Whatever they do I hope the AI is substantially upgraded

[Gorbles]

And don’t assume it’s just pop, there are studies that show attention spans have dropped just like there are studies that show violent games do not make violent children. My 18 year old also now thanks us for banning phones in their rooms and limiting TV to 1 hour a week.... while I was of that generation when people ate dinners in front of the TV we eat at the table and we all now appreciate the value this has bought the family. However he is 18 he has started using his phone in his room. We may know what is right but what’s the fun in following it? Fact is, before he used a phone he liked civ, now it takes too long.

I will absolutely assume it's pop psychology, given trends ascribed to other forms of entertainment that people are now ascribing to mobile phones. You mention the reverse, but there were "studies" linking video games to violent tendencies. As mentioned in the article I actually linked, it's going to take time for actual scientific consensus to reflect anything of note.

You can do whatever you want with your family time, but don't make the mistake of confusing anecdotal evidence for actual statistics. Don't make generalisations about younger folks, and especially don't use them to rationalise some kind of desire for AI in video games?

Civilisation takes too long for me to enjoy a lot of the time. But that's because I have a child, not because I have a mobile phone. I don't play many video games anymore. I don't do as much hobbyist programming. I don't write as much as I used to, and I don't draw or practise my 2D art. I don't play much RTS games anymore either, but that's because I don't enjoy the design as I once did (I find the genre has stagnated a bit; 4x and TBS have a lot more going for them with games like Civilisation VI or Stellaris). We change as we grow, whether we recognise that fact or not. You can blame phones if you want, but don't expect that to be taken as a truth by others.

And certainly, blaming phones isn't going to fix the AI in Civilisation VI Nor is anyone blaming the "newer audience", for that matter.

 

[Disgustipated]

My 18 year old said 2 night ago that phones have shortened his attention span and pointed out the phone games like Clash of clans are designed for fast win gratification. It may be that you only win 50% of your games but you play so many that it feels like a lot of wins... he was rather insightful. He used to like civ but now says it takes too long.

This part kind of scares me, because if younger generations don't embrace this genre, the future looks bleak. Obviously I don't expect every younger person to embrace it, it's always been a niche genre, even back in the 90's. Most people were playing Doom or Tomb Raider, I was playing Civ2. But I do believe we still have some younger people playing this game, I would have to find the age poll thread again, I don't remember the results. There may be a time when Civ stops being profitable, and we will be stuck with the games already released, and nothing new. And hope we can get the older games to run on newer systems.

And don’t assume it’s just pop, there are studies that show attention spans have dropped

I can believe this, because I've noticed it in myself.

Really, the core insight is that attention is to some extent skill, or really a set of related skills. Practice controlling attention and it improves.

I can believe this as well. The mind is a powerful instrument, and you can teach it quite a few things. Cognitive behavior therapy is all about that. It's just people, including me, get lazy about such things.

So, go on a holiday without internet, and you’ll find you’re motivated to read, and will then get better at reading.

The only reading I do these days is on vacation (which for me usually involves camping or at least outdoor stuff while staying at a hotel). It's nice being away from internet for a little while. But if the internet was taken down permanently I would be an unhappy camper. I would have to alter my lifestyle quite a bit.

Anyways back on topic, I won't continue the discussion above to avoid veering off topic too much. An above post mentioned archers not staying in cities and shooting, but I find they are much better at this than vanilla civ6. Vanilla civ6 really had a problem not keeping archers in cities. They still do have problems not firing sometimes if their health is low. But I understand the reasoning, they want to heal. And even before there was reasoning to put high melee strength units in cities because that increased city defense more than archers. But that just allowed us to slaughter their archers which was always the greatest threat to taking cities. Part of the problem stems from archers being so powerful.

 

[darko82]

Civ I AI was even less "inteligent", less "complicated". However, the posed threat was the thing. I was afraid of the war, for instance. It triggered some emotions. Here in Civ VI it's not a thing. What's the conclusion?

 

[Gorbles]

You've spent 20 years getting better at Civilisation? I personally always find the economy in Civ 1 to be offputting these days, certainly not the AI.

Let's take my anecdote. I was always a "for fun" player. I've played Civ, SMAC and CiV for hundreds hours (skipped a few inbetween due to not having a computer, etc). But I couldn't be bothered with the competition. I liked the exploration, the city-building aspects. It was only when I got Beyond Earth that I really pushed the AI up to the higher levels. When I came back to CiV and then VI after putting a couple of hundred hours in BE, I found that I could handle the default of Prince far, far easier. Beforehand I literally sat on Settler or Chieftain, just because that's what I enjoyed.

It's likely the same for you, but you're probably correspondingly better than me

 

[LKx]

I'm playing a game with a friend lately (hotseat-pbem), he already played civ5, but he's pretty casual and not really deep into mechanics.

This is the first game he plays with civ6, so i thought that setting king difficulty would have been reasonable ...

Well, he's military steamrolling every AI's civ without any effort (from classical era to modern era)...

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Not another AI thread.... sigh....

Yes, humans can easily steamroll the AI militarily. You are definitely not the first person to notice this. We have several other threads going right now about the poor AI.

Moderator Action: Threads merged

 

[Kruos]

I'm playing a game with a friend lately (hotseat-pbem), he already played civ5, but he's pretty casual and not really deep into mechanics.

This is the first game he plays with civ6, so i thought that setting king difficulty would have been reasonable ...

Well, he's military steamrolling every AI's civ without any effort (from classical era to modern era)...

It's not very surprising, the AI is very mediocre at waring since the 1upt introduction. Espescially at King difficulty without their bonuses the AIs do not have the numbers for them and thus it's quite trivial to steam roll them.

 

[Disgustipated]

Yeah 20% isn't much of a boost. It's almost like Prince. You start seeing a little bit of a boost around Emperor, getting a 2nd city up quickly helps the AI.

 

[Leathaface]

I play on Immortal but I don't try to conquer the AI since it can be too easy, I can build 6 or 7 archers + 2 warriors and take over a Civ in the Ancient era, but where's the fun in that? I feel like I have to earn my cities.

If the AI was much better and could defend itself properly I would try to conquer but there isn't any challenge in that right now. I just play peaceful and find challenge in defending myself against aggressive Civs. Like I might forward settle a rival Civ big time then try to hold onto that city, keep it from getting conquered.

 

[Hammurabbit]

I think the AI should be more opportunistic, which I believe should be fairly easy to implement. I've seen several cases when the AI had the opportunity to attack me while my army is away warring somewhere else - but they didnt. Likely it only considered the total strength of my army, not my general defensive position. They rarely take the opportunity to use tech advantage (or Unique Unit advantage), which they at least for a couple of eras. They get Frigates before me? Well send a few to my cities to stress me out