The AI can't even handle barbarians; why isn't this fixed?

[Big J Money]

Note that I usually play on Prince and King, so it would be good to know (but still disheartening) if this is fixed on higher difficulty levels.

As an experiment today, I played an MP game where each player was on a team with 2 AI's.

What we found out is that the AI often loses multiple undefended workers and settlers to barbarians. This isn't even a complicated scenario to design; they simply seemed to have a random chance on whether they would send military units at the barbarians before using the defenseless units. I'm not talking about sending civilian units too far either, I'm talking about letting their cities become surrounded by 4 barbarians, and then building a settler and moving it out where it's exposed.

Why even play the game if there's a chance that my win will be because my opponent lost its first 2 Settlers to barbs and crippled itself for the rest of the game. I knew the AI needed some work but I didn't realize it's this bad.

 

[Sclb]

I can assure you that this doesn't happen on deity, and it gets hard to find barb camps that aren't cleared by AI at that level.

 

[apocalypse105]

I can assure you that this doesn't happen on deity, and it gets hard to find barb camps that aren't cleared by AI at that level.

THis was on deity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sJl2dvsPfY

Just dissable barbarians it makes the game harder

 

[beetle]

Just dissable barbarians it makes the game harder

It also makes the game more boring.

 

[CIV5PLAYER.2016]

i usually take honor as my first policy because it gives me culture upon killing a barbarian. if no barbarian i dont have the advantage.


by the way is this policy still available in civ6?

 

[fau78]

i usually take honor as my first policy because it gives me culture upon killing a barbarian. if no barbarian i dont have the advantage.

Aztec with raging Barbarian, on a duel continental map, at quick speed. It is something like "Polish, look at me~". If a camp is closed to a city state... That state is your BFF.

 

[apocalypse105]

i usually take honor as my first policy because it gives me culture upon killing a barbarian. if no barbarian i dont have the advantage.


by the way is this policy still available in civ6?

There are no policies in civ 6 but goverment systems but you can have military goverments that give you bonus against barbarians wich is usefull.

 

[poxpower]

On prince the AI builds random things in their cities and this generally doesn't include units so all game long they just get harassed by barbs, basically.

but on deity they start with 3 warriors and a bunch of random combat bonuses so they handle barbs quite well generally. City-states also tech faster than barbs and have comp bows very early.

But they still lose random workers and settlers because they don't protect them and they just move them around almost randomly.

Venice is especially terrible with his merchants, he will just leave them in his city for like 20-30 turns for no reason and almost always move them around with no escort. he's so easy to bully out of a game lol.

AI is also bad with settlers but on Deity since they get starting warriors they more often protect them even if they're not at war with you, so it's harder to block them settling near you by snatching that first settler. Requires some luck and you also have to wait for it instead of stealing their workers right away.

On emperor and below they don't start with workers so that's obviously not a problem you can just wait for their settlers and steal them but that's kind of a waste of time as the map will be so full of barbs and city-state quests for barbs that your military units should just be running around the map almost the entire game killing barbs.

I've had trade routes pillaged by barbs on turn 200 on prince it's ridiculous lol. The AI expands so slowly and has so little military and vision on the map that barb camps constantly spawn everywhere.

 

[Big J Money]

I don't so much mind overlooking an unattended AI settler (it's a little immersion breaking) of a weaker civ, in order to let them grow.

But I can't control the barbs who will just wreck their civilians, and this is frustrating. I'm tempted to play without barbs, but I imagine this would be boring.

I don't understand why it's so hard to script a few prerequisites into AI builders and settlers. Settlers aren't built until an escort is built, and the settler always moves with the escort.

Builders aren't built until fog is busted somewhat by borders and military units, and the AI focuses on some minor amount of fog busting in order to progress their tiles improvements.

Military takes priority as long as barbs are within borders and/or there are more barbs on the map than friendly units.

Simple things like this!

 

[PreLynMax]

It doesn't happen in my games. In my preferences, I cut the unit maintenance in half, therefore, there are more troops on the field. Weirdly enough, only CS has problems with barbs.

 

[Socratatus]

I like using Barbarians because it also ties down the AI Civs. However, it don`t stop them from often doing better than me...

Probably cos I`m no expert Player.

 

[Big J Money]

Well, the thing is that it's random. You can't predict in any given game. Some civs will get through barbs okay. Some will suffer a bit, but might still be somewhat competitive.

And sometimes they become completely wrecked, with their capital under seige the entire first 100 turns and not getting a single settler to a city site or a worker to make improvements!

 

[danaphanous]

the biggest problem is AI have short-term memory loss. Sometimes they hone in on a camp with vengeance. Other times they seem to forget about it and lose unit after unit haha. How hard would it have been to put a little warning sign in the AI's memory when they get nailed by barbs in a certain area. But no...if they don't see the camp they keep sending them xD

 

[Socratatus]

the biggest problem is AI have short-term memory loss. Sometimes they hone in on a camp with vengeance. Other times they seem to forget about it and lose unit after unit haha. How hard would it have been to put a little warning sign in the AI's memory when they get nailed by barbs in a certain area. But no...if they don't see the camp they keep sending them xD

It`s likely not that easy. The Civ AI has to deal with dynamic changing situations all the time. It has to watch for other civs that may be around (including the Player) who are no doubt a greater priority. When it all gets too much, it likely ignores Barbs altogether.

I`d love for Devs to make a smarter AI, but they never do.

 

[Big J Money]

I thought about this more, and the only time I've actually witnessed them be this dumb is when I played an Allied game with a couple AIs. Since I could see their every move I was able to observe how broken it was.

What occurred to me is that it's possible they are only this particularly bad in Allied mode. Perhaps Allied mode breaks the AI's ability to properly calculate threats or goals.

 

[Ryika]

Nah, they're always that bad. How much they lose just depends on their spawning circumstances. On open terrain, surrounded by a few camps even an Deity AI can easily get wrecked by Barbarians, simply because they don't play defensively enough and don't have a "I'm surrounded by Barbarian Camps, I need more units!"-strategy.

 

[Big J Money]

Well this was the catalyst that drove me to try the CP again.