So apparently, the AI has not been improved

[Archon_Wing]

Sometimes the AI doesn't even use the city bombard attack.

Pls insert some mental gymnastics to justify this.

 

[Loderingo]

Haven't bought GS yet but started a new game on Immortal as Poland. Khmer finished me off in early classical.

Very noticeable how he just kept attacking my city even when I damaged his units

 

[PhilBowles]

So you're all basically saying it's fine for the AI to never move adequate forces to the border if it didn't decide on the war.

I've never said anything about the AI being fine. I've learned to tolerate it, but I've expressed dissatisfaction many times with elements that Civ V was able to handle that Civ VI can't despite no changes in the associated mechanics.

That doesn't bar me from objectively observing that there actually are things the AI is capable of doing, such as moving units into position in advance of a war, that it's flat-out wrong to claim it doesn't do.

Was it so in Civ IV? Of course not.

Of course it was. This is why Civ IV AI did not capture every city it attacked when it declared war - once it had a stack of doom, sure it would roll through anything. That's the way the mechanics worked. Otherwise it would follow an algorithm that told it to bring a certain number of units to a city it wanted to attack, but if the human put up resistance it couldn't anticipate it would lose.

In this sense, the AI in Civ VI is exactly comparable. It can roll through city states and the rarity with which AI civ cities change hands, from observing civs at war with each other, has more to do with the AI failing to actually attack cities and instead attacking units than it does with the AI being unable to take cities. But human players put up a better defence.

And while it's factual 1UPT made Civ unchallenging v the AI, it isn't true AIs struggle with 1UPT inherently. Cases in point: chess, Go, every computer strategy ever made with 1UPT in mind originally.

Like you, I dislike the shorthand of equating the Civ V/VI combat AI problems with the system being based on one unit per tile, but by now '1UPT' is used to describe the Civ combat system rather than literally the tile arrangement.

The specific problem lies with the ranged combat mechanic, and really Civ VI should just have dropped it altogether. AIs in both Civ V and Civ VI took a lot of iterating on before they could concentrate fire appropriately or avoid getting their missile units, and they still can't 'play around' city bombardment effectively. Civ V throughout its life was bedevilled by a tendency to jump units in the water and having them sit there getting blown up - Civ VI used to be even worse in this regard but unlike Civ V seems to have fixed this issue. Meanwhile ranged combat is easy for a human player to use to destroy AI units or take cities without exposing themselves to danger.

Sometimes the AI doesn't even use the city bombard attack.

Pls insert some mental gymnastics to justify this.

Prior to the last big patch the AI had an issue where it seemed unable to fire out with garrisoned units if they were in a city with a wall (and even after that they're inconsistently able to attack with melee garrisons). This seems to have been fixed for a while, unless something in the GS patch broke it again.

 

[acluewithout]

I haven’t take a detailed survey... but the peoples on the reddit seem to be saying they think the AI has got better and seem to be enjoying the buff to walls (which seems to favour the AI). I might be wrong, but that’s how it seems to me.

From players here, it looks like the game has got easier but a lot of that seems to be pillaging (which will clearly need to be patched) and chopping still being strong.

 

[Cagarustus]

Yeap. And I confess I am having much more fun than I expected. 150 turns in, early still, but haven't seen a big AI blunder yet (in fact, I lost a city to Hungary... recovered it after a bitter war, but wasn't easy). We'll see how it progresses...

This is a huge positive that it’s coming from you.

 

[Aristos]

This is a huge positive that it’s coming from you.

We shall see if it stays like that, could not advance more into the game because of the (%&%(%((& compatibility of the mod... done now, so I will continue playing and observe AI behavior.

 

[Leathaface]

In my first game Kristina was south of Scythia, she had 3 cities. 1 was coastal with 2 inland cities. Scythia's capital was Tomyris' nearest city to Sweden.

I was playing on Pangea but the land that linked Sweden and Scythia was 2 tiles wide and it was hilly, so it would really limit Tomyris' ability to move land troops across in a timely manner, Tomyris could still hit Kristina at sea though. Anyway Tomyris declares war on Kristina and takes her southernmost city! The one on the coast.

