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[CrocMother]

AI has always been awful in Civ games

By the end Civ VI was pretty damn good

 

[decoyplatypus]

How do they continue to make such god awful AI after 8+ different civ games.

The 1UPT change wreaked havoc on a lot of game systems. Chief among the unintended consequences was that the AI just cannot handle it. Civ 4's AI may not have been perfect, but it was clearly more effective than the AI in 5 and 6.

Do they still have the United Nations later on?

No.

I swear Alpha Centauri had better and more immersive diplomacy, how long ago was that?

Almost 18 years ago.

This game sucks right?

Yes.

 

[Bolivar687]

I've defaulted to a culture victory for my last few games. Pretty easy once you get a few theatre districts up, buying the buildings you need, and sending spies on art heists. The end game tourism multipliers from policies tend to take care of the rest.

And that's the way it's always been, wonders have always been a risk. You have to make a judgement on whether or not you will win the wonder race. If wonders weren't a risk they would be far too good.

In III and IV you could just reallocate the pent up production points to a new project. So even if you got robbed of a wonder at the last minute, chances are you could complete a different wonder very quickly. They only counted for the next project though, so no matter what you spend them on next, they're gone.

I hope they fix the builder action because turns are too precious to waste in this game.

There's so much wrong with how it play currently, and some of that is really basic. There's absolutely no reason why half the social policies in the game are utterly worthless (and obviously so), nor that the AI is significantly more stupid than the Civ 5 AI.

They all have uses. Granted, they're pretty miniscule but you're supposed to be constantly swapping them on the fly every time you complete a new Civic, to complement your current strategy or what you expect you'll need before the next policy swap opportunity. It's actually one of my favorite changes to the game, it's like a fun brain teaser or problem solving exercise, whereas I felt like Civ V's approach was too rigid and just an overall step down from Civ IV.

 

[StrategyFan]

Been playing Civ VI for a few sessions. This game sucks right? How do they continue to make such god awful AI after 8+ different civ games.

Diplomacy is garbage, I had a war with Germany in the stoneage and now it's coming into modern times and I'm still.being called a warmonger and denounced over and over.

It's a game where I'll sit down for a session then just give up and start fresh the next time.

Do they still have the United Nations later on?

I swear Alpha Centauri had better and more immersive diplomacy, how long ago was that?

yeah. feels like this new design team they have working on it is really amateurish

i looked up what the old civ designers went on to do, and it's basically what would be considered hardcore RTS games by today's standards (age of empires, rise of nations, offworld trading company)

it kind of makes sense that the series is tuned for more casual players who don't actually need a good game and AI, but it still feels wrong in terms of judging the new titles as sequels instead of spin-offs

 

[Giant Panda]

I've lost my last two games to the end turn CTD bug. I think I'm done until I they come out with a patch that takes care of that.

 

[CrocMother]

In III and IV you could just reallocate the pent up production points to a new project. So even if you got robbed of a wonder at the last minute, chances are you could complete a different wonder very quickly. They only counted for the next project though, so no matter what you spend them on next, they're gone.

I don't know about III but in IV wonder production turned into gold

 

[Herr Schwarz]

yeah. feels like this new design team they have working on it is really amateurish

i looked up what the old civ designers went on to do, and it's basically what would be considered hardcore RTS games by today's standards (age of empires, rise of nations, offworld trading company)

it kind of makes sense that the series is tuned for more casual players who don't actually need a good game and AI, but it still feels wrong in terms of judging the new titles as sequels instead of spin-offs

It's strange because the reviews are generally positive about Civ VI. It seems glaringly bad after about 5 hours lol.

God and their Beyond Earth game was so awful. What the heck were those factions? Most flavorless sci-fi factions I've ever seen.

 

[spiritfox]

Eh the game is fine. There needs to be some balance tweaks and AI improvements but the base concepts are solid. The impressions here were also pretty positive so I don't know why it got so negative all of a sudden.

