Should there be more aggression, or not

[heke]

Related to this, I had an odd game with Shaka. Prince, Pangea, Small map. I spawned next to Attila. I was like "Yay now I can have decent early fighting with him". I started to prepare my defense quickly as Attila always likes to attack quick and early. I built few archers and spearmen, beelined to Impis.

After I got my spearmen promoted and was prepared for war I started to realize that there's something very wrong. Attila was still neutral on me, there was no his troops next to my or anyone else's border. So I started provocating him little bit and demanded some money from him. He didn't give it but neither denounced me. I keep on poking him and required him not to settle cities next to me as he was just built brand new city next to my borders. Still no reaction! At this point I was out of insults (if there was an option to tell him that I slept with his wife I'd have used it) so I had no choice to denounce him myself. He denounced me back but still there was no further movements from him. So I took one of his cities with Impies and catapults and moved on to his capital. Just to find out that he had 2 warriors defending it So I took his capital and signed a peace. I don't know what's wrong but Attila didn't act like he used to be...

 

[newarkinvaders]

It used too be you would get attacked at turn 50-70 and by turn 60-100 would have swung the war and take their citys to see they had build nothing in the city , no buildings or anything else that wastes time from spamming units .

Much better now that only the warmongery leaders tend to do this

They also only attack now if its finicial viable

 

[BroOfTheSun]

I played a game last night, with Russia and Greece as my neighbors. Greece quickly expanded to 5 cities. After his cities were setup and running with pop 5-8, both him and Russia declared war on me. I had expanded to 5 cities a little late, and did not have an army to defend against the 10 hoplites, 1 companion cavalry, 2 comp bows, and 2 catapults. Plus, Russia's army of 3 swordsmen and a warrior (enough to take out a small city on plains). I had a legion, 2 spears, chariot archer, 2 comp bows. Game ended early for me (don't remember the turns from rage, and was playing on epic). Stupid early game AI aggression...

 

[Bagi]

What has been the most common complaint about civ5 since the beginning? The sociopathic and overly aggressive AI that would force war on you at every turn even if you wanted to play a more diplomatic game. Never trust the AI, not even Gandhi and so on.

The devs obviously went out of their way to fix that complaint and compensated it with making gold harder to come by and barbarians more difficult to deal with. Now that diplomatic play is possible and wars can be often avoided, people complain about that too. Is it really so bad that peaceful players can enjoy the game more now, while you still have the option to go and ravage the countryside if you wish?

 

[BroOfTheSun]

I hope they don't change anything. I like how each civ plays. Some will be early aggressors, others won't. So some games, you can play peaceful in the early game. Other games, you will have to build an army to defend with.

You should all try playing with random personalities. Then, you won't know whether to build an army or not based on who your neighbor is. See how that works out. Better yet, just make an 'Aggressive AI' mod.

 

[Uncle_Joe]

The AI is most definitely not 'fine' if it cripples itself by producing and maintaining a military but still allows me to cruise to victory unmolested with hardly any military at all. That is not 'fine' at all...its a huge flaw in the game.

As I've said before, militaries are EXPENSIVE both in the production to build them and especially in the upkeep to maintain them. If you build them, you HAVE to get some sort of use out of it. Currently, the AIs are building militaries near me, but never attacking my anemic defense. So what happens? Predictably, I have a better production base, a better tech infrastructure, and a LOT more money to throw around to gobble up CSs and garner even MORE of an advantage.

There is no way the AI can be competitive without MASSIVE bonuses if it's wasting all the effort on military while allowing me to ignore building my own.

In 5 games now, I've generally ranked in the lowest 3 out of 8 in military THE ENTIRE GAME. And I've never once been attacked. Not once. And I'm not going out of my way to be friendly. I don't give away resources, I don't stop spying when they catch me, I don't stop spreading my religion etc. I just play the way I want and ignore the AIs and they never make me pay for it.

In G&K, I typically played on King level and had a decent challenge. In BNW, my first few games were runaway victories for me on King. For my latest game, I upped it to Emperor hoping for a challenge and what did I get? More of the same happy happy peaceful AI but it just took longer for me to get ahead and cruise to victory since I had to overcome more artificial bonus. But no change in the behavior, no change in the threat level to my meager defenses.

So IMO, there is CERTAINLY nothing 'fine' with the AI. The game has become horribly boring IMO. It's just too easy to ignore building a military and therefore gain a massive advantage and win.

 

[BroOfTheSun]

I've played 8 games now, and there have been wars in ever game. Whether you get early wars very heavily depends on who your neighbor is.

I've played games where I didn't get wars till I found an ideology. I've also played games where I had multiple wars early on. Every game will be different.

 

[Hieschen]

You guys should play games with Rome, Greece, Huns etc.

They are still warmonger and will take any chance to whipe out the weak.

you forgot Shaka, he is top of the list as an obnoxious neighbour.

Even though there are interesting strategies to deal with him and his Impis (and i love their resistance to ranged attacks)

 

[Uncle_Joe]

I've played 8 games now, and there have been wars in ever game. Whether you get early wars very heavily depends on who your neighbor is.

I've played games where I didn't get wars till I found an ideology. I've also played games where I had multiple wars early on. Every game will be different.

Yes, there have been wars in every game I've played too, but they've never attacked ME. Not once. Despite having next to no military (ie, just anti-barbarian details).

It doesn't matter if there are wars between AI nations IMO. That's good and all, but if the player isn't forced to pay the price for not building a military or otherwise securing his borders then the game is heavily flawed.

