Nerf AI conquering City States?

[steveg700]

Consider also the correlation between these statements:

If one holds that degenerate strategy is problematic, then objectively the CS's behavior is an issue that needs to be addressed.

Higher difficulty levels are about optimization and therefore rely on exploiting degenerate strategies.

Do they actually contradict each other?

 

[steveg700]

the mods dont really work, though I havent found the walls one to try out, more units is a very marginal improvement, and really annoying because they generally just clutter movement. City States still get jacked like crazy. They could design a toggle, Aggressive vs City States, or not aggressive vs city states ..

Or they could go with what is obviously more intended to work with civs like germany and go back to less aggressive overall and design in some more secondary traits that are CS aggressive .. to add variety so some games you get germany and a few other aggressive city state hunters, and other games you don't get any of them

Right, the much-touted mods I'm hearing about so far seem to be band-aids applied to the surface of a systemic problem. If it dials things back a little, some find that satisfactory.

If Montezuma attacks a CS to gain a luxury he lacks, that tracks. It's his shtick. But there are no aggressive protectors as far as I can tell. Agendas like Teddy's Big Stick and Curtain's Citadel of Civilization should act as counters. Haven't made observations on Tamar yet (she's never close), but she should certainly be helping out the little guys.

Is there a mod for AI civ's to actually be true to their agendas and exhibit a tailored strategy?

 

[Kyro]

Most of us aren't claiming game-breaker, that's a moved goalpost. From a discussion standpoint your position requires a refutation that this is a degenerate strategy situation or a credible reason this particular degenerate strategy is somehow a good thing in a strategy game.



That's not what's going on here. After 13 pages where the same arguments from different posters are repeatedly not even addressed, let alone refuted, confidence in their eventual refutation should decrease and confidence in their accuracy should increase.

"It's okay on deity" is a non-argument and given the discussion to this point, intellectually rude.

1. The game crashing makes it harder to win a game. Deity is supposed to be hard, so crashing is okay if it's only happening on deity.
2. AI Poundmaker starting in the Atomic era due to a bug makes it harder to win a game. Deity is supposed to be hard, so Poundmaker starting in the Atomic era is okay on deity.

^ These statements have equal logical value to the case that a degenerate strategy is "okay because it happens on deity and makes it harder (maybe)". What allows us to conclude this case is different from those should be part of the counterargument. In contrast, the argument steveg700 presented is not so easily interchangeable. One must hold that this is not a degenerate strategy situation or demonstrate why less strategy in a strategy game is okay. It is possible to provide evidence for either of those refutations, on the condition that the evidence exists. It's been 13 pages and nobody is even trying. Rejecting an analogous logical proposition out of hand with "come on" is not a credible way to refute the reality that the logical proposition as stated is objective...while the supporting discussion (not argumentative reasoning) for the mechanic as-is subjective.

Very well reasoned. I'm afriad that some people don't play fair when it comes to discussion and simply resort to "strategic silence" when their viewpoints are being challenged with questions they cannot answer.

I've yet to see a coherent rebuttal to the points raised or an answer to any of the questions asked. They simply repeat the same irrelevant and inconsiderate things like "build an army and liberate them or you don't deserve them."

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Very well reasoned. I'm afriad that some people don't play fair when it comes to discussion and simply resort to "strategic silence" when their viewpoints are being challenged with questions they cannot answer.

I've yet to see a coherent rebuttal to the points raised or any of the questions asked. They simply repeat the same irrelevant and inconsiderate things like "build an army and liberate them or you don't deserve them."

I think what many people do, and certainly what I try to do, so perhaps I'm just extrapolating from my own preference, is express my thoughts once. I'll happily respond to polite inquiries about why I think that way. And if my thinking has changed, I'll gladly say so. But if it hasn't, I don't see that making a post to that effect is helpful.

Some or all of my thoughts may indeed be irrelevant from your perspective. If any of them were inconsiderate, though, then for that I apologize, as I was not trying to be inconsiderate.

 

[steveg700]

I think what many people do, and certainly what I try to do, so perhaps I'm just extrapolating from my own preference, is express my thoughts once. I'll happily respond to polite inquiries about why I think that way. And if my thinking has changed, I'll gladly say so. But if it hasn't, I don't see that making a post to that effect is helpful.

Some or all of my thoughts may indeed be irrelevant from your perspective. If any of them were inconsiderate, though, then for that I apologize, as I was not trying to be inconsiderate.