 

[Maledict]

It's strange because the reviews are generally positive about Civ VI. It seems glaringly bad after about 5 hours lol.

God and their Beyond Earth game was so awful. What the heck were those factions? Most flavorless sci-fi factions I've ever seen.

Civ games are always overrated on release. Has happened with every version, and civ 4 / civ 5 both desperately needed patching on release. Mind you, neither was as bad as civ 6 is at launch,

Edit: the rason it turned negative is because of exactly that. The base Impression was good and the new mechanics looked interesting, and then you realized they had shipped the most incomplete version of civ to date. The AI is fundamentally broken in a way it never was in civ 5 - it's not even guarding settlers! The much touted improved diplomacy has turned out to be pointless because every AI is insane and will end up at war with you regardless. The social policy tree is great, but the policies are so hugely imbalanced it isn't achievement anything it is trying to achieve.

There's a good game in here, but the fact is they have been way too slow to respond to the issues the game has, way too silent with the community, and they shipped a product that needs a lot more time in the oven, even for a civ game.

 

[Bregor]

I disagree with a lot of the recent posts. The game has some flaws, but I am still really enjoying it. It still is the best a Civ game has been on release.

 

[spiritfox]

Firaxis has already released 1 patch which fixed the settler escort issue. There are many issues with the game right now, but Civ has always been supported for years so hopefully they fix them all over time. It's not like Civ V where even the base mechanics have problems.

 

[brainzelda]

They're going to sell us Team Co-op in the expansion aren't they?

 

[acksman]

I keep wanting to buy this game, but don't know how it can be better than Civ IV with the Mod Fall from Heaven, good gosh that mod is unreal.

 

[slabrock]

I haven't played since the fall patch because I started getting the end of turn crash. It seems to be a well known issue so hopefully it will get fixed soon.

 

[Maledict]

Firaxis has already released 1 patch which fixed the settler escort issue. There are many issues with the game right now, but Civ has always been supported for years so hopefully they fix them all over time. It's not like Civ V where even the base mechanics have problems.

No it didn't. You can still steal settlers.

And in Civ 5 the AI at least knew how to build things on release. The AI for Civ 6 is objectively worse - it fundamentally does not understand how cities and positioning bonuses work. It also doesn't prioritise the right things - I've had games on Emperor where I am the *only* player gaining great engineer points because none of the AIs have built a production zone. None.

There's the core of an amazing Civ game in here, and someday it will be fantastic. But it's easily the worse state they have ever released a mainstream Civ game in. I don't see how that's even vaguely argueable given the AI can't play the game nor does the diplomacy work.

 

[BrassDragon]

Okay, I really tried and put 100+ hours into this... but it's just not clicking for me. For all the interface and quality-of-life improvements, the main gameplay loop is just not that interesting (except maybe the improved barbarians) and the AI is often infuriating, underlined by constant diplomacy spam.

Today I went back and re-installed Civ V. It really is the superior game.

 

[squid]

No it didn't. You can still steal settlers.

And in Civ 5 the AI at least knew how to build things on release. The AI for Civ 6 is objectively worse - it fundamentally does not understand how cities and positioning bonuses work. It also doesn't prioritise the right things - I've had games on Emperor where I am the *only* player gaining great engineer points because none of the AIs have built a production zone. None.

There's the core of an amazing Civ game in here, and someday it will be fantastic. But it's easily the worse state they have ever released a mainstream Civ game in. I don't see how that's even vaguely argueable given the AI can't play the game nor does the diplomacy work.

I don't agree, do you remember what Civ V was like on launch? AI was pretty similar to how it is now in VI, and the game was incredibly barebones compared to VI. Plenty of bugs, massive imbalances, broken mechanics, missing features, etc.

Sure, VI has it's fair share of bugs, AI and UI issues and imbalances, but it's not worse than V at launch, and it's a much more feature rich experience.

