don't feel like cardboard cutouts
DeckerdJames
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You are probably right. Some deviation to their order of building and expansion must happen. They have to be able to adapt according to the geography. They also shouldn’t be pushovers if they prefer peace unless they have a Neville Chamberlain type (but respectfully, imho, because he bent over backwards probably did a lot to make it clear to the world that the Allies had the moral high ground. He wanted “peace at any price”. )
Also, sometimes a civilization might just start in a cramped position. I think I see early declarations for this reason, but hopefully the tech tree will make it viable to either go to early war for space or to seek to establish colonies elsewhere. Perhaps a peace lover might recognize they are cramped but coastal and advance toward ocean exploration and settlement while establishing a good defensive military at home. If they are land locked, they could research toward units or abilities that help them see the world map so they can mount a mission to settle a colony. Meanwhile, hopefully there are ways to develop their cramped cities into a taller civilization that helps them keep up with the world’s 4x advancement.
I just think it would be nice to get to know the personalities of leaders so that there is some degree of reliable expectation of them. At least in their preferred victory types, or their order of preference in victory types. Though, how they develop their game might vary greatly.
As to switching to a victory type that is not usually preferred. Well that goes to the role playing element. If they are a scientific society for example, no they won’t switch. If they are trying to win a game, they will change if they see a quicker path to victory. I think that could be a toggle switch on the game settings or on the civilization settings.
If they don’t switch victory types and role play, then suppose you roll a game with a player for every victory type, you will discover you have beat one civilization to a science victory or prevent or slow them down, while realizing another civilization is going to rule the world, and another will try to build culture and tourism, and another will be trying to win a religious victory, and so on. So you have to beat or prevent each civilization or help beat or prevent them at their own game. But once you see that a particular civilization has been bested, you can just keep an eye on them while turning your efforts to other civilizations.
In another instance, you might discover you have several peaceful scientific societies so you know the game will be a faster technological race because the pressure on the cutting edge will be maximized. If there is a game with many war mongers, you know their will be war throughout the game if you have them strictly role playing.
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BackseatTyrant
Queer Anarcho-Transhumanist
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I think I've mentioned this at least once before in another thread, but I honestly wish the difficulty levels were replaced with some form of AI tuner, where the player can in the game setup screen, adjust AI flavours like:
- Overall aggressiveness of CPU players
- Aggressiveness of CPU players toward other CPU players
- Aggressiveness of CPU players toward the human player(s)
- Likelihood of CPU players accepting trade deals that aren't explicitly favourable towards them
- How quickly CPU players react to foreign units being close their own borders
- Likelihood of CPU players backstabbing other players
- How much CPU players focus on building military units & military infrastructure
- How much CPU players focus on building wonders
- How much CPU players focus on tending to their own citizens
- How much CPU players focus on unlocking new techs/civics
- Likelihood of CPU players committing atrocities
- Likelihood of CPU players committing severe atrocities
- Likelihood of CPU players refusing to apologize for wrongdoings
- Tendency of CPU players pursuing a high-risk/high-reward type of gameplay
- How negatively CPU players react to other players' wrongdoings...
- ...and how likely it is they practice what they preach
- How negatively CPU players react to trade proposals they themselves find unfavourable
- Preferences of CPU players between covert action and overt action
- Likelihood of CPU players adopting foreign religions
- Tendency of CPU players adopting the same government types & policies as neighbouring players
- Tendency of CPU players fighting towards the very end vs. calling for peace as soon as the tides turn against their own favour
- General attitudes of CPU players towards players with differing governments
- General attitudes of CPU players towards players with other dominant/state religions
- How much CPU player relations are soured over losing wonder races
- et cetera, et cetera..
Leyrann
Deity
This is going to lead to a lot of people playing against a completely non-functional AI because it's badly prioritizing to the point that it just suuuuuuuuuuuucks, and it's going to lead to absolutely no one having a challenging run because even an AI tweaked to have the perfect values here isn't going to match a human player without bonuses. The game is simply too complex.
GeneralZift
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It's probably best to have customisable AI but only in very basic categories. I.e. Aggression, Trade, Infrastructure (Science V Culture leaning).
Then this automatically adjusts the internal values within the range that all existing AI work with.
