Waiting for a patch...

[salty mud]

The AI is never going to be great. There is very little incentive for Firaxis to dedicate those resources in that way. They are a game company. Pride of craftsmanship only goes so far. At some point, you have to recognize that spending a million+ dollars (three to five person team for three years) on a feature that will not substantially increase sales or even be noticed by most of your players is bad business. We who come to fan sites and break apart games for exploits are a small minority of gamers. Take a look at the achievement stats for an idea of how differently we approach the game. Note that you can earn achievements while using mods. Less than 1% have the Scythian Horse Rush. Only 18% have won a game at all. Put a city under siege is at 32%, and found or conquer a city on another continent is at 55%.

We, the folks who learn systems and bend them to the breaking point, are not the target audience. It's not a profitable audience to target. It is also an audience that has proven itself, time and again, willing to mod what they want into a game, no matter how difficult that modding is. We did it with Civ IV (Rhye's and Fall, Fall from Heaven), we did it in Civ V (Vox Populi, Super Power, Enlightenment Era, and more), we'll do it in Civ VI. The mod scene is already hard at work picking apart what they can and transferring what was learned of Civ V into modding Civ VI.

Firaxis has promised better modding support, better modding tools, and access to important code resources in the very near future. If they can follow through on this, it is the best thing that can happen to our audience. It is also an investment that pays off, judging by other games that invest in their modding scene. It's certainly going to earn them more sales than a high-quality AI, and it is far cheaper to develop.


OT: Have you published this anywhere? I was thinking of doing the same today, and would love to just use yours instead ;-)

Just because people don't post on Internet forums about the dunderheaded AI doesn't mean people don't notice it. Perhaps the achievements stats are so low because people are so disappointed with this disgustingly programmed game?

 

[Mustakrakish]

The apologetics on this forum is out of control. You confront someone with evidence about something lacking in the game and members here will swarm over themselves to give excuses and explanations as to why it's at it is. It would be entertaining, if not pretty sad.

Funny, I haven't noticed a single one in this thread... All I see is a surprisingly civil discussion.

 

[WiseGreen]

For me, the Ai has some troubles keeping a consistent behavior diplomacy-wise, and it has problems building/moving units in some/most maps, specially those with limited expansion possibilities and/or full of chokepoints. But it's at least as good as it was in the final patch of Civ5. This might be an unpopular opinion, but, considering there are expansions coming down the line which will probably add new gameplay elements, it's probably better to delay significant AI development until later in Civ6's development cycle. Otherwise it might end up being wasted work.

My main concerns with the game right now are some UI stuff and the way hills are almost invisible on the map.

 

[PurpleMentat]

Just because people don't post on Internet forums about the dunderheaded AI doesn't mean people don't notice it. Perhaps the achievements stats are so low because people are so disappointed with this disgustingly programmed game?

Out of the 6,242 people who left a positive or negative review on Steam, over 80% consider the game worth recommending. SteamSpy shows 800k owners on the 24th, with 500k purchasing on the 21st or later when news of the game from the hardcore had hit the internet. If the AI issues were a sales deterrent, it would show.

Could those numbers be better? Of course. Would the investment of creating a high-class AI be worth the extra sales? Almost certainly not. I wish that this was not the way of the world. That people could create amazing polished experiences without needing to worry about petty things like corporeal existence. It's not the world we live in. Firaxis has people to pay and investors to please. The AI they have is good enough to provide the vast majority of the playerbase an enjoyable experience. That's all that we'll get from a game company, because anything more than that is not worth the investment.

 

[Haggbart]

Just because people don't post on Internet forums about the dunderheaded AI doesn't mean people don't notice it. Perhaps the achievements stats are so low because people are so disappointed with this disgustingly programmed game?

In that case most all games with achievment stats on Steam are disgustingly programmed. In Europa Universalis 4, only 20% have the "Won a war" achievment. In Galactic Civilization 3, only 57 % played for 5 hours and 8% played for 100 hours. In Endless Legend, only 17,5% won a single game. Do you need more examples?

