The AI seems possibly worse now?

Hukuma

Chieftain
Joined
Nov 8, 2005
Messages
35
Location
Seattle, WA, USA
I started a new game on Immortal today, Huge, Shuffle, I'm playing as Kongo.
Pedro ran an unescorted Settler near one of my cities, so of course I declared and captured it. A bit later he declared on me, and after getting a few units killed, he again sued for peace. Just shy of the peace treaty expiration, he ran another Settler unescorted up next to my city, so I went to follow it, and instead of making for safety, it sort of hung around. Another war declaration, and I had myself another Settler.
I've also been able to capture multiple cities with the barest of armies, France lost two cities to my 2 archers + Spearman army, since she has no walls, and Pedro lost one to 2 slingers and the spearman, while his slinger sat in his city walls never attacking.
In addition, I have gotten multiple "an unmet civilization has been destroyed" messages, but it appears that may have been duplicates, or not clearing, or maybe someone liberated it and then it got destroyed again, since the victory screen only shows 1 enemy capitol controlled by anyone (and shows 11 civs out of 12).
Is the AI doing a worse job of protecting its cities for anyone else?
 
Incompetent people work at Firaxis? Just asking. They could hire Gazebo and other guys who created CP. They would take care of good quality AI. They would make Civ games the best strategy games ever created... etc...
 
In addition, I have gotten multiple "an unmet civilization has been destroyed" messages, but it appears that may have been duplicates, or not clearing, or maybe someone liberated it and then it got destroyed again, since the victory screen only shows 1 enemy capitol controlled by anyone (and shows 11 civs out of 12).
You get this message when city states are conquered as well. That's most likely what you were seeing there, different city states being captured.
 
In addition, I have gotten multiple "an unmet civilization has been destroyed" messages, but it appears that may have been duplicates, or not clearing, or maybe someone liberated it and then it got destroyed again, since the victory screen only shows 1 enemy capitol controlled by anyone (and shows 11 civs out of 12).
I always get this in my games. But I think these messages are in fact about captured city states.

Edit: oops, ninja'd...
 
How do we get in touch with people at firaxis/ 2k? This Moderator Action: snip support and incompetent devs need to go. Maybe Ed Beach needs to go, IDK but we dont get what we deserve as customers. We paid blah blah blah for a product that we 'thought' would be supported and we would be communicated to. 60 days after release and we havent heard a single developer speak,
 
Last edited by a moderator:
How do we get in touch with people at firaxis/ 2k? This Moderator Action: snip support and incompetent devs need to go. Maybe Ed Beach needs to go, IDK but we dont get what we deserve as customers. We paid blah blah blah for a product that we 'thought' would be supported and we would be communicated to. 60 days after release and we havent heard a single developer speak,
You know what? I can't and even then won't express How much I wish, that some people (who distribute such competent blah blah blah) would get, what they really deserve.
 
Incompetent people work at Firaxis? Just asking. They could hire Gazebo and other guys who created CP. They would take care of good quality AI. They would make Civ games the best strategy games ever created... etc...
Something not performing well does not imply the people working on it are incompetent.
 
Something not performing well does not imply the people working on it are incompetent.
Exactly. At a more corporate entity like Firaxis/2k, what features to prioritize resources towards are not the decisions of the developers. Looking at the credits, they have one AI developer - who's also one of the game developers. Versus numerous graphics engineers and the like. Clearly the decision has been made on what drives sales. And frankly, given the game's high steam rating (like 90%), and the tiny number of people comparatively who play at higher levels - it looks like they know their market unfortunately. The people who care about a competitive AI seem mostly limited to these forums.
 
Exactly. At a more corporate entity like Firaxis/2k, what features to prioritize resources towards are not the decisions of the developers. Looking at the credits, they have one AI developer - who's also one of the game developers. Versus numerous graphics engineers and the like. Clearly the decision has been made on what drives sales. And frankly, given the game's high steam rating (like 90%), and the tiny number of people comparatively who play at higher levels - it looks like they know their market unfortunately. The people who care about a competitive AI seem mostly limited to these forums.

I think you're right. All the gaming magazines and websites gave Civ6 really great reviews, the sales have been good as far as I can tell, and Steam reviews are good etc. The masses like the game at least based on a few hours of gameplay. But after you get into the game in a deeper level and/or play at higher difficulties and expect more of a strategy game challenge, you encounter a mess of a game.

But sadly this won't matter because Civ 6 will be a commercial and critical success. Not to get too dramatic but this seems to indicate a split between the so-called casuals who like the game and the hardcore Civ fans who expect more of a challenge, and this could continue throughout the rest of the life of the series because again, Firaxis has got mostly great feedback from the game both financially and critically.
 