Presumably if you want a fully custom AI, you should be able to mod it in
BackseatTyrant
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Huh, I was under the impression that the naysayers found the handicaps to be "too artificial" and that the difficulty levels should only affect AI behaviour. I can't keep count of how many times I've seen complaints about the AI not being contentious and/or hostile enough.
And can I just say, "I want smarter AI" is such a lame request? I have very little knowledge in coding, but I feel I know enough to get the sense developers really hate when their client tells them in the requirements "just make this feature better", simply because of how vague that requirement is
Leyrann
Deity
The majority of players would dislike playing against an AI that has no bonuses at all, because such an AI is going to be Warlord/Prince level (Civ 6) at best. If you want to provide any more challenge, you'll need to give it bonuses.
It's not a matter of what's optimal, it's a matter of what's possible.
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This assumes that the Civ 5 developers were simply unable to figure out how to improve the AI.
The reality of why Civ 5 AI is how it is assuredly a lot more complex. “Devs are dumb, modders are smart” is almost never the answer. Making a mod and shipping changes to a AAA game is like comparing apples and bowling balls.
Aurelesk
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To be fair, I believe the opposite. I think the players would find more joy by outsmarting a smart computer-player which started with the same tools, than beating a limited computer-players with a 50-turns headstart with a handicap factor.
The main differences being: you can learn from the smart AI to improve at the game, but you cannot replicate what the basic AI did since its strength comes from the bonus, free units and free techs. Also, we could witness the AI catch-up to us, making the endgame more engaging. Currently, once you catch-up, the game is finished: it is just pressing "End turn" until the victory screen shows up.
The bonus are there to increase the difficulty because the AI isn't good enough to compete with humans. If they improved the AI so much that Deity is unbeatable, then the designer would lower the headstart and the bonuses accordingly.
But asking such a good AI seems impossible. Just by looking the multiplayer scene where players are debating what is viable or optimum, or finding better strategy years latter... How can an AI be designed to be incredibly good when the players themeselves are not able to give a definitive answer years after release?
Leyrann
Deity
And you can believe that just fine. I believe that too.
That's why I said, it's not about what's optimal, it's about what's possible.
It's simply not possible to create an AI that can do so.
DeckerdJames
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I agree that personal computers would be slow to brute force something ike 80x52 standard map, or 128x80 huge map at 8 or 10 ply depth like a chess board, but does it really need to?
DeckerdJames
Prince
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I predict that the day is not very far off when it won’t be about watching someone like PotatoMcwhiskey or Ursa Ryan speed run deity, but rather watching a deity vs PotatoMcWhiskey and Ursa Ryan, and probably and perhaps a couple of their followers too if the deity has a little time to get its unit count and yields up so that the strategic possibilities open up. But that's ok because while deity difficulty might end up being a team challenge one day, most people will still have to learn how to beat immortal difficulty while solo. So, there will be room for videos on teamwork against a very hard computer and good solo play against a hard computer. Hopefully Prince and King will still be in the vein of a more fun and challenging experience, while Emperor becomes the beginning of competitive play.
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Leyrann
Deity
Yes. It does. And quite a bit more than that.
A single 4-speed horseman unit standing on flat grassland in all directions can move to 61 tiles (this includes not moving at all). Six of these horsemen can move in 61^6 = 51 billion configurations. So we're not looking at a standard map, but rather just three cities worth of land (assuming there's some overlap between cities, otherwise it's just two).
Meanwhile, a chess engine that looks forward 8 ply has 20^8 = 25 billion possible configurations. Note that 20 is an approximation of the average number of legal moves in a given chess position - the precise number may vary.
And that's just a game aspect that can easily be quantified in terms of possibilities! How about 'when to declare war', 'what of these 8 units, 8 buildings, 6 districts and 6 wonders to build next' (28 options per city, at 8 cities this by itself beats 8 ply as well), 'where to settle next', and so on?
The only way to build a 4X AI is by generalizing things like this so that you never even consider the options you don't take. Simply considering and discarding bad options like chess engines do just doesn't work, it's too slow.
