Civ 5...A rant from a very dissatisfied customer

Overslop said:
Anyways, since posting here I tried out a higher difficulty mode.Went for a game on a Duel map on Emperor difficulty to test it out. Despite being technologically, financially and culturally bum****ed by my opponent, I walted in with a couple of archers and spearmen and owned my opponent. Despite being in Medieval he had only built Warrior units...:rolleyes:

It proves that the AI is still stupid at high difficulty levels. This doesn't make for a fun experience when you know that the only reason you are finding it a challenge is by severely disabling yourself. This wasn't the case before, so it shouldn't be now either.
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Thats a pity, not sure why its working fine for me. Played 3 games so far. (1 on Emperor, Huge Earth Map, Standard length) , (1 on King, Huge Earth Map, Standard length) and (1 on Emperor , Huge Earth Map, Epic length).

In all three of those I have failed to win, in all 3 of them I have been slaughtered by AI once they have decided to turn on me. In the last game one AI attacked my civilization with 48 units which were all at least of the tech level of me, most higher. Maybe I am just lucky and have the only working AI :D
 
Overslop said:
That's not the point and surely you must realise that mate?
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Depends how you look at it I suppose, the inference I took from the post made questioning it was that Civ 5 was in some way special for having cheating AI when you raise the difficulty, whereas as we all know most games have had cheating AI for the last 3 decades. Total War had it but I still enjoyed turning up the difficulty, the HOMM series had it but I still enjoyed turning up the difficulty, the AoW games had it but I still enjoyed turning up the difficulty. The point I was making was that the way the game is at the moment, a disgruntled user has only 2 options. Either play it with cheating AI on higher difficulties to give more of a challenge, or just forget about the game altogether. I presented one of those options which might entail more enjoyment.
 
Overslop said:
Would be interested to borrow a couple of saves of yours to compare situations. :)

Am happy to give you mine as well.
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I only keep one save at a time while playing and I then delete the saves once I have finished the game, so I havent got any of those 3 saves. Got my current one which is on Marathon but I am only 63 turns into that so not much use.
 
Tombstone said:
Depends how you look at it I suppose, the inference I took from the post made questioning it was that Civ 5 was in some way special for having cheating AI when you raise the difficulty, whereas as we all know most games have had cheating AI for the last 3 decades. Total War had it but I still enjoyed turning up the difficulty, the HOMM series had it but I still enjoyed turning up the difficulty, the AoW games had it but I still enjoyed turning up the difficulty. The point I was making was that the way the game is at the moment, a disgruntled user has only 2 options. Either play it with cheating AI on higher difficulties to give more of a challenge, or just forget about the game altogether. I presented one of those options which might entail more enjoyment.
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And I really hadn't realised I could turn the difficulty up. :rolleyes:

We aren't talking about any other game franchises here. We are talking about Civ, a series which had pretty much nailed it and has now taken a massive step back. If I had realised how broken the AI had become then I wouldn't have bought it yet and that's why I made this thread.
 
Overslop said:
And I really hadn't realised I could turn the difficulty up. :rolleyes:

We aren't talking about any other game franchises here. We are talking about Civ, a series which had pretty much nailed it and has now taken a massive step back. If I had realised how broken the AI had become then I wouldn't have bought it yet and that's why I made this thread.
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I hardly think there is any need for the rolling of eyes, I posted something that I thought might be helpful to the OP. I just wont bother in future. Enjoy your game, I'll enjoy mine. Lets just leave it at that.
 
Tombstone said:
I hardly think there is any need for the rolling of eyes, I posted something that I thought might be helpful to the OP. I just wont bother in future. Enjoy your game, I'll enjoy mine. Lets just leave it at that.
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I used the :rolleyes: as I took your supposed serious suggestion of turning up the difficulty as being quite patronising. Didn't mean to upset and will agree to end the matter.
 
Tombstone said:
I'm certain that patches/mods will enhance the AI, in the meanwhile, if you're finding it too easy on Prince then up the level to Emperor. Emperor is giving me some real challenges. That way you get to have a nice challenge with the added bonus that you dont get extra nasty frown wrinkles from all the stress of not liking the game :)
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Well reading back over my post there, I dont see it as written in a patronising way. /shrug , maybe it is I guess. Ah well, I will just have to be more careful in future what I write. I'll leave this thread now so that it can continue on the original topic.
 
I fully expect that it will get patched up, Civ games often start out a little bit dodgy in their first few months after release.

Meanwhile, as Tefal said, play Gal Civ 2. It's very similar (but space based), and the AI is remarkably good.
 
Weebull said:
Surely just turn the difficulty up? If it's still easy on the top setting, then you've got something to shout about.
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Its a Civ game, difficulty works rather differently here.

The middle setting, Prince in Civ V, Noble in Civ IV, is the setting that most people like to play at as at this level, neither the AI or the Human player have any advantages. Below the middle difficulty the human player gets advantages, and the AI gets disadvantaged, and at higher difficulty levels the player gets penalised and the AI gets significantly buffed.

However, in Civ IV, the AI was far from an easy pushover on the middle difficulty, and definitely very challenging at any setting abouve normal (thats how it should be right? Capable at noral, and harder higher up?).

In Civ V, on the normal setting (prince), the AI is as lame and dumb as playing on Chieftain in Civ IV.