 

[Maledict]

I don't agree, do you remember what Civ V was like on launch? AI was pretty similar to how it is now in VI, and the game was incredibly barebones compared to VI. Plenty of bugs, massive imbalances, broken mechanics, missing features, etc.

Sure, VI has it's fair share of bugs, AI and UI issues and imbalances, but it's not worse than V at launch, and it's a much more feature rich experience.

Yes, I've played every Civ game since release going back to 1. And yes, Civ 5 was a mess - but I was lucky and didn't get hit by the bugs, and the AI was objectively better at actually playing the game. Also let's not talk balance - how the hell did Germany and Scythia get through any sort of playtesting? No Civ in Civ 5 was that broken on release.

That's what annoys me - they introduced all these new cool systems and the AI simply can't use them. What the hell were they doing with their time? Why unstack cities and then not even have the AI actually build the most important district in the game? Somehow even the war AI is worse than in Civ 5, which again I don't get.

 

[squid]

Yes, I've played every Civ game since release going back to 1. And yes, Civ 5 was a mess - but I was lucky and didn't get hit by the bugs, and the AI was objectively better at actually playing the game. Also let's not talk balance - how the hell did Germany and Scythia get through any sort of playtesting? No Civ in Civ 5 was that broken on release.

That's what annoys me - they introduced all these new cool systems and the AI simply can't use them. What the hell were they doing with their time? Why unstack cities and then not even have the AI actually build the most important district in the game? Somehow even the war AI is worse than in Civ 5, which again I don't get.

Ok fair enough. We must just put importance on different aspects then, as I'm definitely having more fun with VI than I was with V at launch.

Hopefully they do greatly improve the AI in updates to come. I'm expecting DLC to drop before christmas, so hopefully there's a patch that comes along with that.

 

[vixlar]

There's something I always can see about Civ games: There are games with better AI, combat, strategy, interface, graphics, diplomacy, multiplayer, modding and all you want. Really. But Civ games have a je ne sais quoi that makes them fun and hard to stop playing. Is the quintesential of "the whole is greater thatn the sum of its parts".

I can see all the problems with Civ6... but I can't stop playing. Overwatch was the GOTY, and I really like it, and play it wit friends and all that... Battefield 1 came out the same day, same hour as Civ 6, and I also love Battlefield games. But I can tell you that I got more hours playing Civ 6 in two months than Overwatch since launch day. And I barely touched Battlefield, because I want to play Civ 6 all day. I don't know if this is my favorite Civ (I still think Civ 4 is the king) but no other Civ had me hooked like this. And that's telling a lot.

Just... one... more... turn...

 

[Morfeo]

It's strange because the reviews are generally positive about Civ VI. It seems glaringly bad after about 5 hours lol.

God and their Beyond Earth game was so awful. What the heck were those factions? Most flavorless sci-fi factions I've ever seen.

The reviewers havent played civ since civ5 was new, plays on a low difficulty, and generally dont know what to look for in a game like this. So it gets good scores for looking good and giving the player the feeling of being smart. The thing is though, for a casual audience this (and civ5 before it) is good. Its just when you start to play the games more seriously, the flaws become apparent.

 

[Boss Doggie]

People seem not to remember early Civ IV either lol

anyway honestly comparing between vanilla V and VI, VI is pretty great

 

[ZZMitch]

People seem not to remember early Civ IV either lol

anyway honestly comparing between vanilla V and VI, VI is pretty great

Yeah it is my favorite Civ game at launch, for sure.

 

[Dylan]

Okay, I really tried and put 100+ hours into this... but it's just not clicking for me. For all the interface and quality-of-life improvements, the main gameplay loop is just not that interesting (except maybe the improved barbarians) and the AI is often infuriating, underlined by constant diplomacy spam.

Today I went back and re-installed Civ V. It really is the superior game.

I hate to say it but I'm kind of in the same boat.