It's worth noting that even if they did brute force it 8-10 turns deep, that would be woefully insufficient for a game like Civ where strategies routinely have to be in mind 100+ turns in advance; brute forcing is simply untenable for a game like Civ in any meaningful way (even a duel map forced into only one city for both AI would be functionally impossible). As you say, it also isn't necessary; the current general model of saying "this civ is better at science from its abilities, so it'll have 1.5x weighting for science victories/infrastructure/etc. It then spawned in a great spot for campuses, so it'll take advantage of that" is a pretty sane way to do it. There's plenty of work to be done in making those weights more effective for substantially improved AI behaviour (Real Strategy for Civ 6 shows that), and just in abstracting strategy into these weights in a way that works more effectively too. The down side of this system is that it can be quite hard to fiddle with the weights - changing the AI's weighting for campuses doesn't just give them a bit more of a focus on beakers (as we saw with that accidental reweighting of campus building priority in civ 6), it started bankrupting the AI, they built no units, and the units were stuck several ages behind their actual tech, just as an example. Putting in a "player customisation screen" where they can just re-weight these themselves is going to be pretty tricky, though having a few options ("more aggressive AI", "more untrustworthy AI", "more player-like AI" (i.e. pursues victory over roleplaying)) would certainly be do-able as they could be pre-weighted.
This whole discussion gets at the problem with "just make the AI smarter on harder difficulties, not get unfair advantages" - it's extremely difficult to do. If you make the AI more aggressive on Deity difficulty, you can't just bump up some AI_WEIGHT_MILITARY_AGGRESSION value, as there are a huge amount of flow-on effects. You could tweak and tune the parameters for each difficulty so they work in concert with each other, but that's a lot of work - and then on top of that, you'll have to reconsider those weightings pretty regularly during development, patching, and expansions, so the work is on ongoing maintenance concern. The most efficient way to do this would probably be to have a mode where no rendering occurs and you can just have AI automatically play against each other and used directed evolution techniques to alter the weightings based off of the AI that win. That could be substantially automated ... and then runs into the issue of the AI being hyper-optimized for beating another AI, and bad at reacting to a player interfering in their normal plan. This is all much harder to do than one would think, and IMO the best solution would be designing the game while keeping the knowledge that the AI are going to have to use these mechanics as well in mind; some of the mechanics are unnecessarily difficult for the AI to navigate.
GeneralZift
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They don't need to BE smarter they need to APPEAR smarter.
They should react to the player's motions more. They should plot against winning players more. They should be a bit more greedy, they should trade with others and form distinct obvious alliances. They should try to deceive you by appearing friendly then backstabbing you when it's convenient.
None of which goes into making them strictly stronger opponents due to some kind of improvement in the algorithm. But it goes a long way towards making them feel more opposing and harder, without relying only on cheating and without too much effort in my opinion.
We all know the human player is likely to be the best performing player in a room full of subpar robots. You want the player to feel good about outperforming all the other Civilisations.
Now Realistically, what happens if your nation is prosperous and you're boastful?
They should get jealous and make it obvious.
If you want a proper ally you need to work for it, by building trust.
But maybe some personalities are not easy to trust.
Just my thoughts
They should react to the player's motions more. They should plot against winning players more. They should be a bit more greedy, they should trade with others and form distinct obvious alliances. They should try to deceive you by appearing friendly then backstabbing you when it's convenient.
None of which goes into making them strictly stronger opponents due to some kind of improvement in the algorithm. But it goes a long way towards making them feel more opposing and harder, without relying only on cheating and without too much effort in my opinion.
We all know the human player is likely to be the best performing player in a room full of subpar robots. You want the player to feel good about outperforming all the other Civilisations.
Now Realistically, what happens if your nation is prosperous and you're boastful?
They should get jealous and make it obvious.
If you want a proper ally you need to work for it, by building trust.
But maybe some personalities are not easy to trust.
Just my thoughts
Leyrann
Deity
This is quite possibly the most divisive topic about AI that you can find on these forums. Some people argue as you do, some people argue that it's the worst thing ever for the AI to consider anything victory-related in their decision-making.
I'm pretty sure people complained about the AI doing this in Civ V quite a lot, although it's not something that'd reach my personal top 50 biggest issues with the game.
Oh yeah that's why everyone has constantly been declaring war on the USA, Germany, etc over the past 70 years.
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