Considering buying; how's the AI in this?

[BrutalGlory]

I'll be blunt: the Civ 6 AI is crap and as someone who has been playing Civ since the first game I won't be buying Civ 7 because of it. The Ai on Civ 6 was *so* bad that even on the Deity (hardest) difficulty it was barely comparable to warlord (one step before normal). Does the AI actually build units in this? Does it try and kill you? Is it smart enough to build an large army, defend itself, and not bankrupt itself every turn like the Civ 6 AI?

I'm honestly just looking for a challenge, and i don't care if the AI has massive cheats or not. As long as the AI can really lay down an asswhooping i'd be all for buying the game.

[Sunyata]

Ai is best in the biz, it doesnt cheat, but on higher difficulties will start with advantages like more cities from the start. All that is of course customizable in the game settings. It really is fun, AI is very competent, you should give it a try. Civ doesnt hold a candle to it.

[Siontific]

The game is quite challenging

[rennodm]

you should find this AI errhh...definitely "challenging"

[Gregorovitch]

Old World AI, especially the military AI, is probably the best in any 4X game. The military AI is utterly ruthless and extremely clever. It's not A tier, nor even S tier, its Ooh Err Missus tier.

[Twelvefield]

As far as I know, the only AI that's cleverer is the one that's taking over the world right now.

Yes, the AI understands every one of the game's rules and plays by them without cheating. Your human start position is normally worse than the AI start, but you can change that in Options if you prefer.

The AI will scout your territory and easily identify any weaknesses you have. It will build the correct units and deploy them to maximum advantage using terrain and combined-arms composition. Orders are a resource that defines how your units can move. The AI completely understands this mechanic and will use it at every opportunity to lay traps for you if you are strong, or ambush you if you are weak.

It creates kill zones, it feints, it flanks, and it understands naval action including forming proper beachheads. It fully comprehends its strength versus the strength of every Dynasty it has information for. It will attack when you are weak, and lead you on when you are strong, probing for a weak point.

If you play like this is Civ, you will die, no exception. The AI does not play like Civ at all. It understands the economy, and it understands diplomacy, science, and religion. It's not as dynamic as a human player, but it is fully capable and it will school you in the art of war without pity or mercy until you dial it down yourself.

[tiamats4esgares]

Let's put it this way. As somebody who can easily win games against the AI in Civ 5 and Civ 6 on Deity (hardest difficulty level), I have yet to win a game of Old World on "The Glorious"....the THIRD highest difficulty level. Because of how smart the AI is, mainly.

[IceMatrix]

Originally posted by Gregorovitch:

Old World AI, especially the military AI, is probably the best in any 4X game. The military AI is utterly ruthless and extremely clever. It's not A tier, nor even S tier, its Ooh Err Missus tier.

I think it's the best. Have played lots of 4x games.

[4X-Fan]

Agreeing with the others here - an absolutely outstanding AI, which gives me already a headache on a fair level. To answer the OP's questions: It will have a healthy economy, it will build and sustain a massive army and it use that army in a smart way. You even have a "ruthless AI" setting which will ensure that the AI doesn't spare you for roleplay/diplomatical reasons.

[herr_dechse]

Surprisingly good.

[ugurline]

I can't say the price tag is justified for this game. It has the popular money hungry DLC policy, 10 bucks for tiny bit of improvements.

And for AI, people keep praising it but let me put it this way, if you like your enemy magically pop up 5 spearmen out of thin air or travel from across the map for the sake of being 'challenging' go ahead, you're gonna like it.

[jotwebe]

The base game is fine though without DLCs, if you don't want them, don't buy them. Anytime someone asks the "what DLCs do I need" question, I tell them none, just get some when you've played the game a 100 hours or so and want to spice things up.

If you hate getting surprised by the AI abusing the forced march system for all it's worth, there are settings where you can limit them to twice normal movement or turn off that mechanic.

[BrutalGlory]

Thanks for all the feedback, i'll take it under advisement!

[tiamats4esgares]

Originally posted by ugurline:

I can't say the price tag is justified for this game. It has the popular money hungry DLC policy, 10 bucks for tiny bit of improvements.

And for AI, people keep praising it but let me put it this way, if you like your enemy magically pop up 5 spearmen out of thin air or travel from across the map for the sake of being 'challenging' go ahead, you're gonna like it.

You conveniently have your games hidden. I bet you buy into the Civ franchise. It's MUCH worse, especially Civ 7, with multiple DLC coming AT LAUNCH and already planned. You can't even buy the game at launch for $70 and get everything that's there at launch. It's effing ridiculous.

Old World is a fun and original game that's well worth the price. While I don't like the orders system in general, it's not bad enough to make the game bad. And as jotwebe said, you can disable forced marching if need be (I've never played that way and I'm fine).

Originally posted by BrutalGlory:

Thanks for all the feedback, i'll take it under advisement!

Let us know how you like it! ;)

[IceMatrix]

Originally posted by ugurline:

I can't say the price tag is justified for this game. It has the popular money hungry DLC policy, 10 bucks for tiny bit of improvements.

And for AI, people keep praising it but let me put it this way, if you like your enemy magically pop up 5 spearmen out of thin air or travel from across the map for the sake of being 'challenging' go ahead, you're gonna like it.

Turn on Double Fatigue setting for army marches. No more travel across the map. Much more realistic. I always play with this setting.
The settings for AI development give an average number of cities, example you give it established average 3 cities and 3 techs. These are not necessarily evenly distributed. Some Kingdom might have 5 cities or 6 depending on how many kingdoms you set it to. It's an average.
I have definitely had games where I get ♥♥♥♥ on by the RNG and one nation steamrolled everyone rapidly. It happens. But once recognized you can always just start a new game cause obviously one kingdom got an extremely unfair advantage. But that is a rare case in my experience. Once every 10 games maybe. I also don't reroll map starts. I just play whatever map comes up.

[The Gray Fox]

Originally posted by ugurline:

I can't say the price tag is justified for this game. It has the popular money hungry DLC policy, 10 bucks for tiny bit of improvements.

And for AI, people keep praising it but let me put it this way, if you like your enemy magically pop up 5 spearmen out of thin air or travel from across the map for the sake of being 'challenging' go ahead, you're gonna like it.

You being bad at and not understanding the game doesn't mean the AI is spawning units "out of thin air". As for your complaints about forced march, you can literally toggle a setting in the options to double fatigue and make traveling across the entire map impossible.