[Vanilla] The AI still can't take walled cities

[Gort]

I decided to work out if the AI could take cities with walls now. I used the following setup:

* Domination victory only
* Duel size map
* Pangaea
* Information era start
* Deity difficulty
* Online speed
* Aztec opponent
* Delete all starting units except for rangers and one settler, found only one city
* Declare war immediately upon meeting the opponent
* Do not build a military or fire with city attacks

Test One:

Turn 208: Start
Turn 223: Meet Aztecs, declare war
Turn 247: Aztec worker spotted, wanders into range of city guns
Turn 249: Aztec infantry escorting settler approaches border
Turn 250: Aztec infantry escorting settler moves into border, outside of city strike range. Second infantry shows up.

Game ends because I forgot to turn off the turn limit. Oops. Let's try that again.

Test Two:

Turn 208: Start
Turn 215: Meet Aztecs, declare war
Turn 228: Aztecs complete the Space Race Project, Earth Satellite
Turn 242: Aztecs build a city bordering mine
Turn 242: Aztecs have sent two infantry and a machinegun corps to attack my allied city state, Armagh
Turn 247: The city state is shooting them. A rocket artillery arrives at Armagh.
Turn 248: The rocket artillery is next to Armagh, now on 40% health.
Turn 250: The rocket artillery retreats on 10% health. Armagh stil unscathed. A settler and a machinegun have appeared on my border.
Turn 251: The machinegun corps is just sitting next to Armagh, not shooting. The machinegun enters my borders.
Turn 252: The machinegun in my territory retreats. A ranger approaches Armagh, the machinegun corps retreats from it. The ranger is shot to 10% health.
Turn 253: The Aztecs nuke Armagh from a bomber. An Aztec settler moves unescorted to 2 hexes from my city. It's shielded from attack by a forest, though.
Turn 254: The settler retreats. An armada of submarines approaches Armagh.
Turn 257: A machinegun corps enters my borders.
Turn 258: The machinegun corps is now adjacent to my city. An Aztec jet bomber bombs my city to 40% defenses.
Turn 259: The machinegun corps moves to a different hex, still adjacent to my city.
Turn 260: The machinegun corps moves away from my city.
Turn 261: An Aztec Modern Armour Army shows up on my border.
Turn 264: Two jet bombers bomb my city down to 10% health. An infantry enters my borders.
Turn 267: My city has by now healed to about 40% health. Still seeing Modern Armour on the border. I contemplate building the "repair outer defenses" project, but decide it would be unsporting.
Turn 268: Two Jet Bombers and an armada of nuclear submarines bombard my city to 10% health. (or more accurately, to 0% then it heals to 10% at the start of the turn)
Turn 269: Two Jet Bombers and an armada of nuclear submarines bombard my city to 10% health. A mechanised infantry enters my borders.
Turn 270: A Jet Bomber bombs my city. The mechanised infantry has stopped two hexes from the city.
Turn 271: The Aztecs have landed on the moon. No attacks on my city though.
Turn 272: Two bombers hit the city again.
Turn 273: Two bombers and the sub armada bombard the city again. The mechanised infantry is still sitting, unmoving, where it has been for the last three turns. It has been joined by a worker.
Turn 274: Another bomber strike. A rocket artillery army has appeared on the border.
Turn 275: More bombardment. The mechanised infantry and rocket artillery begin to move away.
Turn 276: More bombardment. Incidentally, Armagh is still at 0% health and defenses, despite having a population of 13. Is there some bug where nuked city health doesn't display or regenerate or something?
Turn 279: Aztecs build a Mars Reactor. Bombardment continues from Jet Bombers and subs.
Turn 280: Aztec territory now borders mine on three sides. Their trade roads go through my territory.
Turn 281: Capital is conquered by a modern armour army that had been sitting idle for five turns.

It doesn't look good, guys. The AI still seems to have a weird aversion to melee attacks on cities, even completely undefended ones.

