So ive played about 170 hours on civ 6 so far, but have yet to finish a game. My first couple of games were the typical "well ive won, and theres no point in clicking through 40 more turns." King was way too easy, so I bump up to emperor, lag behind for a while, but then after 100 turns im obviously going to win. Then the same thing on immortal. I personally am not a super competitive player, I play to create a story of my civilization. For example, in civ 5 I loved getting enough GPT to be able to fund wars against the next biggest power, or using city states for a sort of "cold war." Anyways, sorry for the rant but its killed me to see that its all gone in this game. In my last 3 games I was trying to do something similar, giving whoever is at war with the biggest power (usually kongo) like 8-10k gold along with whatever strat resources they needed, but nothing happened. Try funding the largest power to have him take over the world (like genjis khan and shaka zulu did in V) and nothing happened. Nobody EVER takes cities which is extremely frustrating, so I decided to run a test. I set up a game on 6 leaf clover, deity, abundant resources, balanced start, start in modern era, domination victory only. Starting in the modern era eliminates religion so the AI cant even devote resources to it (i assume that the AI doesn't know when certain victory conditions are disabled.) I get 4 decent cities and just produce units to line my border with an impenetrable defense. Produce some spies and scouts, get open borders with everyone and place the spies and scouts so I can see everything happening in all possible battleground zones. Here's what my conclusions are after about 200 turns.
The AI will not attack a unit unless it has a chance to kill it that turn. this is why they rarely kill your units, even on deity. Barbarians do not have this mechanic which is why they seem to have a much better AI and seem to be more difficult, even when you have +5 combat strength.
The algorithms used for bombard units are absolutely useless. They do not know that they can't fire after moving so they try to move, realize they cant fire, then pillage. Repeat until dead. In the rare occasion that they don't move, i've only seen them fire on units.
Bombard units and normal units do not communicate (in coding terms) with the other units that are trying to take the city. This is why cities are only taken in the classical/medieval era due to battering rams and siege towers. Say we have 12 mamluks and a siege tower (which i've seen take a city of mine.) They "know" that with the tower/ram they will do X amount of damage per turn and receive X damage, and therefore can take the city in X amount of attacks. If the ratio meets some value requirement, then they will take the city. The problem is that along with bombard units not knowing they cant move and attack, they do not know that their job is to destroy the walls. Without something to destroy the walls, normal units calculate their damage to themselves and to the city and the attacks/units required to take the city. The ratio does not meet the requirement so they never try.
Units value self-preservation too much. This is why in the late game, we see 20+ helicopters/tanks looking like they are preparing for an invasion, but only seem to line up against each other.
The AI values short term gains over long term ones. This is why we see them pillaging everything to receive the loot rather than taking the city.
The AI is completely incompetent with air units, and i question whether or not air units actually have any algorithm at all.
Ranged sea units seem to be completely lacking an appropriate algorithm. They act more like bombard units rather than ranged units, and seem to do absolutely nothing.
The AI seems to declare war with the purpose of killing units and pillaging rather than wanting to take a city.
The AI values resources/greatworks/gold over cities, and does not seem to compare a cities science/gold/culture output to the long term value of trades.
So whats my solution? Firaxis, please please PLEASE use the same mechanics and algorithms used in civ V until you are able to fix these problems. If need be, use the same movement cost system, bombard units needing to set up, and other things that allowed games in civ V to actually be fun. Let me know what you guys think.
Edit: I did another test that had some rather disheartening results. So me and a friend started a lan game shortly after the patch that went on for quite a while. It was a large pangea map with 6 other AI civs. We didnt go to war with each other until about 2020 AD. We just conquered all of the other civs, each holding about half of the map split down the middle. We were amassing huge armies of every unit, about 16 airstrips and aerodomes a peice full of bombers and fighters behind our walls of tanks, about 20 nukes and thermonukes each with silos and subs in place to hit every city and were just waiting for someone to fire the first shot. We decided that we'd go to war the next day so i saved. We had a great skirmish for a few tirns but we both totally forgot about mobile sams so needless to say nobody won, we just nuked the hell out of each other. After i posted this I was curious as too what the AI would do. I loaded our last save, kicked him to make his player AI and started it up. Declared war and launched one nuke at a city and then did nothing for 15 turns. The AI attacked some of my land units with theirs but did not use a single fighter or bomber and did not launch a single nuke back. So i launched two more nukes and did some air attacks and waited..... nothing. So i bought mobile sams in every city and saved. I wanted to see if mobile sams intercepted nukes so i switched players and loaded again. It turns out that missle cruisers/mobile sams do not intercept nukes OR thermonukes launched from subs, silos, or jet bombers. Tried nuking from the other side and pulled all troops back to expose my cities. Still, no nukes, air attacks, or cities captured. I almost wish I never figured this out because single player is basically ruined for me.