 

[Chapel]

The apologetics on this forum is out of control. You confront someone with evidence about something lacking in the game and members here will swarm over themselves to give excuses and explanations as to why it's at it is. It would be entertaining, if not pretty sad.

You do realize he literally did not present evidence. I think that was the point. I really don't think anyone is saying that the AI could not be improved. Just that truly %100 random actions probably are not the way to do it. Honestly I think the UI is a bigger problem but I don't think that it should be patched to just be a blank screen because nothingness is better than what we have now.

 

[Plus Ultra]

Perhaps the achievements stats are so low because people are so disappointed with this disgustingly programmed game?

Two questions, salty:

What makes, in your eyes, "achievement stats" a superior metric to "time played" in order to compare the level of enjoyment of the gaming community for different games?

Have you come across any particular bug or severe issue that the rest of us are yet to experience? One that justifies calling Civ VI no less than "disgustingly programmed"?

I'm honestly interested.

 

[salty mud]

In that case most all games with achievment stats on Steam are disgustingly programmed. In Europa Universalis 4, only 20% have the "Won a war" achievment. In Galactic Civilization 3, only 57 % played for 5 hours and 8% played for 100 hours. In Endless Legend, only 17,5% won a single game. Do you need more examples?

Achievements are only unlocked in hardcore mode on EU4. Most people don't play hardcore mode, so that example can be disregarded. A quick perusal of Galactic Civilisation III reveals a great deal of negative reviews, so that may factor in to it. Besides, 57% is quite a lot of customers anyway, so I'm not sure of the point you're making. Ditto for Endless Legend - reviews highlight boring, clunky gameplay that's a slog to get through to the end. Everyone here has quit a Civ game early because they knew they were going to win.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Achievements are only unlocked in hardcore mode on EU4. Most people don't play hardcore mode, so that example can be disregarded. A quick perusal of Galactic Civilisation III reveals a great deal of negative reviews, so that may factor in to it. Besides, 57% is quite a lot of customers anyway, so I'm not sure of the point you're making. Ditto for Endless Legend - reviews highlight boring, clunky gameplay that's a slog to get through to the end. Everyone here has quit a Civ game early because they knew they were going to win.

I quit most of my Civ games, and it's almost never because I know I'm going to win. I like trying different things.

Also, does re-rolling count as a "quit"?

 

[WiseGreen]

In that case most all games with achievment stats on Steam are disgustingly programmed. In Europa Universalis 4, only 20% have the "Won a war" achievment. In Galactic Civilization 3, only 57 % played for 5 hours and 8% played for 100 hours. In Endless Legend, only 17,5% won a single game. Do you need more examples?

Speaking about EU4 & other pdox games, achievements are only possible while playing Ironman, which might get slow performance-wise as the game goes on (monthly auto-saves), disables manual-saving, and, in the case of EU4, enforces some game rules a lot of players dislike ("Lucky Nations").

 

[neilkaz]

Hope it will be heavily focused on building a decent AI and improving the UI.

Oh you mean getting this game closer to the state it should've been in at release time?

 

[Timally]

I've seen a couple of posts about nerfing the religious spam. I really hope they don't. I've been playing around with religion (may try write a guide if there is interest, since that seems to be the part of the game most confusing to people)

The spam is the optimal strategy. Like domination, if you want to compete you send a bunch of complimentary units..not just dribs and drabs one at a time to the meat grinder. You want to send a mix of specialist apostles and missionaries to get the best bang for your buck. Like domination, if you don't want swamped you have to be prepared to defend your cities. And also like domination you can defend with much less resources than the AI throws at you. If anything I'd like to see the religious spam more intelligent. What is the fascination with the city furthest away? Why march through my whole empire to get to it. Why rush back if I reconvert?

 

[salty mud]

Oh you mean getting this game closer to the state it should've been in at release time?

