Civilization 5 Announced

[SevenSpirits]

weird values! For some reason that values flood plains desert over a normal grassland, even though they're the same yield.

That bit (FP) actually works out. FP = 6 straight up, and ignores everything else. Grass (4) + Riverside (1) + Freshwater (1) is also 6.

[Kylearan]

Hi,

Depends on the scenario. The worker thing is valid but the 1upt battle AI work quite well with Wesnoth especially if you have 5+ AIs controlling about 30 units each in most big finales with very little turn lag even if you have fog on(negates decision lag masked by watching unit moves). [...] Granted it doesn't have to manage cities but it does to have take cottages, build units, and fight from the best available terrain while obeying 1upt.

I admit I don't remember Wesnoth that well so maybe I'm underestimating the size and complexity of the scenarios. Did the AI really involve protecting its own territory and units long-term like the Civ AI has to, or wasn't Wesnoth's AI more about all-out attack without fear of long-term consequences, given its fixed scenario design?

I don't know what type of machine you're running on to get 5 minute turn lag with fog on that can also run Civ5.

What I meant with this was that I suspect you would get minute-long waiting times if you used exhaustive search algorithms, as you called the Wesnoth AI, for Civ.

As for map size... I'm not sure how many tiles the Civ5 maps are but the big maps average around 64*64 hex tiles on Wesnoth. I mean, look at other games like Advance Wars, those have good AIs, big complex maps, and have been around for ages. :-\

I don't know Advance Wars. Is it scenario-based with AIs that "only" need to do an all-out attack like I think Wesnoth does, or are long-term factors and protecting a growing empire involved? What I mean by this is that you cannot look at the 1upt combat AI isolated from the rest of the AI. Unit movement and job assignment is a lot more simple in scenario-based games.

-Kylearan

[Cyneheard]

The Wesnoth AI doesn't really care about protecting its troops above killing its opponents'.

[Birdman]

Well I have to say I suffered my first loss last night. Playing as Russia on King, cramped map led me to expand in a weird direction. When the Ottomans attacked a city-state I was allied to, I went on the offensive, mainly to get some juicy happiness that was lacking around my start. Most of my army, (not all of it, I am not that big a fool), was at the far end. That's when Rome decided to go for my throat. Over extended and paying too much maintenance just proved too tempting. After losing my first city, Siam decided to join in the fray. So it seems the AI isn't too stupid, just me in this case

[scooter]

I don't know Advance Wars. Is it scenario-based with AIs that "only" need to do an all-out attack like I think Wesnoth does, or are long-term factors and protecting a growing empire involved? What I mean by this is that you cannot look at the 1upt combat AI isolated from the rest of the AI. Unit movement and job assignment is a lot more simple in scenario-based games.

-Kylearan

Advance Wars is a strategy game that started on the GameBoy Advance and then moved on to the DS. Probably the most enjoyable hand-held game I've played - definitely the one I've played the most.

It's just a war game (no workers for instance) and tiles are square (you can't move diagonally), so it's not quite as complex as Civ, but the general tactics are remarkably similar. There are definitely other factors, basically this is how the game works:

You start with a set number of "cities" which is basically a one tile terrain feature. Each city gets you 100 gold/turn, so the economic side is basically - capture as many cities as possible to improve your military output. You capture cities with infantry, your cheapest and weakest units, so you have to protect them. You then build units our a base (land units), port (naval), or airport (air force), and try to eliminate your opponent.

All units can move more than once space (though how much depends on the unit, infantry can move 3 IIRC, light tanks can move 7, anti-aircraft 6, etc). There are also ranged units, which can't move and fire in the same turn, but are able to do both. Should be noted that all ranged units (including ships) have a minimum range, so that balances them quite nicely - if you get up close, they're dead.

The AI surpringly capable of handling all this, and rarely does really stupid things. Of course anyone good at strategy games can out-think the AI, but generally in the more difficult campaign levels and scenarios, the AI starts in a better position (starts with more cities so you're being out-produced for instance).

Also the game is 1UPT... Playing this game is what makes me awfully skeptical of the whole argument that the AI just can't do 1UPT. Sure it needs bonuses, but it's extremely reasonable to be able to program an AI that doesn't do some of the things that we've seen from Civ5 on a tactical level. Yes Civ5 is much more complex, but it's like they told us before release, the AI was programmed in 4 parts, and one of those parts was the unit tactics level, which apparently was done quite poorly.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

Last night I played a OCC on Immortal. Elizabeth was the closest A.I. to me and decided to plant a Settler on my border opposite to where she spawned. I rush bought all the good tiles in the direction she was moving the settler and then moved my Warrior to tile block the next best place to plant. She went to a crap location on the opposite side of my city, and then immediately declared war on me. Fair enough.

