I'm in the camp of liking quite a few things about civ 5, i'm even hopeful about the patches, but i deeply miss Civ 4 style interactions with the leaders, i can only speak for myself, i don't want to play against simulated human players, i had no idea i was going to have to play against simulated human players, i want to play with and against nations, i thought that was what the Civ series had always been about.
You can't do anything right in this game
- Thread starter DaveGold
- Start date
So smart it can't execute a battle plan against the human it's so jealous of.
Having the AI players "play to win" sounds good on paper, bit in reality, it's boring, and basically removes the whole role-playing side of the game, and you can imagine diplomacy is just pointless.
Exactly my point. Plus playing to win should be kept to the online experience only.
lschnarch:
The AI is acting on code. To talk of it as being "stupid" is pointless. It has no true intelligence in the manner that we know it. All Civ AIs are like this. Several Civ IV AIs will declare war on you at times, even from Pleased status. The difference is that the numbers are transparent in Civ IV and you didn't have to figure anything out. It's not as transparent in Civ V.
All Civ responses are pre-canned responses that the AI issues in response to actions or whatever. True in all the versions of Civ. IF the Civ is complaining about your borders, then it is responding to code that's telling it that you're expanding too much or whatnot, regardless of whether or not your borders are actually touching. If it's complaining about units being near its borders, then something it considers its borders is being triggered by something that it considers your units.
Seriously, guys. It's an AI following a code. Always has been. Just because you can't see the modifiers now doesn't make that any less true.
The AI is acting on code. To talk of it as being "stupid" is pointless. It has no true intelligence in the manner that we know it. All Civ AIs are like this. Several Civ IV AIs will declare war on you at times, even from Pleased status. The difference is that the numbers are transparent in Civ IV and you didn't have to figure anything out. It's not as transparent in Civ V.
All Civ responses are pre-canned responses that the AI issues in response to actions or whatever. True in all the versions of Civ. IF the Civ is complaining about your borders, then it is responding to code that's telling it that you're expanding too much or whatnot, regardless of whether or not your borders are actually touching. If it's complaining about units being near its borders, then something it considers its borders is being triggered by something that it considers your units.
Seriously, guys. It's an AI following a code. Always has been. Just because you can't see the modifiers now doesn't make that any less true.
I think, you didn't quote my words for quite some reason.
Although your "explanation" (have you found it somewhere in the Strategy Forum lately?) is correct, is completely misses the point, and I am pretty sure you are well aware of this.
For readers' convenience, here is the passage to which you responded with this very helpful explanation of AI:
Take notice, that this quote of mind was based on you calling the AI being predictable.
lschnarch:
Even if something is predictable doesn't mean that it's fun to have every number laid out so you can just add things and come to an exact read on how an AI is behaving. For some people, it's fun to guess the factors and arrive at a conclusion without being shown the factors. The AI is predictable because it behaves according to code. What need is there to have all the numbers on the table?
"Stupid" doesn't even begin to describe AI behavior. It's AI. It's below stupid. It will always be below stupid. Calling it stupid makes it out to be smarter than it actually is. This has always been true. The difference is that in Civ IV, people could see exactly how stupid it was, and in Civ V, they have to deal with results without knowing how that happened (mostly because they haven't explored the diplomacy in Civ V at all).
Even if something is predictable doesn't mean that it's fun to have every number laid out so you can just add things and come to an exact read on how an AI is behaving. For some people, it's fun to guess the factors and arrive at a conclusion without being shown the factors. The AI is predictable because it behaves according to code. What need is there to have all the numbers on the table?
"Stupid" doesn't even begin to describe AI behavior. It's AI. It's below stupid. It will always be below stupid. Calling it stupid makes it out to be smarter than it actually is. This has always been true. The difference is that in Civ IV, people could see exactly how stupid it was, and in Civ V, they have to deal with results without knowing how that happened (mostly because they haven't explored the diplomacy in Civ V at all).
jjkrause84
King
The numbers represented information that you would have had based on normal diplomatic relations. It maybe wasn't perfect (I had no problem with it) but it was a good system for explaining not only WHY the AI thought what it did of you but also for ranking the importance of your various interactions. Open borders was +2 which gave you an idea of how important it was compared to "-4 you declared war on our friend" or somethign like that. Maybe it should not have been THAT transparent (again, I had no problem with it) but it was merely letting you know what as a world leader you WOULD know about your rivals.
