They need to hotfix AI agression now

[eric_]

So, I haven't played much Civ in quite some time. I bought G&K and played a few games, but I was taking classes at the time so that was that. So, my memory of the game is a little vague...but...

I picked up BNW the other day and...wow...WOW! It's truly amazing. I don't agree that the AI lacks aggression. I might be LESS aggressive, but it doesn't lack aggression, and there's an important difference. Someone mentioned earlier in the thread that they can "feel" the AI considering options, moving forward cautiously, and otherwise executing a game plan. If aggression fits in (as it has multiple times in my current game), the AI is aggressive. If not, it only wars when necessary. It's actually very interesting because in a lot of ways the AI seems to approach the game in a way that's very similar to how I approach the game. I love the builder aspect, but I also love engaging in opportunistic wars to slow a booming opponent (capture a city or two) with a smaller army than mine. I have seen a lot of that kind of warring in my current game between many of the AIs. I have personally been able to avoid invasions because I built up a fairly sizable army early on. The map was cluttered, the barbs were fairly dense, and I am playing as the Shoshone, and the ability to choose what you get from ruins meant a free extra unit early on.

On a more general note, I love that so many of the new features and mechanics involve shared benefit and also carrying with them potential for trojan horses, if you will. Trade Routes illustrate this perfectly. I love the number of factors to consider when choosing which city to send a caravan or cargo ship to. Sending a few of them to cities that generate a lot of gold for the recipient civ seems like it could be a good way to prevent maintain good relations and I suspect might reduce aggressive behaviors (we'll see if that holds true over time); likewise the spread of science along trade routes. Finally, the prospect of the spread of religion into my cities occasionally gives me pause when setting up a route...

Oh, another thing: scoring seems to better reflect builder progress than it did before.

Overall I'm very impressed, but haven't finished my first game and am only playing Prince so far.

 

[Aristos]

It might be LESS aggressive, but it doesn't lack aggression, and there's an important difference. Someone mentioned earlier in the thread that they can "feel" the AI considering options, moving forward cautiously, and otherwise executing a game plan. If aggression fits in (as it has multiple times in my current game), the AI is aggressive. If not, it only wars when necessary. It's actually very interesting because in a lot of ways the AI seems to approach the game in a way that's very similar to how I approach the game. I love the builder aspect, but I also love engaging in opportunistic wars...

EXACTLY. Exactly 100 times.

The more I play, the more I am under the impression that the people that complain the most are the ones that miss the old "Zerg" tactics (tactics should also be in quotes in this context), where the AI would quickly build a force of ancient units, and go blindly crashing against the defenses of cities and perhaps a citadel. My guess is that such behaviour helped some feel like a "true" armchair general, by "defeating" (disregarding the fact that the "Zerg" tactic of pre-BNW AI was really self-defeating) the AI early rush using only... nothing but Passive Defense (see the irony?). After the suicide AI army was gone, came the walk in the park of taking undefended cities a piacere. I cannot avoid thinking that complainers in this context are just missing such behaviour, disguised as "more challenging" when in fact it was not.

The AI now clearly considers more options, and weights war with much more than the "me big stick early he small stick early go bum bum against wall" decision process... which is how I play (the last time I checked, I was still human, so from my perspective, the AI is now truly playing much more human-like).

Just calm down, adapt to new environment, change to new tactics, and try to enjoy the new approach as it is (and it has so much more enjoyable aspects), and forget about the old "defend-destroy suicide army-win" unique and only strategy. Civilization is so much more than that...

 

[eric_]

Well, to be fair, I do think some folks really love approaching Civ as a straight up war strategy game. And, I have enjoyed myself immensely going for conquest victories over the years. But, ultimately, I like balance. I like balanced beer, I like a good balanced mix of instruments on stage, and I like a well-balanced game of Civ .

By the way, the idea of the Antiquity Sites is truly an amazing one. I have always loved the quasi lore that grows around each game (in my head), and this really helps tie everything together. But, I find myself wishing that there was more specificity with regard to exactly what artifact is found. For instance, if an axe-throwing barbarian was killed by a composite bowman, it would be fantastic if you selected "Artifact" and then one of those popup screens (a la a Great Work) came up and said something like, "Archaeologists have discovered stone axe and arrow heads at dig site." It would also be cool if replacing one tile improvements with another resulted in a chance for an Antiquity Site popping up in that location. So, if a trading post replaces a farm, maybe 50 - 100 turns later there's a chance of an Antiquity Site popping up, and then a dig might produce an ancient plow or something.

But, I suppose that's for another thread.

 

[Gaizokubanou]

EXACTLY. Exactly 100 times.

