Am I the only one who is slightly disappointed about the AI?

[Todesengel]

Everybody just seems to love this game, but I can´t see why! There some changes in gameplay, better graphics and sound, but the AI is as stupid as ever - this is a strategy game after all. One should think, that an AI would have been a priority...

[trickey]

It's rather hard to adress your complaints it you don't give any specific examples. Let us know what exactly you think makes the AI "as stupid as ever".

[Skanky Burns]

Two letters. M P.

[Stuie]

Well, I just finished my second Prince level game.

AI - 2 Stuie - 0

First one I was in a crappy position and got wipe out by the Romans pretty early.

Second game I actually made it to the end and was first in score until I lost.... Now I probably could have been more focused, but still the AI did a good job building up cities and then beating me to the spaceship. I came REALLY close to winning on a UN vote, but missed by 70 or 80 votes.

Oh, well. Lessons learned and now I'll try again... but hopefully with better focus this time.

So to the topic - the AI is holding its own after two weeks, but I get the feeling my next Prince game will turn the tide. Then it's on to Monarch...

[asleepathewheel]

When I make stupid mistakes, the ai can make me pay, ex, I was pushing a tank army across roman holdings when 2 transports slipped around my coast and sacked a good city of mine that I had a token archer garrison in. Ouch. I rolled up to retake, had 6 defenders including a couple infantry. Not difficult to retake, but a real pain and a shot to the ego.

I will say that playing with aggressive AI is a must for me...

[Verenti]

The worker AI is the worst! I "love" how it only works on the resources in the early game and then sentrys in the city, while it COULD be using irragate otherwise useless land.

Or the other time is suggested I move an unprotected settler next to a barb.

Or how when you build a worker in a city that is desperately in need of terrain improvments, it sends the worker half way across the empire.


All reasons I've stopped using Automations.

[Aro]

Originally posted by Todesengel
Everybody just seems to love this game, but I can´t see why! There some changes in gameplay, better graphics and sound, but the AI is as stupid as ever - this is a strategy game after all. One should think, that an AI would have been a priority...

The problem here is that you are too smart. The AI can't play against you, resistence is useless...
A tip: Lower your IQ a bit, like the rest of us, and give it another try.

[Stuie]

Originally posted by Aro
The problem here is that you are too smart. The AI can't play against you, resistence is useless...
A tip: Lower your IQ a bit, like the rest of us, and give it another try.

Good point - the human player needs some sort of handicap in this case. I suggest a six-pack.

[Redleg130FA]

I have found this AI to be brutal, to be honest. I have been very surprised with its ability to recognize opourtunities and take advantage of them.

One example is myself playing the Germans with a long string of cities with Fance on one side and the Russians on the other. I was antagnonistic to the Russians as I was more powerful then them. I was slowly chipping away at thier cities and taking ground from them. I would take breaks with peace treaties. I was in one of these luls and working on city improvements.

The French suddenly decalred war on me. I was not really prepared since we shared a religion and we had always been freindly up til that point. They attacked because I would not help them with wars they had I think, based on the -/+ list in the diplomacy window. The French were very powerfull and I needed everything I had to counter.

Russia decided that this would be a great time to attack and it was. Thier attack combined with France was too much. I lost.

Very clever I belive.

I have seen other instances where the AI is much more clever and challenging than in previous Civ versions - of course its not perfect - but it is a hell of alot more fun now than before.

[=DrJambo=]

Yeah, Redleg, same happened to me on Prince level. A prolonged war with the Americans to the South of my German Civ finally looked like turning my way after many years of stalemate. Incidentally a prolonged stalemate does nothing for either of you other than letting your other rivals overtake you scientifically.

Anyway, seeing the Americans beginning to buckle, Isabella decide to join the fray to pick up some scraps and just when I thought - yippee time to finally expand my land - the Malinese attacked me from the North.

Needless to say all my troops fighting the Americans are several turns away from helping the beleaguered North and this is compounded by the fact that the Malinese ARE the strongest Civ (score-wise). Unless I can broker peace quickly I reckon I'm doomed. :/

[Traelin]

Re: Am I the only one who is slightly disappointed about the AI?

Originally posted by Todesengel
Everybody just seems to love this game, but I can´t see why! There some changes in gameplay, better graphics and sound, but the AI is as stupid as ever - this is a strategy game after all. One should think, that an AI would have been a priority...

Could you at least cite some examples? I have no clue how you came to your conclusion, especially if you've played previous versions of Civ.

[Traelin]

Originally posted by Verenti
The worker AI is the worst! I "love" how it only works on the resources in the early game and then sentrys in the city, while it COULD be using irragate otherwise useless land.

I haven't seen this at all, so it doesn't look like a problem to me.

Originally posted by Verenti
Or the other time is suggested I move an unprotected settler next to a barb.

I guess my first question has to be, "Why would you do this?" Seems to me that that is far more stupid than the AI.

Originally posted by Verenti
Or how when you build a worker in a city that is desperately in need of terrain improvments, it sends the worker half way across the empire.

You can tie a worker to a city. It doesn't have to be on global Automate.

[Todesengel]

Hm, playing drunk might help...

Honestly - how can you loose a game on prince? The AI is just rediculous. Can´t attack nor defend itself, but declares war anyway. If you are on a different continent there are no serious landing operations happening. The only "plan" on higher difficulty levels seems to be waiting for 2051 and hoping for the better score. Great!

Originally posted by Aro


The problem here is that you are too smart. The AI can't play against you, resistence is useless...
A tip: Lower your IQ a bit, like the rest of us, and give it another try.

[Drachasor]

I've only noticed the AI act really dumb when it is totally outclassed. In my latest game on Noble (I started there to learn the mechanics and work my way up the difficulties), I have tanks and the Romans and Arabs have largely musketmen, some riflemen, cavalry, and a lot of out of date units. I noticed that when I attacked the AI didn't seem to have any idea how to handle it. It even stupidly sent a boat full of units out of one of its cities when I had 4 or 5 boats keeping a blockade. It didn't seem to upgrade units or manage any other defense either.

Now I'm attacking the arabs and I have bombers. They should probably be throwing everything they can at my tanks which are sitting on open ground (one tank per square, about 5 in all at the moment), but they just hide in their cities. Now their cities will fall easily given a bomber attack (much worse odds than if they attacked me on open ground, I think).

Maybe there's not a lot it could of done, but it seems to me it could have tried something. It hasn't even seemed to of built that many new units during my attacks (and it had time in a number of cities).

The AI definitely functions best when you and it are about equal in tech. It functions pretty well if it is ahead too, but very badly when far behind.

That makes a certain sort of sense, as it is probably optimized for roughly equal confrontations (when there is actually a challenge for the player).

I will admit I've seldom seen a great attack plan done by the AI, but otherwise it is pretty solid. I think the AI for ocean warfare and build-up could probably use some work (if you are on a continent with one other person who is a good friend, then you should focus on sea power, but I seldom see anything impressive as far as a navy goes).

-Drachasor

[Todesengel]

Originally posted by Drachasor
It functions pretty well if it is ahead too, but very badly when far behind.

Even then it just digs in an lets me pillage it´s entire country. I´ve had it and sent the game back were it came from: ebay.
Maybe, when I get a better internet connection I will buy the game again and try multiplayer.