Hooray! The game will soon enter beta testing phase!

 

[MadDjinn]

I've seen a couple of posts about nerfing the religious spam. I really hope they don't. I've been playing around with religion (may try write a guide if there is interest, since that seems to be the part of the game most confusing to people)

The spam is the optimal strategy. Like domination, if you want to compete you send a bunch of complimentary units..not just dribs and drabs one at a time to the meat grinder. You want to send a mix of specialist apostles and missionaries to get the best bang for your buck. Like domination, if you don't want swamped you have to be prepared to defend your cities. And also like domination you can defend with much less resources than the AI throws at you. If anything I'd like to see the religious spam more intelligent. What is the fascination with the city furthest away? Why march through my whole empire to get to it. Why rush back if I reconvert?

yeah, it's funny to hear (real) complaints about poor AI, but then also hear that the AI (when doing what it should be doing) is 'bad' -- Ie, apostle/missionary spam to get religion out there.

now, on that front, it'd be nice if the AI actually hit their spread button on those apostles, rather than just hanging around. They don't always do it.

else, chalk up complaints abotu AI apostle spam to "new mechanics, people will figure it out later, but want to complain now"

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

The apologetics on this forum is out of control. You confront someone with evidence about something lacking in the game and members here will swarm over themselves to give excuses and explanations as to why it's at it is. It would be entertaining, if not pretty sad.

Yeah, it's almost like Civ Fanatics are fans of Civ Games or something.

 

[Gorbles]

I'm intrigues as to why you think I need to have a masters degree in artificial intelligence in order to criticise something that doesn't work, when I paid money for it

Honestly they might as well have the AI just do random actions and the result would probably be less messy than now

Criticising the AI is not the same as estimating the man-hours it took to create it.

You'll note I didn't mention the worthiness of your critique at all.

 

[Haggbart]

Achievements are only unlocked in hardcore mode on EU4. Most people don't play hardcore mode, so that example can be disregarded. A quick perusal of Galactic Civilisation III reveals a great deal of negative reviews, so that may factor in to it. Besides, 57% is quite a lot of customers anyway, so I'm not sure of the point you're making. Ditto for Endless Legend - reviews highlight boring, clunky gameplay that's a slog to get through to the end. Everyone here has quit a Civ game early because they knew they were going to win.

The point I'm trying to make is that a game doesn't excist in a vacuum. When someone says a game is bad, I expect it to be compared to something that's BETTER. And the Steam-numbers show that rather than being a marker of a bad game, low achievment rates are the norm even among highly rated 4X games (and games that people here on the forums claim to be better than civ in areas like AI). So the numbers on Endless Legend are similar (18 and 17,5%), does that mean that Endless Legend is a "disgustingly programmed" game, even now after years of patching and updates? Maybe you'll point me to a comparable 4X game with higher completion rate of Steam achievments (since, by your account, that is a marker of good programming)?

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Back to the title of the original post though, is there any word about a patch? I get that these things take time, and that the game has only been out a week. Just really wondering if the makers had shared any thoughts yet. I'd think that it would take several weeks once they get all of their thoughts together.

 

[Sera Otoro]

OT: Have you published this anywhere? I was thinking of doing the same today, and would love to just use yours instead ;-)

OT: I haven't, but I can put it in my Dropbox and send it that way! This is literally my first ever attempt at a mod and I have no idea how to do this .modinfo thing with it. So I only have the XML file which i altered within the game directory >_<... Another thing is I don't know how to make it so you can just drop anything on top of the resources. I will have to look at how at some point in the future.

 

[pietro1990]

War monger penalties will be easily modded. I wouldn't worry too much about them. I agree they need to fix them but don't give up on the game over such an easy to change feature.

I'm a noob at modding so i hope someone will make it.

But its just so a gamebreaker its the same reason why i stopped playing civ 5 vanilla because of the awefull warmonger penalty for declaring war