One Civ flaw never fixed?

[rschissler]

I've played Civ III and IV, usually with victory by conquest. One thing I've found in almost all of my games is that the beginning is always very challenging. The AI's always start with a big lead, with more and larger cities, more units, and a huge tech lead to go with a higher score as well. Since the AI isn't as smart as a human player, after awhile I am able catch up and pass them as I start conquering cities and develop better strategies. In the later stages of the game it's almost too easy and is almost like I am just mopping up, until I cruise to victory.

I wish the Civ 5 designers could make the game more balanced. I know in Civ III and IV, the AI get a lot of bonuses, most of which help them in the early game. Why can't the Civ 5 designers implement the bonuses on a sliding scale? In other words, have less early bonuses, making the game more even in the early stages, and then ramp up the bonuses as the game progresses? This way, the end part of the game is still a challenge, and thus makes game entertaining all the way through.

 

[ori]

In Civ4 the bonus actually does ramp up for each era in many cases.

 

[LiDDiS]

It's probably a flaw with the AI. Early on your choices are fairly limited so the AI copes better

 

[Olaf_The_Great]

Why don't they just program a superior AI instead of giving us fake difficulty? Civilization has fared better than a lot of other strategy games(Namely the total war series, whose AI actually got worse and worse after Rome), but notably worse than others.

 

[Panzeh]

Why don't they just program a superior AI instead of giving us fake difficulty? Civilization has fared better than a lot of other strategy games(Namely the total war series, whose AI actually got worse and worse after Rome), but notably worse than others.

Programming a better AI is an insanely difficult problem for complex games. I might ask, which strategy games have better AI in actuality?

 

[LiDDiS]

Programming a better AI is an insanely difficult problem for complex games. I might ask, which strategy games have better AI in actuality?

GalCiv2 probably has better AI than civ4. When on equal ground bonus-wise with a human player it will still be dispatched easily by a competent human player.

 

[Thyrwyn]

They have specifically stated that they ARE giving us an improved (multi-tiered) AI. This should at least mitigate the "snowball effect".

 

[tom2050]

GalCiv2 probably has better AI than civ4. When on equal ground bonus-wise with a human player it will still be dispatched easily by a competent human player.

GalCiv2 AI is not good (ToA). 2 game breaking AI bugs on large maps: AI does not build anything on 30%+ of it's planets. Evil-based AI civs do not expand. These have been affirmed by members and large threads were created to try to solve the prob with Stardock, never happened to my knowledge.

GalCiv2 is mostly complete open space. It's a simple point-to-point travel system. Numbers win in GC2 along with most powerful weapons.

These were the reasons I quit playing GC2, I couldn't take the broken AI anymore. C3C I feel has better AI than GC2, and C3C AI is bad...

 

[Olleus]

I cant think of any game where the AI even comes close to Civ4. EU3 isnt too bad, but the amount of choices available at any one time are tiny compared to Civ.

 

[Savoir10]

I've played Civ III and IV, usually with victory by conquest. One thing I've found in almost all of my games is that the beginning is always very challenging. The AI's always start with a big lead, with more and larger cities, more units, and a huge tech lead to go with a higher score as well. Since the AI isn't as smart as a human player, after awhile I am able catch up and pass them as I start conquering cities and develop better strategies. In the later stages of the game it's almost too easy and is almost like I am just mopping up, until I cruise to victory.

I agree. BTS was supposed to address these issues, but failed to do so. The reason was that religion had already stuffed up the early and middle game to the point that ramping up the economies Beyond The Sword just added another level of mindless micromanagement. Added to that the numerous bugs and crashes to blue screen and you have the full extent of what a disaster Civ4 was for me.

CIV5 appears to be addressing the problems i had with CIV4, however as we still only have basic information and not the full story I will reserve final judgment until then.

 

[GlobularFoody]

I've always thought the biggest flaw in the franchise is how boring the end of the game can be. I almost always get tired of playing before winning because of how tedious the game gets in the modern era.

My other gripe with the series is the ridiculous siege warfare mechanic but that looks to be taken care of. Nothing stupider than one-time use catapults, especially if you are using them while defending a city.

 

[rschissler]

I've always thought the biggest flaw in the franchise is how boring the end of the game can be. I almost always get tired of playing before winning because of how tedious the game gets in the modern era.

