Random, runaway AI getting ridiculous.

[richypc]

Since the last patch I have noticed the game picks one random AI that goes on a settler spamming free for all across the entire map. It spams so many cities and settlers it makes little to no military units, but YET manages to defeat 4-6 other civs through warfare, while at the same time exanding 1 city about every 3-4 turns.

The name of the game now is, "CIV 5 - Spot the Runaway AI Before its Too Late"
Last play yesterday, it was France, today it was Suleiman. I have to keeps tabs on the game score just in order to get a heads up on the stupidity.

I see Suleiman's score almost double everyone else by the time I start to crank out a large enough army, a few turns later I start sacking, razing his cities, no military response because he has none. Five cities later I stop for a short rest; and OF COURSE the in-game mechanic called happiness which is suppose to keep rapid expansion in check forces me to stop.

I take a quick peek at the score, to my horror and notice it hasn't even dropped LOL!
In the meantime he must have gone on spamming more cities somewhere in the fog of war. The other AI idiots getting rolled by a Civ with almost no military units failing to keep him in check. I finally notice a military response from him with, get this, 2 settlers holding up the rear. I log out.

I consider my self a good CIv player and have logged on plenty of hours. I made it a mission to complete most if not all of the Steam achievements and I'm just about their, with 70% of them completed. Sadly, with COD: Black Ops amongst other titles coming along this Fall, I dont see myself playing this much at all. That "one more turn" feeling just gets put down by some of the AI nonsense that has plagued this game since release.

End Rant.

 

[Sonereal]

The best solution?

Setting the expansionist rates on all civilizations to be the same. That would be a quick fix for the time being it seems.

*OT

I'm also getting Black Ops. Vietcong Zombies!

 

[Morningcalm]

The issue is annoying largely because other AI don't properly assess the situation. If you wage war on the AI runaway, suddenly you become the "Bloodthirsty one" or the "warmonger" while they sign research agreements with the runaway AI.

Inane, stupid, clumsy. Hopefully Firaxis fixes this in their upcoming patch (I want to see allies and liberated AI actually be friendly to you for a change, as well).

 

[Ripped]

The issue is annoying largely because other AI don't properly assess the situation. If you wage war on the AI runaway, suddenly you become the "Bloodthirsty one" or the "warmonger" while they sign research agreements with the runaway AI.

Inane, stupid, clumsy. Hopefully Firaxis fixes this in their upcoming patch (I want to see allies and liberated AI actually be friendly to you for a change, as well).

this.

really poor game design. emberassingly bad.

 

[Atwork]

It's strange to me that CIV5 AI struggles with balance in these sorts of ways. It seems that expansion was very well balanced in BTS and the AI seemed to expand quite intelligently.....I just don't understand why 'the baby was thrown out with the bath water' in CIV5.

In the game I'm playing, I'm definitely the run away civ. Because there's no 'distance from capital' financial penalties, I simply rushed cities to occupy certain key expansion points to head off the other cives.... then I back-filled....I ended up being huge and my runaway expansion went mostly unchecked by the other civs. I would have ganged up on me -- I don't honestly can't say for sure, but it seems like the CIV4 AI would have ganged up on me too...

 

[Zenstrive]

I simply call them my continent filling aides. I meant, they spammed so many cities, with little to no armies, and you can take them cities away easily and make an EPIC CULTURAL WIN. Really, FUN!

 

[Slowpoke]

Like one said, setting expanion flavor all to 10 (and weighting early expansion startegy to always happen as well) works. But this causes the map to fill up by medeival, which is good, but it causes wars. So then you gotta up city hit points to make it difficult.

But there's still two problems:

-The A.I. cheats happiness so it's unaffected by conquering the way you are. This is sort of needed, though, because the A.I. doesn't understand to beeline construction and it can't avoid growth.

-YOU are able to runaway too. How many civ games could you just destroy everything in sight?

 

[Rohili]

I don't see runaway AI as being a problem. In fact, I welcome it - at least it gives you a mission and sense of purpose: "I must take down Arabia/Ottomans/Persia/Siam!"

Without a runaway AI, getting a score victory is too easy. Usually, by the Renaissance Era I would be leading the scoreboard. Then I scout to the other continent and find an AI that has conquered all the nearby civs, with a higher score than me. This gets me excited again and I start making plans to take him down.