Guns or Butter is the classic Civ decision and now it's just Butter or More Butter since you don't tend to need Guns if the AI won't attack you (with a few exceptions, but even at that I've never been attacked despite bordering both Napoleon and Attila in a few games).

 

[BroOfTheSun]

Yes, there have been wars in every game I've played too, but they've never attacked ME. Not once. Despite having next to no military (ie, just anti-barbarian details).

It doesn't matter if there are wars between AI nations IMO. That's good and all, but if the player isn't forced to pay the price for not building a military or otherwise securing his borders then the game is heavily flawed.

Guns or Butter is the classic Civ decision and now it's just Butter or More Butter since you don't tend to need Guns if the AI won't attack you (with a few exceptions, but even at that I've never been attacked despite bordering both Napoleon and Attila in a few games).

I should have clarified in my previous post that I was involved in wars with every game, and in most cases I was not the one starting it. I have yet to play a game where I haven't been at war at some point.

I'm seeing different responses from many people to the question of AI aggression. It seems like the experience has been different for everyone so far. I think it should be ok to survive without a military in the early game, depending on your neighbor. For example, let's say Gandhi is your neighbor. Then you shouldn't have to worry about building an army.

 

[Aristos]

As it is right now, the game seems to be at odds with itself. On the one hand, it is a turn based war game and on the other the mechanics discourage war.

And there is where we completely disagree (and I have the strong impression this line of thinking is at the core of most complaints right now).

Civilization is not a war game. It never was before Shafer's vanilla. It never should have been. The game was at odds with its own history, in any case... and from my perspective, now it is back to its roots.

That is not to say it doesn't need balance (how wouldn't it, with so many new systems?), but that is completely different from labeling it a war game... Shafer got us all spoiled, me thinks.

 

[feralminded]

I would argue that no generation of civ game was ever an explicit "war game" and instead they've all been economic games. That said Civ5 did introduce a heavy element of tactical combat that was largely non-existent previously (there's very little tactical about stacks of doom) ... and this is something I personally consider a good thing as I am a huge fan of Civ5 compared to previous versions.

No doubt there's likely some bugs in the current release and some are likely producing unexpected behavior. The answer to whether things should be more aggressive or less aggressive is simply "Yes". There are times when the AI should probably be more aggressive and isn't for some reason we don't understand and there are times when the AI should probably be less aggressive and attacks itself into a corner and loses due to attempting a conquest that not only failed but never could have succeeded against an able opponent (standard practice in G&K). My vote is firmly: "Yes, the AI can and should be better." ... and that will never NOT be my vote.

A better question is "Is it good enough to have fun right now?" For me personally the answer is "most of the time". Yes I have had a couple games now where bizarre things have happened that have in fact ruined those games for me but that does not mean every playthrough so far has been un-fun. It likely helps that I strongly believe what we are mostly experiencing are bugs and not intentional design choices. I was certainly no fan of the G&K AI but I also do not believe the developers intend the AI to be quite as lame as they have been in a couple of my personal games ... specially at the higher difficulty levels. I have faith the bugs will be fixed and everything will be better ... sooner than later. They made this amazing game and I have no reason to believe they intend to break it out of hand.

 

[Scott Jegg]

I feel the AI should get bonuses to happiness and gold in the era when they are supposed to be strongest with their UAs or UUs. This is when they should be expanding their empires through conquest and should be their most dangerous. Even give them free buildings in the ancient era if it will provoke them to war more.

I like not having to put up with the obligatory turn 50 attack from a neighbour in G&K, regardless of what civ it was, but I don't like it in BNW when I'm not at all forced to be defensive towards a civ who has the capability to take me out and should do for the benefit of their game.

 

[Scott Jegg]

Also, the AI needs to think a bit more about kicking the player's ass if the player ir cruising to a victory.

 

[CornPlanter]

it is a turn based war game

You are confusing Civ with Panzer commander. Can't blame you, devs confused them too. Bnw is fixing it.

 

[sanchopanda]

I hear this a lot but do not see it in any of my games. I wonder if the AI has changed so much that it now caters to those who are playing. I.E. if you are being a peaceful builder then the game recognizes it and leaves you alone for the most part. If you are going down the honor path and picking friends which means you are making enemies too, then there will be blood. The reason I say this is I played a Venice game and just went about my business making money and building my city. Made no DoF's or denouncements. It was a peaceful game for the most part. On the other hand I played Shaka with full honor and had multiple wars started by Spain and the Shoshone from the classical all the way until Industrial. I made friends with Persia early and basically did what he wanted so my caravans would be secure. It was a great game.

The play style makes a huge difference. It is without a doubt possible to force a more or less peaceful game or at least possible so stay out of nearly every war.

In my games (Venice, Emperor, Standard/Large, Standard/Epic) I always have some friends, in most of my games I try to get a "best friend" and in all of my games I have at least one true enemy. If no one want's to be my enemy, I'll choose one . I use trade embargoes and other congress options they don't like, I denounce them, steal their land, get their allied city states, steal their technology, demand gold/luxuries, remove their religion, make friendship with their enemies and what happens most of the time? Nothing. They do nothing. Some stay neutral, a few stay friendly (no joke) but most of the time they hate me. However the chance that they declare war is so low that I don't bother building an army. I even tried to not get more than a few hundred gold because the value is used in the calculation of my "strength".

 

[Uncle_Joe]

You are confusing Civ with Panzer commander. Can't blame you, devs confused them too. Bnw is fixing it.

Maybe they are confusing it with Farmville too? Or maybe Sim Economy?

Because I don't know of too many Civilizations that went through history without wars....