That's exactly the way I feel, and why I wish the Civ 5 designers would try and do something to fix it.

 

[LiDDiS]

GalCiv2 AI is not good (ToA). 2 game breaking AI bugs on large maps: AI does not build anything on 30%+ of it's planets. Evil-based AI civs do not expand. These have been affirmed by members and large threads were created to try to solve the prob with Stardock, never happened to my knowledge.

GalCiv2 is mostly complete open space. It's a simple point-to-point travel system. Numbers win in GC2 along with most powerful weapons.

These were the reasons I quit playing GC2, I couldn't take the broken AI anymore. C3C I feel has better AI than GC2, and C3C AI is bad...

That's too bad. I have TOA, but never played it much. DA and Vanilla seemed to have good AI though. Maybe the AI in Twilight couldn't cope with the unique tech trees they introduced.

 

[attackfighter]

Programming a better AI is an insanely difficult problem for complex games. I might ask, which strategy games have better AI in actuality?

It isn't 'insanely' difficult to improve AI... it's just difficult making better AI that doesn't also slow down the game.

 

[Thyrwyn]

That's exactly the way I feel, and why I wish the Civ 5 designers would try and do something to fix it.

That is what they are trying to do with the 1 unit per hex and the multi-tiered AI.

 

[frenzyfol]

I've always thought the biggest flaw in the franchise is how boring the end of the game can be. I almost always get tired of playing before winning because of how tedious the game gets in the modern era.

I'll second that.

My ideas for minimizing the end game slowdown.
1. Reduce number of managable cities, or force players to use governers past a certain tech.
Does Obama come to your city and decide if a marketplace is going to be built?
2. Quick fast forwards to project if you are in an obvious winning state.
3. Past a certain tech level/era the player no longer manages units but gives up their command to generals
Does Obama tell private Ryan to take that hill?

And in line with the original post.
A gripe I've always had is units (Worker) will when commanded to walk from A to B will not stop or try to avoid obvious enemy units that have appeared in it's way, resulting in its unnecessary death.

 

[jaythewise]

GalCiv2 probably has better AI than civ4. When on equal ground bonus-wise with a human player it will still be dispatched easily by a competent human player.

I 100% disagree with this. I can whoop Gal Civ 2 on the highest settings unless I add max or near to max AI. I cannot do the same thing with 12 AI on diety settings in CIV4

 

[jaythewise]

GalCiv2 AI is not good (ToA). 2 game breaking AI bugs on large maps: AI does not build anything on 30%+ of it's planets. Evil-based AI civs do not expand. These have been affirmed by members and large threads were created to try to solve the prob with Stardock, never happened to my knowledge.

GalCiv2 is mostly complete open space. It's a simple point-to-point travel system. Numbers win in GC2 along with most powerful weapons.

These were the reasons I quit playing GC2, I couldn't take the broken AI anymore. C3C I feel has better AI than GC2, and C3C AI is bad...

YA I 100% agree. I dont know how anyone could state that the AI in GAL civ2 was better then CIV4.... It's too bad too GalCiv2 is a great game otherwise.

 

[Vordrax]

I'll second that.

My ideas for minimizing the end game slowdown.
1. Reduce number of managable cities, or force players to use governers past a certain tech.
Does Obama come to your city and decide if a marketplace is going to be built?
2. Quick fast forwards to project if you are in an obvious winning state.
3. Past a certain tech level/era the player no longer manages units but gives up their command to generals
Does Obama tell private Ryan to take that hill?

And in line with the original post.
A gripe I've always had is units (Worker) will when commanded to walk from A to B will not stop or try to avoid obvious enemy units that have appeared in it's way, resulting in its unnecessary death.

To be fair, Obama wasn't alive and in command of American for 6 thousand years either. But I understand your point

And yes, I agree with the worker problem. It's rather annoying.

 

[Ataxerxes]

2 thoughts.

The old Age of Mythology (admittedly real-time) had a pretty good AI, at least compared to the original Age of Empires II.

If you play RFC, the end of game tedium is less. Domination kicks in at 25% of the world (admittedly large map), but the stability makes domination hard. So you aren't managing 40+ cities. Maybe something similar to RFC stability could be used for CIV5.