Well, now I feel like a jerk for coming at you like that. I blame the yahoos on the front page. There’s been a pretty steady stream of abusive comments dribbling into the reviews for Lollipop Chainsaw, Krater, and Civ, so sorry if I sounded too defensive.
But as I’ve always said, I don’t expect anyone to share my priorities for a good game, whether it’s a matter of AI, interface, narrative, or what have you. We all put varying degrees of importance on varying things. And I freely concede that I feel the weak AI in Conquest of Elysium 3 is a very different matter than the weak AI in Civ 5. I probably bristled at your comment since TurinTur already selectively ignored my coverage of Conquest 3 in an attempt to call my opinion of Civ 5 “inadmissible”, or something.
And your point is fair. Some folks can put the AI at a certain level – I think King is my sweet spot, too, inasmuch as I can have a sweet spot for Civ 5 – so that the tactical blunders sort of break even because the economic advantages give the AI more units to sling around dumbly. Although then I start to get annoyed seeing how poorly it organizes larger groups of units.
The bottom line is that I feel the design of Civ 5 calls far too much attention to the ineffective AI. It either needs a better AI, or a design that works better with its existing AI. That’s not at all about winning arguments or trying to justify scores or shutting down anyone who likes the game. It’s entirely about why I personally don’t like Civ 5.
-Tom
P.S. Ha ha, you lost your wonders!
rezaf
6162
Well, at least the Civ4 AI was playing roughly the same game. And for me, it worked better right from the start, because it acted more believable.
At least that’s how I felt about it.
This is not to say it didn’t do idiotic things every now and then, that’s just what AIs do.
This is a spot-on observation. I’m sure there can be minor improvements, but 1UPT combined with the (for the better part of the game) slow speed of the units results in a situation that will always put a spotlight on just how stupid the AI is.
That’s sad for you.
City spam wasn’t that bad at all (it was horrible in Civ3), and the stack of doom argument, while not without grounds, is vastly exaggerated. If you were playing on a middling difficulty level vs. the AI, sighting a true stack of doom was a really rare occasion.
But hey, if you’re happy with Civ5, that’s totally cool. Enjoy.
rezaf
No offense to Wolff intended, but I put “stack of doom” in the same credibility drawer as “tax and spend liberal”, “Feminazi”, and “death panels”.
-Tom
Call to Power had the right idea.
Fascinating discussion of Civ V’s AI, really. As I’ve noted before, I’m such a terribly player the finer points of the AI quality in the game don’t impact me that much, but I do agree that the failure of the game to really play by the same rules and weigh the same inputs as the player does make for a more sterile experience. It’s easy for me to get lost in the minutia I guess, and ignore the worst of the flaws for a while, as I don’t micro-manage much and don’t look under the hood too often. But I would never say the AI in Civ V was anywhere near good. I’m not sure Civ IV was much better but the interaction between the game system and the AI was more productive I think in that case, or at least more complementary.
What bugs the most about Civ V though is the sheer slowness of it. I have a i7 920 with 12GB RAM, and the turns take an eternity. Even early on, it’s like playing in molasses. In January. Yeah, I’m impatient, but combined with taking an eon to build one archer or a freakin’ granary, the slowness of the turns is a real buzzkill for me.
robc04
6166
I think that is a great idea!
Edit: Other than happiness are you sure it doesn’t work that way? For example are the production and tech bonuses a % bonus applied to the production and science they earn? Happiness may be the only area the bonus is funky.
robc04
6167
Thanks for the clarification Tom, I appreciate it.
Great points Tom. Also appreciate the clarification as it gives me a much better picture of your dislike for Civ V.
I still love the game despite the sometimes lackluster AI. I guess I’m just more forgiving of it because the rest of the game is (IMO) stellar and well, creating AI for such a complex game isn’t an easy thing to do.
Dejin
6169
What size game are you playing? I’m running on a 4-year old Core2Duo E6850 at 3 GHz with 4 GBytes of memory and 32-bit Vista the game speed doesn’t seem to be a problem. I rarely play above small 6-Civ games though.
I think the computing demands go up substantially if you’re playing a Huge game. If you get frustrated with whatever size game you’re playing, try playing a smaller game. I’ve found that even a duel-size game can be a lot of fun.