The more I play, the more I am under the impression that the people that complain the most are the ones that miss the old "Zerg" tactics (tactics should also be in quotes in this context), where the AI would quickly build a force of ancient units, and go blindly crashing against the defenses of cities and perhaps a citadel. My guess is that such behaviour helped some feel like a "true" armchair general, by "defeating" (disregarding the fact that the "Zerg" tactic of pre-BNW AI was really self-defeating) the AI early rush using only... nothing but Passive Defense (see the irony?). After the suicide AI army was gone, came the walk in the park of taking undefended cities a piacere. I cannot avoid thinking that complainers in this context are just missing such behaviour, disguised as "more challenging" when in fact it was not.

The AI now clearly considers more options, and weights war with much more than the "me big stick early he small stick early go bum bum against wall" decision process... which is how I play (the last time I checked, I was still human, so from my perspective, the AI is not truly playing much more human-like).

Just calm down, adapt to new environment, change to new tactics, and try to enjoy the new approach as it is (and it has so much more enjoyable aspects), and forget about the old "defend-destroy suicide army-win" unique and only strategy. Civilization is so much more than that...

Erm no. That's a strawman because nobody is asking for suicidal/psychotic AI from vanilla CiV.

What some of us want is an AI that doesn't just sit on its ass watching us achieving victory with little to no army. I get that some pacifist AI civs may do that, but having all AI civs doing that all of the time is just ridiculously easy to exploit.

And where are you getting this idea that people are having hard time adjusting to this passive new AI? Game is much easier now because you can just ignore military if you want to.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=501378

Check the screenshot of that guide. It's not just aggression... AI is just all around more passive, leaving lot of landmass unfilled even by modern age on deity.

 

[Buccaneer]

Aristos, I agree, but what if the AI army would not be suicidal? An overwhelming Greek force should be able to take out enemy cities (your's or an AI) but is it even given the chance to do so? The answer to preventing stupid AI suicidal attacks is not to go the other extreme and not attack. A balance would be good.

 

[Aaron90495]

Aristos, I agree, but what if the AI army would not be suicidal? An overwhelming Greek force should be able to take out enemy cities (your's or an AI) but is it even given the chance to do so? The answer to preventing stupid AI suicidal attacks is not to go the other extreme and not attack. A balance would be good.

This is the key. Generally, I like the lowered aggression; most civs would ultimately self-destruct after a failed rush of the human player. However, those that CAN succeed - Huns, Greece, etc. - need to have their aggressiveness bumped back up, as it can truly benefit them and hurt the player.

 

[eric_]

What some of us want is an AI that doesn't just sit on its ass watching us achieving victory with little to no army.

I think the main question in this case becomes, are they sitting on their ass militarily, or are they sitting on their ass across the board? For instance, in my current game, Spain was to my southwest and the Ottomans, Rome, and Polynesia were to my north, northeast, and east respectively. The latter three were all at each other's throats fairly early, then peaceful for awhile, then at each other's throats again.

I had a large enough army that they left me alone. For a long time Spain benefited from this and built almost no army at all. But, she was FAR from passive. She was spamming Wonders and religion like you wouldn't believe. Eventually, she started to run away with lead on our continent and she stopped benefiting from the buffer created by my large army and instead became a victim of it .

Anyway, point being, just because the AI doesn't aggressively pursue military advantages doesn't mean it isn't aggressively pursuing some other advantage on another strategic front. And, diverting resources from that strategic front might just dilute both paths to victory and reduce their chances of winning.

 

[dexters]

Well you always have to give detractors benefit of the doubt. But people do get very wedded to a specific strategy or style of play that expansions that isn't just glorified mod pacts but actually change up the game like BNW will get a lot of flak just because things have changed and old strategies no longer work and old exploits have been patched.

The complaints I've read have run the gamut from the AI being not aggressive and too easy to being too hard and too aggressive and everything in between. Not to mention players who completely ignore tourism /culture and what the dominant ideology is in-game and get angry they are losing happiness.

 

[Aristos]

Erm no. That's a strawman because nobody is asking for suicidal/psychotic AI from vanilla CiV.

What some of us want is an AI that doesn't just sit on its ass watching us achieving victory with little to no army. I get that some pacifist AI civs may do that, but having all AI civs doing that all of the time is just ridiculously easy to exploit.

And where are you getting this idea that people are having hard time adjusting to this passive new AI? Game is much easier now because you can just ignore military if you want to.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=501378

Check the screenshot of that guide. It's not just aggression... AI is just all around more passive, leaving lot of landmass unfilled even by modern age on deity.

I am not seeing any of that, and I only believe in what I see. In fact, I am seeing the opposite of your claims. Strawman? Straw platoon.

 

[dexters]

I guess the open question for people is, should Monty, Alexander, Attila and to a lesser extent China just always be a little insane in the early game?

