While it can only address some basic aspects since they still haven’t allowed modders full access to the game’s inner gullyworks, this latest edition of AI+ might help (now with full R&F support):
Beyond a lot of general fixes for all AI, the dev has tried to tweak stuff so that each of the civs better play to their unique strengths.
I appreciate what that guy has been doing with the limited tools he has available, but I just can’t financially support Firaxis for two main reasons:
Not even bothering with the low-hanging fruit of AI issues. They just put zero care or effort into what I consider a fundamental aspect of a strategy game. I don’t expect anywhere near perfection, just a minimal effort to improve.
Their refusal to release full modding tools until they’re done making DLC out of some misguided fear it would cut into DLC sales, just like they did with Civ5. That prevents people who do care, like the AI+ guy, from doing their damn job for them.
I’m not meaning to sound militant or anything, but Firaxis’ behavior in this regard is just so repugnant to me. And that really sucks because Civilization is a franchise that has been really important to me, especially in my early formative years. Playing the first game as a kid was the start of my love affair with strategy games.
Anyway, not meaning to climb up on a soapbox. I usually try to keep my mouth shut and just lurk in this thread because I don’t want to piss on anyone’s good time. I often fail my will save, though. :) Hopefully once the mod tools are out the community can fix the game for Firaxis again.
It’s ok, thereve been a few post I started and then deleted for similar reasons.
But yeah, the diplo AI in particular just… ruined the series for me. It even retroactively ruined Civ IV for me (sorry Soren!) when I went back and played it.
So I try and watch the thread for interesting news, while mostly being quiet. Because I did really like some of the changes the new version brought in! But I couldn’t buy it unless the diplo AI was fixed. I keep hoping to hear one day is is…
A simple diplomacy system can easily be implemented with 3 scalar values:
like - number goes up based on positive things you do for the AI nation, like trade deals, alliances, cultural alignment, fighting their enemies. Deteriorates gradually over time.
dislike - number goes up based on negative things, similar obvious features. Deteriorates more slowly than like.
clarity - based on your espionage and embassies, how clearly and accurately you can see the like and dislike values and the reasons for them. This value isn’t even necessary except to make the human player happy.
And then all AI diplo actions have minimum like and dislike thresholds, and possibly per-turn probability factors based on exceeding the thresholds.
On the face of it, this could well be how Civ diplomacy actually works. So why doesn’t it make any sense in actual play? Because (I speculate) in the interest of keeping the game “interesting”, designers seem to have set the minimum dislike thresholds for negative actions to close to 0. Any country can declare surprise war on you at any time on a whim or perhaps due to some bribe from another country – but more commonly because you’re so far ahead of it. Which makes the opposite of any kind of sense, because if you’re so far ahead naturally you will annihilate this primitive foe.
Logically if you are ahead of your neighbors they should individually just let you alone; and if you get too far ahead some kind of grand alliance should form against you. But this just isn’t how the game actually plays. Instead random inferior neighbors declare surprise war for no good reason, occasionally in pairs, but practically never more than two of them at a time. Combining this total irrationality with the obnoxious statements and emotional attitudes expressed by the leaders in the diplo animations naturally makes players frustrated. It’s really not a very high bar to come up with some kind of sensible relation between leader attitude and diplo action. SMAC did it just fine, after all. But apparently this is far beyond the Civ designers in the last few generations of the game.
There is a positive and negative number system that does in a sense affect what the AI thinks of you. It is hidden behind one of the diplomacy screens. Compare with Civ IV where I could mouse over the nations on the right of screen and have that information displayed for me. I’d like for that information to be made more obvious. There doesn’t appear to be much in the degradation of negative score though - once a warmonger, always a warmonger really. I miss the simple elegance of the Civ IV diplomacy system.
Also another complaint with the new expansion is emergencies. A fine idea in theory but the systems don’t support it. The last time I saw combat in my Nubian game was to liberate a city state from Scythia. That was fine, I could actually do that one, and the pot of 18,000 gold (!!) was all too tempting. So I signed up. So did Mapuche. I did the hard work, Mapuche offered nothing and we split the pot, 9,000 gold each. It is a system that is too basic. Compare with the projects from previous iterations where the game would reward the nation that contributed the most. They seem to have forgotten that bit.
