Um some reddit posts are saying ai is harder than we are led to believe.

[Myth and Legend]

Correctus. King is the equilibrium sopt where neither the player or the AI get any bonuses. Prince gives the player bonuses. If you are playing on a difficulty setting that gives you a crutch you have no right to complain.

The decision making is absurd on Prince where the AI is behind on tech/culture/hammers. Those same decisions will make a lot more sence when it's eclipsing you in tech, it has 2 more cities than you and it's massed a carpet of doom.

 

[PhroX]

Correctus. King is the equilibrium sopt where neither the player or the AI get any bonuses. Prince gives the player bonuses. If you are playing on a difficulty setting that gives you a crutch you have no right to complain.

The decision making is absurd on Prince where the AI is behind on tech/culture/hammers. Those same decisions will make a lot more sence when it's eclipsing you in tech, it has 2 more cities than you and it's massed a carpet of doom.

Thing is, it shouldn't be making the same decisions in those cases. Yes, attacking a player or a city state when you have a carpet of doom is sensible. But when, due to being on a lower difficulty, it don't have said carpet of doom, it shouldn't be attacking.

 

[Shadeseraph]

Been playing on prince as Sumer. France AI expanded reasonably well and was more or less keeping up with my pace technology/culture/influence wise (he got to classical before me) - though he got fairly nice dirt and the torres de paine nearby. It had a small army (like 1 warrior and 3 slingers on turn ~50) - and I had been hunting barb encampments, so I had a fairly decent army by then. I declared war after I saw a french settler near my location, and while initially I didn't intend to take france down, I decided to do so. Some observations:

-Upgrading units is extremely expensive. Archer to crossbow was like 200 gp.
-Early on, without any kind of city defense, the attacker really has a big advantage. I basically razed the city outskirts unpunished while attacking it.
-The AI can play some tricks, but it sometimes makes bad decissions - like pulling his hard-built slinger out of the city to attack a unit within range. I unknowingly baited it, leaving the city undefended.
-Sieges are damn brutal. I had help from a small barbarian horde, who was passing by and between them and my units Ruan was considered sieged, and could take it in about 2-3 turns with only 2 units (an archer and a warrior).
-Movement is a bit frustrating - especially riverside jungles. The AI had a fairly hard time maneuvering around those...
-Barbarians are a bit excessive. Turn 20 or so, I had 2 cavalries and a horse archer at my capital's door. A slinger I had hard produced, another one I rush built and the policy that gives +5 vs barbs saved the day, but had I not had all those nifty prince bonuses from prince difficult I could have been in real trouble. They get units really fast. I believe that one of the biggest reasons why the AI had such poor army was the barb's aggressiveness.

In general, I feel the game might be a bit hard for the AI to play at lower difficulties - too many choices, and barb pressure is really tough on them. With some production bonuses it might be able to cope with barbs and keep a good army working.

 

[spfun]

just finished my first game as Germany on a standard map/speed/settings/Emperor with a T249 space victory. AI is as expected, pretty terrible.

Only 1 AI went for religious victory which was annoying. Even after I took out his empire, he (china) had 1 city on the other side of the map and still managed to spam apostles like no tomorrow.

 

[Ikael]

It is really good to know that the AI got heavily improved since the AI battle royale. As for me, the question is not so much about how it does compare with uber-competitive human players, but rather if it is better / same / worse than Civ 5's

 

[agonistes]

At 370 turns in, I haven't met another civ yet (although I met 4 or 5 by turn 10 in my France game), but I have seen multiple civs die (messages), and city-states get conquered, which seems to be different than the Battle Royale.

I have been watching Carthage destroy barbarians and barb camps, chasing down barb scouts with archers and warriors. So *some* things are being done correctly, at least. Just can't report on a major war yet.

PS: please tell me I can resurrect dead civs. I'm egging Ed's house if I can't.

 

[agonistes]

If you are playing on a difficulty setting that gives you a crutch you have no right to complain.

I love barstool logic.

 

[olduser]

The Civ4 AI even has issues after the devs patched it alot and AI modders working on it for the last ten years. So some of you should lower their expectations the AI in a complex game like Civ6 can't be perfect at release.

 

[Martin Alvito]

The AI more or less has to be a raging psychopath to have a chance. If you give it production bonuses, it gets more units than you. It can't win without using them against you, because it's bad at Civ.

It's a shame that the AI doesn't seem to understand the difference between playing you at Deity where it should be out for blood and playing at Prince where it needs to coordinate against you to win, but there are worse problems to have.

 

[phillipwyllie]

I've just lost my Aztec cap to Egypt on t76 on Emperor, was forward settled on t10 or something. Lets just say 3 archers are not enough.

