[NFP] Noticeable AI Improvement

[Revanchist]

Maybe it has just been me, but I noticed the AI making significant improvements in the game I played on King difficulty today (As France). The AI, compared to previous iterations, had an impressive science lead over me that took some time to catch up to, and were very aggressive when you did not follow their agenda/took a lead over them. For example, Gandhi, a somewhat weaker civ, was in the lead with a whopping 170 science in the medieval era, and had fairly well planned out cities. He applied heavy pressure on me during the industrial era where he declared war and nearly took out my city. This was more impressive because A) Gandhi is a fairly peaceful civ and B) he made sure to navigate the units around mountains that surrounded my capital. He positioned his units around the great general and made sure to knock out my strongest units (Vampires) first. All in all, I was very impressed by the leaps that the AI took in the game, especially since I wasn't using the AI+ mod.

One thing I would like to add regarding the update is that it has made AI interactions more interesting. Civilizations are much more likely to be friendly or aggressive towards you depending on your societal alignment. The bonuses are also very interesting, but I do not feel that they are broken or overpowered. With France, my vampires were able to help me defend when I was weakest (Early game), but were not so overbearing that I could easily overwhelm unprepared civs.

 

[enKage]

I am not sure if it is somehow connected with SS mode, but I was schoked my last game

I have never seen before AI making 500+ science and suddenly in one game:

t150, Poundmaker had 500+ science, 400+ culture, growing to 800/700 around t200
The same time (t200 or so), both Kongo and Bolivar around 500 science wih GC having a start position screaming for restart.

For sure game in SS has one added factor of not being able to befriend everyone in ancient era

 

[Hammurabbit]

I've played a few games after the Ethiopia-update, mostly without SS, and I agree, the AI seem to have become significantly better in managing science and thus more difficult to beat.

I've given up a couple of times now on Immortal which I used to beat pretty consistently before, if I only survived the first ancient era neighbour attack.

My quick take is that they are researching either faster than before, or are smarter in picking techs, making it possible for them to use their tech-advantage in their military.

For example, getting early crossbow men used to be a recipe for success, as the AI rarely got them before me even if they had a tech advantage. Not any more, it seems. I was facing crossbow men with my poor catapults and archers in all my games.

Will have to drop down to emperor at least it seems.

 

[Revanchist]

I've played a few games after the Ethiopia-update, mostly without SS, and I agree, the AI seem to have become significantly better in managing science and thus more difficult to beat.

I've given up a couple of times now on Immortal which I used to beat pretty consistently before, if I only survived the first ancient era neighbour attack.

My quick take is that they are researching either faster than before, or are smarter in picking techs, making it possible for them to use their tech-advantage in their military.

For example, getting early crossbow men used to be a recipe for success, as the AI rarely got them before me even if they had a tech advantage. Not any more, it seems. I was facing crossbow men with my poor catapults and archers in all my games.

Will have to drop down to emperor at least it seems.

I also was surprised that the AI had more advanced troops than me. I rarely build encampments and am fairly peaceful, but it has made me rethink my strategy especially with how often they like to declare surprise war

 

[Stringer1313]

Maybe it has just been me, but I noticed the AI making significant improvements in the game I played on King difficulty today (As France). The AI, compared to previous iterations, had an impressive science lead over me that took some time to catch up to, and were very aggressive when you did not follow their agenda/took a lead over them. For example, Gandhi, a somewhat weaker civ, was in the lead with a whopping 170 science in the medieval era, and had fairly well planned out cities. He applied heavy pressure on me during the industrial era where he declared war and nearly took out my city. This was more impressive because A) Gandhi is a fairly peaceful civ and B) he made sure to navigate the units around mountains that surrounded my capital. He positioned his units around the great general and made sure to knock out my strongest units (Vampires) first. All in all, I was very impressed by the leaps that the AI took in the game, especially since I wasn't using the AI+ mod.

One thing I would like to add regarding the update is that it has made AI interactions more interesting. Civilizations are much more likely to be friendly or aggressive towards you depending on your societal alignment. The bonuses are also very interesting, but I do not feel that they are broken or overpowered. With France, my vampires were able to help me defend when I was weakest (Early game), but were not so overbearing that I could easily overwhelm unprepared civs.

I wish this were my experience. After the latest patch, as usual, I am able to declare friendships with almost every single Civ immediately once they have a green smiley face (which I obtain within a few turns after meeting them), and the ones that I cannot do it with never declare war on me. I've never had AI declare war on me after the Classical era, except maybe one time 2 years ago when it was a joint war declaration. I have never had a single Civ game where an AI not on my continent declared war on me. So far, none of this has changed in my new game. I became allies with literally every civ on my continent as usual, while those civs on my continent declare war on each other (but never, ever, against me). Nothing has changed. I really wish I knew why I seem to be the only person on this forum that almost never has had war declared on them after the Classical Era.

