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Settler
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Sep 2008
time: 02:22
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heya,
So i have been playing civ4 for quite some time now off game tap. (with warlords expansion). I love this game to death. I finally beat my first game on noble and moving on to the next difficulty.
A question though on the AI. Is the AI going to get a bit smarter as I move up the difficulty level? Or is it just going to be a game like the rest where thier production is just insane fast and I'll have this huge army on my door step just because of some hidden mechanic to make the game feel harder?
One reason I question the AI. Many games I have played on warlord just experimenting and learning. I find the AI never attacks each other. or rarely does. When they do it only lasts a few turns. I have even formed defensive pacts with them but they are short lived. A good example is a game I just played the Egyptians offered a Defensive Pact with me. I accepted. About 15 turns later The Spanish woman declares war on me. I go to war and the following turn Egypt honors the defense pact by war dec'ing as well. 2 Turns later Egypt makes peach with the Spanish, but the spanish wont even talk to me and I'm stuck in war alone, (not that i couldnt handle it) just the fact I felt betrayed.
Also it seems no matter how high on the friendly list I get with a nation I can never squeeze a free gift from them. Yet constantly im hounded my for my techs and resources. The few times I try to get something 100% of the time im turned away. Yet when I turn them away I'm always hated and they end up war dec'ing me down the line because they are free loaders.
I love this game.. the gameplay (though losing most combat rounds that are (50-80% in favour for you are getting annoying, seems like you MUST have 90%+ to ensure a victory.) but the lack luster ai is something to be desired. I have many other ai complaints but this is just a couple.
The AI is just so random and pure statistical its getting boring. Please tell me with higher difficulty levels the AI grows somewhat of a logical sence in its decisions and some realism or even normalism. Otherwise I feel my time remaining will be short in this game and the hopes of an improved (civ5 or something?) gameplay AI will come along.
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Emperor
Maryland Heights, MO
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Sep 2002
time: 20:22
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It's the same AI at all dificulty levels.
Now there is a "Better AI" mod to Warlords/Vanilla you can apply to make it smarter. And most of it was incorporated into base BTS. Incidently that AI betrayer behavior is one of the things that was changed a bit by them.
But if your playing at the Warlord difficulty level, the poor AI has to spend more to research & more to build unts than the humans and consequntely has trouble building enough of a military strength lead to justify a war.
And you need 100% odds to have a 100% chance of victory.
At 60% chance of victory, you should lose 40% of the time.
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Prince
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Nov 2005
time: 02:22
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Actually in BTS the AI is quite okay. You still can beat it up with a well prepared war, and the more you do of it, the easier the game will be, but with agressive AI on, you always need to be prepared.
Diplomacy i dont enjoy doing with an AI anyways. Any AI in any game so far feels way too generic and the options of communication with it far too limited to make it feel real to me. And it will stay this way for a long time, i think, since in order for me to feel real, i´d have to be able to negotiate lines of interest, exchange of border tiles etc. with as well as just communicating general concerns (´we´d like you to remove your army from X´) and intentions to the AI. Alpha Centauri´s options seemed to go into the right direction. In short, ´talking´ to the AI should ideally feel like table talk in a board game - and it wont anytime soon. Hell, even MP on the net with strangers couldnt quite do the trick... (Maybe Next Civ´s MP-mode should feature MP-profiles, so that you could check on your opponents in game and have a face - at least i dont wanna have me being remembered as the guy who looks like the burger king in case i draw the HRE in an MP-game with strangers)
Slightly related but off topic: Did Blake do the Col-AI, or where did he go ?
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Settler
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Sep 2008
time: 02:22
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quote:
Originally posted by aVoided
Also it seems no matter how high on the friendly list I get with a nation I can never squeeze a free gift from them. Yet constantly im hounded my for my techs and resources. The few times I try to get something 100% of the time im turned away. Yet when I turn them away I'm always hated and they end up war dec'ing me down the line because they are free loaders.
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well, if you ask for something reasonable from a pleased/friendly civ, you will sometimes get it
you really have to time your requests, it takes the AI a lot of turns to "forget" your previous requests, so dont go knocking on their door every 5 turns...you could probably manage to get at least 1-2 freebies in each game
as for giving techs/gold/resources away, sometimes you might as well do it, you'll actually get a diplomatic bonus and possibly avoid war (so you can declare on them when you're ready, hohoho)
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Emperor
Canada
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Dec 2001
time: 18:22
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quote:
Originally posted by aVoided
Also is there any plans for a newer civ ? expansion or new full version? |
Although they've mentioned nothing specifically, Firaxis has strongly implied that there will be no new expansions for the game. And no announcement has yet been made for Civ 5.
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Emperor
Maryland Heights, MO
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Sep 2002
time: 20:22
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I think your looking at gap in years between Civ 4 and 5 similar to the gap between Civ 2 and 3 rather than that between 3 and 4.
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Emperor
Maryland Heights, MO
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Sep 2002
time: 20:22
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In hind sight Civ IV vanilla initial release was a bit too compresed because most of the new notebooks at the time vanilla first came out weren't up to the graphic requirements. (Most notably not having dedicated VRAM and T&L Hardware support)
That took about the time Warlords first came out for the new hardware on notebooks to catch up.
