What game settings/modes actually help the AI be a challenge?

[aieeegrunt]

It seems to me like all of the game modes seem to be something the AI cannot deal with and handicap it even more.

What game settings would actually help then?

One thought I had, given the AI incompetence with builders and improving tiles is the Abundant setting under resources

If lots of tiles are boosted “naturally”, then that factor isn’t as critical

 

[Vargas1]

Somewhat counterintuitively for me, it seems the AI does better when the map is crowded than when there is a lot of space. I think the AI has a lot of trouble with barbs in games where there is a lot of empty area, but can snowball pretty well when everyone is packed together - some of the other civs may be crippled earlier on, but the ones that emerge at the top will have a bunch of cities coming out of the ancient/classical and a good amount of infrastructure.

 

[Aristos]

I turn the display off.

j/k... (or am I?)

High Seas and adding some civs makes for a slightly "harder" game in higher diffs due to the huge frontloaded bonuses the "AI" gets... higher seas reduces available terrain, adding more civs adds pressure for less land, and the AI quickly occupies it with its 1-2-3 settlers on Deity. Not that hard though, as you still have the "brilliant" TacAI in charge of defending their landgrab...

Example: a Standard sized map with High Seas, 10 civs and 10 CS (more is useless as the barbs will turn into more in remote confines of the tundras...)

 

[aieeegrunt]

If a crowded map is to the AI benefit, then it logically follows that the AI is terrible at the simple task of city spam

And since Civ6 is definitly a game where you want tk go wide.....

 

[ezzlar]

Pangaea, old world, many city states, abundant resources, tiny size world

Pangaea so it doesn´t have to handle naval excercises, can invade right off the bat.
Old world so it doesn´t have to handle difficult to navigate terrain like hills.
City states for dropping all their early envoys or just conquer for extra cities.
Abundant resources so they don´t have to plan conquests for critical resources.
Tiny size world so they can squeeze the player early on for land with their extra settlers.

 

[Conquistador_514]

If a crowded map is to the AI benefit, then it logically follows that the AI is terrible at the simple task of city spam

And since Civ6 is definitly a game where you want tk go wide.....

Rome and Phoenicia seem to know how to expand but that really is it, But even those two have a lot of trouble with barbarians in open space, but then they declare war on a neighbour even when they haven't cleared the camps in their back yard.. The AI really couldn't fight it's way out of a paper bag.

 

[Vargas1]

If a crowded map is to the AI benefit, then it logically follows that the AI is terrible at the simple task of city spam

And since Civ6 is definitly a game where you want tk go wide.....

I don't think that's necessarily true - the AI seems able to grow fairly well (at least up to a point), and particularly if it takes over some neighboring cities can go fairly wide. But for some reason it seems to struggle with barbs even if a civ is militarily strong, so as @Conquistador_514 said, you'll have the bizarre situation where the AI will be declaring war to expand on one side of their empire while barbs are pillaging and destroying their cities on the other side.

 

[GloriousCause]

There is one thing that bothers me about Civ 6 that I just wish was not so. I want to be able to play the game to the best of my ability without having to worry about the AI getting so far behind by mid game. I often find myself purposely not building a specific wonder, not attacking a city or holding back on a golden age chance with the hopes that the AI will be stronger in the mid/late game and I won't be so far ahead. I don't remember having to do this in the previous Civ versions. I purposely have to handicap myself so I can have a meaningful later game. I just don't like that about Civ 6. A particular example is when I was playing as England and hit a medieval golden age. That gave me science bonuses on all my Royal Navy Dockyards and Comm Hubs. By the end of the medieval era, I was so far ahead that the game felt over. Naval supremacy plus science lead, and what's the point of progressing further when it turns into a comp stomp.

 

[Conquistador_514]

I feel your pain Glorious Cause... I feel your pain.

 

[aieeegrunt]

There is one thing that bothers me about Civ 6 that I just wish was not so. I want to be able to play the game to the best of my ability without having to worry about the AI getting so far behind by mid game. I often find myself purposely not building a specific wonder, not attacking a city or holding back on a golden age chance with the hopes that the AI will be stronger in the mid/late game and I won't be so far ahead. I don't remember having to do this in the previous Civ versions. I purposely have to handicap myself so I can have a meaningful later game. I just don't like that about Civ 6. A particular example is when I was playing as England and hit a medieval golden age. That gave me science bonuses on all my Royal Navy Dockyards and Comm Hubs. By the end of the medieval era, I was so far ahead that the game felt over. Naval supremacy plus science lead, and what's the point of progressing further when it turns into a comp stomp.

I feel your pain Glorious Cause... I feel your pain.

I set the game victory conditions to Score Only and a “two power standard”.

When my score is equal to the next two strongest AI combined I declare victory and start a new game, which usually happens around the time I am converting my army to musket men

Honestly for both gameplay AND historical accuracy I think the “upgrade” mechanic needs to go.

No amount of gold can turn a fracking quadreme into a ship of the line, and history is full of examples of armies wedded to their glorious past getting murdered by up teched opponents

Jackie Fisher introduced a huge storm of controversy and accusations of incompetence and treason when he built the Dreadnaught, since it rendered all previous capital ships obsolete and essentially “reset” the Great Power Naval race”

He then got another storm of abuse when he went on a mass scrapping exercise of all that “miser’s horde of useless junk”

 

[tzu]

I want to be able to play the game to the best of my ability without having to worry about the AI getting so far behind by mid game. I often find myself purposely not building a specific wonder, not attacking a city or holding back on a golden age chance with the hopes that the AI will be stronger in the mid/late game and I won't be so far ahead. I don't remember having to do this in the previous Civ versions. I purposely have to handicap myself so I can have a meaningful later game.

Yeah, either you handicap yourself ingame with houserules or use mods which give continuously bonuses to AI players from the outside.
In theory you could use mods which improve the AI via DLL, but they have successfully implemented a "communication" system in which they pretend not hearing the moaning & weeping ... yes, yes, we are the best fans.

I still love civ6, the limping beauty , and will continue fostering it - oh well, denying the sources you insist in doing it the burdensome and boring way.
Forces clear cut. Don't worry, civ7 will be other accounting periods - you are doing a great job now.

I feel your pain Glorious Cause... I feel your pain.

How lucky are you, who do not know how heavy the burden you do not bear.

You design, implement, playTest (that is not playing, if you only do lots of play snippets for testing function & ignoring UI and balance during overall gameplay), you even produce associates , etc. etc.
but virtually none of you seems to sufficiently play the game (from start 'til Vscreen).
You can relegate to the selling numbers ... ok, ok, but producing Volkswagens or Mitsubishis you cannot expect a Lamborghini or Mercedes-Maybach fanclub in the long run ...

When my score is equal to the next two strongest AI combined I declare victory and start a new game, which usually happens around the time I am converting my army to musket men

Like that approach, but unfortunately like playing in ancient times (mandatory) and modern times ... in the same game.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Well you can wait x amount of turns before doing anything, if you still can win, up the x and see how far you can go. Also to make it even harder would be to avoid warfare and diplomacy in general.

 

[tzu]

Well you can wait x amount of turns before doing anything, if you still can win, up the x and see how far you can go.

Actually did that in civ4 with a nomads mod (collecting yields with the starting units from the current tiles while producing militia units & developing "Settling" during the first dozens turns -- ONLY THE HUMAN PLAYER), but think that won't work well now with the strengthened barbarians ... hmmh, maybe, Play it again, Sam ...