Granted I almost never do Conquest victories. Since I don't, no AI ever declares war on me b/c they are so easily manipulable. The bonuses you get from friendships and alliances are absurd, and I can create grievances at will because they pale in comparison to the friendship/alliance bonus. The only civ where you can stack things like this is Sumeria and maybe Cree b/c that is part of their personality traits.

Edit: My ability to declare friendships with 90% of civs has not been hampered by different Secret Societies. I know people have suggested that I just stop declaring friendships with everyone to make the game harder, but that feels awfully not fun. An easier fix is to just prevent the player from being able to declare friendship with every single one.

 

[Myomoto]

Yea, I agree, the AI seems to put up a lot more resistance now. However, it still seems to fall off a cliff in the Industrial era

 

[kaspergm]

I see much higher science and culture scores than I did before. Not sure if it was because of benefits from SS or not. I was also able to recruit a Great General in my last game, and I only had a few encampments, so my gut tells me maybe AI doesn't build early encampment in all their cities anymore, which would help explain why their science and culture output has improved, but not sure if this was a fluke or consistent.

 

[8housesofelixir]

I wish this were my experience. After the latest patch, as usual, I am able to declare friendships with almost every single Civ immediately once they have a green smiley face (which I obtain within a few turns after meeting them), and the ones that I cannot do it with never declare war on me.

On a side note, I think the friendship factors are also heavily depend on difficultly level and game set-up.

Besides difficulty level - higher difficulties do mean the aggressive civs will become more aggressive - I recently found out that, if reduce the number of civs lower than the standard, the AI will become more friendly, even it's only 1 civ less. It seem like having more room to expand will reduce AI's aggressiveness (it will also increase the chance of them runaway in science).

 

[Hokie Fan]

The AI seems to be significantly better in SS mode whenever they dumb luck their way into the Voidsingers. For the first time since I can remember, I actually lost a game once I had a solid setup of cities. In that game, the Aztecs founded a religion, picked Voidsingers and wiped the map with a religious victory. I didn't found a religion and couldn't stop the Aztec's RV. In a typical game, a religious civ may fall behind in science, which would allow you to fight back against them but with the Aztec's picking Voidsingers, they were also top science and culture. I had a similar game with the Cree, who also picked voidsingers and were generating really good science and culture based on their FPT.

 

[Solver]

It's definitely improved. The AI is somehow better at science now, I had a runaway Gorgo of all leaders lead the world scientifically. Not sure where the AI improvement comes from, perhaps quicker to build Libraries and better at using Pingala?

I also notice that Voidsingers really mesh well with the AI. It's well known that the AI is a bit too fond of Holy Sites, something that usually leads to the "religion trap". But with the Medieval Voidsinger promotion, high faith per turn translates into an excellent boost to other yields, from which the AI benefits a lot. Then again, I also saw the AI spend a lot of faith on like 8 Cultists, without knowing how to do anything useful with them.

 

[bengalryan9]

I am not sure if it is somehow connected with SS mode, but I was schoked my last game

I have never seen before AI making 500+ science and suddenly in one game:

t150, Poundmaker had 500+ science, 400+ culture, growing to 800/700 around t200
The same time (t200 or so), both Kongo and Bolivar around 500 science wih GC having a start position screaming for restart.

For sure game in SS has one added factor of not being able to befriend everyone in ancient era

I've seen similar results going back a few updates. Most games I'll see 1-2 civs putting out amazing science output (500-600) and 1-2 others putting out amazing culture (also 500-600). In some cases it's been one civ doing both.

The AI still doesn't really know how to maximize their chances at either victory, though. They'll eventually stumble into launching their spaceship and will occasionally fall into a culture victory, but they both take a long time.

 

[enKage]

I've seen similar results going back a few updates. Most games I'll see 1-2 civs putting out amazing science output (500-600) and 1-2 others putting out amazing culture (also 500-600). In some cases it's been one civ doing both.

The AI still doesn't really know how to maximize their chances at either victory, though. They'll eventually stumble into launching their spaceship and will occasionally fall into a culture victory, but they both take a long time.

You are right, I also saw some civs doing well in one of those (usually Korea / Australia having great science and Persia or China doing amazing culture), but it never happened in both culture AND science.
And if that happened (high output in any of culture/science), it was one civ. Not three. And the last thing I would expect from AI at turn 150 is over 500/400, this is the level allowing easy pre t220 science victory.
All that happened without a single suzerein bonus ( I played pericles, so all CS were mine).

