What needs improvement in Civ IV?

[nbarclay]

A couple weeks ago, ZargonX raised the idea of trying to develop an AU Mod for Civ IV. In order to determine whether such a thing would be useful, or even possible, I think it would be worthwhile to look at how the Apolyton University community feels about what in Civ IV needs to be improved. If there are issues where most of us have similar ideas, that raises the possibility of creating an AU Mod to address them. If not, it is doubtful that we can build the kind of consensus supporting a Civ IV AU Mod that we had around the Civ 3 version.

To get the ball rolling, and probably to help demonstrate how changes that some people regard as improvements would make the game less enjoyable for others, I'll go ahead and list some of the factors that I find most annoying.

1) I absolutely hate how Civ difficulty levels are structured. In every Civ game I've played, from Call to Power through Civ IV, the concept seems to be, "On high difficulty levels, you give the AIs huge starting bonuses and force the human player to play catch-up." That makes it impossible for me to find a difficulty level that I am really happy with. Either the AI has too many early advantages, or it isn't challenging enough later on. The closest I can come to the feel I want in the stock game is to pick a harder difficulty level but restart until I get an unusually good starting position to help offset the early AI advantages.

2) The unit support cost structure really bothers me, especially when coupled with the happiness penalty for leaving cities undefended. If it were feasible to concentrate all my military along my borders the way I could in Civ 3, it wouldn't be such a big deal. But I find it maddening when I have a troubled economy and I can't maintain a credible defense along my borders without making it even more troubled - especially when I'm almost positive that the AIs get big enough unit support bonuses that they don't have anything resembling the same economic problem trying to maintain credible defenses against each other. Either I have to run huge military risks, at least until my economy grows enough that paying for a better military is not as big a deal, or I give the AIs even more of an economic advantage than the difficulty level already gives them.

3) I really don't like how barbarians are implemented in Civ IV, especially on the higher difficulty levels. The fact that they are able to capture cities instead of just raid them, coupled with barbarian access to more advanced units (archers and eventually axemen), makes the danger of lucky barbarians greater than I consider fun. Worse, on the higher difficulty levels, AIs start with archery so they don't have to slow down research to defend against barbs, but I'm forced to go a tech or two out of my way if I don't want to face serious barbarian risks while I'm pursuing Judaism or Confucianism. That problem has bothered me to a point where I normally play with a modified file that tones down the barbarian menace.

4) AI demands that I give them something for nothing, with a negative impact on diplomatic relations if I don't, drive me nuts. I find it especially maddening when I can't build up a decent cash reserve against potential emergencies without worrying about AIs seeing it and demanding that I give them gold, or (if I’m playing with tech trading on) when AIs demand that I give them a tech they refuse to trade for. I have no idea how hard it would be to do something about that behavior, but I find it really annoying.

I could probably come up with a few more things, but this ought to be enough to get the ball rolling if anyone is interested in discussing such issues.

[ZargonX]

Thank you for bringing this up again, nbarclay. You've raised some excellent points for discussion, and I think you've given us a fine start to branch off from!

[Randolph]

(1) Couldn’t agree more, and as you said this has been a problem in all the civ (and related) games. The only answer to this problem that seems plausible to me (i.e. not “make the AI smarter”), is make a more aggressive AI. The aggressive AI option is a start, but it’s really not enough. If the AI is going to remain competitive with the player they must grow. The advantages of defense will probably mean that 2:1 civilization wars will be required. I’ve had a few games where one AI really starts to chew up it’s neighbors, and the late game is much more fun when this happens.
Possible “fixes”
(i) Increased base aggression
(ii) Decreased relationship threshold, and material cost of an AI getting another AI into a war.
(iii) (my least favorite) Decreased AI city/civic upkeep cost so expanding AIs don’t crash their own economy.

(2) I certainly wish the mechanics of unity (and city &civic) upkeep was a bit more transparent, but overall I don’t think that militaries cost to much. This is a classic guns vs. butter decision. I understand the annoyance of the AI not having to worry about this, but this is probably one of the better bonus types to give the AI (it makes it harder for them to crash their economies, rendering them useless without the human player having to do anything).

(3) I used to feel the same way, but I’ve come around considerably. The early barbarians mean that you have to have an early military strategy, just like you need to have an early economic and cultural/religious strategy. The problem is that if you mess it up you lose outright. I do think it should take longer for them to get axes, the fact that they come so early makes archery a rather ineffective early military strategy (or make a per se rule that barbarians will always attack an adjacent unit). I agree with you regarding the AI, I wouldn’t want the pendulum to swing to far the other way, but the AI should have to bleed a bit more to fight off barbarians.

