Can the AI even win domination?

[rasx]

Playing on the normal difficulty where no one gets an unfair advantage, can the AI win domination at all? Can they take cities from you? I want to get back to playing Civ 6 but I didn't feel the same challenge as I did in 5. Civ 5 I actually felt threatened militarily if I wasn't aggressive myself, and AI could easily beat me in military conflict from time to time.

[cerberusiv]

Only if you play incredibly badly. Even then it would take one AI to snowball massively. I would not say it could not happen but it is rather like monkeys, typewriters and the complete works of Shakespeare. Yes, you will almost certainly get a particular result eventually, but it could take several million years.

[Despiser]

Try immortal. The ai is far too friendly. Diplomacy victory is even easier than domination for the player, but at least it will challenge you occasionally.

[Elliott]

The AI can only make significant conquests in the early game before walls start going up. Even full warmonger civs seem unable to wipe out neighbours let alone go for world conquest. By mid game borders will very rarely shift making for a very static and dull world.

[The Bored Chairman]

The AI isn't very smart, they have 0 preservation and will throw units at you in suicidal charges. I once had a single Pikeman fend off a horde of Knights simply by fortifying a chokepoint across a river and they just killed themselves attacking me.

5 had better combat awareness, hopefully they fix the AI's tactics at some point.

They also have an annoying scripting that causes them to spam the strongest affordable unit, so it's not uncommon to see Catapult spam when they first make their presence known, despite your army having promoted Horsemen who delete them when they show up.

[Cavalier_Piggy]

Level 5 difficulty isn't fair to the AI though. They really need those bonuses! :)

[The Bored Chairman]

Originally posted by Lucky Paw:

Level 5 difficulty isn't fair to the AI though. They really need those bonuses! :)

Needing those bonuses doesn't make the game better. It creates the illusion of difficulty.

[rasx]

Originally posted by Elliott:

The AI can only make significant conquests in the early game before walls start going up. Even full warmonger civs seem unable to wipe out neighbours let alone go for world conquest. By mid game borders will very rarely shift making for a very static and dull world.

I'm playing peaceful/cultural France right now, and was invaded by 2 big powers and barely a scratch on my city with little defense. It does seem like the AI will send units individually rather than as a group. They have the numbers, but unlike Civ 5, they only send in 1 unit at a time. I'm unsure if it's hard or not to fix that.

[rasx]

Originally posted by The Bored Chairman:

Originally posted by Lucky Paw:

Level 5 difficulty isn't fair to the AI though. They really need those bonuses! :)

Needing those bonuses doesn't make the game better. It creates the illusion of difficulty.

Exactly, that's why I never play on higher difficulties if it unfairly helps the AI.

[rasx]

Originally posted by The Bored Chairman:

The AI isn't very smart, they have 0 preservation and will throw units at you in suicidal charges. I once had a single Pikeman fend off a horde of Knights simply by fortifying a chokepoint across a river and they just killed themselves attacking me.

5 had better combat awareness, hopefully they fix the AI's tactics at some point.

They also have an annoying scripting that causes them to spam the strongest affordable unit, so it's not uncommon to see Catapult spam when they first make their presence known, despite your army having promoted Horsemen who delete them when they show up.

Agreed, in Civ 5 some civs could snowball and there would be 0 chance for me to defeat them. I am rarely seeing civs wipe out others in 6.

[The Bored Chairman]

Originally posted by rasx:

Originally posted by The Bored Chairman:

The AI isn't very smart, they have 0 preservation and will throw units at you in suicidal charges. I once had a single Pikeman fend off a horde of Knights simply by fortifying a chokepoint across a river and they just killed themselves attacking me.

5 had better combat awareness, hopefully they fix the AI's tactics at some point.

They also have an annoying scripting that causes them to spam the strongest affordable unit, so it's not uncommon to see Catapult spam when they first make their presence known, despite your army having promoted Horsemen who delete them when they show up.

Agreed, in Civ 5 some civs could snowball and there would be 0 chance for me to defeat them. I am rarely seeing civs wipe out others in 6.

I've only ever seen Mongolia totally KO a civ, and that's likely due to the fact that they spam Cavalry, making unit separating a non-issue and the enemy likely isn't intelligent enough to build Anti-Cav units. In fact, when on the defensive, AIs tend to spam Archers, despite the fact that both Heavy Cav and Infantry gain a defensive buff with a promotion and you can only hide archers in two spots (City Center and Encampment if you build one), which usually just ends up a wasted unit.

[rasx]

Originally posted by The Bored Chairman:

Originally posted by rasx:

Agreed, in Civ 5 some civs could snowball and there would be 0 chance for me to defeat them. I am rarely seeing civs wipe out others in 6.

I've only ever seen Mongolia totally KO a civ, and that's likely due to the fact that they spam Cavalry, making unit separating a non-issue and the enemy likely isn't intelligent enough to build Anti-Cav units. In fact, when on the defensive, AIs tend to spam Archers, despite the fact that both Heavy Cav and Infantry gain a defensive buff with a promotion and you can only hide archers in two spots (City Center and Encampment if you build one), which usually just ends up a wasted unit.

I only have vanilla, do Rise and Fall and Gathering Storm better the AI combat?

[The Bored Chairman]

Originally posted by rasx:

Originally posted by The Bored Chairman:

I've only ever seen Mongolia totally KO a civ, and that's likely due to the fact that they spam Cavalry, making unit separating a non-issue and the enemy likely isn't intelligent enough to build Anti-Cav units. In fact, when on the defensive, AIs tend to spam Archers, despite the fact that both Heavy Cav and Infantry gain a defensive buff with a promotion and you can only hide archers in two spots (City Center and Encampment if you build one), which usually just ends up a wasted unit.

I only have vanilla, do Rise and Fall and Gathering Storm better the AI combat?

Not really, they fix unit relevancy issues that always plagues Vanilla Civ games, but the AI doesn't get smarter.