The AI doesn't play to WIN

[Dearmad]

Thats not completely true though. In one game I played, the Greeks suddenly decided that they couldnt stand my exsitence and perpetually declared war on me. They managed to sack one of my cities and beat me down pretty good. then luckily one of the more friendly AI's was willing to trade Iron Working to me and i was lucky enought to have it near my capital. with the swordsmen i was able after MANY MANY turns to beat back the greeks enough to retake one of my citys, and destroy one of theirs. this has gone on for more than half the game... and still the greeks are at war with me. I finally had to give up the game cause the war weariness was being very harsh. and the greeks were at war with some1 else at the time it started too. So I know their WW had to be bad too, and they still wouldnt except peace offers. I've had similar cases with 2 or more AI's attacking simultaniously in other games. To me that seems like fairly aggressive AI strategy. Also it seems like no matter how friendly i get with the mongals they always declare war with me. One time it was like +8 to -1 on my diplomacy, and they were pleased with me and still they declared war out of the blue. I have yet to use the aggressive AI option but can't imagine what that would be like.
You might try a harder diff setting if you think its too easy.

The AI cheats at practically every diffivulty level when it comes to WW... so your assumption is false. You've been miseld by PR from firaxis. The AI also cheats heavily when it comes to cost for upgrading units too... really cheap for them. And barbarians? They get a 70% bonus to kill them so no chalenge there, at EVERY difficulty level!

 

[Padma]

When somebody whose opinion I trust tells me the AI is cheating, I will believe it. Until then, I will accept Firaxis "PR".

 

[Dearmad]

Yokay whatever. I only read the XML files... what do I know?

 

[MeteorPunch]

The AI cheats at practically every diffivulty level when it comes to WW... so your assumption is false. You've been miseld by PR from firaxis. The AI also cheats heavily when it comes to cost for upgrading units too... really cheap for them. And barbarians? They get a 70% bonus to kill them so no chalenge there, at EVERY difficulty level!

They get an upgrade unit discount?

 

[KrikkitTwo]

They get an upgrade unit discount?

Well they get a cost discount for Techs and unit production, so naturally upgrading (which is based on unit cost) would also be less.

 

[MeteorPunch]

Well they get a cost discount for Techs and unit production, so naturally upgrading (which is based on unit cost) would also be less.

Well yeah, but it's less plus they get the other bonuses. I mean, it seems like they should be able to afford it, they build all those cottages.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

actually, to clear it up Dearmad could you list what the difficulties/AI bonuses are

 

[Clown2TheLeft]

That isn't a cheating AI. That's how the slider has worked for a long time. At the lower levels, the game favors the human. At the higher ones, it favors the AI to balance the human player's experience. Cheat? C'mon... don't waste my time with this...

Later!

--The Clown to the Left

 

[Tholish]

The master strategy over all strategies is to not keep the same strategy all the time. Pick strategies to depend on possibilities and capabilities and necessities. Improved AIs would alter thier strategy. When warmongering looked smart they'de do that. When peaceful expansion worked they would do that. Similar things were built into Civ 3, I know, such as the early game reluctance of AIs to attack even unguarded cities, which they get over, but it was programmed, not in reaction to circumstances and goal judgement.
When they are born, civs should look around them and decide on what victory type they want to go for, and create a strategy for getting there, which they would adjust periodically, as well as adjusting adjustment criteria.
Maybe they could even be programmed to learn from the experiences of all AI that have ever played on the machine, or even download AI ideas from other machines. whenever the user is foolish enough to connect to the internet the way security software downloads updates automatically.
Mad scientist cackle.

When is civ fanatics center going to open a strategy forum exclusively for AIs, no humans allowed? Talk about cheating!

 

[Princeps]

So what, I don't play to win?

 

[handy900]

As soon as Skynet goes online, you'll see an AI that plays to win.

Thanks for a good laugh!

 

[karadoc]

As soon as one player starts to get close to a victory, all the others would turn on him like pirhannas, regardless of how strong they are, alliances, etc. I like the fact that if I have a 2000 year old alliance with another civ, they're not all of the sudden going to declare all out war on me with every other civ just because I'm about to launch a space ship.

To some extent this does happen in Civ4. As I approach the end of the game, no civs will trade with me anymore; not even my closest allies. They say things like "We fear you are becoming too advanced" and "We want to win the game, thank you very much!". They essentially set up an unspoken trade embargo against me. They usually don't attack however, but I would expect that this is because they don't want to be the one that gets their arse served to them by my army; they want someone else to be the ones to attack me.

I honestly believe that the AI does play to win; but not in the same style as a human. The AI plays more cautiously, because if it fails, it can't reload a save or start a new game - it's civ is gone. The reason the AI focuses on space race and score victories is that these are the easiest ways to win. As your civ becomes the biggest and most powerful, you obviously have an advantage in the space race. You have more points. You can vote yourself to be the winner via UN. There is no need to keep trying to destroy some enemy and risk being attacked by other civs while your forces are out. It is safer to just try to sit comfortably in the lead.

Having said all that; the AI isn't as good a strategist as a human player. It doesn't make all the right choices on its path to victory.