Kyro can speak for himself, but I don't think the strategic silence he referred to consists of people expressing their thoughts once and then being done. It's when people show up to drop the mike in a pithy fashion, and then when engaged on the finer points of their position they dive like a submarine only to resurface later and regurgitate. I don't even mean in terms of just one person doing this. A lot of people think they can "solve" a thread like this with a one-two punch.

You seem a reasonable sort of chap to me, FWIW.

 

[The Technomancer]

Since my go-to leader/civ is Curtin/Australia, I kinda like having a few targets for liberation. I also had a very fun encounter last night as Auckland (which I was suzerain over) was attacked by two different civilizations. Had to levy their units (a scout and spearman), upgrade them to spec ops and pike+shot, and basically had to use the spec ops’ teleport/“airdrop” ability to keep melee units from being able to take the city.

This is on Immortal.

That said, I’ve read all 14 pages of this, and there are very good arguments as to why the the AI aggressiveness towards the city states should be tuned down. My biggest worry is that AI aggressiveness in general is about the only thing that keeps it competitive, and the more cities they directly control, the more likely they are to offer something resembling a challenge.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Consider also the correlation between these statements:

If one holds that degenerate strategy is problematic, then objectively the CS's behavior is an issue that needs to be addressed.

Higher difficulty levels are about optimization and therefore rely on exploiting degenerate strategies.

Do they actually contradict each other?

It's pretty hard to say. Higher difficulty levels are a contrivance due to the game not being challenging enough for players, and thus the rules must be twisted a bit; ie like those games where now your health bar is 1/4 the size on hard mode. Thus you will often get conflict between two groups that will claim neither is playing the "real game" ie. one will say higher levels remove elements of strategy while the other side will say anything is possible on lower difficulties anyways and strategy is pointless...

and thus their version (typically equal to their difficulty to their level) while they can not fathom anyone besides the mentally disabled playing their difficulty minus one, and anyone else that plays their difficulty plus one (or just does it better) has no life and needs to find better hobbies. Another common failing is people fail to realize that not everyone plays on the same map settings they have (in which case not all advice is universal.... go figure)


And I just described gaming!

I think a good example was probably the vanilla release of Diablo 3 where the new highest difficulty for its time was deliberately made over the top and unreasonable which really broke design. That didn't go over too well but some people didn't mind. They even boasted that they didn't even test it. That just reminds me of high difficulty Civ.

But back to your point, it is true that exploiting degenerate strategy is key to winning on higher levels. We eschew religion and let the AI ruin itself on it, and this is a contrivance. Civ 4 involved beeling Liberalism because most other AIs didn't. This, however, does not justify AI game throwing for the sole purpose of making the game harder. At least this form of exploit is based on knowledge and a small degree of calculated risk. When the AI acts all willy nilly, that's often out of anyone's control and thus not very interesting from a decision making point of view.The AI in these cases may not be playing optimally, but it's still playing the game.

I suppose an AI could just delete all its units and build scouts all day, letting another AI conquer them. That would cause a snowballing mega-empire that would make the game harder for you, but it's hard to justify that for the sake of challenge. But then this leads to the way of old civ where the AI would all just gang up on you just because you were the human player or ignore the rules entirely. That's something that's quite dated and sorta dying out. Civ 6's AI, for all of its failings, does not get almost free upgrades or play on Difficulty 2 regardless.

It's the problem with black and white thinking. If one thinks that anything that makes the game harder is better regardless of logic, then if you take it far enough, it's possible to justify the game randomly deleting your saves or crashing in the middle of the game. I mean a lot of people tend to glorify the early days of gaming for "challenge", but I say this unironically-- that WAS part of the difficulty since games didn't get patched back then (no real way to)

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I think a good example was probably the vanilla release of Diablo 3 where the new highest difficulty for its time was deliberately made over the top and unreasonable which really broke design. That didn't go over too well. They even boasted that they didn't even test it.

A lot of respect for Blizzard lost over that game. I played it with a few friends and once I realized it has "gear checks" (you can get 1-shotted by undodgeable attacks from monsters off screen unless your gear is good enough to survive) I spit on it as an experience. It's an insult to players' skills otherwise required in the game...without even bringing up the initial auction implementation .

I suppose an AI could just delete all its units and build scouts all day, letting another AI conquer them. That would cause a snowballing mega-empire that would make the game harder for you, but it's hard to justify that for the sake of challenge.

There are agendas and behavior tendencies not far removed from this...and have been since Civ 4 at least.