For 9000 gold, I built a couple of buildings. Gold doesn’t go far in this game.
9,000 gold is worth around 15 settlers or so. Imagine having that at the start of the game… But yeah, not so much later on. For the most part any given Civ game system seems to be meant as an annoying distraction to keep you from paying attention to the defects of all the other ones…
I seem to be the only one here who loves this expansion, and I see more than “minimal” AI improvements. I’m having more fun than I’ve had since Civ 4 (my series favorite) was fully modded. Many aspects of R&F I prefer to Civ 4. (The thing I miss most about Civ 4 is Leonard Nimoy!)
If you hated vanilla Civ 6, the AI fixes and new features in R&F probably won’t sway you, and if you hated Civ 5, you shouldn’t buy Civ 6. I liked vanilla Civ 6 but tired of it after 40 hours or so. I’ve now got 100-plus hours in the expansion and I’m still itching to play more. Some specific comments:
Not even bothering with the low-hanging fruit of AI issues. They just put zero care or effort into what I consider a fundamental aspect of a strategy game. I don’t expect anywhere near perfection, just a minimal effort to improve.
Respectfully, I think they have made more than a “minimal effort to improve.” The February vanilla patch notes, released before R&F, include some important fixes that have made noticeable improvements in my games. My annotations in brackets.
AI
Fixed an issue that was causing the AI to send multiple spies on the same mission. [Hard for me to assess this one.]
AI will look at graphic change on spaceports, and can target their spies to spaceports that are performing their science victory projects. [The AI is certainly diligent about this now, but then it was before, as I recall.]
Improved opportunity cost considerations for district placement. [I’ve seen the AI purchase land near mountains for campuses, and I see less of it building districts in dumb places. Not perfect, but much better behavior. I know Korea is overpowered, but I find it hard to keep up with Korea on science even on Prince. If there are a lot of civs in the game, there will be at least a couple that outpace me in everything. If there are fewer civs, I will eventually prevail, but not until the later ages.]
Improve ability to place / use aqueducts. [Haven’t tracked this, but AI cities are plenty big.]
AI knows to move builders back into their territory if they get caught outside. [I haven’t seen an unescorted builder once. In fact, I’ve hardly seen any enemy builders at all.]
AI will not complain about stealth units it can’t see being too close to its border. [True. I’ve got submarines buzzing China now.]
AI is much less likely to trade its cities away as part of a peace deal. [True.]
Improved resource trading, AI considers luxury resources it is currently importing. [True. I have not gotten one lopsided or crazy deal. The AI does seem anxious to ransom back its spies, but I’m never quite sure what to do; they’ll typically offer 100 gold and a luxury for 30 turns, and I usually say no.]
Improved new city placement, also fixed issues where the settler would try to travel through hostile territory to get an escort. [I have seen only one unescorted settler, during peace, and it was joined a turn later by a melee unit. During one war, I did encounter an enemy settler escorted by a crossbowman rather than a melee unit, but I do that too. Reportedly the AI still does use unescorted settlers outside the view or range of the player, to help the AI expand.]
AI prefers garrisoning ranged units over melee. [True.]
If the AI can capture, or significantly damage, a target city, it may ignore hostile units nearby to do that. [Definitely true. The AI often beelines to cities now. It can take walled cities now. It brings catapults, battering rams, and modern versions of these things. It couldn’t do that a year ago. Admittedly, it often does get distracted, e.g. to pick off one of my units. I don’t deny that it still does dumb stuff. I’m just asserting that the devs have made more than “minimal” effort to improve it.]
Fixed coordinating ranged attacks. [True. Also, the AI now upgrades its units. In my current game, my infantry are facing enemy infantry. My naval units are outclassed.]
