The Civ5 Conundrum

[Dactyl]

As a number of people have pointed out, Civ5 is easier than previous versions. IMHO, the primary reason for that is the combat. I've found that it is a whole lot easier to kick tail in Civ5 than it was in Civ4. The problem lies with the new combat system. I hated the old stacks of doom system. I prefer Civ5's system, but it requires a bit of tactical thinking. Unfortunately, it would be incredibly difficult to come up with an AI that could come anywhere close to competing with a human player. In Civ4, it wasn't so hard. They just had to program it to assemble a huge stack of units and head for your nearest weak city.

There are probably a few things that could be done to improve the AI. One thing is that they are too defensive. I've noticed that, when you get too many units close to their border, they warn you. I choose the reply that says my units are just passing by. No matter what you answer, why don't they send a couple of available units toward one of your cities, forcing you siphon off some units? Heck, when I do an early rush, I don't leave a unit to defend the cities that I have turned into puppets. I just have a horseman sitting near them, in case a stray unit comes their way. Otherwise I rely on the city to defend itself. I haven't yet seen the AI effectively exploit that.

BTW, these remarks apply to the King level.

 

[Malkaviel]

Did you play vanilla civ4? The ai in that was ridiculously easy especially if you were on a separate continent. It's just really easy to "sucker" the ai right now into running at you with everything they have, losing everything they have, and having nothing left.

Best suggestion is a higher difficulty level where your tactics equal the ai's build bonus.

 

[Horizons]

Archers have a bombard range of two hexes? I mean come on ... stone-age soldiers shooting primitive bows and arrows, and an entire city only takes up one hex ... it's fun but it stretches the imagination.

 

[nekom]

Archers have a bombard range of two hexes? I mean come on ... stone-age soldiers shooting primitive bows and arrows, and an entire city only takes up one hex ... it's fun but it stretches the imagination.

There's really no `realistic' way to portray the fact that archers can fire from behind the front lines. Gameplay > Realism

 

[Shurdus]

It was pointed out already that the AI in itself ik quite ok. That mod that improves the yield of tiles also makes the AI competent. The problem with the game us that it is so slow to produce things that by the time you have an army, the AI has made a barracks and a monument... Which of course won't help repel your units.

That tile yield mod ramps up the difficulty to the point where players get owned on king difficulty.

 

[ohioastronomy]

There's really no `realistic' way to portray the fact that archers can fire from behind the front lines. Gameplay > Realism

You have ranks within an army - something similar is used in Europa Universalis 3. It would work fine - there are numbers between 1 and infinity, e.g. you could have resolved a lot of the stack 'o doom problems with a modest stacking limit.

Basically, you're replacing stack of doom with unit of doom - a single powerful unit is very tough to kill. And the AI isn't good enough to protect the weaker backup units, or to exploit weaknesses in your lines.

 

[Smips]

Archers have a bombard range of two hexes? I mean come on ... stone-age soldiers shooting primitive bows and arrows, and an entire city only takes up one hex ... it's fun but it stretches the imagination.

Those same archers are only dealing 1 damage per turn to the city, which it heals on the next turn.

 

[silentknight111]

I've found that the biggest thing that makes the AIs cities easy to take over is the whole siege of a city itself. A cities ranged attack is laughably weak. Once the AIs units are dead, I just park a few unites outside the city on fortify, and the AI will bombard them every turn, doing 1 damage, which my units heal since they are fortified... but they get 2 exp. leave them there for awhile and you get to upgrade your units a few times then whipe out the city.

 

[duxup]

IMO the Civ AIs have never been all that impressive. I think the complexity of Civ IV and the advantages given to the AI at higher difficulty made the game more of a challenge, but that wasn't necessarily due to a great AI.

Civ V's AI is hard to compare but I'm not yet seeing a significantly better or worse AI.

 

[ohioastronomy]

IMO the Civ AIs have never been all that impressive. I think the complexity of Civ IV and the advantages given to the AI at higher difficulty made the game more of a challenge, but that wasn't necessarily due to a great AI.

Civ V's AI is hard to compare but I'm not yet seeing a significantly better or worse AI.

I think you're right - that makes the design decisions in Civ 5 so poor. They chose a format where bad AI would be obvious and where good AI would be very difficult to design.

 

[recoil17]

There are probably a few things that could be done to improve the AI. One thing is that they are too defensive. I've noticed that, when you get too many units close to their border, they warn you. I choose the reply that says my units are just passing by. No matter what you answer, why don't they send a couple of available units toward one of your cities, forcing you siphon off some units?

In my first game, that I'm currently playing on Prince, the Iroquois built a city directly next to one of mine. Later down the road, I starting moving all of my units along my border and the border of his city. A few turns later he contacted me and said that he notices the units near his city. I told him we were just passing by. He said something along the lines that he hopes that is all their doing.

For each unit I had next to his border, he had a unit adjacent to it. As I moved my units along the border line, his units followed my every move. He kept a unit close to my unit (in his territory) until my unit was far enough away that I could no longer see his unit.

 

[Crezth]

I think you're right - that makes the design decisions in Civ 5 so poor. They chose a format where bad AI would be obvious and where good AI would be very difficult to design.

So... should they not have aimed for gold?

I guess we all know the old saying, "Why shoot for the stars when you can wallow in the mud?"

 

[ChristofferC]

The problem with 1UPT is that the AI can't overwhelm you with pure numbers. No matter how big their army you only ever have to defend against a subset of it so it's very easy to defend.

The civIV AI never won by using tactics. It won by overwhelming you.

 

[remconius]

Well 1upt, is essentially playing chess, but a bit more complicated. There are highly advance chess playing computers, so it is possible.....

I am sure they'll patch it.

 

[Ciek]

The problem with 1UPT is that the AI can't overwhelm you with pure numbers. No matter how big their army you only ever have to defend against a subset of it so it's very easy to defend.

The civIV AI never won by using tactics. It won by overwhelming you.

exactly
i have confidence in firaxis, in future expansions, DLC, patches etc they will continue to make great improvements to their game, after playing BTS and Warlord i was never again able to play vanilla, it was just too damn simple.