(4) Definitely agree, the game would be much more interesting if the AI made more offers and fewer demands. It’s essentially never worth it to hand over a tech to the AI (and they always ask for the juicy ones), and declaring war on someone is a big deal.
Ideas
(i) AI demands less, and, if possible, whenever anyone is denied a demand (AI or human), and war is not declared immediately, the demanding civ should get a penalty to diplomacy with all cives that have contact with both the demander and demandee (e.g. “-1 the world does not take you seriously”).
(i) All agreements to declare war are subject to a 10 turn delay to allow mobilization, and you are always offered something in return unless you have VERY good relations with the other civ.

[DrSpike]

Interesting post.

1) This is clearly correct (and always has been), but I think I've learnt to live with it. Ultimately there is no way of fixing this other than making an AI that could compete in the late game without large early game bonuses. This wont happen any time soon, so as I say I live with it. Of course, in comparison games (which I like) you are really playing the other players not the game, and this is a factor in my views. Without the internet I doubt I would still play Civ.

2) I think the unit support is handled fine in Civ4. It makes you make strategic choices, which is good. There is a point here about the AI advantages, but I think it is the same point as in 1), which as I said doesn't really bother me.

3) Doesn't really bother me - you should do what you feel you need to do to defend. Yeah it is partly luck based, but Civ will never be a deterministic game, and that is part of its genius. Again reading between the lines the point is more that you are annoyed that the AI bonuses mean that it will not face the same strategic trade-offs as you.

4) Annoys the hell out of me too, but I accept it as valid way of creating strategic choice for the individual. Again I think the source of your annoyance really is that the AI doesn't face the same constraints.

Thus I think all 4 point are different facets of the same underlying point, at least for the most part. And whilst I agree with that underlying point, there isn't anything we can do about it, through modding or otherwise.

[ZargonX]

Well, with access to the SDK and someone who knows what they're doing, we theoretically have the power to improve the challenge of the AI beyond just either giving it extra bonuses or penalizing the player. The question is, which areas do we focus on? Do we make the AI more defense savvy? Do we try and improve it's civic selections? Those are the kinds of questions we should focus on.

As for my pet peeve: I hate that you can't demand things of a civilization that doesn't like you. I know they don't like me; that's why I'm bullying them!

[Randolph]

Originally posted by DrSpike

4) Annoys the hell out of me too, but I accept it as valid way of creating strategic choice for the individual. Again I think the source of your annoyance really is that the AI doesn't face the same constraints.

The problems is that, IMO, it doesn’t really create a strategic choice in 95%+ situations. It’s essentially never going to be worth it to hand over a cutting edge tech (and they always ask for the good ones), just to save yourself from a -1 diplomatic hit (that, IIRC, maxes out at -2). So it’s really more of an “automatic diplomatic penalty” then a “strategic choice.” Sure, you might hand over an old tech to a backwards nation, but that’s rather irrelevant, what matters is your relations with other great powers.

Likewise with declaring war, you might declare on a civ far away, or that’s insignificant, but it’s essentially never going to be worth it to enter a “real” war that your not ready for just to save yourself from a -2 diplomatic hit.

[nbarclay]

Making the AI more aggressive isn't a valid solution because it would seriously undercut the fun for builders, including both pure builders and people such as myself who favor a "build early, fight late" playstyle. The most straightforward way to keep players from starting in such a hole would be to take away some of the early AI bonuses (or some of the early human penalties) but, instead, give the AI bigger wealth/production-type bonuses so it can do more with any given size of economy later on.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Randolph

The problems is that, IMO, it doesn’t really create a strategic choice in 95%+ situations.

Agreed. I'll also point out that I've reached a point where I'm so fed up with AI demands that I pretty much automatically reject them without even considering whether there might be a reason to accept them. The one exception to that pattern is resource demands, since I can usually give in and then cancel the deal in a few turns with little or no harm to my civilization's progress. I don't know how common my reaction is, but getting players so fed up with demands that they don't even consider yielding to them is a great way to ruin strategic choices.

The only way I could find the demand system interesting would be if I could reasonably expect that, if I played wisely (and without requiring undue micromanagement), I could gain more from it than I lose. Without that, the whole feel of the mechanism is, "We're going to hurt you one way or the other, and all you can do is decide which hurt is less painful." For me, that is not at all a fun feeling.

[Dominae]

AI demands are tied to AI personalities; there are other factors too, but this one is very important. You could mod the game to make them all more like Gandhi, that would result in fewer demands.

AI demands begin a "We don't like you, we're going to make life difficult for you" cycle that actually sort of makes sense (and is a lot more generous that out-of-the-blue war delcarations). Basically the AI is saying trying to extort stuff from you. Not all the AI leaders do it.

Personally I find that giving in to AI demands works great. It's hard to put a price on having Alexander stay off your back, but the many times I've paid him off I was glad I did.