I assume by naval warfare because that 2 tile wide gap would make it hard for Tomyris to move troops across plus she'd attack a different city if that happened So Tomyris took Kristina's city by sea, I never saw the AI do that before.

EDIT: Here is a picture

Spoiler :

 

[Noble Zarkon]

I haven’t take a detailed survey... but the peoples on the reddit seem to be saying they think the AI has got better and seem to be enjoying the buff to walls (which seems to favour the AI). I might be wrong, but that’s how it seems to me.

The AI is definitely much stronger in the 3 games I have played now.

 

[kaspergm]

I agree, the AI definitely seems stronger and more sane. It's not perfect, but it's a step forward. In my game, Nubia AI swalloed up big chunks of Poland and Indonesia during classical and medieval era, something that was unheard of before.

Also, like posted in another thread, I was pleased to see AI actively trying to combat my diplomatic victory in the WC. This was something I was unused to from Civ5, where I could by every single citystate and AI would just sit around on tons of gold and let me pull the vote through. Here's an example of last voting for diplomatic victory: https://imgur.com/a/dLMNgJR

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I agree, the AI definitely seems stronger and more sane. It's not perfect, but it's a step forward. In my game, Nubia AI swalloed up big chunks of Poland and Indonesia during classical and medieval era, something that was unheard of before.

Nubia swallowing up it's neighbours was pretty common in R&F. I observed it a number of times.

That said, the AI may well be improved in GS. It's just that Nubia conquering other civs isn't a data point towards that.

 

[Leathaface]

The AI is definitely much stronger in the 3 games I have played now.

In what ways?

 

[V. Soma]

In the impressions thread I posted a picture showing good AI performace, I show it here too...

I am Hungary and lose to Inca (and Frelanor too, she takes city be the force of love...)
(modded emperor level game)

mods:
- Dynamic Eras set to multipliers 1.5, 2.0, 2.5 and so on
- FortifAI (walled AI cities)
- Jam's Difficulty mod (gives era increasing AI bonuses)

Inca came with surprise war and with cats/chariots - it took him 2 turns to capture Óbuda.
I tried to recapture but the mod gave his city walls after some turns...
I was a bit behind in tech, tried to get ram/pikes, but Inca came with 3-4 crossbows and used them very well...

I gave up because I am abut to enter a dark age at this point, also has no economy to supply my war...

 

[Shorlin]

The one game I've played so far I did lose my capital early to Eleanor in a well executed warrior/galley attack.
Other than that the AI tech pace seemed slower than R&F and they weren't keeping their units up to date. The last few games I played of deity R&F I was impressed how advanced AI units were, there seems to be a step back there. Still, only one game played so on to the next.

 

[teakbois]

The one game I've played so far I did lose my capital early to Eleanor in a well executed warrior/galley attack.
Other than that the AI tech pace seemed slower than R&F and they weren't keeping their units up to date. The last few games I played of deity R&F I was impressed how advanced AI units were, there seems to be a step back there. Still, only one game played so on to the next.

In my last game Mansa was sending up to date units at me quite often. He was also using a jet bomber to pillage the crap oy of my capitols districts.

I thinking asking the AI to be a challenge militarily is a pretty big ask though as it cant brute force with 1UPT. I would like it to be better to compete at other victory conditions so at least there was some tension towards the end of the game. I will never abuse pillaging and I don't think non overflow chops are that bad, but on Immortal I would expect the AI to be able to get a victory by turn 300 or so.

 

[Zyxpsilon]

Right into the thick of things in my very first Sweden gameplay trying to wrap up a Diplomatic Win... and i honestly can't disagree more on the assumption(s) given by this OP.

AI's are far better than they ever were. I play against 8 & none of them felt weak at all. INCA was the first to fall.. caught MAORI by surprise.. heading for ELEANOR's coasts and she has a heavy fleet & fighters on patrol.