 

[Xur]

Well... I had plenty of problems with the AI in my first game. But it would be nice if Firaxis tweeked the walls to be a bit more AI friendly. In my opinion you shouldnt lose health for banging in a brick wall with no defence... maybe just me

: EDIT : Walls should just work like armor in Hearthstone... basicly a bufferhealth. Simple and easy for AI to handle.

 

[darko82]

That's why I am not buying this DLC. I do not want new features if the AI is so brain stupid. Civ V AI was fixed by modders. The AI in the mod, even though not perfect, behaves good enough to enjoy the game and gives a lot more challenge etc.

Offtop

I also regret buying the Collector's Edition of Civ VI. It was so poor. Just compare it with other games collectors editions. Such a big disapointment. I personally think it was not worth it. Simple as that. I thought the album was big enough, but it was so small and pretty short. It contains little text and images. The coins are made of really low quality material, probably plastic etc. The box is so terrible. There is no box, actually. It is some sort of very thin cover that can get damaged just by looking at it. Paying so much for almost nothing. I feel deceived.

Offtop end.

I will not buy any Civ related product untill the AI is at least as good as Civ V Gazebo CPP Vox Populi Mod.

 

[V. Soma]

O h, my, Aztecs took their time lazy... but at least they used modern warfare... air force!

 

[EirisMania]

That's why I am not buying this DLC. I do not want new features if the AI is so brain stupid. Civ V AI was fixed by modders. The AI in the mod, even though not perfect, behaves good enough to enjoy the game and gives a lot more challenge etc.

Offtop

I also regret buying the Collector's Edition of Civ VI. It was so poor. Just compare it with other games collectors editions. Such a big disapointment. I personally think it was not worth it. Simple as that. I thought the album was big enough, but it was so small and pretty short. It contains little text and images. The coins are made of really low quality material, probably plastic etc. The box is so terrible. There is no box, actually. It is some sort of very thin cover that can get damaged just by looking at it. Paying so much for almost nothing. I feel deceived.

Offtop end.

I will not buy any Civ related product untill the AI is at least as good as Civ V Gazebo CPP Vox Populi Mod.

Never felt more excited about reinstalling Civ V...

 

[Lord_Azazel]

Hah, Monty was just chasing achievements man, he was going for the Space victory, but decided this was too easy in the end and just took the easy domination one instead

 

[Leyrann]

"AI still can't take walled cities"

FALSE.

I've seen them take a city-state with a wall before R&F, and in my current R&F game they took one of my own walled cities. And quite fast, I would like to add.

I'm starting to think more and more that this way of testing is very flawed.

(oh and before that I had to start over three times because I was about to lose, but I'm not counting those games because I didn't have walls yet)

 

[Giskler]

Yea, I've had the AI nearly take my walled city with a navy. I only saved it by peacing out the turn before I would have lost it. The AI is much better at sieges and taking cities.

 

[Leyrann]

Yea, I've had the AI nearly take my walled city with a navy. I only saved it by peacing out the turn before I would have lost it. The AI is much better at sieges and taking cities.

This. I also lost a city to a few ironclads in like 3 turns (didn't even get a wall up in time). In this case I didn't really care though because it was next to three of my cities and none of his and I was in a golden age while he was in a dark age.

 

[Ezumiyr]

I didn't have the same experience. I saw several cities with walls being taken by the AI.

Also, why did you add so many irrelevent stuff in your "tests"? Test 1 is useless, if you really wanted to mention it just say "I made two tests, but missed the first one, and in the second one the AI took 20 turns to enter an undefended city."
Which is still only one occurrence.

As far as we know, the AI in defensive wars while having an entirely different goal may have "conquer enemy cities" in very low priority. It makes sense to target enemy units first and keep defensive armies just in case someone rushes to stop you while you're going for science victory. Maybe it's just an occasional bug. In any case, hard to say with just one test.

