this post was submitted on 07 Jun 2024
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I just hope (foolishly) that with the current hype that it's AI will be a focus. I hate that because it cheats things that would work on me don't work on the AI etc.
It would be really cool if they made an API for the game so people could build their own AI
The Ottoman Empire is suffering a plague of health concerns! With your modern science, you have determined this is because they apply glue to their pizzas. Do you wish to provide assistance by helping them click the squares that contain a motorcycle?
You have built the Golden Gate Suicide Wonder. Population will decrease 5% per year in all water tiles.
That really is one of the biggest flaws of Civ. It's so hard to find a breakpoint where the gameplay "feels good" but still is challenging. If you're at a difficulty level where the gameplay is mostly intact, the AI is just too dumb, and if you bump it up it becomes a meta game of playing around the AI bonuses.
This was covered in a great talk by Soren Johnson (lead designer of Civ IV): Playing to Lose: AI and Civilization.
His main thesis is that players constantly demand stronger AI (that doesn’t cheat) but when they try it they hate it. The issue is that strong AI doesn’t role-play like an actual historical leader, it plays like a “gamer” who will stop at nothing to win.
That is, strong AI opponents treat Civ like a game of poker and they’ll use every possible means of defeating you. They’re not reliable allies or trading partners, they’re bluffing, duplicitous liars.
Human players who play against such AIs report a very negative experience. Many of the diplomacy functions in the game become rather useless against such an untrustworthy AI, and the whole situation devolves into something more akin to “turn-based Warcraft” rather than Civilization.
I don't want a stronger AI because I'm playing it to fantasize about alternative histories. Then again I play FPS games at the lowest difficulty in story mode because I'm here for the story. (And also I'm shit at FPS games.)