This is what I came to expect in G&K and patched vanilla. If you see them in-game you know an early war is likely and your goal is not to be picked by them (most of the time) as a target. Their agression also goes way up right around the time each Civ gets their UU.

This seems to no longer be the case in BNW. The more strategic nature of AI decision making does seem to impact them as they are less likely to go to war early and thus miss their window of opportunity for carnage.

That's really the only change I could support and agree with. I generally like the BNW AI, especially the economic monsters playing the long game and building up science, and culture and economy for the industrial age wars and so on.


Strategic variety among the AI is certainly welcome. Some AI do really benefit from playing peaceful early ; others like Monty seem to fizzle out if they don't knock out a neighbour or two.

 

[Aristos]

Aristos, I agree, but what if the AI army would not be suicidal? An overwhelming Greek force should be able to take out enemy cities (your's or an AI) but is it even given the chance to do so? The answer to preventing stupid AI suicidal attacks is not to go the other extreme and not attack. A balance would be good.

And I counter-agree . I am NOT seeing sitting armies, I am seeing AI civs carefully building up to increase chances of military success, and then using their force (against me). Even after defeat; for example, after a long and cautious war from both sides against Siam, I took the offensive when I was ready (the AI is doing that now in all my games) and managed to capture his wonderful capital. Pre-BNW, that usually meant game over for the AI. Not for this one; he carefully built up again, but instead of stubbornly coming after me for revenge and get killed, he picked the weaker Mayans to his south, finished them, and used his newly acquired "substitute empire" to further build up. When he got the critical mass, he came after me in full force; it was a long struggle full of blows/counterblows after I finally defeated him... only to be attacked by the might Persians when I was at my lowest (and committed) to the other border. Only my might navy kept the Persians at bay, until after a long struggle we both realized WP was the only option... only to get attacked by the uber Polynesians, who where slowly building up all that time.

And so on. I am not seeing what some claim, I am seeing full (and smarter) use of all options available, and I am seeing a far better gameplay and AI.

As I said in the other response, I only believe what I see. (and of course, in trying to understand why other's claim to see different, I draw some conclusions that sometimes I like to share..)

 

[eric_]

Aristos, I still think the early rushes could be a viable strategy, but I think it's a good thing if you now don't have to basically *assume* it will happen.

 

[Aristos]

Aristos, I still think the early rushes could be a viable strategy, but I think it's a good thing if you now don't have to basically *assume* it will happen.

Exactly. Not only that, but you cannot assume that when it happens, you will destroy their suicide army with a few archers/CBs and then walk through their cities and build yourself a nice early empire that becomes unbeatable. That is certainly better than what it was before.

 

[pilot00]

I think the main question in this case becomes, are they sitting on their ass militarily, or are they sitting on their ass across the board?

4 Games in a row its the second here. Rome has a huge army of riflemen and tribuchets, they plot against me for 100 turns, they hate me on 5 different accounts, and they just sit there. I have three archers in my 4 city empire. Oh and a pikeman.

 

[eric_]

Are they benefitting strongly from trade routes you have with them? And/or do you have many mutual friends?

 

[Gaizokubanou]

I think the main question in this case becomes, are they sitting on their ass militarily, or are they sitting on their ass across the board?

Sitting on their ass across the board. Try the game on huge map on marathon and this problem can be demonstrated most clearly. I had Morocco, with no neighbor, remain with 2 cities until I wiped them out of their pitiful existence around Renaissance era on King difficulty. The same game, Attila managed to piss off the entire world so everyone DoW on him early, but the problem is... nobody sent any unit (from ancient to industrial era... so yeah, amazing careful and smart AI there huh Aristos? ) so what happened in effect was everybody became friend from diplomatic buff for having this mutual never ending "war" against Attila.

 

[Buccaneer]

I think the better test would be standard speed and map on king or emperor. That's where the game should be most balanced, not some skewed map like huge or speeds other than standard (marathon has always been unbalanced).

 

[IAmOzymandias]

I think if anything the biggest change is not that civs aren't hurting specifically themselves in this, it's that no civs are getting stomped down early either through a failed attack or a failed defense, and by the later games there isn't nebuchadnezzar with 3000 points and the next guy with 1200, but a more even late game playing field.

 

[Sirre]

Just made it through a whole game without a single war on emperor. Even when I only had 3 crossbowmen gaurding my capital, not even then my big neighbour wanted to attack me.
It was prety ridicoulusly and just ruined te game for me when they took away the thrill of war

Hope they will do something about this.

 

[Sonereal]

Just made it through a whole game without a single war on emperor. Even when I only had 3 crossbowmen gaurding my capital, not even then my big neighbour wanted to attack me.
It was prety ridicoulusly and just ruined te game for me when they took away the thrill of war

Hope they will do something about this.

->Complains about lack of war
->Actively avoids war by not starting them