NFP AI provided us with the most epic battle I have ever had in Civ 6

nauberry

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The AI get's a lot of slack, as it usually does not prove a great challenge. Today however I was reminded, that it can seriously pack a surprise.

Me and my wife were playing on a marathon game using the non-modded true start location map. The game was set up on immortal with only civs in the "old-world". I was playing with Spain and she with Sumeria. My game was pretty slow from the start, as I was aiming for religion. I managed to get iron and horses and raise a small, but potent army. She in the other half had conquered much of the middle east and was doing good with Sumeria.

I then noticed, that Byzantium was producing over 60 science per turn, while I was doing a meager 10 per turn. barbarians had caused Byzantium a lot of trouble, so they had no units at all. I decided to declare a war of pillaging and razed all of their campuses. This set up a motion, that nearly ended our game.

Mongolia was doing very good from the start, they had conquered China and had good yields in both science, and was also heading to a golden age. They saw my war on Byzantium as a trigger moment and decided to attack only a couple turns later. In a couple turns, they had conquered Constantinople (mind you, it is very far away form Mongolia), and in two more turns had conquered their second largest city. Mind you, all the cities had ancient walls on them.

I entered a golden era, and Constantinople flipped a couple turns later. At this point Mongolia had a secure hold of a couple other Byzantine cities situated in Eastern Europe. Me and my wife used this opportunity to liberate Constantinople. At this time Genghis had also made peace with Basil. They had a new target, Sumeria.

Ghengis declared war and swiftly they brought knights, light horsemen and keshighs from both North and south of the Himalayas straight into my wifes territory. We sold all GPT and diplo favor, relics etc. just to upgrade one of his war carts to a knight. This increased the combat strength of her cities to 50+, which slowed down their attack. The war itself took 20 turns, and in the end, almost all of Sumerias tiles were pillaged, two cities were down of walls and my wife had lost all of her units. On the other side, all Mongolias troops were killed of by our joint effort and a white peace was made.

tldr. Mongolia did what they are at best, conquered half Europe in a short time and almost conquered the Middle East as well

I would like to post this as a reminder for all the folks, who still thinks, that the AI is not capable of taking walled cities. It seems that now with NFP the AI has become more competent by the day. If you have lost your will to play due to poor AI a long time, I would encourage you to give it another shot. It is very fun.
 
One thing I noticed in the recent patches is that AI will effectively use bombers to strike their targets in the late game wars.
I somewhat restart games 90% of the time, so I'm not really witnessing this stuff, but I do like this. :) One small step paves the way for a giant leap. Keep doing this, Firaxis, I'm rooting for you!
 
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I was starting to feel the AI was improving combat-wise. However, I ran into the below situation. The Inca decided in the late game to attack the city state of Kabul. They brought a Nuclear Sub Armada, two GDR, and a Helicopter Corps. In the hands of any human player, Kabul wouldn't stand a chance. However, Inca's strategy was to park the sub and fire from point blank range at Kabul's Mechanized Infantry (not the city), and march their GDR's off into the ocean every turn, and then back next to the city the following turn, without firing a single shot. I'm pretty sure the AI doesn't know that GDR's are a ranged weapon.

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I was starting to feel the AI was improving combat-wise. However, I ran into the below situation. The Inca decided in the late game to attack the city state of Kabul. They brought a Nuclear Sub Armada, two GDR, and a Helicopter Corps. In the hands of any human player, Kabul wouldn't stand a chance. However, Inca's strategy was to park the sub and fire from point blank range at Kabul's Mechanized Infantry (not the city), and march their GDR's off into the ocean every turn, and then back next to the city the following turn, without firing a single shot. I'm pretty sure the AI doesn't know that GDR's are a ranged weapon.

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I'm pretty sure Giant Death Robots can capture Cities...

Edit: Wait, I just read it more thoroughly, I understand now. They aren't using their GDR's as Ranged Units, I get it.

https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Giant_Death_Robot_(Civ6)
 
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How I wish I could play even a double-speed game with my wife :lol: can't even dream of a Marathon game
We both enjoy the early game the most. With marathon, the speed dials up when approaching modern era, as science etc. skyrokcets. This way we can enjoy the part we like the most!
 
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It's clear now. :) Yes, I agree, with a couple of range attacks they would take the city. No need to focus on the units, which will disappear once the city-state is taken. Maybe AI doesn't know that particularity about CS.
Perhaps the AI here is unable to recognize that the mech. infantry is not a threat? I'm not sure if there'd be any way to test it. But the AI might just think "oh, there's a unit there, I should kill it first" no matter the circumstances...though, I'd wager that is not the case based on how frequently the AI marches past units to assault the cities beyond them, even if their units are not strong enough to take down the city walls.
 
Perhaps the AI here is unable to recognize that the mech. infantry is not a threat? I'm not sure if there'd be any way to test it. But the AI might just think "oh, there's a unit there, I should kill it first" no matter the circumstances...though, I'd wager that is not the case based on how frequently the AI marches past units to assault the cities beyond them, even if their units are not strong enough to take down the city walls.

In the same game, most of the AI's would have their GDR's march around pillaging a couple improvements, and then walking away from cities, while sending a bunch of Modern AT crews up against the undamaged defenses. Maybe it's just all tied with the AI's complete inability to properly siege cities. The only time I saw any cities change hands this game was with a big naval force, rather than any land/air/GDR sieges. From what I can tell, the AI is actively trying to NOT take cities (may be intentional).
 
Maybe it's just all tied with the AI's complete inability to properly siege cities.

I generally agree, but playing on a Terra map with civs that having an edge on taking cities (Byzantium, Chandragupta, Ottomans, Persia, etc) will surprise you.
 
In my games, it seems GDR really just plays out as an AA unit that makes it a little harder to take down AI armies with fighters. They seem to attack cities only when they are joined by a large force. I recently lost two cities in a late game emergency war because I couldn’t take down GDR as fast as they were appearing with my 6 jet fighters, and my decimated land army was forced to retreat.

From a modding perspective, I wonder if adding a walled city attack operation that only requires 1 GDR would help. Would definitely need to give AI more ops per war.

I’ve noticed the AI fighter/bomber use too, though not consistently, and they mostly struggle to rebase their aircraft into position. Seeing that air units are excluded from city attack ops, my guess is that FXS added (or reenabled) some localized logic for air units, to check if there are any nearby defense or assault operations. I had a bomber pillage two districts and attack one unit last game, but I scared it off with my fighters before I could see what else it might do. I’m seriously considering removing all strategic resource requirements to see how it affects AI. If only they’d build 15-20 air units, we might see what they are capable of. It would be nice if the strategics just lowered a steeper gold maintenance cost.
 
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