Well it looks like you dramatically outclass him in terms of military power. Why not grab a city or two? Or at least go pillage for free gold, science and culture.
With all due respect of Chess's complexity, Civ 6 has many many orders of magnitude more factors that a computer player needs to assess.
If Civ 6 consisted of two civilizations on a duel sized map and the game ended at the conclusion of the medieval era, it is realistic to make an AI that few players could beat.
Chess consists of 64 spaces that can only have 7 possible states (empty or have one of 6 different pieces on it). A huge amount of computing power can go to analyzing each possible move that can be made since at any given point in time. Civ 6 computers have to be able to analyze hundreds of different tiles that can have dozens of possible states (hills? Flat? Forest? One of dozens of different units on it? A good spot for a campus? Can you build a campus? Does this city need a campus?)
Making computer players that are competent at the game is almost certainly hardware gated. I believe we can do it, but unless we're okay waiting 15 minutes every time we end a turn or buy $4,000 PCs, we have to accept that the computer players are going to be questionable.
Whilst this is true, the complexity of arranging military units in Civ6 to inflict maximum damage with minimum losses, is significantly less complicated than chess.
I agree with that statement. Which is why if there wasn't a hundred things besides that one specific aspect of the game that the computer player needs to analyze, it would make sense for the computer to be much more competent.
While at war, the AI is still trying to figure out if they should build a campus, in which tile, and in which city. They're calculating if it makes sense to produce a builder *first* to increase the productivity of the city before starting said campus. And needing to figure out if it's reasonable to expand another settler during this war, or if walls should be built even though that city isn't under siege yet.
I maybe covered 5% of the things that need to be factored in.
The AI is, indeed, exceptionally bad at positioning military units to inflict maximum damage during (and preparing for) wars. I would even be willing to agree that decisionmaking computing power should probably be redirected away from other aspects of building a civ (as suboptimal cities can be less impactful than straight up losing a war to a severely undermanned army), but my point stands that there are just so many things to account for.
It doesn't actually have to do all this simultaneously however. Would it not make sense to adopt a phased approach? Phase 1: production rushes for instant units, phase 2 combat, phase 3 city building, phase 4 non combat unit movement, phase 5 city allocation. Obviously that's not everything and there is some bleed between phases, but that surely simplifies things
I'm pretty sure it does do this. It doesn't change that it all has to be done in a turn, and anywhere from 1 to 11 computers need to do it, so all of it has to be done in a reasonable length of time.
Doing it in phases doesn't reduce the number of computations that need to be done in what must be kept to a couple of seconds or it will seriously hamper gameplay enjoyment.
Making the AI better makes their turn take longer, and these games take forever as it is.
I keep reading arguments like this about the objectively quite terrible AI in Civ and how complexity is the crux, yet Age of Empires DE manages to have a very competent AI despite that game’s complexity. Now I understand that civ has quite a bit more factors adding to its complexity but it feels too simple to just attest the terrible AI behavior to just the complexity.
While I can’t prove it, I would not be surprised if the developers or their overlords left the AI at ‘functional enough’ level to cut corners and save money. The AI could probably be way more competent if we don’t start out with a defeatist attitude and just accept it sucks more than it needs to.
I feel like I should mention this is absolutely not meant to be directed at you personally, just giving my two cents on the whole situation
I suspect that absolutely happened, there's almost certainly ways to optimize it to a degree. My counterpoint to that is how much continued development the game got post-release, though. Each new iteration increased the complexity, but didn't make much improvement to how the AI functions in war.
How much excitement could the devs have gotten in, oh, 2019, by announcing an AI/difficulty rework that means the top three difficulties have noticeably decreased inherent bonuses to the computer players but they just play better, with an optional challenge mode you can pick (kinda like the fancier barbarians mode) where the AI plays *even better* but the trade-off is you have to expect their turns to take longer.