The game is designed so that consistently ignoring the AI civs diplomatically (both the friendlies and the unfriendlies and the neutrals-who-might-go-either-way) will ultimately make your life harder. Put another way, it costs you something to stay focused on just your own agenda.

I'm pretty sure this facet could be modded out.

[Randolph]

Originally posted by nbarclay
Making the AI more aggressive isn't a valid solution because it would seriously undercut the fun for builders, including both pure builders and people such as myself who favor a "build early, fight late" playstyle. The most straightforward way to keep players from starting in such a hole would be to take away some of the early AI bonuses (or some of the early human penalties) but, instead, give the AI bigger wealth/production-type bonuses so it can do more with any given size of economy later on.

I respectfully disagree. I’d say I play about 2/3-3/4 of my games with a primarily builder style, so I certainly want a system that works for builders. In Civ4 a good builder strategy based on ‘vertical growth’ should be able to beat a warmongering AI that is expanding horizontally. If the AI is expanding and then beating you (the rhetorical “you,” I’m not implying this would ever happen to you personally ), then you might need to turn the game down a level, which, IMO, is a good thing. I’m pretty confidant that I could beat the AI with a builder strategy on noble, given a decent start, no matter how aggressive it was.

In terms of simply being attacked all the time, I’ve got no problem with that either. Part of being a good builder is making a strong defensive network. I wouldn’t want to push it so far that the AI will attack you no matter what, one of the huge advances in Civ4 is [relatively] meaningful diplomacy, particularly regarding religion. This certainly isn’t the case now: even in my games with ~1.5(normal for map size) civs and aggressive AI on, I’m pretty safe from my “brothers and sisters of the faith” well into the game. On a side note, I would like to see some changes/additions to improve static defense, maybe forts with zones of control (I assume there must be some good reason why this isn’t included, though I can’t seem to figure it out), perhaps balanced by reduced effectiveness of artillery in the field (no one catapult maiming six units).

Edit:
Dominae,
You make some really good points (though I don’t think it was necessary to imply that anyone is looking to “mod out” a facet of the game). The problem is that from a cost-benefit perspective the demands generally don’t make a lot of sense. I understand the idea that the AI has already targeted you, and is giving you an option to avoid the diplomatic degeneration that will ultimately result in war, and that the alternative is that the AI just gets pissed and DoW you out-of-the-blue. Thinking about it that way does make me feel significantly better about the system.

I still feel there should be something to mitigate the sensation/fact that the AI holds all the cards and gets to make demands with no risk to them. Even something simple like you get a “casus belli” against that AI for X turns, so that you don’t suffer any “you declared war on our friend” penalties from other civs (maybe reduced war wariness or even a reduced “you declared war on us” penalty). I feel the game is not as fun when the player is simply a passive receiver of AI diplomacy, where you only make decisions regarding how to respond to AI diplomatic moves, and more fun when you get to be an active player in world politics. The religion system is a great move in this direction, I’d like to see more in this vein, and less of the “give us stuff or we’ll like you less.”

[StarGazer]

Originally posted by Randolph

I still feel there should be something to mitigate the sensation/fact that the AI holds all the cards and gets to make demands with no risk to them. Even something simple like you get a “casus belli” against that AI for X turns, so that you don’t suffer any “you declared war on our friend” penalties from other civs (maybe reduced war wariness or even a reduced “you declared war on us” penalty). I feel the game is not as fun when the player is simply a passive receiver of AI diplomacy, where you only make decisions regarding how to respond to AI diplomatic moves, and more fun when you get to be an active player in world politics. The religion system is a great move in this direction, I’d like to see more in this vein, and less of the “give us stuff or we’ll like you less.”

I agree 100%. One of the main reasons I enjoy Civ games so much is that unlike the vast majority of current strategy games (to say nothing of RPG and action games) they give me the option of trying to win through peaceful methods. Although I still have to think defensively, the game does not require me to take any offensive military action -- an aspect that is truer to real life (although these days I'm beginning to wonder).

I am very happy with the "religion" aspect of Civ IV. I usually try to found all the religions, establish a state religion, and then send state religion missionaries to every other civ to try to convert them.

I do wish, however -- and this is a wish I have had since the very first Civ game -- that the AI diplomatic options were more varied and subtle. I also wish that, as in Civ 2, we Civ IV players could still "conquer" by buying AI cities (paying double the cost for a civil revolt that doesn't lead to war). Each Civ game has an aspect that I like but which is limited only to that particular game. The diplomacy option, however, remains pretty rudimentary. Oh well, Civ is still my favorite computer game.

[Yosho]

Originally posted by nbarclay


Agreed. I'll also point out that I've reached a point where I'm so fed up with AI demands that I pretty much automatically reject them without even considering whether there might be a reason to accept them. The one exception to that pattern is resource demands, since I can usually give in and then cancel the deal in a few turns with little or no harm to my civilization's progress. I don't know how common my reaction is, but getting players so fed up with demands that they don't even consider yielding to them is a great way to ruin strategic choices.

