How about some new AI bots?

[ZechsMerquise73]

The AI in this game is pretty bad. I understand people are going to say "well, its a lot more complex than chess or other games!" Well, at least most computer games have bots that know how to play the game. Civilization V has ascending bot difficulty levels, instead of ascending levels of cheating bots.


As it stands, it is impossible to lose a war, even on the hardest difficulty. If things are very, very bad, you can always peace out for a small sum, without any fear of collapse. Really, the only problem you can encounter in this game, is fighting an enemy too big to defeat within a reasonable amount of time.

The AI doesn't even know how to deal with rebels; even the smaller rebel incursions sometimes causing a new state to form. A player would never let a rebel take more than one province, even if the rebel stacks are bigger and better than the player's army.


Right now, the game is no challenge. The devs encourage bots to cheat or dishonor alliances with the player, I guess because they don't feel like working on AI. But the game just isn't any fun without decent enemies to play against, or decent allies to play with.

Granted, sometimes the AI makes smart decisions. But that's few and far between. The player can't collapse if they get big enough, so why do large AI empires crash so often? Put some balance into the game!

 

[unmerged(205148)]

Every Civilization game (and most strategy games in existence) uses ascending levels of AI "cheats".

 

[Akuseru]

Every Civilization game (and most strategy games in existence) uses ascending levels of AI "cheats".

Yeah, they definitely cheat in higher levels in civ. One game I've played that DID make the ai actually smarter at higher difficulties was galactic civilizations 2. Can't remember if they cheated at all, though. It's been a while.

 

[unmerged(37753)]

Civilization, at least from Beyond the Sword onwards does have more difficult AI coded with increased difficulty levels. My brother did the AI coding for Beyond of the Sword and bored me with the details on several occasions. I have never played the series since CIV II so no idea how effective the smarter AI was.

 

[unmerged(205148)]

Civilization, at least from Beyond the Sword onwards does have more difficult AI coded with increased difficulty levels. My brother did the AI coding for Beyond of the Sword and bored me with the details on several occasions.

From what I know, BTS, like all other Civilization games, relies on AI "cheats" for difficulty levels. The AI in general is better then in previous games, and there's an "aggressive AI" option, however, that, according to the coder, makes AI harder, though many players disagree.
Oh, and Blake is your brother?

 

[unmerged(174602)]

Just for the record, Civ does have some progression in it's AI. But it still gets most of the difficulty out of cheating...a lot.
I can understand people can underestimate the challenge of coding AI, but trust me when i say it probably the hardest aspect of modern gaming.

 

[unmerged(205148)]

Civ does have some progression in it's AI.

Can you give me an example of such a progression?

 

[Captain Gars]

I guess because they don't feel like working on AI.

Here's what happened: Fredrik offered us endless amount of time and money to improve the game, but since we're lazy devs we said "Nah, we'd rather sit around on our bean bags, eating pizza and play Mario Cart."

 

[Ashantai]

...You know, I'd take that deal! Pass me a pizza, Capt.

 

[tuore]

Here's what happened: Fredrik offered us endless amount of time and money to improve the game, but since we're lazy devs we said "Nah, we'd rather sit around on our bean bags, eating pizza and play Mario Cart."

I haven't seen you write here that much, in fact I noticed you only yesterday, and already I like you.

 

[sylverCode]

The AI in Civ 5 starts cheating after the Prince difficulty.

 

[elizibar]

Here's what happened: Fredrik offered us endless amount of time and money to improve the game, but since we're lazy devs we said "Nah, we'd rather sit around on our bean bags, eating pizza and play Mario Cart."

Let me know if a position opens up on the dev team. I can write FORTRAN in any language.

 

[Valynor]

Civilization V has ascending bot difficulty levels

CiV has no intelligence whatsoever at the moment. Stupid AI has no idea how to move its troops.
Ascending difficulty levels of Civ IV BTS, on the other hand, used both smarter moves and cheating to make the game harder.

 

[unmerged(205148)]

Ascending difficulty levels of Civ IV BTS, on the other hand, used both smarter moves

Could anyone give me an example of it? It's mentioned so often here, but to my understanding, it isn't the case.

 

[unmerged(174602)]

The AI in Civ 5 starts cheating after the Prince difficulty.

I believe it also cheats for the player on the lower levels. i.e. you have boni the AI doens't get.

 

[Valynor]

Could anyone give me an example of it? It's mentioned so often here, but to my understanding, it isn't the case.

I'm not the best civ IV player and I never looked at the sources.
In my experience, starting on level above monarch (emperor and immortal, above I never tried), aggressive city placements, backstabbing, spies invasion and better stack composition could not be only an effect of cheating. And I could add also a better cities specialisation.

I for sure can be mistaken, but if cheating looks so like good play, I'm not going to complain.

 

[unmerged(205148)]

Better stack composition is indeed explainable by cheating. The more units AI has the opportunity to build, the more chances are that it'll do something good with them. Aggressive city placements are the result of it just being easier for the AI to expand. Since an Immortal AI has more units then a Monarch AI, due to production bonuses, it considers itself stronger and more prone to declare war on the player. AI is always bad at specialising their cities.

So yeah, the Civ4 AI is based on "cheats-only", it's that the cheats aren't that blatant to create the impression that you and the AI are playing different games, and the basic AI (which is the same for all levels) is more effective with the bonuses.

Here's an example of pure bonuses changing the fundamental nature of the AI's: in vanilla Civilization 4, the AI's were bad at conducting war, not only with the player, but with each other. They marched their pitiful forces against well-defended cities, and got destroyed. On higher levels, however, they were warring with each other much more effectively, capturing each other's cities. The reason for all that was simple: on higher levels, their production bonuses allowed them to create not only well-defended cities, but large stacks to crush them. Thus, applying a "cheating" production bonus gave the illusion of a genuinely smarter AI and changed the nature of the game, making it less static. The same applies to BTS, though not as strongly.

 

[unmerged(174602)]

Better stack composition is indeed explainable by cheating. The more units AI has the opportunity to build, the more chances are that it'll do something good with them. Aggressive city placements are the result of it just being easier for the AI to expand. Since an Immortal AI has more units then a Monarch AI, due to production bonuses, it considers itself stronger and more prone to declare war on the player. AI is always bad at specialising their cities.

So yeah, the Civ4 AI is based on "cheats-only", it's that the cheats aren't that blatant to create the impression that you and the AI are playing different games, and the basic AI (which is the same for all levels) is more effective with the bonuses.

I can see this working, yeah. The AI gets more to work with and so the bad calls make less of a difference. Never thought of it that way.

 

[Dewirix]

As it stands, it is impossible to lose a war, even on the hardest difficulty. If things are very, very bad, you can always peace out for a small sum, without any fear of collapse. Really, the only problem you can encounter in this game, is fighting an enemy too big to defeat within a reasonable amount of time.

Really? That's not my experience. Playing as Milan I was effectively and efficiently crushed by an Austria-France coalition which easily smashed my armies, drained my manpower and occupied my provinces.

It's definitely harder to lose as a big empire, but then that's what you'd expect.

 

[unmerged(205148)]

Some "I conquered and colonized the whole world with Ryukyu!" hardcore types overestimate the average capability of a EU3 gamer, true.