The Problems Created by Bad Tactical AI

[Redcard]

While I had my issues with other aspects of the game, when I first heard the complaints about the tactical AI, I thought "big deal, you can compensate by increasing the difficulty". After thinking about it, however, the ineptitude of the tactical AI is now probably my biggest gripe because, if you are playing optimally, it pretty much forces you into always playing the war game.

There was a thread on here about whether it is easier or harder to win a cultural victory on Civ V than Civ IV and I thought both sides made valid, military related points. One side said it was harder because you could no longer largely secure yourself against attack through diplomacy. One side said easier because cities defended themselves and you could rely on outmaneouvering the enemy rather than building more units. It struck me that even the peaceful strategy relies on war. The only way to avoid war altogether would be to build a large enough military to deter attack (which would also be large enough to go on the offensive) and then to not use it offensively.

The AI's tactical handicap being so much more apparent then when it just had to move SODs means there is a real asymetry to the game. The AI essentially gets a much bigger bonus to buildings/science etc. than it does to military, and the best way to make up that bonus is to war it up. This is in huge contrast to Civ IV where some games my best option was to be totally peaceful, sometimes it was total aggression, and sometimes somewhere in between.

Why does it feel like tactical AI hasn't advanced since the original Panzer General?

 

[PimpyMicPimp]

My biggest complaint with the game is the horrible AI (mostly military, but it also makes some pretty piss poor diplomatic decisions). I keep seeing so many Civs only building 3-4 units to defend their entire empire. When that happens, it feels more like I'm playing solitaire than in a living world.

I realise it's brand new, but I they did clearly cut corners when it came to the AI to hit the release date.

 

[digitalcraft]

The AI is schizophrenic.

Two games.

One I was Japan and had settled my area, wiped out Elizabeth. Alexander declares on me, so I remove his army from existance, take a few of his cities. Go to see if he'll go for peace, he will, but *only* peace, no gold, no resources or cities, nothing. So I take a few more, check again, same thing. I roll across his empire squishing the few outdated units he manages to make, and never once will he offer anything except a strait up peace agreement. So I kill him.


---
Other game. I'm playing as France, mostly trying to be peaceful. I am settling my area. From out of nowhere, here comes an American settler. he had to go across two civilizations (english and persian) to get to me, walks over and plops his city RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE of my cities. Like I hadn't left a hole even, he was literally two tiles on both sides from one of my cities! My empire suddenly looks like a doughnut with a blue center.

So I take his city. I don't feel like marching across the continent so I kill the one or two unprotect ranged units he sends to do... I have no idea what... with, and eventually offer peace. He also will not trade anything but peace, even though he has two cities and I have around 9. Whatever, I give it to him.

So I'm playing, trying to max my culture, and suddenly out of nowhere Darius attacks me. The same persia I've done two research agreements with, and am trading a bunch of resources. I guess he was bored. A swarm of spearmen. Unfortunately for him, I now have muskateers and his invasion is blown to smithereens. But not to worry, because every other civilization on the continent(Besides America) suddenly declares war on me too!

This part was at least interesting. I have Elizabeth from the north, Darius from the Northwest, Russia from the west and southwest. I'm barely keeping them back with my guns, but they're mostly swarming on me. Luckily, Elizabeth is focusing most of her effort on the city state above me. She has its health all the way down, but all she has is longbowmen milling about picking their nose not sure what to do. the few troops I manage to send that way get decimated though so I am working more to the west. I've taken a city from Persia and from Russia.

So then, they all want peace, and not just peace, they all ragequit and want to give me their entire empires. All of them. So now suddenly I have a continent all but 3 capitals and Washington's two cities.

So once I get the unhappines under control (all the cities fortunately decided to go for colluseums) I just wipe out their capitals one by one. Yay? Half the map handed to me. Oh and I won the game by 'diplomacy' too, by buying off the city states.

The AI plays to lose. Oh this is also after the supposed fix to the value of cities in diplomacy.

 

[ywhtptgtfo]

But not to worry, because every other civilization on the continent(Besides America) suddenly declares war on me too!

The AI plays to lose. Oh this is also after the supposed fix to the value of cities in diplomacy.

Yes, I find that most annoying. Even in civ 4, the A.I. takes a tech or two to bribe to a war if you are a human. But of course, A.I.'s can bribe other A.I.'s into a war for free. That's so bs.

 

[KanyeNW]

The AI is schizophrenic.

Two games.

One I was Japan and had settled my area, wiped out Elizabeth. Alexander declares on me, so I remove his army from existance, take a few of his cities. Go to see if he'll go for peace, he will, but *only* peace, no gold, no resources or cities, nothing. So I take a few more, check again, same thing. I roll across his empire squishing the few outdated units he manages to make, and never once will he offer anything except a strait up peace agreement. So I kill him.


---
Other game. I'm playing as France, mostly trying to be peaceful. I am settling my area. From out of nowhere, here comes an American settler. he had to go across two civilizations (english and persian) to get to me, walks over and plops his city RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE of my cities. Like I hadn't left a hole even, he was literally two tiles on both sides from one of my cities! My empire suddenly looks like a doughnut with a blue center.

