AI has never declared war on me...

[Amoc]

So I bought Civ 5 when it originally came out and gave up on it VERY quickly (within a couple of play sessions), considering it by far the worst installment of the series thus far. I decided to give it a try with all of the expansions and see if it's improved and...well not really.

To be fair, it runs a lot better than it did on release (enemy turns run much faster etc...), so they clearly worked that out, but the AI is still abysmal and I haven't been able to get a challenge out of the game on any setting thus far.

I played my first game on Prince difficulty and by the ren. era I was 2-3 times stronger than the next closest opponent and not once did anyone declare war on me or try anything against me. Okay, maybe that was too easy.

King difficulty. I guess the AI gets some bonuses at this point so I hoped that would be more of a challenge. This time, I couldn't out-tech and out-build the opponent, and actually had to pick and choose my Wonders. China (closest neighbour) actually managed to out-tech me and were similar in size. This annoyed me so I built up around 10 units and annexed his capital and next biggest city with next to no resistance. China had some frigates defending Bejing, but aside from 1-2 crossbowmen had absolutely nothing to contest my 12-15 musketeer/cannon/lancer offense. After winning, I got a few denunciations (*yawn*) but nobody declared war and I was now the uncontested world superpower.

Okay...maybe Emperor.

I have the hang of the economy and managing happiness etc now, so my progress has been much quicker this game. I built only enough military to clear out barbarians and focused on securing luxuries and resources quickly to promote expansion. In order to maybe give the AI a hand I kept my army woefuly inadequate (near the bottom of the demographic rankings) and just plodded along with my empire. By the industrial age, I had not fought a single war, had not been threatened, denounced, or interacted with in any way aside from trade after 800 turns. I have numerous opponents nearby and while they occasionally fight skirmishes amongst themselves, I've yet to have anyone declare war on me in THREE 6-800 turn games.

Why is this AI so abysmally bad!? Why is it that franchises like CIvilization or Total War seem to go BACKWARDS in terms of AI capability? Playing Civ 5 is about as exciting as watching paint dry from what I've experienced thus far.

[Alaskan Catfish Hike]

I find it interesting that you haven't won once; maybe it was from a mod that you installed but it is worth noting.

[egg fu]

Not trying to sound like a smart guy but playing on Immortal or Diety is very much harder, the A.I focuses like 5x more on military on Immortal, beleive me i tested it between Emperor and Immortal. They are very threatning because they have larger armys, i got declared war on by Carthage in the B.C's i believe, very very fun war. :D

[Amoc]

Originally posted by Tessa K. Pegram:

I find it interesting that you haven't won once; maybe it was from a mod that you installed but it is worth noting.

When I'm already 2x as strong as the next closest two enemies and leaps ahead in tech, there's no point in finishing the game out, especially when it's getting boring. I've been playing these games for a long time, and the big advantage invariably snowballs. It's not fun fighting wars where your military units are an era ahead of your opponents. Maybe it is for you. I don't know. As for mods, the only one I have installed is a cosmetic one. R.E.D something or other, to make units look unique for each civ.

[Amoc]

Originally posted by OneSmallChimp:

Not trying to sound like a smart guy but playing on Immortal or Diety is very much harder, the A.I focuses like 5x more on military on Immortal, beleive me i tested it between Emperor and Immortal. They are very threatning because they have larger armys, i got declared war on by Carthage in the B.C's i believe, very very fun war. :D

The difficulty levels merely give the AI big economic/scientific production advantages. If what you're saying is true, that must mean that the AI is scripted to be passive unless they have a big numerical advantage over their prospective enemy. When brutal AI cheese is the only way you can make your AI even relevant, that's pretty sad, but it might be worth trying at least. Right now I feel like I wasted $50.

[Ninjabutter]

Meanwhile, I have a hard time getting through a game without the AI declaring war on me. Especially Catherine, she can just go straight to hell.

Originally posted by PuntCuncher:

So I bought Civ 5 when it originally came out and gave up on it VERY quickly (within a couple of play sessions), considering it by far the worst installment of the series thus far.

I remember feeling that way on Civ 3's release.

[Amoc]

Civ 3 wasn't very good either. At least they patched it to be functional eventually. Even so, it's still a lot better than this junk.

[Ninjabutter]

Originally posted by PuntCuncher:

The difficulty levels merely give the AI big economic/scientific production advantages. If what you're saying is true, that must mean that the AI is scripted to be passive unless they have a big numerical advantage over their prospective enemy.

That actually is part of it, though it's less numerical and more based on the relative strength of the units. The AI is more likely to declare war on your if it's militarily stronger than you are. It's not that cranking up the difficulty directly makes the AI more likely to go to war with you, but rather that the AI's bonuses on higher levels make them more likely to have a stronger military than you, which then indirectly makes them more likely to seek war.