Civ II was even easier to win than Civ III though; there were far more AI exploits in it than in Civ III.
Examples:
1. Stack-combat model of Civ II
2. AIs building forts for you to use against him
3. AIs building rails for you to use against him
4. Don't want a city nucked? Just remove all defenders and place them one tile away. (This trick also worked in SMAC)
5. Suicidal AI waited until you were too powerful to possibly defeat and then declared war on you.
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Settler
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Sep 2008
time: 02:22
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Well warlords has been brushed aside for me. I went a copy of Colonies. Though the AI is just as dumb there, I'm a sucker for Micromanagment :P and there is a bit more of it here.
I'm loving how you manage goods AND they can be moved between cities and your peasant population can become your army at any time, provided you have the equipment. I hope the basics of this game influence the next civ but instead of colonial period do the full time line in this manner.
but like i said the ai is no different in this one *sigh* plain dumb and purely statistical
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King
Toronto, UnAmerica
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Dec 2000
time: 21:22
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quote:
Originally posted by Unimatrix11
Slightly related but off topic: Did Blake do the Col-AI, or where did he go ? |
He joined a Buddhist monastery.
See this thread for details
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Prince
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Nov 2005
time: 02:22
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Wow - i am deeply impressed, yet, in an egoistic sense, somewhat sad hearing this. But what is a big loss for Apolyton and civing in general is probably a huge gain for his faith and himself. Apart from the fact that he wrote an impressive AI, which millions worldwide enjoy playing against, i came to have an idea of his ´wisdom´ (sounds cheesy, but i lack a better word) in the rather long discussion about the ´hostoric review´ and wether civ is an historical simulation or not which turned into a debate about the banking system. Ever since then, i respected and admired him. This news just stregenthend my belief, that Blake is probably one of the smartest persons i ever had a conversation with and it shouldnnt have really surprised me, when i think about it, that he was ready to elevate his mentality to things most of us probably dont even have a grasp of.
Sorry if this sounds cheesy, but since this site was the only connection, it kinda feels like he died, and i felt the need to give a little speech, which i think he will probably never read. *sniff* 
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Prince
Lurking in Stara Zagora, Bulgaria
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Jun 2001
time: 04:22
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quote:
Originally posted by aVoided
heya,
.
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One reason I question the AI. Many games I have played on warlord just experimenting and learning. I find the AI never attacks each other. or rarely does. When they do it only lasts a few turns.
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As people already suggested get BTS and play agressive AI. You will be surprised.
For example in amy first BTS game (prince level) Montezuma had conquered and/or vassalized averybody on his continent and as soon as he got astronomy launched a sea invasion on me with 6 galeons. I quit because I did not expect thisand my army was on the other side of the continent and before BTS I was winning comfortably on monarch difficulty.
If I remember correctly the AI never attempted Diplomatic victory (or at least never managed to pull it off) pre BTS. Now I have seen the AI go for domination/comquest, diplo, cultural and space ship (this of course has been the only victory condition that the AI was remotely good at in any of the previous versions of civ)
Also try to be number one in soldiers (preferably by a large margin) when you play and then go around and ask the various AIs(especialy the weaker ones) for techs, resourses, etc. and see how it goes. I am sure that you will manage to get stuff from them. Of course if you push too much they will become annoyed with you.
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Settler
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Sep 2008
time: 02:22
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I can't get BTS because I'm playing the base copy of the game (with warlords) via gametap. I'm too cheap to buy a copy, since i bought Colonies and am enjoying it's style twice as much. As I said though.. the AI in colonies is just as stupid.. guess it comes with the engine hehe.
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Emperor
Maryland Heights, MO
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Sep 2002
time: 20:22
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The rule of thumb for real life is want to have a local 3:1 advantage before attacking.
At a mere 2:1 advantage you try to use your forces to try to spread out your oppoents to attempt to get a local 3:1 in part of it.
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Blaupanzer
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King
Fairfax, VA
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Oct 2000
time: 21:22
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quote:
Originally posted by Thoth
No problem. It's certainly not what I would have expected from your average AI programmer.  |
From his participation here, Blake always seems very thoughtful, thinking things thru, trying to anticipate how a change in one set of code would affect others, undsoweiter. So he really wasn't an average programmer. Still, your implication feels right. Not a lot of coders, however sophisticated, want to search their own souls, as opposed to pushing the limits of the man-machine interface. If there is a Civ V, we will miss his insights.
Those trying Colonization: is the AI dumb in the old way? Is there a setting like aggressive AI to give them an oomph? How many civs are there? I would love to hear a generic summary of such. Or, do I need to go th that forum? 
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Settler
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Sep 2008
time: 02:22
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Colonies AI is terrible really. I've been playing it for a little while. Not that the AI really matters. You don't really go to war until you declare independance unless you annoy the natives. It's pretty much just build up a huge force then try kill the kings expeditionary force, which I may add is tough only because of his sheer numbers and all of his units (artilery) are generaly better than yours.
The other colonies generaly mean nothing unless they are close by and getting in your way, but for the most part you dont have time to fight them.
All in all for me it was really fun at first. I love the city and colonist managment and the way you build your army by arming them. Really though it gets old fast imo.
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Traianvs
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