How is the Combat/war AI?

[skielb]

Hi there, I have a questions to those who actually played Civ7 during the last days more extensively.

In general I liked Civ 6, but the incapability of the AI to handle/build units made every war like cheating. You want a city, you take it. Never a feeling of panic when someone declares war on you because you knew there is not much to come (I really had a sense of panic the last time with the stacks of doom in Civ4, but also 5 was better here than 6...). This really destroyed the fun for me after a while and I think it never really got improved.

What is your experience in Civ7? Do you get a sense of danger when you are attacked? Have you lost wars? Can the AI take cities? Use airplanes somehow effectively? Take advantage from the new commander system?

I am curious to know. In all the noise here I have not seen much about this topic.

[Mentally Unstable]

Air combat still seems to be total miss.

[Ghoust]

Just like in Civ 6 the AI doesnt really use its army to its full potential... also, you can still do all kinds of shenanigans with the AI such as baiting them into bad positioning... But overall its just like civ 6... out of 5 AIs in your match, 1 or 2 will give you trouble when it comes to overall yields. I recommend playing immortal or deity... but remember that the AI gets some crazy bonuses just like in civ 6. Also, just because the AI is kinda dumbish it doesnt mean you will win every war... if you attack a deity AI full of Immortals (Persia) carelessly there is chance you will lose hard and therefore cant recover in case they counter attack which they likely will. Same Civ 6 mentality if you played Deity.

Have Fun!

[martinolund]

The AI Combat is much to be desired, like in all Civ games so far but there is a mod that makes it a bit more interesting and you can find it here: https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/artificially-intelligent-ai-mod.31881/

[Lateratsu]

Ia is really bad but it is not the worst in this game

[katzenkrimis]

Originally posted by skielb:

Do you get a sense of danger when you are attacked?

Have you lost wars? Can the AI take cities?

Use airplanes somehow effectively? Take advantage from the new commander system?

I play exclusively as a military player but the game crashes during Modern Age transition, so I can't speak to air combat.

They will certainly take your cities if you leave them unprotected, similar to Company of Heroes. The AI goes where you are not, so you'll need walls and a unit left behind just in case they decide to strike.

However, the AI tends to spam the same unit. It's not combined arms. They'll send loads of cavalry and a couple of archers or melee units at you. It's not balanced.

[skielb]

Thank you all for the feedback. Tbh, I hoped for some more positive experiences.
On the highest difficulties in Civ6, the only chance, at least for me, against the AI boni was to abuse the weakness of the combat behavior before they were too far ahead. I had more fun playing peacefully (only defend close to your territory, never attack), but I could only do this up to emperor difficulty and this basically takes away one X of the 4.
Let's see what will be improved in official patches later and what modders can do. Good to see that the first ones already started to work on it!

[JDPUK]

Originally posted by skielb:

Hi there, I have a questions to those who actually played Civ7 during the last days more extensively.

In general I liked Civ 6, but the incapability of the AI to handle/build units made every war like cheating. You want a city, you take it. Never a feeling of panic when someone declares war on you because you knew there is not much to come (I really had a sense of panic the last time with the stacks of doom in Civ4, but also 5 was better here than 6...). This really destroyed the fun for me after a while and I think it never really got improved.

What is your experience in Civ7? Do you get a sense of danger when you are attacked? Have you lost wars? Can the AI take cities? Use airplanes somehow effectively? Take advantage from the new commander system?

I am curious to know. In all the noise here I have not seen much about this topic.

I find the combat to be the best in the series, by far, with the commanders, ground, naval and air, it gives you a ton of flexibility, you're fighting with armies vice units and the fact that each of the civilizations look very unique and distinct helps a lot as well.

[Groo the one]

Originally posted by JDPUK:

I find the combat to be the best in the series, by far, with the commanders, ground, naval and air, it gives you a ton of flexibility, you're fighting with armies vice units and the fact that each of the civilizations look very unique and distinct helps a lot as well.

The question was about how the AI is in combat/wars...

[skielb]

Yes, how good can the AI handle the combat. Is the commander system helping to make it more challenging (e.g. since they pack more units together now instead of coming one by one) or is the AI doing stupid things with their commanders that makes it even easier to take their armies out?

[PhalseDemeise]

do they use the commander, yes. the ground one atleast. they'll fill it up and deploy troops. sometimes unnecessarily repacking them. they don't withdraw them though, they'll move an empty commander right next to you for an easy kill.

it handles the fodder troops like raging barbarians, just throwing them at you unstrategically until they hit a production/gold wall. real zapp brannigan tactics here.

they might pull a troop back to heal, that's about as smartest they do.

probably the dumbest thing they do is avoid taking unprotected cities. you can move your defender off the city if the next attack will kill it, let it die on not the city center, and the ai will just avoid the city like it was world war z and you got cancer

[Martin]

I think for what you need it to be, the Ai is amazing really, I've nearly lost the game because the ai is so good. It waits for reinforcements, it hides, it flanks and sneaks around. Sometimes it does weird stuff, like leave it's own city undefended.. or jump into the water right in front of my ships.

All entertainment value i think.

[Flash]

Combat AI is ok.
Some folks have complained about cheats for AIs where they built airports possibly long before they had the tech for it and so had no airplanes.
But as far as i am concerned,

1. Combat AI uses some tactics.

2. There is constant battle since AI right now love to hate you quickly for every reason

3. They go back to heal once wounded enough

4. They form armies/naval armies so u need to make sure ur seeing a group and not individual squads

5. Ive not had issues facing off with constant armies trying to battle me.. but not so much navy combat.. it might be a bug

6. AI may at times capture a city when ur busy elsewhere. Quick and decisive to the point that I sometimes doubt if I can reverse the situation. You may have to let them have a city etc. until u can get an army of troops backing u..

Hope this helps

[Martin]

I've seen the ai have wonders it couldn't possible build as they're locked behind age advances and they seem to get research tech 1-2 items at at time, one second I'm wrecking them, the next they're wrecking me. It reminds me of that trick where you research everything to 1 turn away, to make you look weak, then when attacked you just spend 3-4 turns gaining massive advancements.

In my current game the barbs wiped out the romans who had 3 towns. And I just incited the barb camp to attack ashoka and his Maurya and instead they came and attacked me. That's karma in action.

[Rhapsody]

Better than Civ VI or V, especially when it's playing defensively (to surprise of none?). I've seen some light use of air units but often I've been ahead enough that it's not been much of a factor yet.

Naval warfare is pretty great, especially if the AI is playing Japan for the Mikasa spam lol.

[Salinga]

If you want a somewhat good AI in a Civ Game you play Civ 4 or Civ 5 Vox Populi.