But people need to stop doing like if their favourite game in the series had the best AI, especially the 5... If you're in love with Civ5 just play it, nobody will blame you for that. But at least acknowledge your personal bias.

 

[Gort]

Also, why did you add so many irrelevent stuff in your "tests"? Test 1 is useless, if you really wanted to mention it just say "I made two tests, but missed the first one, and in the second one the AI took 20 turns to enter an undefended city."
Which is still only one occurrence.

Because that would leave out the many times the AI could have taken the undefended city but did not. More information is better than less information when you're making an argument.

As far as we know, the AI in defensive wars while having an entirely different goal may have "conquer enemy cities" in very low priority. It makes sense to target enemy units first and keep defensive armies just in case someone rushes to stop you while you're going for science victory. Maybe it's just an occasional bug. In any case, hard to say with just one test.

1. I have no units in this test. There's nothing to distract the AI from attacking my cities.
2. Science victory is disabled.
3. Feel free to re-run the test as many times as you like and tell us the results.

If what you say is true about the AI in your games taking cities with walls easily, it's possible that Firaxis did not include any AI changes in their patch to the vanilla version of the game. There are other parts of the patch missing, so this is a possibility.

 

[Leyrann]

Because that would leave out the many times the AI could have taken the undefended city but did not. More information is better than less information when you're making an argument.



1. I have no units in this test. There's nothing to distract the AI from attacking my cities.
2. Science victory is disabled.
3. Feel free to re-run the test as many times as you like and tell us the results.

If what you say is true about the AI in your games taking cities with walls easily, it's possible that Firaxis did not include any AI changes in their patch to the vanilla version of the game. There are other parts of the patch missing, so this is a possibility.

I think you're making some major mistakes in your testing though, which makes it inherently flawed:

1. You declare war on the AI. That means the war starts at a point where the AI is not intending to wage one, so it will simply defend if you attack it.
2. You expect the AI to understand victory mechanics. For that, let me just refer to my signature. The AI in Civ VI is a roleplaying AI.
3. You expect the AI to understand warmonger penalties will not be a thing if you are the only opponent. Once again, I would like to refer to my signature.
4. You are starting in the Information Era. This makes the simulation as a whole unrepresentative of an actual game.

There's certainly things the AI should really improve on (the Civ Flavor Deity mod does a good job of showcasing how much different build priorities would matter) but I don't think these tests are realistic, and actually create a skewed view of the capabilities of the AI.

A possible point of improvement for this testing would be to wait until the AI declares war on you (for that purpose, make demands, denounce, etc), but even then I think the roleplaying perspective is going to interfere.

 

[Gort]

OK, let's go through that point by point:

1. You declare war on the AI. That means the war starts at a point where the AI is not intending to wage one, so it will simply defend if you attack it.

Even if this is the case (which sounds like a big AI flaw in itself), shouldn't the AI be able to turn that around in over sixty turns of double-speed gameplay? Also, my civ has no units in these tests - the AI should be able to defeat me with only the starting forces it has.

2. You expect the AI to understand victory mechanics. For that, let me just refer to my signature. The AI in Civ VI is a roleplaying AI.

Sounds like a pretty big AI flaw if it doesn't know how to win the game it's in.

3. You expect the AI to understand warmonger penalties will not be a thing if you are the only opponent. Once again, I would like to refer to my signature.

Do you have anything to back up the assertion that the AI doesn't take cities because it's worried about warmonger penalties?

4. You are starting in the Information Era. This makes the simulation as a whole unrepresentative of an actual game.

It also gives the AI the maximum number of tools with which to accomplish the goal of taking one undefended city. This is also why the game is played on Deity, on Online speed, with no defending army - to give the AI the maximum possible chance to conquer the city in a short time.

If you read through the test log, you'll see the AI has managed to move the tools it needs to win the game into position by about turn 261, but they just sit there, motionless, for turn after turn. Sometimes they retreat and come back again. Check out the rocket artillery in turn 247-251 - it just drives around a city state getting shot until it has low health and retreats.