In Civ V, regardless of which victory type I was after, the fun part was manipulating the other civs. Bribe a weak France to wage war with a strong Russia for a few turns so they both waste their economies, then pass them in culture by using the time to build Wonders, for example.

In Civ VI, I'm forced to worry about micromanaging district tile locations, min/maxing production, etc. That was never the fun part of Civ for me. The UN was such an interesting addition to Civ V. I wish they had explored that concept more instead of removing it completely.

 

[CrocMother]

The main issue for me is that every game, the strategy is the same. Spam as many cities as possible, and prioritize industrial, commercial and campus districts.

Assume every neighbor will attack you, because preventative diplomacy is impossible.

It's boring.

 

[piratethingy]

uh you don't know that they could be done supporting civ for all we know

They're on the hook for at least 4 DLC updates.

They're going to keep supporting it, according to the update press release, plus there's all the season pass DLC they need to finish. We're in for a lot more Civ 6 heading forward.

Is this your first Civ game? They have never ever operated that way. It'll have years of support.

Do you know the history of this franchise and developer?

Your timing couldn't have been worse.

http://steamcommunity.com/games/289070/announcements/detail/646658987742411203

Can't believe I forgot to come back and check for so long, but yeah I posted that after having seen the patch posted lol.

 

[jman2050]

Civ games are always overrated on release. Has happened with every version, and civ 4 / civ 5 both desperately needed patching on release. Mind you, neither was as bad as civ 6 is at launch,

Civ 5 at launch is hands down one of the worst games I've ever played. Regardless of how anyone feels about Civ 6 or other Civ games I will die on the hill of Civ 5 vanilla being an abomination that no other release has dared to approach.

 

[Maledict]

Civ 5 at launch is hands down one of the worst games I've ever played. Regardless of how anyone feels about Civ 6 or other Civ games I will die on the hill of Civ 5 vanilla being an abomination that no other release has dared to approach.

Have to disagree on every level. I will admit it was far more buggy, but fortunately I didn't suffer from the bugs. In terms of actual playability though, the AI at least was functioning. The AI in civ 6 doesn't even know how to build districts properly!

EDIT: also, dunno if you have been lucky, but I can name so many games that launched in a worse state than Civ 5. Elemental is the first that comes to mind... ;-)

 

[Mengy]

The main issue for me is that every game, the strategy is the same. Spam as many cities as possible, and prioritize industrial, commercial and campus districts.

Assume every neighbor will attack you, because preventative diplomacy is impossible.

It's boring.

I’ve played through a few games now and I do have to admit, this is the common strategy for every new game I seem to have fallen into. After this routine is up and running I decide which victory condition I want and adjust from there. I’m still enjoying Civ 6 a lot, but it’s not without it’s issues right now.

 

[Grug]

Yeah I've logged about 80 hours and it's feeling like every game runs to the same script.

I'm not uninstalling but I'm not likely to play it until some meaningful AI adjustments are made. I have faith in Firaxis to fix this.

 

[CloudWolf]

The main issue for me is that every game, the strategy is the same. Spam as many cities as possible, and prioritize industrial, commercial and campus districts.

Assume every neighbor will attack you, because preventative diplomacy is impossible.

It's boring.

Isn't this pretty much the case in every Civ game? It's the entire reason why I like Endless Legend so much, because every race in there actually has major, gameplay changing UA's that last for the entire game instead of Civ's "instead of this unit/building, you get this slightly better unit/building in this specific age".

 

[Crispy75]

Could someone clarify trade routes for me?

Do I have it right:

The bonuses listed when you choose a trade route will be awarded every turn
The "travel time" for the route is how many turns the bonuses will be awarded for
When the trader gets to the destination, it respawns in the origin city and you choose another route.

The game doesn't really make it clear...

 

[spiritfox]

Could someone clarify trade routes for me?

Do I have it right:

The bonuses listed when you choose a trade route will be awarded every turn
The "travel time" for the route is how many turns the bonuses will be awarded for
When the trader gets to the destination, it respawns in the origin city and you choose another route.