Well, if they demand techs, I almost never give in. But if they demand money, it's often a fairly cheap way to increase your relations with them. And if I'm spiritual, I love it when the AI demands that I change religion or civics; it's the easiest way to improve AI relations, and it costs you almost nothing, as you can just switch back in 5 turns and keep the diplo bonus.

[clinton]

Source: Apolyton University Mod: C3C version (http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...hreadid=102887)
"Most modifications incorporated by the AU mod are a compromise between a) improving the AI, b) presenting the player with more options, and c) changing as little as possible."

I think point A is one we should focus on first, the AI.

Point B is better focused on when warlords settles down, and we can decide whether there are further things that need balancing.

The AU Mod for civ3 made some AI changes through the editor to make the AI more challenging, changing:

- Aggressiveness
- Build preferences

Such changes are easy to make now. If we could do some testing to see what parameters make the AI most successful, we may be able to make one that is at least a little bit challenging on even terms with the human, and that would be great.

More could be done by diving into the SDK, but I feel even adjusting some parameters in the assets files could help a lot.

Maybe someone with some AI experience (as in, not game AI, but general AI) could be able to train a better AI by some sort of genetic style survival of the fittest faceoffs between AI players with different asset file parameters for aggressiveness and build parameters etc.

Of course the best AI would depend on a number of factors, like number of players, map size and speed, but even developing a better AI for the default settings would be a great start.

[DrSpike]

I seriously doubt anyone is going to come up with an evolutionary AI for the AU mod.

Any mod should focus on any obvious small tweaks to the AI that would help, and small balance tweaks. I've deliberately said small twice there as, unlike with Civ3, I don't think there are a great deal of changes to make.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Yosho

Well, if they demand techs, I almost never give in. But if they demand money, it's often a fairly cheap way to increase your relations with them. And if I'm spiritual, I love it when the AI demands that I change religion or civics; it's the easiest way to improve AI relations, and it costs you almost nothing, as you can just switch back in 5 turns and keep the diplo bonus.

The thing that drives me nuts about the demand system is how asymmetrical it is. In that one facet of the game, the human player and the AIs play by almost completely different rules. AIs are continually making demands of me that they would never dream of giving in to - indeed, that the game mechanics often would not even allow me to make - if the situations were reversed.

If I felt like the demand system were fully balanced, so that a reasonably good player can expect to gain about as much from giving in to demands where the diplomatic bonus is worth the cost as he loses in situations where the diplomatic bonus is not worth the cost, that asymmytric nature wouldn't be a problem. Humans and AIs would play by different rules, but it would not feel like the rules are deliberately rigged to give one side an advantage.

Dominae argues that the chance to avoid wars is something of value to the player that the demand system brings. To the extent that the demand system allows players to avoid wars that would have taken place if the demand system did not exist, Dominae has a point. But to the extent that giving in to demands becomes viewed as necessary to avoid wars that would not have taken place without the demand cystem, the only "gain" the player gets is escaping an artificial penalty that wouldn't have existed in the first place without the demand system.

The situation is made worse by how many of the demands are to do things that, from any normal perspective of how nations think, are totally absurd. Demands by a civ that hates you and refuses to trade with you to cancel a mutually beneficial trade relationship with someone else. (Think the Soviet Union demanding that England stop trading with the U.S.) Demands to adopt a religion that few or none of a civ's people believe as a state religion. (Think the U.S. demanding that Iran adopt Christianity.) Demands to join in a war on the other side of the world in an era before the technology is really up to the task (think England demanding China’s help against Napoleon in the early 1800’s). Demands to join a war against a longstanding friend. (Think Argentina demanding that America declare war on England during the Falklands war.) Demands to give an AI a tech that it refuses to even consider trading for. Those kinds of ridiculous demands not only destroy any reasonable hope that the overall impact of the demand system will feel balanced (at least to me), but they also wreck any semblance of realism.

If the more extreme demands were reserved only for situations where an AI is seriously contemplating war against the player or where an AI expects special help from a very close friend, or if those kinds of demands were implemented as requests with a diplomatic bonus for complying but no penalty for refusing to give in (because the AI recognizes that it has no realistic expectation of getting what it wants), the situation might be different. But having civs that don't like you make ridiculous demands and then get upset when you behave in a way that any reasonable leader would be expected to behave is not fun - or at least it's certainly not fun for me.

Purely from a game balance perspective, it is possible that I am seriously underestimating the genuine benefits (as distinct from avoidance of artificial penalties) available from giving in to demands. But even if the game balance situation isn’t as ridiculous as I currently think it is, the total absurdity of the system from a perspective of realism destroys any fun that the mechanism might otherwise provide me with.

Nathan