Firaxis quit AI stuff years ago, they did some AI patches, that mostly got disabled again, during the lifetime on CiV, then they release Civ VI with an AI that doesn't seem to have any improvements or innovations, doesn't take much to figure out, that AI is as well developed as Firaxis want and except for perhaps really minor tweaks, no amount of threads is going to change that.
 
I started a new game on Immortal today, Huge, Shuffle, I'm playing as Kongo.
Pedro ran an unescorted Settler near one of my cities, so of course I declared and captured it. A bit later he declared on me, and after getting a few units killed, he again sued for peace. Just shy of the peace treaty expiration, he ran another Settler unescorted up next to my city, so I went to follow it, and instead of making for safety, it sort of hung around. Another war declaration, and I had myself another Settler.

How do you propose they should fix this?

A. That the AI run to safety every time it comes a cross a peaceful force? -- which would allow you to goad the AI and herd it away from desirable locations without any penalties.
B. That the AI send a single unit escort with settlers? Which would give more xp on top of a settler.
C. That the AI devote considerable resources from developing toward escort missions -- which would weaken it.
D.Increase penalties on declarations of war. -- which might suck out the fun of your gameplay.
E. Something else? do tell..

EDIT: Btw didn't this how the AI always behaved in vanilla CIVs?
 
How do you propose they should fix this?

A. That the AI run to safety every time it comes a cross a peaceful force? -- which would allow you to goad the AI and herd it away from desirable locations without any penalties.
B. That the AI send a single unit escort with settlers? Which would give more xp on top of a settler.
C. That the AI devote considerable resources from developing toward escort missions -- which would weaken it.
D.Increase penalties on declarations of war. -- which might suck out the fun of your gameplay.
E. Something else? do tell..

EDIT: Btw didn't this how the AI always behaved in vanilla CIVs?

Couldn't the AI just escort its settlers? Even a single unit is much better than nothing. You might be able to kill the single escorting unit but at least you have to work for it. Plus, two escorts per settler was something that I saw quite frequently in Civ 5 and given the bonuses the AI gets at higher difficulty levels, I don't think two units per settler is devoting considerable resources toward it. Especially as some of the units in Civ 6 are dirt cheap to build in the early game.
 
How do you propose they should fix this?

A. That the AI run to safety every time it comes a cross a peaceful force? -- which would allow you to goad the AI and herd it away from desirable locations without any penalties.
B. That the AI send a single unit escort with settlers? Which would give more xp on top of a settler.
C. That the AI devote considerable resources from developing toward escort missions -- which would weaken it.
D.Increase penalties on declarations of war. -- which might suck out the fun of your gameplay.
E. Something else? do tell..

EDIT: Btw didn't this how the AI always behaved in vanilla CIVs?
I have seen the AI escorting settlers, and that's how it should behave.
As far as what it should have done in that situation, it should have gone for an escort, since I had declared war on him once, and he had declared war on me once, and not long before.
Ultimately the answer to all of this is: At Immortal, the AI should be escorting settlers, not giving them away during the no warmonger penalty period.

Finally, I would like to ask everyone to please refrain from the really harsh invective. I am disappointed in the AI, but flaming gets us nowhere. I firmly believe that it is possible to disagree politely, and that this will help us have more meaningful discussions. Thank you.
 
We went to war again, and this time a few turns into the war Pedro moved a Settler, unprotected, directly next to one of my cities. Admittedly I didn't have any units there, but that was quickly remedied with some gold.
He's just throwing them away, and there has to be something that can be done.
 
Not take them? Take them and delete them?

Yes, the AI needs more work on escorting, but I really don't understand the common mindset that if the AI does something stupid, the human player is somehow obligated to take advantage ("Must ... take ... settler ...").
 
I don't understand why they can't make it so that the AI always keeps a combat unit in the same hex as its settlers. This is obviously not an impossible programming feat as both Civ IV and Civ V accomplished this.
 
I don't understand why they can't make it so that the AI always keeps a combat unit in the same hex as its settlers. This is obviously not an impossible programming feat as both Civ IV and Civ V accomplished this.

Better yet, just give the AI a free escort unit with zero maintenance every time it builds a settler. I think we need to abandon this fiction that we have to give AI the exact same rules as the human so as to make it seem "fair", aside from the raw bonuses harder AI gets. AI can never be human, so I have zero problem with putting a few hacks in like this.
 
Not take them? Take them and delete them?

Yes, the AI needs more work on escorting, but I really don't understand the common mindset that if the AI does something stupid, the human player is somehow obligated to take advantage ("Must ... take ... settler ...").
If your argument is that I should intentionally play badly, even on high difficulties, just so it's competitive... That would not be fun for me at all. If there was some sort of group thing, like the old group challenges where I have to play a certain way, then maybe, but if I have to give myself further handicaps on the highest difficulties to keep things competitive, that's on the devs, not me. I'm not nearly good enough that I should be winning consistently on Immortal, I'm maybe a Civ 4 Monarch player.
 
Top Bottom