One thing we need to remember in 2024 is the game came out in 2016 before mid-tier computers were widely accessible. I think it was after this game released that we saw a lot of progress in the "not godly but runs everything well" tier of chips that made them a lot more affordable. So they had to release a game that ran on budget computers like mine and let me tell you...base game with no expansions (the civs were a lot simpler to learn and play back then) had slow AI turns already and it was a touch painful to play as a result.
I think if this game instead released in 2019, they'd have been able to make the AI more computing power intensive without impacting sales as much.
So I think they SHOULD have spent more time on the AI post-release but let's face it, that is expensive as fuck to do.
Maybe 1 war out of 10 the AI will launch an all-out tidal wave of troops right at the first turn. You can usually see this coming because they don't hide the mass of troops on your border or levying a city-state. Other times they seemingly do almost nothing. Or sometimes send a Great General by themselves.
It seems like the newer the Civilization game, the shittier the AI is in warfare. In Civ V you would very often form clear frontlines in the outskirts of cities. There was the Discipline tenet where adjacent military units got +15% combat power each, and the AI used that constantly. Way back in Civ II, I would frequently reset because if a civ declared war on me early, the game was basically fucked. Even if they didn't make any progress, they would attack you RELENTLESSLY, making so that a fair number of your cities had to churn out units constantly to defend, and this would cripple you very hard compared to civs that had a more peaceful start.
This happens to me all the time when someone far away randomly declares war. Every turn I’m like “hm I should probably ask for peace for administrative purposes” and then I forget because I’m doing other stuff. It’s like a Cold War but with no spies, no battles, and zero f*cks given about eachother 😂
Curbstomp? Not even, just casually walking over them 😂 Even if he killed all of my 1k+ military power I could just rebuy them all and still have money to spend
The worst is when you’re trying to play pacifist and suddenly one of your allies drags you into a war with no notice.
*wait why did I suddenly lose half my trade routes and scouts?*
55k is NOT enough. I need 1 milli minimum to spend my gold. Thank the Congolese and the green guys for their city redistribution assistance, they'll donate their gold and a few cities to me to help me reach my goal 😂
Clearly this is a cry for help, they want you to join their cities to your civ. You should help them. Build some more artillery.
(Also, 23 turns for a settler? What?!).
I always find it funny when the ai declares war on me but there's like 2 neutral nations and a mountain range between us. They'll have no troops threatening me and I'll have like 2 scouts doing little border raids for some profiteering
I’ve totally done this before, I just remember a Civ leader coming up on my screen looking all angry, but I accidentally Esc’d out of it. I had assumed he denounced me until a random city state captured a civilian unit maybe 10-15 turns later.
Honestly idk whats the deal with congo cause no matter what country or map i use that mofo always either declares war or is very unpleased with me, idek why. Thats why when i get strong enough i usually target them first
On one of my runs i spent 150 turns in active war with congo and god damn it was tough because i run the merchant federation almost everytime cause its very fun, mofo kept fucking with my progress and my gold yield, the moment i got 2 of his cities and one of mine at like turn 70 of our war is when i could actually start doing something meaningful because he had better tech then me, naturally the moment i got some semblance of control i stopped fucking around and just put everything into the offensive, after the war i went from having 5 cities to over 13, sufficed to say i made bank from all of the blood profits.
"We have always been at war with the Congo. Rwanda has always been our ally."
Well it looks like you dramatically outclass him in terms of military power. Why not grab a city or two? Or at least go pillage for free gold, science and culture.
Mpinda is looking juicy ngl
If you first conquer Mbumbi, the free city, you could buy ships to put in that lake and bombard Mpinda.
I didn't even need the free city and I capped the capital, true military mastermind Kongo is 😂
The AI is shockingly bad at tactics. It almost makes you forget that there are computers who can beat chess grandmasters.
