The AI is still horrible.

[machival]

I'm a marathon speed player. The AI is really bad on that speed and it hasnt changed.

Anything under diety is an auto-win. (not saying diety is hard or something lol). And its not because im good or something its just ridiculous

- The AI barely uses religion
- has no clue of how to play during war
- Is horrible at using city states and it's even worse now
- Don't make enough cities
- Has poor diplomacy skills
- Suck at using its gold
- His empire management in general is very poor

The only real improvement I noticed is that the AI is now decent with his workers. The rest is so tiny that it really doesnt make a difference.

I really hope you're not done with the AI. The only reason he's kinda decent in diety is because the AI doesnt play CiV anymore, he plays starcraft 2 (pump tons of unit and building like its nothing).
It's pathetic.

+1.

The AI will never get better, unfortunately, so lose hope. They really don't know how to do it. They can't even start with the BASICS, like not letting AI be a complete idiot and accept to pay a valuable 50 gold for useless open borders. They could start by adding a rule of "settler escort" so that AI doesn't let his settlers unprotected to be easily captured by players or barbs. I'm not a programmer, but these things are obviously extremely easy to do, and while they're basic, they would improve the AI a lot. They could set correct Tech-Orders so that AI upgrades his techs in a logical fashion. I bet you they're currently more random then not.
They could easily make him reject offer of unnecessary luxury resource in exchange for 240 gold. These transactions only help the human. AI doesn't need happiness because he cheats like crazy. I could really make a tl;dr list of easy improvements but there's not much point to it.

Conclusion : Either somebody doesn't want the game to have a decent AI, for reasons left open to speculation, or they're completly incompetent.

Ignore those who try to taunt you because you kill the crap out of the AI. You are right. AI is horrible and maybe that's still an understatement.

 

[draaibaar]

It's really a pity the developers only try to make the game look better in stead of making it better: that would mean making the AI better.

 

[KillingMeSoftly]

I'm all for better AI. It does need work, there is no doubt. But the thing is, the AI will likely never be as good as a human player. Even then, I've played with people who have done plenty of things more stupid than the AI, and even myself at times.

Ultimately if the AI doesn't challenge you at all, there is a thing called multiplayer. Where you can play against *real* intelligence, that isn't artificial. If it bothers you that badly, you really should try it out!

 

[Atwork]

The AI will never get better, unfortunately, so lose hope.

Have you been playing the game the past two years? If you have been, then you know what a ridiculous statement this is. The AI has been steadily improving--and so I don't "hope" for improvement. I EXPECT continued improvement. And, all others with similar expectations (and hope) should stop their thoughtless rants, and start giving constructive feedback. Constructive feedback can actually help the devs improve the game.

It's really a pity the developers only try to make the game look better in stead of making it better

It's really a pity that civ players can make such ridiculous statements. It takes half a brain to know this is a false assertion.

 

[crasher_pt]

Of course the AI has visibly improved from vanilla, but it was IMO unacceptably lame.

I sincerely doubt that the reason we don't get more difficult AI is that nobody would be able to compete with it. The main evidence is that there's never been a point in time where the AI was too smart and they had to cut back. The AI has consistently been from moronic to incompetent, never impossible. But the trend is clearly good, I just hope they get this influx of cash and improve it still.

 

[Andulias]

It's really a pity the developers only try to make the game look better in stead of making it better: that would mean making the AI better.

It's a real pity that the graphics haven't moved an inch since the game launched while the AI has been steadily improving, and yet we get comments like this. A real pity.

 

[Vidszhite]

Yeah, I imagine most of the game features are optimized to standard speed. Frankly, marathon sounds kinda boring to me (just more of the same) but to each his own.

I tried Marathon the other day. It's basically the same as Epic, except you spend 90% of your time clicking next turn. Wars are horrible because you can never build any units, and workers take 25+ turns to do even basic things like build a road. Screw that. Marathon/Huge was a snoozefest.

 

[Vidszhite]

Have you been playing the game the past two years? If you have been, then you know how what a ridiculous statement this is. The AI has been steadily improving--and so I don't "hope" for improvement. I EXPECT continued improvement. And, all others with similar expectations (and hope) should stop their thoughtless rants, and start giving constructive feedback. Constructive feedback can actually help the devs improve the game.

