seeking opinions: buy now or wait?

[georgjorge]

I'm confused as to why you think the AI would be any better given the entire engine change (AI is learned behaviour; new engines and technological bases tend to work against that).

Even with all the new stuff, some things are pretty much a given in every Civ from I to VI: If you have a city surrounded with superior forces, attack it instead of retreating. If you hate your neighbour and your army is far better, attack him. Upgrade your units. All those things are largely independent of new things like districts, eurekas or particular tech trees, yet the AI often doesn't do them even when it was able to in older Civs (even V after the expansions, which is closest because of 1UPT). Of course, developers change over the course of the series, but why not take a look at how V (especially community mod etc.) dealt with combat, and go from there? I think the result would be far better than re-inventing a very badly shaped wheel again and again.

 

[Gorbles]

Even with all the new stuff, some things are pretty much a given in every Civ from I to VI: If you have a city surrounded with superior forces, attack it instead of retreating. If you hate your neighbour and your army is far better, attack him. Upgrade your units. All those things are largely independent of new things like districts, eurekas or particular tech trees, yet the AI often doesn't do them even when it was able to in older Civs (even V after the expansions, which is closest because of 1UPT). Of course, developers change over the course of the series, but why not take a look at how V (especially community mod etc.) dealt with combat, and go from there? I think the result would be far better than re-inventing a very badly shaped wheel again and again.

The concepts are a given, absolutely. Getting a machine to parse those concepts, and then act them out? Considerably more difficult, and as games get more complex, so do AI requirements (likewise, it's why modding gets harder as games get fancier, and why we see less and less modding tools. It's not always that publishers want to suppress modding communities - though that can happen - it's more than it gets increasingly difficult to justify the resources on getting workable mod tools that will work outside of the developer's specific custom environments).

AI, ultimately, comes down to a learning curve. The AI in a year's time will not be the same AI it is now. We can just only hope that the new mechanics Firaxis implements play nicely with how the AI evolves and adapts over time.