Also, a runaway AI makes a conquest victory much, much easier. The AI would probably have already conquered a few civs for you, so all you have to do is to go in and take his capital (which is invariably poorly defended) and you win. In contrast, if all the AI were equally competent, you will need to personally attack each of them to take their capital.

 

[Slowpoke]

I don't like it because it makes the game's difficulty too unpredictibale. If there was a runaway civ in every game, sure that'd be cool and it essentially makes the game one difficulty higher. But sometimes there isn't. So it's like not being able to choose a level that fitsyou well.

 

[Qin Shi Huang]

What happened to civs having military, expansive etc flavours? Thats one of the things that they didnt include, or did very weakly, that i was really looking forward to now its pretty much random which is rediculous and ruins it :\

 

[richypc]

What happened to civs having military, expansive etc flavours? Thats one of the things that they didnt include, or did very weakly, that i was really looking forward to now its pretty much random which is rediculous and ruins it :\

The problem is 1 AI is picked and the others act very weak. Its like the AI is only able to competently handle 1 CIV and the rest fall by the wayside.

And another problem is the weak AIs come hat in hand requesting help, gold and assistance to handle the runaway where they could very well handle the problem themselves.

 

[richypc]

I don't see runaway AI as being a problem. In fact, I welcome it - at least it gives you a mission and sense of purpose: "I must take down Arabia/Ottomans/Persia/Siam!"

Without a runaway AI, getting a score victory is too easy. Usually, by the Renaissance Era I would be leading the scoreboard. Then I scout to the other continent and find an AI that has conquered all the nearby civs, with a higher score than me. This gets me excited again and I start making plans to take him down.

Also, a runaway AI makes a conquest victory much, much easier. The AI would probably have already conquered a few civs for you, so all you have to do is to go in and take his capital (which is invariably poorly defended) and you win. In contrast, if all the AI were equally competent, you will need to personally attack each of them to take their capital.

I understand the mission or purpose part, but it becomes plain predictable. Almost every game having to respond the same way gets old.

 

[Atwork]

I think the problem isn't so much that AI civs will try to run away.....that's actually good because it means the AI is being aggressive!

The problems are that: (1) the run away civ often doesn't expand intelligently, i.e. neglecting military and infrastructure improvements...and (2) the other AI civs don't act cooperatively to prevent or delay the runaway.

A 'good' AI would expand with purpose -- being aggressive when it comes to getting prime spots, but balancing expansion against the need to defend its territory and infrastructure improvements. That's intelligent expansion.

Also, the AI should recognize other civs' rates of expansion and either: (1) attempt to match their rivals' rate of expansion, or (2) at least attempt to suppress their rivals' rate of expansion via individual or cooperative action, viz. denial of luxury resource trade, military intervention, or diplomatic pressure.

 

[Bandit17]

I agree that a lack of reaction from other civs is part of the problem. I have had only two significant alliances aligned against me due to my own run away civ but I have never seen the ai react that way vs other ai.

I don't mind run away civs too often as it does add a sence of urgency. Not to mention it's typicaly not too dificult to give them a trim. Other tricks are to settle and hold key choke points, use scouts to block settlers (gamey) or you can add a few extra civs/cs's to your games.

My current game had the Romans running away and some decent scouting picked this trend up early not to mention some luck since he was my far off neighbor. He had 10 cities to my four and no one else, that I could tell, had more than 5. He had two more settlers approaching the pass leading into my domain so I blocked it until I could get a settler up. Otherwise I wouldve been forced into an early war and pray the Romans didn't have an active iron source (which he did).

The Romans had the Babylonians on the other side so now he was hemmed in. He was still way ahead of everyone else though so as the game progressed he naturally became the early game power house. Roman empire so no suprise. It made for a fun and challenging game!

Now that was on King. So difficulty plays a significance in how much you can do.

 

[kell_the_kyuss]

normally dont post.

yes this is horrible-bad. game i was in yesterday as montezuma was the runaway, and after I expanded a my reign over a couple of city states with resources in the middle of their archipelago the remaining 8-9 civs (and all city states, like 20+) decided to war me.

in civ 4 i would have been dead. but the ai only really attacked me with washington. the rest wouldnt make peace for 200+ years, but never sent so much as a single unit my way (even after taking a couple of their cities).

after I sacked washington's capitol, all the rest of his units, he had like 50 minutemen and ten settlers, and they just stopped moving - all of his units. no one attacked, he just stopped doing anything while his empire burned.

im done with civ 5 for a while, until this is patched. having to roll a 1d20 to even get a capable opponent is bad enough, but a sandbox large world is a waste of a game when the ai isnt even given have a leg to stand on.

any decent civ game where the human is attacked by the entire world, the human would not have won the game. those past developers understood that principle alone.

i expect this from level 1 or 2.

not prince or king.

