Settler AI?

[spacebrick3]

Hi. So I'm new to Civ 6 (from Civ 5), and I was playing my first game on Settler. Now in Civ 5, on Settler, the AI is pathetic. It is usually eras behind you in tech, culture, units, etc. and has no chance of winning. But in my game, France almost won a cultural victory - it had like 80 out of 90 tourists or something, and was launching satellites when I finally won (science).
So my question is: Am I just bad at Civ 6, or is the settler AI better in Civ 6 than Civ 5?

[jcp011c2]

There are reports of Settler level being wildly out of control. I've experienced this myself. I was getting my butt handed to me game after game by pretty much all the victory conditions, relgion spam of 20-10 units, ridiculous armies by all the AI for the time period (science wise), etc. Go up a level. I have not looked back to settler since and have moved on upwards to other levels as well. Good luck!

[Der Dutchman]

Basically the Civ 6 AI is not "better" - The AI appears to simply cheat a lot more. You can tell by the lack of ideal placement of many of their districts.

The war AI is even worse than 5 (where it was also terrible).

Building AI is better than the war AI, but it still appears to have major gaps including:

1) Oversettling. I recognize that Civ 6 does allow for more city spam than 5, but I've seen a ton of AI settle in AWFUL locations, including on SNOW.

2) District Placement. Tends to be sub-optimal at best. I have had plenty of games where the AI built nearly no districts at all, possibly due to too many cities? Unclear.

3) Unable to forsee victory. Both of their own and yours, the AI rarely if ever acts to directly stop you from winning. Got a massive tourism market going? AI is happy to open borders for a tiny sum. Winning on science? Don't expect them to attack your space projects in mass or anything because... they won't.

On the flip side at high difficulties winning at religion is nearly impossible without conquest (with conquest anything is possible, the AI is too stupid to stop you from conquering them). I have never seen anyone win at religion at Immortal or Deity without conquest.

The mix of scaling costs of apostles and the apparent MASSIVE bonuses the AI gets to faith production makes winning a religious war a lesson in tedious frustration. Try it sometime! I recommend Russia or Arabia. You won't win. Remember: No conquest! ;)

Anyway, the way I see it the game is kinda fun once you stop conquering cities (or at least limit yourself to a couple total). The AI bonuses at least give you a chance to lose going for Science or Culture. Not much of a chance, but its better than watching the AI sacrifice its whole army against one city wall, one unit at a time.

[Azunai]

the AI handicaps in civ5 were a bit different. pretty sure the AI on lower/higher difficulties also got a penalty/bonus to growth and to happiness, on top of the modifiers for various production and science costs.

so civ5 settler AI had to pay more for everything they built and had to spend more research (similar to the modifiers in civ 6), but they *also* had to deal with cities that grow slower and stay smaller (due to lowered happiness).

likewise, civ5 higher level AI got discounts to all production and to all research and also had cities that grow faster and can grow larger.

the civ6 difficulty settings are bit different. AI simply gets a penalty/bonus to most yields (except food), but the difficulty doesn't affect housing or amenities.

to compensate (more or less), the higher levels get more extra starting units than in civ5. in civ 6, they get 1 extra settler at emperor/immortal, 2 settlers at deity; plus some other units (builders, warriors). in civ 5, they only got 1 extra settler on deity plus some lesser units (i think a free worker and 1-2 units). they only got a free worker and some units on the other high level starts.

[terry]

Originally posted by spacebrick3:

Hi. So I'm new to Civ 6 (from Civ 5), and I was playing my first game on Settler. Now in Civ 5, on Settler, the AI is pathetic. It is usually eras behind you in tech, culture, units, etc. and has no chance of winning. But in my game, France almost won a cultural victory - it had like 80 out of 90 tourists or something, and was launching satellites when I finally won (science).
So my question is: Am I just bad at Civ 6, or is the settler AI better in Civ 6 than Civ 5?

There is a bit of learning curve for 6 if you want to explore the entire game. If you are playing it like you did 5 then you are going to have a rough time with science and cultural victories. You probably just needed more cities and districts.

[MaxDoomSWE]

Refund the game if you can. At its present state its a disgrace. Buy Civ 5 instead if you havent already.