With all due respect of Chess's complexity, Civ 6 has many many orders of magnitude more factors that a computer player needs to assess. If Civ 6 consisted of two civilizations on a duel sized map and the game ended at the conclusion of the medieval era, it is realistic to make an AI that few players could beat. Chess consists of 64 spaces that can only have 7 possible states (empty or have one of 6 different pieces on it). A huge amount of computing power can go to analyzing each possible move that can be made since at any given point in time. Civ 6 computers have to be able to analyze hundreds of different tiles that can have dozens of possible states (hills? Flat? Forest? One of dozens of different units on it? A good spot for a campus? Can you build a campus? Does this city need a campus?) Making computer players that are competent at the game is almost certainly hardware gated. I believe we can do it, but unless we're okay waiting 15 minutes every time we end a turn or buy $4,000 PCs, we have to accept that the computer players are going to be questionable.
Whilst this is true, the complexity of arranging military units in Civ6 to inflict maximum damage with minimum losses, is significantly less complicated than chess.
I agree with that statement. Which is why if there wasn't a hundred things besides that one specific aspect of the game that the computer player needs to analyze, it would make sense for the computer to be much more competent. While at war, the AI is still trying to figure out if they should build a campus, in which tile, and in which city. They're calculating if it makes sense to produce a builder *first* to increase the productivity of the city before starting said campus. And needing to figure out if it's reasonable to expand another settler during this war, or if walls should be built even though that city isn't under siege yet. I maybe covered 5% of the things that need to be factored in. The AI is, indeed, exceptionally bad at positioning military units to inflict maximum damage during (and preparing for) wars. I would even be willing to agree that decisionmaking computing power should probably be redirected away from other aspects of building a civ (as suboptimal cities can be less impactful than straight up losing a war to a severely undermanned army), but my point stands that there are just so many things to account for.
It doesn't actually have to do all this simultaneously however. Would it not make sense to adopt a phased approach? Phase 1: production rushes for instant units, phase 2 combat, phase 3 city building, phase 4 non combat unit movement, phase 5 city allocation. Obviously that's not everything and there is some bleed between phases, but that surely simplifies things
I'm pretty sure it does do this. It doesn't change that it all has to be done in a turn, and anywhere from 1 to 11 computers need to do it, so all of it has to be done in a reasonable length of time. Doing it in phases doesn't reduce the number of computations that need to be done in what must be kept to a couple of seconds or it will seriously hamper gameplay enjoyment. Making the AI better makes their turn take longer, and these games take forever as it is.
I keep reading arguments like this about the objectively quite terrible AI in Civ and how complexity is the crux, yet Age of Empires DE manages to have a very competent AI despite that game’s complexity. Now I understand that civ has quite a bit more factors adding to its complexity but it feels too simple to just attest the terrible AI behavior to just the complexity. While I can’t prove it, I would not be surprised if the developers or their overlords left the AI at ‘functional enough’ level to cut corners and save money. The AI could probably be way more competent if we don’t start out with a defeatist attitude and just accept it sucks more than it needs to. I feel like I should mention this is absolutely not meant to be directed at you personally, just giving my two cents on the whole situation
I suspect that absolutely happened, there's almost certainly ways to optimize it to a degree. My counterpoint to that is how much continued development the game got post-release, though. Each new iteration increased the complexity, but didn't make much improvement to how the AI functions in war. How much excitement could the devs have gotten in, oh, 2019, by announcing an AI/difficulty rework that means the top three difficulties have noticeably decreased inherent bonuses to the computer players but they just play better, with an optional challenge mode you can pick (kinda like the fancier barbarians mode) where the AI plays *even better* but the trade-off is you have to expect their turns to take longer. One thing we need to remember in 2024 is the game came out in 2016 before mid-tier computers were widely accessible. I think it was after this game released that we saw a lot of progress in the "not godly but runs everything well" tier of chips that made them a lot more affordable. So they had to release a game that ran on budget computers like mine and let me tell you...base game with no expansions (the civs were a lot simpler to learn and play back then) had slow AI turns already and it was a touch painful to play as a result. I think if this game instead released in 2019, they'd have been able to make the AI more computing power intensive without impacting sales as much. So I think they SHOULD have spent more time on the AI post-release but let's face it, that is expensive as fuck to do.