The AI is not roleplaying, it's just bad.

 

[Olleus]

A better test would be:
Start in the ancient or classical era
Give the AI ~20 turns to get some infrastructure built
Give it an army via the firetuner (I'm thinking 4 swords, 2 archers, 2 catapults and a horseman or so).
Wait until it declares war on you.
*Then* count how long it takes to capture a undefended city with walls.

Then this will test only how good the AI is at taking wall cities. At the moment you're also testing how much the AI wants to wage war, and it's pretty much impossible to differentiate the two phenomenon.

 

[V. Soma]

Well, I did a test... I must say, it was great!

AI Chandra, deity, duel map, medieval start, online speed

I settled close to AI with 2 cities, deleted my military, built medieval walls
I denounced AI 2 times... made demands to make him angry

Finally AI declared territorial war in turn 114
and came with 4 pikes, catapult, crossbow
shot my capital city walls to zero in 1 turn and then
killed me in turn 116...

wow!

 

[Xur]

I think there's a difference when the AI declares war to when you declare war. The AI doesn't want warmonger penalties taking your city - it is just defending I guess. It makes sence. If the AI declares war like VSoma tried, then it's another matter - it has an objective.

I agree the AI makes mistakes from time to time, but this patch/expansion really made an improvement. I hated the civ6 AI, but kinda like it now. I've been b!tching about the AI, UI and artstyle for over a year now, but to be fair, the AI has improved. I just think your test is flawed...

 

[leandrombraz]

I still think this kind of test is flawed. What need to be tested is how long it take for the AI to take the city from the moment they choose to do it to the moment the city fall, which is trick is you can't determine when the AI is actually trying to take the city. If the AI isn't interested in the city or in building an actual attach force it just won't do it.

 

[Leyrann]

Sounds like a pretty big AI flaw if it doesn't know how to win the game it's in.

Apparently, you prefer a gamey AI to a roleplaying AI. That's fine, but don't complain about it being a roleplaying AI when it's roleplaying just fine. It does what it's supposed to do.

Well, I did a test... I must say, it was great!

AI Chandra, deity, duel map, medieval start, online speed

I settled close to AI with 2 cities, deleted my military, built medieval walls
I denounced AI 2 times... made demands to make him angry

Finally AI declared territorial war in turn 114
and came with 4 pikes, catapult, crossbow
shot my capital city walls to zero in 1 turn and then
killed me in turn 116...

wow!

That's what I mean.

 

[agonistes]

Because that would leave out the many times the AI could have taken the undefended city but did not. More information is better than less information when you're making an argument.



1. I have no units in this test. There's nothing to distract the AI from attacking my cities.
2. Science victory is disabled.
3. Feel free to re-run the test as many times as you like and tell us the results.

If what you say is true about the AI in your games taking cities with walls easily, it's possible that Firaxis did not include any AI changes in their patch to the vanilla version of the game. There are other parts of the patch missing, so this is a possibility.

I've seen the ai go on rampages and take chains of walled cities. Not mine, of course, but the cities of other ai. And walled city-states get taken too. I don't use any ai mods.

However, I also see civs get wiped out by other civs quite frequently... to the extent that I've given all starting cities free ancient walls - to keep civs alive longer. Which leads me to believe that its the speed of the game that might be impacting ai behavior, because I play marathon ++.

Anyways... your test assumes the ai wants to take your city. It reads like the ai is trying for a science victory, and you dow'd on him.

Try running the test with 12 civs, making sure you start within 9 tiles of Persia. Don't dow him, let him dow you. See if he can bring down your walls. Trajan would be another good ai to test with. Aztecs are kind of ho-hum about war, imo.

 

[Cyberian]

Maybe its somehow tied to Information era if the OPs test is actually true.
Because in early eras there seems to be absolutely no issue.