I agree, knowing how other nations feel about the nation you're going to attack should be a basic function, you would'nt even need espionage to know that, just an embassy or the ability to ask the leaders themselves, but of course, all that is gone now.
jjkrause84
King
Can you elaborate?
In Civ4 we knew what they felt of us and why (not totally implausible, and it did not keep aggressive Civs from doing 'unexpected' things like declaring on us despite being friendly); what resources they had (again, any traveller should be able to supply this info); what they had research (up to a point) and we knoew how they felt about other nations (or at least, we knew what they said they felt).
The only truly questionable one is research and even then it's not all that objectionable. Technological advances are rarely secret for long even if the means of reproducing them are tightly kept.
Jediron:
No. It is not impossible, but it would a radical break from AI in these types of games and this was never mentioned. Moreover, the AI behavior does not feel like it's being dictated by RNG.
jjkrause84:
It's possible to manipulate and behave in such a way than multiple AI Civs will protect you and gift you all manner of things for hundreds of years, and the surety of the approach was nearly fool-proof on the right Civs.
It is possible, in Civ4, to predict with 100% accuracy when an AI was about to attack you, regardless of whether or not you knew anything about his troops dispositions.
No. It is not impossible, but it would a radical break from AI in these types of games and this was never mentioned. Moreover, the AI behavior does not feel like it's being dictated by RNG.
jjkrause84:
It's possible to manipulate and behave in such a way than multiple AI Civs will protect you and gift you all manner of things for hundreds of years, and the surety of the approach was nearly fool-proof on the right Civs.
It is possible, in Civ4, to predict with 100% accuracy when an AI was about to attack you, regardless of whether or not you knew anything about his troops dispositions.
Dunno about the Diplo AI, but the battle-AI have seen some kind of randomnes sinds CIV 1.
How else do you determine a "lucky win" ?
To me, it's all a matter of good programming. Meaning, you need random results everywhere, including the diplomatics. How much, that can be coded. It's one way, to "suprise" the player.
LOL thats pretty much bushwah. Although some leaders were honorable and wouldn't attack a friend others were not. There were much more personality differences when comparing CIV IVs AI actions and Civ V. For Civ V They pretty much stated that there was going to be a randomness to the AI.. and they felt that if the AI didn't randomly attack you for no reason through the course of the game they didn't do their job right. THIS WAS A Design decision. Some people don't like it some do.
I believe the randomness was allocated to how the AIs were assigned weights prior to the game. Could be more, but I'm not aware of anything more than that. I don't perceive more differences in Civ IV than in Civ V. I'd say the personality ranges were grossly similar.
To quote an interview with dennis shirk regarding Civ V.
Spoiler :
Point is they actually decided randomness in your opponent is a good thing.
I preferred the attempt to simulate various leaders personalities more in civ IV.
But thats me
Fistalis:
The impression I was getting was that the AIs were occasionally going to do something out of character, which they already did in Civ IV. For the AIs to do something out of character, they have to have character first - ie, they have to be predictable to a minimum extent.
The impression I was getting was that the AIs were occasionally going to do something out of character, which they already did in Civ IV. For the AIs to do something out of character, they have to have character first - ie, they have to be predictable to a minimum extent.
But they don't from my experience. They pretty much All hate you for the same silly reasons. Defensive war = your a warmonger etc. Cause they are no longer attempting to represent leaders.. but other players who are out to win. You really can't have both. You either program the AI to play the game to win or you program it to rule as a leader. They chose the former for V and is one of many issues I personally have with the game. IF you read more of the interviews they go more into detail .. basically stating the goal was to make the AI play like other players instead of playing like leaders.. and dislike you for the same reasons a player would. Which destroys any sense of immersion for me personally. They basically gave them flavors which just effects the long term game plan of each leader.. if they go for a cultural win etc.. but diplomacy is held to that person vs person philosophy.
Spoiler :