Yeah, it HAS been improving. I took a yearlong break since launch, and things are MUCH better now. Used to be the AI would do some really stupid things, and would denounce you for going to war with them when all you did was liberate them.

Still, when it comes to things like what the AI thinks of you, it does seem totally random still. My last game, I wiped out everyone on my starting continent, met the others, and was friends with everyone on the other continent. Then, for no real reason, Austria denounces me. Rome likes me forever then he denounces me too. I wipe Rome off the map and suddenly everyone loves me again, not a red marker to be found. I wiped out Austria too, but Netherlands didn't seem to mind. Netherlands continued to love me right up until I wiped him off the map too for a Domination win.

Now, that confused the hell out of me, since I've played games where I GOT war declared on me by someone else, didn't even fight in it, just built units until the AI decided I must be winning and sued for peace by giving me all his luxuries, and EVERYONE suddenly thinks I'm a warmongering menace and chain denounces me, even my friends.

 

[RohirrimElf]

I agree with Atwork. They AI has improved dramatically from launch day and i will see it improve some more with patches/mods/maybe one more expansion. If u think u are tough beiting deity. Don`t brag about to other civ players on the forum who like the game and are ok with the game right now. Playing it on their own level, which is ok. Ive played almost all previous civs without the first one and some expansions. But if u are new to the civ series or even many veterans out here. I could immagine that beating king/emperor/immortal can be a dounting task when going up in difficulty.

Sure the ai gets it wrong sometimes but it does a lot right. I like the feeling when i started playing g&k, seeing Atilla taking down my expansion with a big well balanced force. Moving well coordinated as a group. Out of nowhere it came and i was staring at my screan for some time. How could i fall for that Few turns later it was brought down to ashes with his battering rams.

Some basic stuff like protecting unguarded settlers, increasing city numbers, spending money more efficiently, more aggressive AI or maybe if they AI would work together to attack the human player with 2 or 3 opponents at same time from different fronts. Some of these things wont be hard to change or can even be modded/patched in a few days/weeks maybe.

I like this game and i have full confidense that i will still like it for some time to come.

 

[ptoss1]

I would give the AI at launch a 5 for competency.
Now maybe a 7.5.

Point is, the AI is still improving, and if you can't see that they actually put ranged units behind melee units now, then I don't know what game you're playing. Sure they still have trouble with invasions and do stupid that waste their resources, but at least occasionally they'll succeed. Bouddica rushed 6 Pictish Warriors once to invade once. That's not stupid. What's stupid is that she didn't keep them defending the cities she captured afterwards. Of course, in Vanilla they probably wouldn't even know what an invasion meant. Usually what I see is they send 3 units in and as soon as I focus fire melee units down they give up.

Point is, the AI isn't perfect, but I'm ok with that right now. There will be more content and hopefully improved AI mechanics to go along with that. I'll probably get bored of G&K sometime, and then there will be new stuff. The game isn't stagnant, it's evolving.

 

[tyrael233]

What's killing the AI is how terrible it is at using the new hex system. It's pretty much as simple as : Wait for Civ to DoW you, let them suicide all their unit on one of your city (it will manage to screw up even if it out-numbers you 3 to 1) and then take their land.

It's frustrating honestly, I could barely win on monarch in civ 4 and I'm steam-rolling immortal like it's nothing on civ 5.

 

[blackcatatonic]

I haven't noticed the AI getting markedly better since G&K. It occasionally seems better, but that seems to be more down to other changes, like the new 100HP combat system (which makes it more difficult to suicide its units) and buffed city defence (which makes it easier for them to kill siege units). I've not tried anything above King, though.

The AI definitely still makes some pretty derpy moves from time to time. I killed a barbarian encampment and liberated a Cahokia worker... which then proceeded to wander off into the tundra in the opposite direction to the CS. It only stopped when I cut it off by building a city. Then it sat there for about 20 turns before finally deciding to head home. Truly the mark of an intelligent AI

 

[Saqe]

I doubt the AI will always be "moronic" to some extent simply because it is too hard to program it to consider everything and the computers aren´t good enough to process these amounts of information. So the basic concept that is behind the AI ( It gets advantage over human player to compensate for lack of decision making) is still going to be behind all improvements that are made to it.

And it´s not such a simple question of just, for example, programming that the AI doesnt give you 50g for open borders. At higher dificulty levels the AI can use this information to scout your land and attack at turn 10. Then it becomes the question when should the AI start giving money for open borders, at what situations, at what map types it benefits from this information the most, how does diplomacy affect this etc. and suddenly it´s a hugely complicated issue and difficult to program.