[The Changeling]

I do see the qualms you have with the AI. Regardless of the ridiculous advantages they are given, they still fight extremely poorly. I've held off industrial era units using Cho-Ku-Nos and some citadels. If you want your games to be a little less sane, try turning on random personalities. Makes the AI a little less predictable. Can't say it makes them any more intelligent (in fact, they might even be reckless) or any less easy to manipulate, but whatever.

Also, have you ever had Rome/Aztecs/Huns as one of your neighbors?

Have you ever tried intentionally pis.sing the AI off (Stop spying on me, don't settle near me, etc.)?

Edit: In addition, the meager attempt the AI makes at warfare only gives your units experience, making it even harder for them to keep up. I very rarely suffer casualties in my wars against the largely incapable AI. Especially in late game combat, when my elite units easily outclass anything the AI might throw at me.

[Ninjabutter]

Originally posted by The Changeling:

Edit: In addition, the meager attempt the AI makes at warfare only gives your units experience, making it even harder for them to keep up. I very rarely suffer casualties in my wars against the largely incapable AI. Especially in late game combat, when my elite units easily outclass anything the AI might throw at me.

Yeah, it gets insane. In my last multiplayer match, I had an ally with a Level 7 Keshik - literally, a single unit - that was single-handedly tearing down cities because it had 3 range and two attacks per turn. It'd just hammer a city down and then he'd send a Scout in to capture and raze it, then move on. That one Keshik destroyed a civilization.

[The Changeling]

Keshiks just insane in general. That EXP boost is super potent. I remember getting Keshiks from a city state while playing as the Zulus. "Hey. Now I know what I'm going to do. Murder everything until I can get a Cavalry with three attacks."

[Ninjabutter]

Haha, yeah, that's what happened to him; he was playing as an entirely different civ but had a city-state gifting him Keshiks in tribute. He had an entire army of them at one point.

My first game as the Mongols, Sweden rolled up to my door with an army of nearly 20 units and declared war on me. I sent five Keshiks down and massacred them without losing a unit in return, then counter-attacked and wiped them off the map. I couldn't decide whether they were as overpowered as they seemed or I just got lucky.

[ImperatorTiberius]

And even on prince and king, I have experienced a pretty agressive Gandhi. Instead of going on a hunger strikes, he tends to nuke his neighbours. With a friend I just started our first multiplayer game in civ5 so far, king difficulty. He got threathened quite quickly and got war declared upon him eventually by gandhi as well.

I'm in the middle of a really intense war vs Korea, even though I outsize him a few times (yes, I am still sluggish he out-techs me a little bit... didn't like civ5 before the expansions so didnt play), he brought countless men to battle, slain at least 5 infantry and a landship so far. He also brought diversity, a lot of infantry and artillery but also anti-air, ironclads, latest cavalry and machine guns. Even though he only seems to have 3 or 4 cities he brought at least 15 units to battle so far.

I know what you mean about the game being a weird civ game, but it's not the ai's fault like ninjabutter described. It's the rules of the game. For instance the penalties on expansion tell the ai's it's less logical to expand further at some points. This causes small empires and empty spaces in some games. I also miss the sliders, I miss more information if I wanted to have more, I miss polution/sickness and maybe the ai misses all of this too.

Another thing I don't like in most games of civ5 I played was the one-unit per tile thing. Why not two units per tile? Idk if there's a mod, but I think I would love to try. And perhaps if mods alter the behavior of the ai's because the rules allowes them more, things can be solved easily. Haven't gotten a mod to work for myself though...

And haven't won a game yet according to Tessa? It is worth noting.

[The Changeling]

Keshiks can easily get 3, maybe four promotions in the average war. The longer war drags on, the more and more I pity the aggressor. Speaking of ridiculous, I once acquired a Khan as Sweden. Caroleans with medic promotions + Khan + incredibly lucky Fountain of youth = GG. Once in a lifetime set-up, but man. No stopping them once they get rolling

[Amoc]

Originally posted by ImperatorTiberius:

And haven't won a game yet according to Tessa? It is worth noting.

Why is it worth noting? I know I would 100% certainly win the game if I continued playing, as I do whatever I want, capture any city, and expand anywhere I want without meaningful opposition. I'm so far ahead of my opponents that it's no longer interesting to play the game out.

From what little I've read here, it hardly seems like my experience is unusual.

[ImperatorTiberius]

True, but I do like the game nonetheless. It feels more like a boardgame then civ4 does and it's just different. In some ways I dare to say simplyfied and streamlined, but with the expansions added I appreciate the game more as they add more things to do in order to achieve victory.

I know I won't be playing this game as long as it's predecessors, but I also like playing civ5 more then playing civ4 right now. And as soon as I get a mod to work (testing with "start with a worker" mod) I think the play duration will be expanded somewhat. Do mods work in multiplayer?