So I take his city. I don't feel like marching across the continent so I kill the one or two unprotect ranged units he sends to do... I have no idea what... with, and eventually offer peace. He also will not trade anything but peace, even though he has two cities and I have around 9. Whatever, I give it to him.

So I'm playing, trying to max my culture, and suddenly out of nowhere Darius attacks me. The same persia I've done two research agreements with, and am trading a bunch of resources. I guess he was bored. A swarm of spearmen. Unfortunately for him, I now have muskateers and his invasion is blown to smithereens. But not to worry, because every other civilization on the continent(Besides America) suddenly declares war on me too!

This part was at least interesting. I have Elizabeth from the north, Darius from the Northwest, Russia from the west and southwest. I'm barely keeping them back with my guns, but they're mostly swarming on me. Luckily, Elizabeth is focusing most of her effort on the city state above me. She has its health all the way down, but all she has is longbowmen milling about picking their nose not sure what to do. the few troops I manage to send that way get decimated though so I am working more to the west. I've taken a city from Persia and from Russia.

So then, they all want peace, and not just peace, they all ragequit and want to give me their entire empires. All of them. So now suddenly I have a continent all but 3 capitals and Washington's two cities.

So once I get the unhappines under control (all the cities fortunately decided to go for colluseums) I just wipe out their capitals one by one. Yay? Half the map handed to me. Oh and I won the game by 'diplomacy' too, by buying off the city states.

The AI plays to lose. Oh this is also after the supposed fix to the value of cities in diplomacy.

You've basically summed up my last game verbatim.


On another note, one of the other games I played as Japanese, and I was unfortunate enough to get stuck in a tiny "continent" near the south pole, meaning half my tiles were tundra and snow. So I play for a few hundred turns, get five cities in that small space (2 of them city states), focus on rationalism for science to hopefully stand a chance, and then, as soon as I get riflemen, build a small army.

I go to war with the overspread and overspent low-tech Alexander (who resides on a neighboring continent 8 tiles away on ocean) using four riflemen while I build some reinforcements back at home, and it's basically a stalemate for a while, as his cheap gunpowder units are able to take out my stronger one's by massing up on them.


Feeling as if he has the upper hand, Alexander offers peace in exchange for quite literally, 3/4 of EVERYTHING that I own (including cities, he wanted 3).


So I fight for another 20 turns and wtfpwn him, only to be met with another peace treaty, this time he wants to give ME 3/4 of his ENTIRE EMPIRE. I of course refuse, because, that's just much too easy of a win, and not fun.


WHAT. THE. F#$%^&*()

Okay, so.... Maybe he's just a tad irrational.



So I take over his empire and liberate a city state along the way. A bit later, after the relationship with the newly liberated city state is gone, and with me unwilling to give them FIVE HUNDRED GOLD TO STAY FRIENDS AFTER I JUST FREAKING SAVED THEIR AS$ES, I declare war on them and take over the land in order to secure those direly needed pearls.


Apparently America, Babylon, and China (hehe, A B C), weren't too keen on me declaring war on the city state that I MYSELF liberated, and for whatever reason, all three declared war on me.

And so then I just march up the continent that I had just wiped Alexander off of to meet his neighbors, Babylon and China, and wipe them out. All the while America just sits back and chills on his own separate continent (there were three continents in this game), never ONCE sending ANY MILITARY FORCE to my completely unprotected cities (without walls I may add).

And then I got 2 nukes and blast his a$$.......



I went from the underdog to the game winner by simply out-teching them. My force was tiny, my cities were unprotected, and my location sucked. But, because I was 1 or 2 units ahead of them on the tech tree, I basically steamrolled them all, took over their pathetic lands, and spent the rest of the game trying to build enough crap to re-balance my economy and de-piss-off my nation.


In other words, winning was absurdly easy.


All anyone had to do was send a few men to my capital and it would have been an easy win for them. But no, not once did anyone even THINK about using "Embark".


For these reasons my next game is going to be on pangea, and I'm not going to go down the rationalism tree, in order that I may actually have a challenge.

 

[DrakenKin]

I think it would be useful if we say what difficulty level we play on when describing games.

 

[Malecite]

I just made a post about how the AI's unfortunate handicap always results in some super AI thats stupidity is offset by their endless bankroll from absorbing all the other useless civ defenders.

Its frustrating, and if you cant get at them before artillery it seems your pretty much screwed thanks to gold purchasing. But then again, thats just been my experience.

 

[Redcard]

My point isn't that "winning is too easy" because of the bad AI, as I think that issue can be reasonably solved with a difficulty level adjustment. It's that, if you are playing at an appropriately challenging level, the AI's bad tactics mixed with it's hard-nosed diplomacy make it pretty much mandatory that you be a warmongerer to play your best game. I don't mind being a warmonger sometimes, but being strategically straitjacketed into it every time seems very much against the spirit of Civ.

 

[aziantuntija]

Maybe we need difficulty settings invividually for combat AI to please both the warmongers and easy combat lovers.