 

[Shafi-is-back]

First game i played as Rome by around turn 60 ish i had ignored military and built only two warriors + 1 slinger, England rolled in with like 8+ warriors and took my 2nd city off me.
I'm on my second game as Greece now and Japan DoWéd me this time, but of course i had 2 hoplites + 1 warrior + 1 archer and got up ancient walls, they came at me with around 8 warriors who i destroyed with ease.
My opinion - AI is not good at war but if you ignore military like you could do on civ 5 your in trouble.

 

[Chief Mal]

King, America, Continents, Standard, Standard. Spain forward settled me 5 tiles west of my capital and Sumeria forward settled me 5 tiles east of my capital then both denounced me and eventually DoW'ed me when I settled my second city 6 tiles north of my capital.

 

[Kozmos]

That's the secondary problem, due to how aggressive the Civs are (or have to be) I'm not seeing a lot of openings for diplomacy, especially when combined with those agendas. Had zero agreements or alliances with other cives. You give them open borders and trade something, they still hate you and try to rape you with their own religion, which is just annoying to deal with, not even threatening. Then there is the dumb demands almost every turn from trash level civs like giving them jeans and a bunch of other stuff in exchange for 10 gold per turn or some other such nonsense.

 

[Grotius]

The AI seems better to me than Civ V's AI.

 

[Nefelia]

Played my first game as Russia. Huge map, Epic Speed, Emperor Difficulty.

I had some forewarning from the good folk at Reddit that ran into competent AI and early defeats from militarily aggressive rivals. I started immediately building warriors and slingers, and was rather glad I did once I saw a barbarian scout at my border on turn 5. My plans for a scout of my own were put on hold as I had to defend from barbarian threats from at least two directions.

Slingers suck against barbarians, except for defensive placements. Their melee attack of 5 makes them too vulnerable for excursions. However, they are damned cheap to produce, and cheap to upgrade to archers. I built 8 slingers before researching Archery and upgraded them shortly before turning my eye on Madrid. 8 archers, 3 warriors, and 1 scout did eventually take Madrid, but I lost 4 or so units in the attempt.

Madrid had built Ancient Walls in time.

Note on the Lavra: Lol. 7 faith from the first, and 6 faith from the one I built in the second city. Dance of the Aurora synergizes beatifully with the Russian bonus to tundra.

I got the second Great Prophet. The first had been gained via Stonehenge by an unknown civilization. Madrid was actually going to beat me to the second Prophet by a turn or three... but then I pillaged his Holy Site.

Loving the game so far.

 

[Zhahz]

Too early for me to totally decide but as I've said many times now, I think people put WAY too much stock in how that one AI v AI "royale" played out. Civ is far too complex a game to make judgement about anything from a single experience.

I haven't seen stupid trade deals, have seen wars and city losses in ancient/classical, and the AI behaviors have been pretty solid thus far. In combat I'd say they are at least as good if not better than balance patch good.

I had a nasty ancient era war where an AI came at me with a worthy force and then defended against me far more viciously than anything I ever saw in 5. Also saw an AI take a force of 10+ organized units with balanced combined arms against a city state.

 

[Myth and Legend]

Officially lost my first serious game as Arabia. Continents standard everything.

Atetmpt #1 was horrible. Got swarmed by barbarians on turn 15 despite going Scout>Slinger>Slinger as my build. They actually took Cairo! I had to reload and fortify my warrior on a hill outside my borders to stall and tehn sacrifice him and a slinger and another warrior to stem the tide of 4 warriros 3 slingers at my capital. Don't think I'm a scrub, I could defend barbs easily in Civ 5.

After realoding I discovered that I share a small continent with Trajan. He might have blocked me off from discovering other civs, so i got a second city, then a third one, got the great religion start I had wanted... and I got staemrolled by Legions. 40 combat strength legions coming at my archers and spearmen. Had I tried to tech to Swordsmen I would have probably held hi off, my bad for going for naval tech. But he had a LOT of stuff and a lot of cities, so grinding out a war of attrition with him would have gotten me just behind the runaways.

Also, a civ got destroyed between turn 15 and 30.

The game is NOT easy.

 

[Galbias]

Playing on King, the AI is a bit derpy. Brazil Surprise DoW'd me and brought 3 units, most of which died to my allied city state, and Cleopatra glitched out and DoW'd me the turn after I met her alongside another AI I hadn't met, when we shared no borders, but nothing major. The Agenda system does tend to make all the AIs inadvertently hate each other though.

 

[Browd]

ITT: Sub-emperor players post opinions about game difficulty.

How challenging the game plays is relevant at every difficulty level. Game can be crushing to a Warlord or Prince player, too easy for an Emperor player, and just right for Deity -- all are important feedback for tuning difficulty bonuses and maluses and other gameplay mechanics.

 

[Frank327]

There's a surprising amount of random DOW's. They really come out of the blue too, at least at king level. I don't mind it too much because it allows me to take all their cities without getting a warmonger penalty but it's kinda surprising. At least it makes you think about maintaining a proper military.