 

[Danielos]

I haven´t played Civ 4 enough to evaluate the strategic AI but the tactical AI seems to be very aggressive. The AI seems to plan their wars since they launch a MASSIVE invasion on my shores at the same time as they declare war making it very difficult to react in time. They are also very aggressive in destroying all kinds of improvements, and seems to gang up upon you if you are attacked. So tactically they are aggressive enough, but strategically I can´t say (yet)

 

[jeremiahrounds]

This was debated at the end of Civ3s life cycle. The concensus was that the AI shouldnt play to win. It should play to be successful at what its trying to do.

And civ4 reflects improvement in that area with major personality distinctions.

My criticism is that the AI isnt quite playing to its potential in areas that its already decided it will be interested in.

That is to say if a civ is going to be cultural then its potential is to win cultural victories. If a civ is going to war then it darn well should take victories that present themselves etc. For example it shouldnt be a civ trait to attack a city defended by a single praetorian from the ocean with infantry and tanks. Though it seems to be as there is a really low chance that most civs will launch that attack.

 

[GIO888]

Doesn't play to win?

Dude, I got trashed first 3 times out, at Settler, by AI pretty much intent on winning. You're just getting better at surviving and second guessing them.

Play on a small pangaea with Caesar, Alexander, Isabella and Tokugowa and tell me they don't want to win by conquest!

Apart from that, Happy Civ Holidays

 

[joasoze]

In my last game (Prince) 4 civs were wiped of the map (none by me). That tells me that someone out there is serious about winning

 

[Nigel Stutt]

In my present game I declared war on the Chinese and took three cities then sued for peace. Then I declared war again as I was ahead of everyone else and decided to just pull down the second place Chinese a few points by pillaging their improvements. But the Chinese launched a massive attack taking bcak their original three cities. Then the Spanish came into the war and the Russians. I amanged to get peace with the Russains and Chinese just before I started losing my own cities becuase the Chinese were coming up with a massive amount of units against me - far too many to be creating them in the same way as I had to. So I think they are cheating a lot! And this is on Noble level which isnt massively high so I would not expect them to be so strong.

Now the Chinese, Russians and Milanese are fighting between themselves and Im well down the pecking order. So they do act aggressively!

I just dont like the higher levels though - theyre not fun. Think Ill play on easy next time!

Also I dont like how Civ is being referred to as a 'game' by the AI. Ruins the idea of me creating a civilisation etc if I get reminded its all just a game! I think they need to remove the cheats for the AI, ramp up their aggression a bit, and lengthen the 'game' to make it far longer so I can really enjoy the developments and different technologies. And cannons definitely come in far too late in the 'game'.

 

[hookmonkey]

True it would also be bad to be on the other extreme, with everyone playing a cutthroat game for world domination, rendering alliances and friends useless (unless you like it that way ).

But it's no less maddening than having all the AI be docile.

A good compromise would be to have each AI have a "favored" way of winning. So while an agressive civ might bully everyone and try to expand through conquest to go for the military win, a scientific civ would build alot of defense and research their way to a spaceship win. Meanwhile, a cultural civ would put alot of cash into their culture slider and flip lots of cities while going for the cultural win, daring you to try and stop them without going to war.

That sound cool, but I don't think the AI should have a favored way of winning. More like making up his mind what goal he is going to shoot for halfway in the game. This decision should be made when they're entering the renaissance or modern age. Mind you, I don't have the game yet because my I only have 256mb of ram .

Let's say the Romans are entering the renaissance as tech-leader, with lots of libaries, universities and maybe the Great Libary as a wonder. It would seem logic the are going to shoot for a Space Race victory from here.

Or Napoleon has the biggest empire and a big military. Napoleon would decide that a domination or conquest victory is probably the best option to win this game. After making this 'decision' it would build up it's forces and attack a (disliked) neighbour etc. etc. etc. Eventually it would also attack it's friends to reach it goal.

Since CIV4 is highly moddalble, maybe some can mod this into the AI's behaviour? Or a feature for the next expansion pack.

 

[Exavier]

Doesn't play to win?

Dude, I got trashed first 3 times out, at Settler, by AI pretty much intent on winning. You're just getting better at surviving and second guessing them.

Play on a small pangaea with Caesar, Alexander, Isabella and Tokugowa and tell me they don't want to win by conquest!

Apart from that, Happy Civ Holidays

hehe or do what i did... use those same civs and then put a check in that nice little box marked "Aggressive AI" I been playing defence since the game started cause i can't keep them out of my territory long enough to regroup

I am playing on Noble

 

[Reg Pither]

However, a human player has one goal: to win. A human doesn't enter a game of Civ4 thinking "let me build a 3 city nation and ride it out into mediocrity." A human is trying to beat all the other players, period.

Not me. Well, yes, I am trying to win, but only as a secondary objective to be honest. Primarily I'm trying to build a nice empire and do better than I did in my last game, and enjoying the actual journey more than the result itself. Just survivng to the end is sometimes a worthwhile achievement in itself.

But then I'm probably strange...