https://www.reddit.com/r/civ/comments/5f...gured_out/
The AI will not attack a unit unless it has a chance to kill it that turn. this is why they rarely kill your units, even on deity. Barbarians do not have this mechanic which is why they seem to have a much better AI and seem to be more difficult, even when you have +5 combat strength.
The algorithms used for bombard units are absolutely useless. They do not know that they can't fire after moving so they try to move, realize they cant fire, then pillage. Repeat until dead. In the rare occasion that they don't move, i've only seen them fire on units.
Bombard units and normal units do not communicate (in coding terms) with the other units that are trying to take the city. This is why cities are only taken in the classical/medieval era due to battering rams and siege towers. Say we have 12 mamluks and a siege tower (which i've seen take a city of mine.) They "know" that with the tower/ram they will do X amount of damage per turn and receive X damage, and therefore can take the city in X amount of attacks. If the ratio meets some value requirement, then they will take the city. The problem is that along with bombard units not knowing they cant move and attack, they do not know that their job is to destroy the walls. Without something to destroy the walls, normal units calculate their damage to themselves and to the city and the attacks/units required to take the city. The ratio does not meet the requirement so they never try.
Units value self-preservation too much. This is why in the late game, we see 20+ helicopters/tanks looking like they are preparing for an invasion, but only seem to line up against each other.
The AI values short term gains over long term ones. This is why we see them pillaging everything to receive the loot rather than taking the city.
The AI is completely incompetent with air units, and i question whether or not air units actually have any algorithm at all.
Ranged sea units seem to be completely lacking an appropriate algorithm. They act more like bombard units rather than ranged units, and seem to do absolutely nothing.
The AI seems to declare war with the purpose of killing units and pillaging rather than wanting to take a city.
The AI values resources/greatworks/gold over cities, and does not seem to compare a cities science/gold/culture output to the long term value of trades.
So whats my solution? Firaxis, please please PLEASE use the same mechanics and algorithms used in civ V until you are able to fix these problems. If need be, use the same movement cost system, bombard units needing to set up, and other things that allowed games in civ V to actually be fun. Let me know what you guys think.
Edit: I did another test that had some rather disheartening results. So me and a friend started a lan game shortly after the patch that went on for quite a while. It was a large pangea map with 6 other AI civs. We didnt go to war with each other until about 2020 AD. We just conquered all of the other civs, each holding about half of the map split down the middle. We were amassing huge armies of every unit, about 16 airstrips and aerodomes a peice full of bombers and fighters behind our walls of tanks, about 20 nukes and thermonukes each with silos and subs in place to hit every city and were just waiting for someone to fire the first shot. We decided that we'd go to war the next day so i saved. We had a great skirmish for a few tirns but we both totally forgot about mobile sams so needless to say nobody won, we just nuked the hell out of each other. After i posted this I was curious as too what the AI would do. I loaded our last save, kicked him to make his player AI and started it up. Declared war and launched one nuke at a city and then did nothing for 15 turns. The AI attacked some of my land units with theirs but did not use a single fighter or bomber and did not launch a single nuke back. So i launched two more nukes and did some air attacks and waited..... nothing. So i bought mobile sams in every city and saved. I wanted to see if mobile sams intercepted nukes so i switched players and loaded again. It turns out that missle cruisers/mobile sams do not intercept nukes OR thermonukes launched from subs, silos, or jet bombers. Tried nuking from the other side and pulled all troops back to expose my cities. Still, no nukes, air attacks, or cities captured. I almost wish I never figured this out because single player is basically ruined for me.
https://www.reddit.com/r/civ/comments/5f...gured_out/