Over the next 30 turns, I probably killed 25 of her units, all of them more advanced than mine, with about 3 units. But what was most ridiculous was that while at war, her pathfinding sent 2-3 Settlers and 5-6 workers straight through my borders to get to her new city on my opposite side. I captured every single one and deleted them all. Eventually she offered me gold for peace and I obviously accepted.

This set me back pretty far, but I managed to get everything in a winnable position by the Renaissance era, but only by playing a Farmer's Gambit. Elizabeth eventually declared on me again and while I probably could've fought her off again, there is no way I could've won if I diverted that many resources again.

But I was just staggered at how dumb the A.I. is. I literally captured 8-10 Settlers and Workers in 30 turns, without even trying. SHE BROUGHT THEM TO ME!

[Galileo44]

I just thought that I'd come out of the lurker woodwork to offer my thoughts on Civ5 so far. (I played Civ4 quite a bit and was a Emperor (mostly) player by the end of BTS) I haven't played in some months but when 5 came out I decided to grab a copy and play.

My first game I decided to play Prince given that it was a new game and I hadn't played in a while. I was impressed at first by the AI play- Catherine who started near me actually was doing better than me in the beginning. However, she then declared war on me and despite taking one of my 3 cities, i proceeded to destroy her over the next 40 or so turns. From there it was just a mop up on the rest of my continent and then tech to astronomy to get domination. I was ahead by nearly an era of tech by the end. In this game i didn't find too much fault with the AI save military defending against a human. In fact, the AI vs. AI wars were quite interesting. On the other continent Greece took out half of America and all of Rome around the cannon era.

Then I decided to go up to King and just for fun do OCC culture as Siam. Here I was actually more impressed with the AI, and there were 2 AIs who really ran away with the game- Darius who took all of my continent except for me, and Caesar who took all of the other continent. The only major blunder was an attack on me by China. I had not 1 military unit at the time and was invaded by 3 Cho-ko-nu and 3 pikes. And i didn't die. I totally deserved to get killed there, but I bought pikes on that turn and the next and quickly built some more and China took peace a dozen turns later. The inability to kill me with superior number and a powerful unique unit was kind of sad. Darius, however, defeated China pretty quickly after I signed a pact with him and was attacked again.

The final consideration I had on the game was whether Darius should have attacked me during the hundred turns between when he cleared the continent and when i won by culture. He was vastly ahead in tech and could have killed me in a single turn. From an AI trying to win standpoint, the choice is clear. However, I had fought two wars along side him, open borders and resource trades the entire game, pacts of secrecy and cooperation with him. I think in this situation, I was glad that some vestige of the Civ4 AI held out with a refusal to betray his ally even in a winning position. To be crushed instantly would not have been fun.

However, I am somewhat concerned about the difficulty level. I'm not a particularly good player and I won an OCC on King as my second game. I hope that the higher levels offer more of a challenge throughout the whole game rather than just the artificial challenge of OCC vs full empire. I think that city states get more balanced on the higher levels- I wasn't even able to ally with one for a long period before being bought out. On the whole, I think the game is fun but not challenging on lower levels (the sentiment that seems to pervade this thread) particularly with respect to AI vs. human combat.

[novice]

Currently playing OCC as Siam. Growth isn't too bad but of course the city is a monster in every way. The cap on growth for me came when Monty took out all the maritime city states.

Space OCC seems pretty challenging, unless faking it by going the war path. Although a large capital can produce a lot of scientists for bulbing.

Anyway, the game above ended not long after the screenshot was taken. I was two turns from the final social policy, and Monty wisely dow'ed. He swarmed me with rifles and artillery, I was defending with four Mech Inf. I've now learned that defending cities in CivV is harder than in Civ4, as you can't just stack defenders into the city. The zone of control thing plus river crossing penalty can also be troublesome. When facing superior numbers, a tech edge isn't necessarily enough. Well done Monty.

This was on King difficulty.

[sunrise089]

In Civ4 loosing a city and re-capturing was really painful, as even if the city wasn't razed it lost all national wonders and most buildings.

Does anyone know what happens in Civ5?

[antisocialmunky]

The Wesnoth AI doesn't really care about protecting its troops above killing its opponents'.

It depends. It does keep to good terrain but that's about it. The main thing is that if you give it a decently high production rate and it becomes fairly challenging because while its not good, it isn't bad either. You usually have to let it gas itself out like CIV by chipping away at its resources.

Advance Wars is very similar as well. Heck, that AI has to worry about AI/Land/Sea units, ranged bombardment, taking cities, and resupplying units(okay its not that great at resupplying its aircraft but still).

Both pick decent army combos and unit types and can upgrade fairly decently. So like I said before and Scooter echoed, I don't think the SoD to 1upt is the main reason why the AI is screwed up. It just sounds like an excuse for having to rush the game out and nothing more.