 

[Minor Annoyance]

Really ? :-/

Its sad indeed because it's really fun to have a 2 week long game

I must just be indecisive/overthinking my moves because my last game took a whole week playing most of the day, everyday (except to do a Mass Effect 3 event). Although I was in a perpetual war for the whole game so that slowed things down, but at the speed my games go on standard I can't imagine ever playing a slower speed.

 

[BrokTheFanatic]

What's killing the AI is how terrible it is at using the new hex system. It's pretty much as simple as : Wait for Civ to DoW you, let them suicide all their unit on one of your city (it will manage to screw up even if it out-numbers you 3 to 1) and then take their land.

It's frustrating honestly, I could barely win on monarch in civ 4 and I'm steam-rolling immortal like it's nothing on civ 5.

This is my big problem with Civ5 as well. The combat AI doesn't need to be great but it has to be able to pose a threat. DoWs are part of Civ, part of diplomacy, etc. A DoW has to be able to be backed by an actual threat of military might. The AI cannot do this even with a large advantage, which is ruining solo game play for me.

They'd be better off forming packs and just slowly moving as they destroy improvements. That way at least they are a pain.

I enjoy many elements of civ5 and G&K adds some more but until this works civ5 will never be as enjoyable for me as civ4. People complain about SoD but at least that was a real threat and so I'd have to give into their demands on many occasions instead of always saying "no" and watching a big power waste its production on military units I readily destroy until it is a mere shadow of what it was.

[edit: I should add that the military AI is better than vanilla. So it is great to see improvement. I hope with some more tweaking that it'll get to the top of the hill to peer across the landscape of great game play]

 

[machival]

Have you been playing the game the past two years? If you have been, then you know what a ridiculous statement this is. The AI has been steadily improving--and so I don't "hope" for improvement. I EXPECT continued improvement. And, all others with similar expectations (and hope) should stop their thoughtless rants, and start giving constructive feedback. Constructive feedback can actually help the devs improve the game.


It's really a pity that civ players can make such ridiculous statements. It takes half a brain to know this is a false assertion.

First, please calm down and try to be civil. No need to insult me for expressing an opinion about a game. If you insult people you don't get your points across. You do that with logical arguments and evidence.

Second, I have been playing this game, yes, and AI still sucks very much. Still buying useless open borders. Still buying useless luxuries. Still moving armies around doing nothing while they slowly die from ranged fire. Still doesn't know how to use aircraft, great people, specialists, policies, tech tree, money. Still doesn't build nearly as much wonders as a good AI would build.

I guess I am too good of a player for the poor Firaxis AI.

I love the game. I hate the fact that AI sucks, that's all.

 

[Moriarte]

Still moving armies around doing nothing while they slowly die from ranged fire.

Yep. But only if you are ahead technologically.

 

[blasto]

I've said before(not to an individual mind you), if you're so good that deity isn't a challenge for you, then it should be a "no brainer" to mix up game play to make it a challenge for yourself.

Just worldbuild yourself a scenario and give whatever extra advantage to the AI that you think will be "fair' to you.

For example, give them extra starting settlers, units and gold.

I dare you to start a huge pangaea, with you in the middle and give all 22 AI's a starting advantage of 4-8 settlers, 4-8 units and say 5K in gold. If you win it at all it would be a miracle. At the very least you would be sweating bullets every turn.

 

[OmniPotent42]

I've said before(not to an individual mind you), if you're so good that deity isn't a challenge for you, then it should be a "no brainer" to mix up game play to make it a challenge for yourself.

Just worldbuild yourself a scenario and give whatever extra advantage to the AI that you think will be "fair' to you.

For example, give them extra starting settlers, units and gold.

I dare you to start a huge pangaea, with you in the middle and give all 22 AI's a starting advantage of 4-8 settlers, 4-8 units and say 5K in gold. If you win it at all it would be a miracle. At the very least you would be sweating bullets every turn.

I would pay to see that. That would definitely be worthy of the hall of fame.

 

[ptoss1]

I've actually had three civs dow me all at once for no reason and send units in at the same time, but then again, they were Alex and Askia, so it might not really be coordination and more pure chance being surrounded by extreme aggresives.