The game doesn't really make it clear...

Yes.
The number shown is distance, and it affects the number of turns the trader will be locked into that route.
The trader unit will travel to the destination and head back a few times then reset after the turns are up.

 

[spiritfox]

So erm, new DLC out!?

http://store.steampowered.com/app/512033/ Poland
http://store.steampowered.com/app/512032/ Viking scenario

http://steamcommunity.com/games/289070/announcements/detail/599374259662898714 Patch notes

 

[Anno]

First Look: Poland

Kind of an out of nowhere time to push this out, but hey Poland looks fun! And some cool bonuses.

 

[epmode]

New DLC: UI Scaling for 1440p monitors!

Sigh.

 

[spiritfox]

Cities can no longer receive yields from more than one regional building per type; they take the highest (ex. production from multiple Factories)

RIP Germany meta.

 

[Dylan]

Here's the patch notes:

[NEW]

Added Earth map (Standard size)
Added “Alert” action for units
Put a unit to sleep until they spot an enemy unit
Scenario setup menu
Jump into Scenarios more easily within the Single Player menu. This only shows up when a single player scenario is available and enabled (as can be found in both of the new DLCs!)
Added new replay option to Wonder completion movies

[GAMEPLAY UPDATES]

Religious units may now Fortify Until Healed
Coastal Raids can now pillage districts in addition to the buildings within
Great Admirals are no longer allowed to spawn on wonders in water tiles (ex. Huey, Great Lighthouse) so they cannot become stranded in lakes

[BALANCE CHANGES]

Cities can no longer receive yields from more than one regional building per type; they take the highest (ex. production from multiple Factories)
Cities can no longer receive amenities from more than one regional building per type; they take the highest (ex. amenities from multiple Stadiums)
Decreased production costs of Wonders progressively
From the Industrial era (about -10%) to the Atomic era (about -40%).
Decreased production costs of all Space Race Projects by 40%.
Increased research costs of Technologies and Civics progressively
From the Industrial era (about +5%) to the Information era (about +20%).
Increased Faith from Mission
Increased Culture from Chateau
Lowered the minimum unit upgrade cost
Improved clarity on Warmongering penalties associated with taking a civ’s final city
Most Civilization unique districts now require population to construct (like normal districts)
Spaceport district no longer requires population to construct

[AI TUNING]

Improved AI Deal negotiations and analysis
Improved AI handling of Promises; including that they are more likely to agree if they like you, and also will consider how trustworthy a civ is by whether they’ve kept previous promises
Improved tactical handling of Great Admirals and Great Generals
Improved AI interest in Terracotta Army
Improved handling of leaf techs
Improved building of Forts
Improved resource grabbing in late game
Improved Last Viking King agenda’s analysis for who is in bottom percentage of navies
Improved handling of several complaint or kudo messages from AI
Rebalanced Catherine’s evaluation of the ‘no spying’ Promise
AI will not try to convert unconvertible cities

[BUG FIXES]

Fixed several unique buildings that weren’t getting their yields increased by various game effects (ex. Policies)
Fixed an issue that allowed the Goddess of the Harvest pantheon bonus to stack
Fixed it so loading screens now show the correct text and play matching VO
Fixed an issue that blocked certain relationship-based diplomatic actions
Fixed an issue where incomplete Encampment districts were able to attack
Fixed an issue where you could declare war on friends or allies by moving units
Fixed an issue where AI could declare war on a civ with whom they were already at war
Fixed an issue that caused a Multiplayer lobby to require joining players to have Additional Content that wasn’t actually needed
Fixed a bug that caused Apostles to run out of promotions
Fixed a bug where gaining policy slots mid-turn could block progression
Fixed issues caused by trading lots of Great Works at the same time
Fixed an issue where turn timers weren’t loading correctly from a save
Fixed an issue where Rome’s roads would connect to too many adjacent roads
Fixed issue where civs could get another civ’s exclusive agenda
Fixed multiple links to the Civilopedia
Fixed issue that could cause menu music to play twice and overlap itself
Fixed an issue that could cause private MP games to become public
Fixed multiple text & grammatical issues
Fixed multiple crashes