Their refusal to release full modding tools until they’re done making DLC
I’m as eager for them to do this as you, because even though AI matters less to me (being a builder and not a warmonger), I recognize its importance. With a Vox Populi AI mod (and an R&F version of CQUI), CIv 6 will be awesome. But I assume Firaxis’s position reflects concern about security of their code, which doesn’t strike me as so unreasonable. It’s consistent with how they handled Civ 5. I agree with you that the game will be better once they make the source code available. In the meantime, I’m going to try the new version of AI+.
But I couldn’t buy it unless the diplo AI was fixed. I keep hoping to hear one day is is…
Please don’t buy it, because I don’t want anyone blaming me! But I’ll just tell you my experience. If you make an alliance with an AI now, it actually seems to mean something. My alliances are stable, both sides benefit, and the alliances “level up” – albeit way too slowly. (Only to level 2 so far in my games.) In my games, my allies don’t DOW me (although I did just read a guy on Civfanatics complaining that his ally backstabbed him).
Yes, the game now openly displays the numbers indicating why the civ likes or dislikes you. It’s not hidden; you click on the portrait of the person, then click the “Heart” icon, and there they are. (I wish the game had the "circle of relationships that Civ 3 or 4 had, but even that iteration had to use two pages’ worth of circles. Maybe Endless Space’s UI would work.)
The choice of alliance is interesting now. I avoid science alliances with my science rivals, I avoid culture alliances with my culture rivals, etc. I’ve had “formal declarations of war,” always by two or more states, against me, and occasionally a friendly state will abruptly DOW me. But things are less arbitrary than they used to be. The AI has never made a stupid trade with me in 100-plus hours. These things all seem like significant improvements over vanilla. I’m not saying it’s fabulous, but I find it better than any Civ’s diplo AI, ever. But please don’t buy it!
On loyalty: someone earlier said they thought the system was too weak. I think I agree with this. It’s a great idea – it just needs to be beefed up. They need to make loyalty tougher to get in all ages, dark through heroic. Still, I think loyalty has helped the AI by making its behavior more rational and state-like: it doesn’t forward-settle like a maniac now.
Personally, I think the AI has improved much more than the UI. The UI is still a hot mess! Just one little example: the list of cities is not sortable in any way, and it’s cluttered. I could multiply that example by 50. At least autohotkeys helps me with my biggest complaint (e.g., by enabling WASD). I can’t wait for the R&F version of CQUI to release, though.
Thanks for renewing my faith in Civ6, Mr. Spock.
Heh, you’re welcome!
Sorry for that wall of text, lol. I got a bit carried away. TLDR; the AI has improved, though it’s admittedly still got a long way to go. The UI is a mess.
Thanks for the welcome positivity. I bought the expansion, have not had time to play it yet. Looking forward to it now! ;-)
I’m not sure what to make of that comment. Are you talking about Civ VI in particular, or the Civ series generally? Believe me, the game systems don’t distract me from underperforming elements of other game systems. Thankfully in Civ IV for example I could disable espionage and vassal states because those two systems were shocking. Corporations at least were ok (Sids Sushi for life). I don’t know how Firaxis developed Civ, but if I were told that they did so in some space station in the deep recesses of a distant galaxy with no input from the previous games, no inspiration from how other games do things… I wouldn’t be surprised. :)
This! Trying to work out my most productive city is horrible.
Also, I completely agree with your sentiments regarding AI. It is behaving better. I’m quietly hopeful once I move up difficulties the sheer force of numbers will force me into a tighter game where I really need to be on my toes.
With respect to Korea, I see them as a nation like any of the warmongers from previous Civ titles. Korea will have a massive target over them, and the game hinges on taking them out sooner rather than later. Much like with Civ IV where either Alexander or Montezuma were key targets for me to destroy if I ended up neighboring them.
I’m actually looking forward to my second R&F game as Catherine (France). I don’t love it as much as Spock, but there is still some magic in the game. I had the same thing with Civ V. Once the second expansion released, I was actually really happy with the game. I just have to vent my frustrations at the game in some vain hope that at some point maybe a bored Firaxis dev will google their game to seek input and see my comments. Unlikely of course. Believe me, I really want Civ VI to be good because some of the game’s improvements I can not imagine playing without now.