 

[Bandit17]

normally dont post.

yes this is horrible-bad. game i was in yesterday as montezuma was the runaway, and after I expanded a my reign over a couple of city states with resources in the middle of their archipelago the remaining 8-9 civs (and all city states, like 20+) decided to war me.

in civ 4 i would have been dead. but the ai only really attacked me with washington. the rest wouldnt make peace for 200+ years, but never sent so much as a single unit my way (even after taking a couple of their cities).

after I sacked washington's capitol, all the rest of his units, he had like 50 minutemen and ten settlers, and they just stopped moving - all of his units. no one attacked, he just stopped doing anything while his empire burned.

im done with civ 5 for a while, until this is patched. having to roll a 1d20 to even get a capable opponent is bad enough, but a sandbox large world is a waste of a game when the ai isnt even given have a leg to stand on.

any decent civ game where the human is attacked by the entire world, the human would not have won the game. those past developers understood that principle alone.

i expect this from level 1 or 2.

not prince or king.

The current ai has many issues and the more water and the more chokepoints you have on your maps the more issues the ai will have. I have found Pangaea maps to create an environment that does not hinder the ai to the level that other maps do. Pangaea maps can create more run away civs but just add a few extra civs or whatever and enjoy.

 

[Horizons]

Since the last patch I have noticed the game picks one random AI that goes on a settler spamming free for all across the entire map. It spams so many cities and settlers it makes little to no military units, but YET manages to defeat 4-6 other civs through warfare, while at the same time exanding 1 city about every 3-4 turns.

The name of the game now is, "CIV 5 - Spot the Runaway AI Before its Too Late"
Last play yesterday, it was France, today it was Suleiman. I have to keeps tabs on the game score just in order to get a heads up on the stupidity.

I see Suleiman's score almost double everyone else by the time I start to crank out a large enough army, a few turns later I start sacking, razing his cities, no military response because he has none. Five cities later I stop for a short rest; and OF COURSE the in-game mechanic called happiness which is suppose to keep rapid expansion in check forces me to stop.

I take a quick peek at the score, to my horror and notice it hasn't even dropped LOL!
In the meantime he must have gone on spamming more cities somewhere in the fog of war. The other AI idiots getting rolled by a Civ with almost no military units failing to keep him in check. I finally notice a military response from him with, get this, 2 settlers holding up the rear. I log out.

I consider my self a good CIv player and have logged on plenty of hours. I made it a mission to complete most if not all of the Steam achievements and I'm just about their, with 70% of them completed. Sadly, with COD: Black Ops amongst other titles coming along this Fall, I dont see myself playing this much at all. That "one more turn" feeling just gets put down by some of the AI nonsense that has plagued this game since release.

End Rant.

The runaway AI had 'no military units'? Which difficulty level was this - settler or chieftain?

 

[wurstburst]

I have no problem with runaway civs. It's a challenge to be overcome. On the other hand, I've never seen a runaway civ with little to no units. Usually that civ is tops in military, tech, land and population. You have to run to keep up with them on tech and then attack smartly when the moment is right. This is on emperor level.

 

[richypc]

The runaway AI had 'no military units'? Which difficulty level was this - settler or chieftain?

Prince, Sparse resources too which makes it all the more pointless to spam cities everywhere.

 

[richypc]

I have no problem with runaway civs. It's a challenge to be overcome. On the other hand, I've never seen a runaway civ with little to no units. Usually that civ is tops in military, tech, land and population. You have to run to keep up with them on tech and then attack smartly when the moment is right. This is on emperor level.

This isn't the issue. I can spot the runaway and be forced to go heavy on military units early in the game and bash it to death. The point is every game turns out like this. As I stated the name of the game has changed. Why cant the AI civs at least be competitive.

It shouldn't be, ok turn 50, spot the runaway, ok there is the runaway, go kill it. Game over. Since the runaway is the only one Civ that played overly aggressive, this usually means the other civs are total pushovers and they are.