[VISUALS]

Added new art for National Parks
Updated Mines for several eras
Updated Swordsman
Improved city fading during combat

[MULTIPLAYER]

Hallowed Ground scenario is no playable on huge maps
VO now plays correctly when loading a save

[UI]

Resource Report now correctly shows resources from several sources:
Great People abilities
Diplomatic Deals
Checkboxes for toggle yields and grid now stay in sync with hotkeys
Improved differentiation in Government Lens hex colors
Added Defeat icon to the End Game Results screen

[AUDIO]

Added sound effect for Quick Save hotkey

 

[spiritfox]

Hmm, unit production values are not tweaked, even when production is nerfed heavily. It going to take forever produce later game units now.

 

[Shane86]

Armagh and Giant’s Causeway natural wonder! Ireland in the game finally!

 

[jph139]

Seriously? Out of nowhere what the fuck.

Poland seems like a super obnoxious Civ to play against but I do love culture bombing, so I think I'll have fun with her.

 

[maabus1999]

Hmm, unit production values are not tweaked, even when production is nerfed heavily. It going to take forever produce later game units now.

It may have completely messed up the end game to be honest. The change probably reduced production values in main cities by ~40%, so it makes the "turn cost" the same for wonders/space projects. However everything else takes longer now...plus nearby "new cities" will take longer to spin up without trade route bombing.

And even with a 20% increase in science cost, I don't think it will change much there as I was commonly already hitting 3 turns per tech. 4 turns won't do much...

I'll wait and see but I actually think this makes an already sluggish games production wise even worse.

 

[squid]

Hmm mixed thoughts on the patch and dlc. Most changes are good, but some I don't like, with the factory overlapping, and the pop-free unique districts gone. The dlc packs seem a bit expensive too. $5 for a scenario and some new city states and natural wonders? Bit much I think. I got the version that comes with those included for free anyway, but still, it feels a bit bare bones.

 

[spiritfox]

It may have completely messed up the end game to be honest. The change probably reduced production values in main cities by ~40%, so it makes the "turn cost" the same for wonders/space projects. However everything else takes longer now...plus nearby "new cities" will take longer to spin up without trade route bombing.

And even with a 20% increase in science cost, I don't think it will change much there as I was commonly already hitting 3 turns per tech. 4 turns won't do much...

I'll wait and see but I actually think this makes an already sluggish games production wise even worse.

I'll have to play a game but late game new cities are totally useless now, with the ridiculous district costs and the opportunity costs to reroute trade routes to the new city.

 

[QFNS]

Hm time to play another round and check out the new AI tuning. It's pretty easy to get me to play again with any big patch.

 

[CrocMother]

First Look: Poland

Kind of an out of nowhere time to push this out, but hey Poland looks fun! And some cool bonuses.

Looks like a Dreamworks character

 

[frontovik]

Most of them look like Dreamworks characters with their really exaggerated grins.

 

[decoyplatypus]

Poland sounds fuuuuun. Unique district, culture bombing, and winged hussars!

 

[Robottiimu2000]

People seem not to remember early Civ IV either lol

anyway honestly comparing between vanilla V and VI, VI is pretty great

I agree with this VI as vanilla is hands down more feature rich and "complete" than IV & V were. There really isn't even a competition going on here.

Though I agrew with the issues with AI... could firaxis please start being the forerunner in that front? I would love to have a good AI one day in CIV... I don't really think that any civ has had that good AI?

 

[Bolivar687]

Wait... the Deluxe is supposed to have 4 DLC packs... are we halfway there with the Vikings scenarios and Poland? I'm worried there's going to be a ton of DLC down the line and Deluxe owners only get a small front end of that.