Anyway, as you stated, AI was still unable to reach final stage of spaceship, even though I intentionally gave them time to t260 slowing down all my projects (and I wanted atomic era to know how tier4 SS work).

I am now going my 2nd game after SS as Georgia and kind of difficult script for AI (tilted axis). I wonder how weel they will do

 

[JesseS]

Yes, to an extent. In my first post-secret society game, I saw America completely eliminate the Ottomans with rough riders and vampires, which I've never seen before. It took them a while, but 100 strength vampires are no joke and they managed to get the loyalty to hold the cities. It made me divert to military techs and build medieval walls for safety. The Cree were alarmingly close to a religious victory by the end too (t174), with 3/5 remaining civs converted and active apostles that had almost converted the other 2. In the second, France had crossbows at like turn 50, which managed to kill a fair amount of my units. And even after I'd conquered 3 other civs, America was still ahead in culture and science with ~150 science and culture per turn at turn 100, though they didn't put up much of a fight. The AI still doesn't build nearly as many walls as they should when seeing other civs get completely eliminated. And the change to de-prioritize encampments probably makes them easier to conquer, even if their science and culture is higher.

Maybe it's time to re-run an AI-only battle to see if they can now finish before turn 300 with secret societies. I suspect the late-game space and culture race coding is still awful and some relatively minor tweaks there could speed up AI victories by ~50 turns.

 

[Timothy001]

My last game as Catherine (Magnif), I quickly overran Rome, and Indonesia. Before they could do much. When I found Mapuche, Australia and Zulu, I got a big surprise. The Mapuche had all but killed the Zulu (had 1 city left) they had taken 5 of his cities. They were at peace, but he was now picking at Australia. He had almost 1000 military, the Zulu had 20, Australia had about 100. Talk about aggressive.

 

[Revanchist]

My last game as Catherine (Magnif), I quickly overran Rome, and Indonesia. Before they could do much. When I found Mapuche, Australia and Zulu, I got a big surprise. The Mapuche had all but killed the Zulu (had 1 city left) they had taken 5 of his cities. They were at peace, but he was now picking at Australia. He had almost 1000 military, the Zulu had 20, Australia had about 100. Talk about aggressive.

The Mapuche are very underestimated in general. If you find yourself on the wrong end of the spear (Golden age), you are at Lautaro's mercy.

 

[Timothy001]

I waited for him to enter a normal age, with me in a golden age. Then i attacked.

 

[Pietato]

Yeah, AI is better. Some things I have observed:

- Voidsinger AI is no joke, though they are clueless on how to use their carpet of cultists. Still 200-300 cuture AND science at turn 100 is crazy.
- Hermetic Order AI are bad, which is not surprising seeing as Hermetic Order is terrible.
- They are using catapults properly, and are constantly fighting each other, including spamming encampments Maybe the secret socities made them attack eah other more.
- Putting up walls seem to be hit or miss when they encounter a warmonger. Some will go all-in, while others will build none.

 

[Pietato]

I waited for him to enter a normal age, with me in a golden age. Then i attacked.

Wrong time to attack him. But I guess if you only have golden ages, there is no real right time.

 

[Pfeffersack]

Yes, I noticed better culture and science levels as well. Some improvement on the tactical level (unit movement) might have happened as well, but thats hard to tell from 1 and 1/2 game so far.

On a side note, I think the friendship factors are also heavily depend on difficultly level and game set-up.

Besides difficulty level - higher difficulties do mean the aggressive civs will become more aggressive - I recently found out that, if reduce the number of civs lower than the standard, the AI will become more friendly, even it's only 1 civ less. It seem like having more room to expand will reduce AI's aggressiveness (it will also increase the chance of them runaway in science).

The opposite seems to be true as well - I currently play a game where I crammed 20 civs and 24 CSs on huge map, Deity level. As you can see, I'm clearly not able to befriend everyone:

Spoiler :

Also, one civ has been completed eliminated, another has lost its capital. I think the fact that this setup means that some AIs inevitable get placed on bad starting locations leads to more diverging performances, so that weaker civs will get eventually conquered. It is still far away from what was possible in past iterations of the civ franchise - certain problems like AI issues with oversea invasions or sieges just persist -, but much better than with the usual number of opponents.

 

[comatosedragon]

I hate to be a spoil-sport; but only one person in this thread mentioned their difficulty level.

Providing metrics like "300 science by turn Z" is meaningless without also knowing game speed, map size and difficulty level.

I would like to think the AI is playing better; but I'm one of those people who needs indisputable proof.