 

[Archon_Wing]

A lot of respect for Blizzard lost over that game. I played it with a few friends and once I realized it has "gear checks" (you can get 1-shotted by undodgeable attacks from monsters off screen unless your gear is good enough to survive) I spit on it as an experience. It's an insult to players' skills otherwise required in the game...without even bringing up the initial auction implementation

I've heard it's gotten better but yea I quit before I got to saw that. A lot of it was rather insulting. I could accept a flawed game, yes, Diablo 2 had a ton of problems but was sound overall. The reasoning behind some of these decisions were another story. I felt like the game's design did everything in its power to reduce player agency to make sure higher difficulty contest was strictly a gear check. Beyond the offscreen/pulls ---> one shots, there was also the fact that if an enemy started their animation, you would get hit as it finishes regardless of where you are. This is ridiculous to have in a ARPG. Was it just lag? Nope. They wanted it that way. The appalling reasoning is something I will never forget.

It's intentional. We don't want a game where the most effective way to play is to dodge in and out of enemy attacks. It's not that difficult to do, and it's just not a very fun way to play. "Most effective" and "not fun" just can't be in the same sentence when describing part of the game. We want combat to be based on use of abilities, putting thought into builds, building up offensive and defensive stats, etc. Skill is absolutely a part of all of the systems you'll use, and kiting can be too, but it'd be ridiculous if you could avoid all of the systems that make the game the game because you can time dodges of enemy attacks and negate every other factor.

There are agendas and behavior tendencies not far removed from this...and have been since Civ 4 at least.

Indeed.

 

[Kurnn]

The mod "AI+" fixes the problem with city states. I play on Immortal.

 

[Kyro]

This is officially being addressed in the upcoming update by buffing City State production for walls and increasing early defensive values. Finally some relief for those who correctly identified the problem.

 

[isau]

I have high hopes Firaxis' changes to City States will make them survivable but still vulnerable enough to make them conquerable. I play with my Combined Tweaks mod and was never aware there was a problem to begin with, because the mod happens to give all Capitals walls on Turn 1. The result was that AIs do sometimes conquer City States later on but usually not until around turn 100-150. If Firaxis' tweaks come close to the ones I was already playing with I have no doubt the issue will largely be resolved.

 

[Athmos]

Apparently they'll get higher city strength and a production bonus to walls.

 

[steveg700]

Behold, the almighty power of complaining once again validated.

Are there any post-patch observations that lend an impression that when confronted with tougher CS's that the AI will stop declaring war on them willy-nilly?

If CS's are tougher, and the AI still goes crazy DOW'ing them, then that just results in the AI grinding away and expending excessive effort, whether or not it actually manages a capture.

 

[The Technomancer]

AI still rolled two-thirds of the city states, and would have rolled more had I not come to the defense of a few.

This is on Immortal.

 

[MaximusPlatypus]

can anyone confirm how many units CS start with on various difficulties; and has it changed?

 

[Tuvok694]

The last patch did not change anything about the fact that the AI furiously attacks every city state it can get their hands on.
I cannot understand what the developers want to achieve by programming it that way. The city states are an interesting feature in this game, why do they make it so worthless?

 

[Archon_Wing]

can anyone confirm how many units CS start with on various difficulties; and has it changed?

On Emperor, the CSs can repel some attacks. Their city defenses seem higher faster. However, once the AIs tech up, the CS's become sitting ducks again. Blue and Red CS's seem to be able to hold their own better.

Also, if the AI is one of the more powerful civs, the CS's stand no chance. But this is a balance issue.

Overall, it's not enough. The biggest problem is if you liberate a CS as it'll be helpless for the rest of the game and in some cases you may just might as well put it out of its misery for good.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Overall, it's not enough. The biggest problem is if you liberate a CS as it'll be helpless for the rest of the game and in some cases you may just might as well put it out of its misery for good.

There was a prior thread on how City State research and production is handled. It seems to work "okay" if the CS remains independent, but breaks down completely if they lose their initial army and need to be liberated.

It would be nice if the developers re-visited their approach to City State research and production, because it is broken after liberation.

 

[Draco84]

There was a prior thread on how City State research and production is handled. It seems to work "okay" if the CS remains independent, but breaks down completely if they lose their initial army and need to be liberated.

It would be nice if the developers re-visited their approach to City State research and production, because it is broken after liberation.

In the prior thread, I recommended the City States gain all techs of the civ who conquered it, so when it is liberated it remains at the same strength as it was before being liberated. I think that would go a long way to fixing city states late game. (no more 20 strength city state cities vs tanks) There would be a realistic explanation as well seeing as these people have been using the new tech after having integrated to their new civilizations.