Try disabling combat and movement animations . I did at the end of my last game (standard world, fully revelaed thanks to satallites) and I timed the turns as taking less than 8 seconds, it was pretty awesome.
Thanks for the tips, ydejin and Bleed. I usually play random world sizes so sometimes I guess it’s gargantuan. I haven’t tried the animations thing; I didn’t think that would affect how long the freakin’ little cursor spins, but I’ll give it a shot. I also play only on Epic speed, but I don’t know know if that affects anything either.
I did have one game that featured me and one other civ only, which was kind of weird. It did play a bit faster at least…but who exactly were the Ottomans denouncing me to, if we were the only civs in the game? How…odd.
Dejin
6172
The Ottomans were letting the barbarians know exactly what they thought of you ;-)
Speaking of barbarians, has anyone noticed that the barbarian seem to have much lower tech levels than before the expansion? I seem to run into a lot of barbarians even in the Renaissance era who are just the original lowly warrior units. I have seen some spear and pike barbarians, but they seem rarer then I remember.
Epic speed indicates you want the game to be more “epic” and as such everything takes longer. Research, build times, that sort of thing. You had mentioned how long it took to build stuff before, playing on Epic is why. It’s designed for the eras to last longer, so you don’t feel like you just got spearmen and suddenly before you even field them they are obsolete.
If you want turn processing to go quickly, disable the animations. If you want to BUILD things faster, and have general game things happen quicker, play on the Quick gamespeed, or Standard.
Both denunciation and friendship are crazy in Civ V. Well, the whole diplomacy system is so bad that it would be better if it wasn’t implemented at all, really.
Hey there, I’ve just annihilated your military, taken your capital, and razed your 4 biggest cities, but I can’t be bothered to waste 30 more turns wiping out the rest of your pathetic empire scattered all over the world. And because there’s no vassal state or subjugation status, I just have to let you go. So next turn you denounce me? Do you have any idea what your position is? Apparently not.
Similarly, a friendship declaration conveys absolutely no benefit whatsoever so far as I can tell, except that you now feel entitled to beg me for free gold and resources despite the fact you can afford the going rate in gold or in kind.
Sigh. I have to assume they fully implemented the diplomacy design in Civ V, instead of screwing it up due to hardness like they did with the tactical AI. I assume this because the implementation is so clearly trivial, based on counting units and tit-for-tat pretend affronts (“they think you are trying to win the same way as them” – seriously? Are you insane?). Who could possibly have read the Diplomacy design document and agreed that this makes sense?
KevinC
6175
Miramon, pretend you’re playing a boardgame with other players. These others players are six years old. They’re also afflicted with various and unfortunate mental disabilities coupled with violent mood swings.
You now understand Civ5 diplomatic AI.
The “they think you are trying to win the same way as them” was removed if I recall correctly, at least.
tgb123
6177
I was thinking this morning that what I would REALLY like to see is Firaxis (or someone) develop an expansion or DLC that converts the Civ IV/BTS map and combat system to that of Civ V. But I guess that would require an entire overhaul of the A.I.
It would be a beautiful thing if it could be done successfully (i.e. not breaking IV).
tgb123
6179
Civ IV with hex-based tactical combat? Who WOULDN’T want that?
I’m not sure I understand why hexes are better than squares…
I’ve only ever played Civ IV and V, and the difference between them is pretty stark. I don’t think I’m romanticizing things if I think the tactical AI was more capable in IV. It’s pretty dumb in V and it is possible to hold off humongous armies with a very small contingent of your own if you know what you are doing and have a good position.
That is irritating. And the AI really does matter to our experience of the game.
And Warlock proves that the same basic system can run a bit better. Civ V with Warlock’s tactical AI would be a much better experience because it would force you to build up a bigger army, which means there will be other things you can’t do anymore. You’ll still ultimately be better at the tactics, but it will cost you effort and may mean the strategic AI is getting the better of you somewhere else.
So I would say that the tactical AI really can’t be separated from the rest of the game – if it’s bad, the game isn’t as good as it should be.
Two of the problems that the AI has – generals and settlers – might be solved through something like the ancillary system of Total War. Settlers and generals would never be able to travel alone, but must be escorted by a unit – in effect, as an ancillary attached to the unit. If the escorting unit is destroyed, so are the general or settler units. Solving that one problem would take a lot of the eye rolling out of playing the game.
