Civilization VI

100% agree. I love the XCOM games and the AI can play those with brutal precision.

I guess I am reaching for a systematic explanation because terrible AI seems almost universal these days. I suppose “players don’t care about AI, so neither do the devs” is a systematic explanation, but every player I’ve talk to says it’s important to them, and so do the devs. Though I guess actions speak louder than words, in both cases. I don’t spend much time getting kicked around by a chess AI, for instance.

Thirded. Even as someone who has lost all desire to ever touch a Civ game again, Xcom’s were fantastic games.

Jake Solomon for lead design Civ 7? :)

I liked Civ VI a fair bit, thought I’m still more fond of CiV (plus expansions) currently, I feel like a meaty expansion could really push me over the edge. There are a lot of gameplay mechanics in 6 I really, really like and the AI improvements at this point would probably have to come through the development of an expansion anyway.

And if you turn off the religious victory condition, the AI will still try and go for it. It does nothing to stem the flow of religious unit spam and the AI will still build religious districts and buildings like crazy.

I think that’s simply it. The majority of players don’t want a really challenging AI opponent. They may say otherwise, but the sales numbers don’t bear that out.

Of course there’s a difference between a challenging opponent and and an imbecile. Just pretend you’re playing the game, is all I ask. But Civ VI tactical AI can’t even pretend. It just sits there and drools. And the strategic/diplomatic AI isn’t AI at all, it’s random meaningless events meant to give the player something to do.

I think the AI in AOW3 is a pretty good example of what I’m looking for, it does a competent job on the strategic map (on only the 2nd hardest setting I’ve had it repeatedly take cities I either failed to defend or under defended) and it’s even better in the tactical battles.

This thread makes me sad. I’ve been planning to revisit Civ VI as I’ve been playing games from the backlog more. I liked the mechanics of VI a lot - definitely more than V, but if the AI is still as bad as everyone is saying then it probably isn’t worth playing. Maybe worth 1 or 2 reintroduction games.

Civ V was probably the version that brought Civ to more casual gamers, who perhaps didn’t care too much about the AI. Maybe now with more experience under their belt the AI in Civ VI won’t be enough.

Did the Civ V AI really improve that much to make it noticeably better than Civ VI?

I’ve been away from Civ IV for so long that maybe playing it will feel like a new game.

It isn’t just the AI, and Rob Zacny hits on a bunch of little reasons that add up to an unsatisfying experience.

Interesting, if accurate:

That’s quite a difference. Any reports on whether 2K was disappointed with Civ6 sales? It looks like a disaster compared to Civ5, provided that these stats are any kind of accurate indication. (And comparing a new game with one that’s quite a few years old now and has been on sale frequently.)

Peak players and stuff like that isn’t really going to tell you much other than give you a general sense of popularity compared to other games since (as you mentioned) Civ IV has been on sale multiple times over the years.

Sure. But Civ5 has been played by 585,000+ players in the last two weeks, while Civ6 pulled in a little more than half of that number. I’d like to know what the figures were like for Civ5 back in the day, even though we don’t have much to compare with (since Civ4 wasn’t originally released Steam-only).

Unfortunately, I don’t think Steam Spy nor SteamCharts would have early Civ V data, since neither site was up then.

Hah. Good point. ;-)

Still, would have been interesting to have had the data.

They really need to throw the whole Objectives diplomacy straight into the garbage.

Arbitrary benchmarks that mean the difference between loving you and declaring genocide on you. The United States will never take hostile action against you if you never industrialize your lands…excuse me what???

Worse, it doesn’t take into account any context. “I hate you because your empire is small.” Jesus dude, it’s only turn 18! How big am I supposed to be by then!!! Ditto for Norway hating you because you don’t have a navy by turn 20!

Even worse than that, they will still hate if the objectives clash with universal demerits. “I like you because your empire is large! I hate you because you expanded!”

Making it worse is the fact that these stupid arbitrary objectives have so much more sway over traditional relations builders like trading and tribute. “Sure we’ve had peaceful relations with mutually beneficial trade for ages, but you don’t have a large spy network ARRRRRG I hate you!” declares war

The problem with AI in 4X games covfefe

This early-objective nonsense is an example of how little the devs care about their own work. It’s not an AI programming issue to stop Marie from objecting to your lack of spies in 3000 BC. It’s having the most trivial concern for your audience’s experience of playing the game, which obviously is missing here.

But of course you’re correct that the “agendas” are not sensible in the first place. Just to begin with no one in all of history has ever objected to their rivals not having good spy services, not having good military training facilities, or not grabbing enough land.

Counterpoint: the Orange One

So, is Civ IV (or an earlier version) still the best of the series?