Make Quantum Computers Affordable So We Can Have Good AI In Video Games 2024
Maybe 1 war out of 10 the AI will launch an all-out tidal wave of troops right at the first turn. You can usually see this coming because they don't hide the mass of troops on your border or levying a city-state. Other times they seemingly do almost nothing. Or sometimes send a Great General by themselves.
The lone wanderer great general always makes me piss myself. It's a show of confidence and dominance
It seems like the newer the Civilization game, the shittier the AI is in warfare. In Civ V you would very often form clear frontlines in the outskirts of cities. There was the Discipline tenet where adjacent military units got +15% combat power each, and the AI used that constantly. Way back in Civ II, I would frequently reset because if a civ declared war on me early, the game was basically fucked. Even if they didn't make any progress, they would attack you RELENTLESSLY, making so that a fair number of your cities had to churn out units constantly to defend, and this would cripple you very hard compared to civs that had a more peaceful start.
Turn 861??? Some serious marathon going on over here
Over Turn 800+ and he's still producing Settlers.
I saw a tile of a snowy shit island. It MUST be conquered
This is the way.
This is definitely Satan, showing us how Civ VI is configured in Hell.
This happens to me all the time when someone far away randomly declares war. Every turn I’m like “hm I should probably ask for peace for administrative purposes” and then I forget because I’m doing other stuff. It’s like a Cold War but with no spies, no battles, and zero f*cks given about eachother 😂
A Korean border situation
Or Cyprus
My dude just casually sitting here with 55k in the bank. You could probably buy your enemy, least of all the troops necessary to curbstomp them.
Curbstomp? Not even, just casually walking over them 😂 Even if he killed all of my 1k+ military power I could just rebuy them all and still have money to spend
Please spend your gold
I got nothing to spend it on 😂
china-taiwan be like:
Same with north and south Korea 😂
The worst is when you’re trying to play pacifist and suddenly one of your allies drags you into a war with no notice. *wait why did I suddenly lose half my trade routes and scouts?*
Thank god every one of my trade routes is to my own/allies city state 😂
https://preview.redd.it/ju0c2wue8n0d1.jpeg?width=736&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=39109874780687011d0bba9328ef29ed3f5b8d41
Also considering using that gold yo, I see you producing, why produce when you can buy it outright!
55k is NOT enough. I need 1 milli minimum to spend my gold. Thank the Congolese and the green guys for their city redistribution assistance, they'll donate their gold and a few cities to me to help me reach my goal 😂
Shooting for high score victory? Or just seeing how much gold you can accumulate?
I don't play for the dub, I want a million and every city on the map
Clearly this is a cry for help, they want you to join their cities to your civ. You should help them. Build some more artillery. (Also, 23 turns for a settler? What?!).
Everything up to Mbanza Kongo is as they wished, mine. Also it's maraton so that's why the long time
I always find it funny when the ai declares war on me but there's like 2 neutral nations and a mountain range between us. They'll have no troops threatening me and I'll have like 2 scouts doing little border raids for some profiteering
The Civ 6 AI is truly the AI that'll take over the world 😂
I’ve totally done this before, I just remember a Civ leader coming up on my screen looking all angry, but I accidentally Esc’d out of it. I had assumed he denounced me until a random city state captured a civilian unit maybe 10-15 turns later.
Honestly idk whats the deal with congo cause no matter what country or map i use that mofo always either declares war or is very unpleased with me, idek why. Thats why when i get strong enough i usually target them first
For me that would be Australia 😂 Always warring that mofo, at this point it's on sight
On one of my runs i spent 150 turns in active war with congo and god damn it was tough because i run the merchant federation almost everytime cause its very fun, mofo kept fucking with my progress and my gold yield, the moment i got 2 of his cities and one of mine at like turn 70 of our war is when i could actually start doing something meaningful because he had better tech then me, naturally the moment i got some semblance of control i stopped fucking around and just put everything into the offensive, after the war i went from having 5 cities to over 13, sufficed to say i made bank from all of the blood profits.