However, one thing that I find that has really crippled the AI in Civ V isnt the 1UPT system, but rather no tech trading. In Civ IV, the AI was very competitive and powerful even on Noble difficulty because they tech traded with each other, kept up with the player, and provided a significant challenge on normal difficulty. In Civ V, they just get far far behind unless you crank up the difficulty to the point where they get 20 free units with no maintenance costs, and 50% cheaper buildings.

A strategy game like civ should be challenging and fun to play without having to five the AI a ridiculous amount of bonuses over the Human player, as it was in earlier Civ games. In Civ V, the AI is currently very weak and feeble. Its a joke when they cant even properly defend themselves against 3-5 units, and fall o far behind on the tech tree.

The other ridiculous thing is that the AI is so poor, that even if you dont conquer them, one of the other AI teams will. I ALWAYS see one single AI easily conquer all the others in every game I play, which is insanely broken, even more so now that I've learnt how to defend myself against the single super AI civ by using just a few ranged or siege weapons. They can have 10-20 cities, I can have 1, and I can still easily prevent them from conquering me. They hardly put up a fight at all, and then surrender a few turns later and give you all their gold.

Maybe I should reinstall Galciv as suggested.
 
While I don't disagree with the principle that it should have a reasonably AI in to start with, as others have stated, I don't see the point in comparing it to Civ 4 after 2 expansions and numerous patches. I did see an amusing screenshot of the civfanatics forum when Civ 4 was released, will try and find it.
 
bhavv said:
Its a Civ game, difficulty works rather differently here.

The middle setting, Prince in Civ V, Noble in Civ IV, is the setting that most people like to play at as at this level, neither the AI or the Human player have any advantages. Below the middle difficulty the human player gets advantages, and the AI gets disadvantaged, and at higher difficulty levels the player gets penalised and the AI gets significantly buffed.
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On prince they have a very slight advantage over ya, but I agree, on noble or prince if you neglected your military for example you'd be dead, in civ5 they seem retarded :p. I recall playing galciv 2 and remember the AI being a cunning little **** and the game being a challenge. Sins of a Solar empire is great too. Space empires 4 ain't too bad either imo if you don't care about combat ( ai is, arguably, a bit stupid too though but the game itself has so amny features). But the best game I can remember is Star Trek: Birth of the Federation. I'd still play that if it wasn't bugged and worked fine and stable, but it hogs after so much turns until you close it and reload the game and it often randomly freezes or crashes :(.
 
snowdog said:
On prince they have a very slight advantage over ya
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Not in Civ V according to the strategy guide. Prince is now the middle difficulty, AI bonuses start form king, and player bonuses end at warlord.

At Prince in Civ V, the player and AI are equal, but it feels the same as playing Chieftain / Warlord at the most in earlier Civ games.

I'm sure it will be patched eventually.

I havnt really enjoyed any space games since imperium galactica II / Freelancer.
 
bhavv said:
Not in Civ V according to the strategy guide. Prince is now the middle difficulty, AI bonuses start form king, and player bonuses end at warlord.

At Prince in Civ V, the player and AI are equal, but it feels the same as playing Chieftain / Warlord at the most in earlier Civ games.

I'm sure it will be patched eventually.

I havnt really enjoyed any space games since imperium galactica II / Freelancer.
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I misread his post, I meant in Civ 4, you are correct prince is the new noble, but the previous prince, the AI used to have an advantage.
 
So far in my 2 games of civ5 i have lost 1 (2 other empires ganged up on me) and i should hopefully win the second. Currently there seems to be 3 empires on even footing (myself included) and 1 empire who seems to have killed off pretty much everyone else. Up until now he has been offering me peace if i give him all of my stuff. But in the last turn he actually offered to give me some gold for peace so hopefully after the 10 turns of ceasefire i can take back the cities he stole from me and go on the offensive!! :D

The AI is a bit dumb yes, often i see my musketmen face off 3 or so waves of lesser units, but then if he has 3 times the units why not attempt to win by overwhelming. Do what works i say.

I definitely think if the AI was any smarter (cheated more). I would have been steamrolled in this game too, as it is i just about managed to hold on (lost 3 cities) and have turned the tide thanks to my cannons which nobody else has yet (they 1 hit most things). Still looking forward to the AI being smarter, but i will have to knock the difficulty down a notch or 2 until i am also smarter :D
 
Does Firaxis have a decent record of patching out previous AI problems? I've been thinking of taking the plunge with Civ 5 (not played since Civ 2 lol) but I'm put off by the talk of easy AI. To me AI is not something you can easily patch, but perhaps I'm wrong. Has the difficulty (specifically the AI difficulty) ever been off in any previous Civs and been resolved via patch?
 
Civ 2 was by far the best civ. The new ones just appear to have introduce some good ideas but they've been implemented very badly.

Civ 2 with the following improvements would be unbeatable.
  • Improved AI
  • More significance attached to resources i.e. you’re limited on what you can produce by the resources you own and your ability to distribute these resources where needed.
  • Increased turns per year later in the game after 1700-1800.
  • Better diplomacy and trading between civs,
  • More resource improvements i.e. ability to build off shore rigs, military based etc.
  • Reduce effectiveness of SDI.
  • Minor UI tweaks.
 
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