You are definitely NOT the only person here who loves this expansion. I have played three games so far, and two of them were among the best I have ever played. In the most recent game, Genghis Khan went berserk across the continent rolling up everybody except my Korea, and actually led me in science as well. I had to rely on mountain passes to save myself. And even then, it was tough because civs on the other continent seemed intimidated by the Mongols and did not want to ally with me, leaving me without a good tool for developing culture and economics.
Not all the new ideas in the expansion are great, and no, tactical AI is not and never will be competent. Watching two AIs fight makes for some very dark comedy. But the only thing that dents my playing experience at all is the UI, and when the CQUI mod is updated, that will be put to rest.
(The game I did not enjoy was as the Netherlands. Not sure whether it was the Netherlands or the luck of the map. My only neighbor was Cyrus and he was inexplicably weak and offered zero competition. Meanwhile, Wilhelma’s polders were a disappointment, and her real strength – the river adjacency bonus – totally unnecessary in this case.)
Yep - I’m really enjoying R&F a ton. Agreed there’s a lot of work to be done on the UI, but I’m quite pleased with the game.
Wait a second. The list of cities is not sortable? Are you serious? What kind of backwards nation did the interface development come from?
I’m talking about Civ V and Civ VI which explicitly make it a design goal to interrupt you with “decisions” every turn. But while they occasionally mean something, for the most part these are mechanical, stupid decisions. Like moving your units around, which takes way longer if they can’t stack. Or choosing the best trade route yet again or placing your stupid spies through the worst ever UI for it yet again or responding to the inane diplomatic screen yet again which means you can’t even step away after clicking “next turn” because it will probably pause while the AI asks you for 2 luxury goods for its munificent offer of 1 gold per turn.
All these game systems basically suck, and they are all constantly clamoring for your attention because of the decision-every-turn design philosophy.
Did you buy R&F Miramon? You seem to really hate the game.
No, I couldn’t justify it. I actually enjoy the first 4500 years or so of Civ V/Civ VI because I like optimizing my little nation and the AI opponents mostly don’t get in my way until around that point. It’s just the grinding tedium of all these interruptions by babbling idiot opponents that makes it impossible for me to play much beyond that. “You have offended against god and man and therefore I declare war on you by attacking your musketmen with my chariots and by throwing my unescorted settlers at your mighty cities”. Sigh.
I don’t remember why I didn’t play much Civ VI after it came out, I remember really being excited for the gameplay mechanics and watching the streams leading up to the game. I remember thinking it looked like a board game in all the best ways, and I remember being bummed the AI was still pretty terrible, but since I don’t min/max (I am terrible at that in this kind of game anyway) I enjoyed the illusion of challenge even if I was never going to lose. That’s okay for a fun weekend strategy game also.
I do remember finding the religion spam at launch annoying as hell. It’s how I won my first game, but the grind in the end game to over come the AI (all of whom iirc decided to win via religion) drove me mad and I didn’t get much into any future games I’d rolled up.
But, having not touched it since before the first of the DLC from my season pass even came out, I picked up the expansion on a whim and I have to say, I’m really having a blast so far with it. For $25 it seems to have gotten me back in, so I can maybe get some time out of this initial investment.
I really like the new mechanics so far. Governors are really neat and fun to use, Loyalty as a mechanic is clear and easy to follow, and the idea of a revolted Free City is a cool one. I still like all the original mechanics and some of the stuff that I didn’t really enjoy has actually been addressed (like Eureka and Inspirations are 33% instead of 50% boost).
And I am really enjoying the game’s look and feel, moreso than the first time I played. It’s really a striking looking game.
I really, really like the Timeline feature, and how it ties into the Era stuff. I didn’t think I’d like the Era stuff, but damned if I’m not pumped every time I earn an era score point or two. I just earned my first golden age, but have to wait until I’m out of Classical age to see those effects. In the meantime, there was a state of emergency declared on Genghis Khan because he seized control of a city state, and I’m off to give him a bloody nose for it.
It’s also a nice way to vent any frustration you’ve built up:
LOL that’s awesome.
