They should make bigger armies when they fight, as they are never going to outsmart a player in tactical combat. Also, focusing on ranged units dealing damage to AI without any retaliation cost is super powerful. I feel ranged damage should at least be lowered significantly when firing into units inside city distritcs.

I've only played once through, so I'll try it again later to see if this replicates.

I was playing the Greeks and using armies made of 3 hoplites and a bowman.  I went to war with the Celts->English, and after defeating their existing armies, the AI began spamming horsemen through the end of the Medieval period, as in they sent nothing but armies of four horsemen against my hoplites.  Despite taking serious losses, they never figured out how to change their unit build order and just kept sending out the same units.

By any reasonable measure, I should have been crushed, since I was still figuring out the city-outpost system at the time and only had one city, but their inability to switch to a different unit type or use mixed tactics meant that I could just hold up in a narrow spot and let them destroy themselves on my spears.

Does the AI play in a way that feels consistent with their Archetypes and Biases seen in the diplomacy screen? 

Unfortunately not. Many archetypes and biases are invisible to the player because they don't play out in the interaction with the player. The archetypes also weren't all that different from eachother, just varying shades of dickishness, except for the black (pacifist) and orange (mercantile) player. I think the problem is threefold: the archetypes aren't strong enough (one strong would be better than a set of three small ones), there isn't enough diplomatic interaction between players (you either try to sign a treaty or issue a grievance) and the user experience deemphasizes actions that other empires take on you. For example, you will only get a tiny notification (one of many) when another player issues or retracts a grievance; that makes it impossible to understand their behaviour in context, unless you have been the one issuing a grievance in the first place.

I bought Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri on gog last year and this game has been holding up much better than I would have ever thought. Diplomacy, for once, is something it does really really well. Your interactions with the AIs are quick and pointed and.you get a really good feeling for the quirks of each leader and all of them will try to get you involved with their lifes by begging for money or proposing to attack their enemies. Santiago will always bully you into giving her stuff and will not hestitate to attack you at the slightest provocation. Lal is a needy bitch and you're never good enough for him. Deidre is the only one who actually tries to get along. All of them will constantly tell you why they hate you, and eachother. Its quite a blast, even after 22 years.

AI is less challenging at the end of the game but reasonably challenging at the beginning. (Playing on Empire difficulty)

In city battles AI does not guard cities and leaves walls protection. If this was fixed the siege battles would be much more challenging. (No need to rush out of cities or attack cavalry near the walls, or in most cases do not make melee attack at all from behind the walls),

Archetypes mostly yes, I could gouge general AI behavior based on their traits.

Hard to say about serious mistakes the AI is reasonable but the longer the game progressed the bigger difference in economic power grew. What I found is that AI cities are underpopulated in the later stages not sure why since AI does build food production but it still does not work somehow.

Overall AI is much more competent compared to Lucy.

Uważam że AI wymaga jeszcze dopracowania, twierdze tak bo po stoczeniu 2 bitew już może być mojim wasalem, a ja wtedy miałem 1 miasto i zniewoliłem ogromne imperium

AI issue: Huns (Vlad profile) settle far south of me.. but still declared war. They came and fight.. and lose. That´s great... I came just in time with mercenaries, barely defending my outpost.... Two more Huns armies still close by, roaming in the area... 

Everything great until here.

Suddenly, after winning the battle.. the war desire dropped below 0... And then I can force surrender! Not only that I could force a truce (which could make sense...).. but I was suddenly able to force Huns to became my vassal!

This is a nosense.. As mentioned before, They already had 2 more armies.. I was not even close to threat their cities/outpost.. Definitevely, they should had accepted become my vassal..

There is something wrong with the AI in victor in my opinion. Beyond the same complaint as in Lucy that they advance the moment they hit 7 stars, I've seen one of the AI rush to classical by turn 35, then start spamming armies of their EU by turn 40. Given the science cost of actually unlocking these techs, this is almost impossible for the player to actually do. You end up facing down Saṃnāhya and Hoplites with spearmen and archers. Not a fun time. It just makes whatever cheats the AI gets extremely obvious since, when you actually conquer their cities, they only have a handful of districts and minimal infrastructure.

Speaking of which, the AI has the same obsession as in lucy of spamming out armies of units. This keeps their city populations quite low and the double whammy of production being tied up by units plus the population loss from producing them means the AI consistently underdevelops cities. It's not as bad as Lucy, where I saw AI build literally nothing but military, but it is still glaring how underdeveloped they are compared to the player, even at the highest difficulties.

In one game I noticed that one AI went crazy with garrison districts. It had roughly 20 of those in each city by the end of the game. Other AI's meanwhile had very underdeveloped cities.

But I liked that in every game I played on normal (or one above) difficulty, at least one AI performed reasonably well. Of course, not as good as a player who is abusing tech from holy sites and gold buyout. So I guess without such snowbally mechanics, the AI might be able to stay competitive in later eras.

Bunniecake wrote:

The human AI is fighting pretty smart in my opinion. If they are the attacker they have the rush to win before time runs out and they act accordingly trying to avoid bad terrain, that's working right I think. When they defend they hold the good terrain and stall for time which is very smart as well. So I dont think that has too many issues.

I'm going to agree with you on the battle AI. Except for the animals, they do what they should do given what they have. Usually they are weaker than the human, so they're at a disadvantage because of that. But not because of their choices. I was having a huge headache fighting the Horde because their horse archers would run around to find the high spot and capture your flag if they could. They were not at all passive. In other battles if the AI knew it was going to lose, it would still take its last parting shot to kill one of my units instead of simply wounding a different one - which is what the player would do too (better to have one unit fully dead than leave 4 wounded to recover later).

Dayvit78 wrote:

Except for the animals, they do what they should do given what they have. Usually they are weaker than the human, so they're at a disadvantage because of that. But not because of their choices.

With the animals I was thinking more about how the animals would act, the aggressive deer attacking a group of people is a little off from reality, they should be only running away. If mammoths are like elephants they could probably ignore us at first and then fight back, like defending/waiting in place and after attacked they start attacking the humans in the adjacent tiles as well. As they are now, you can wait on a higher ground and they come to u no matter what and attack.

On Empire Difficulty: 

- AI has problems with defending cities. Usuualle not enough units in place to do so. Their armies are often too far away

- AI has problems with exploiting weaknesses, I've seen Hunnic Horse Archers which could have easily stomped my armies and cities were just roaming around. 

- AI sends armies at points where they are of no use, neither for offense, nor for defense. 

- AI civs do not ally themselves against a strong player. 

I would be much easier for AI if there were movement advantages within their territory. I.e. a road system which let them travel further than the player within their territory. Otherwise, it seems their units are often at the wrong place., 

The AI has been good at killing my units tactically, sometimes, more often than not though during field battles the ai does a good enough job of making combat interesting. But even on Humankind difficulty there are times when I have a low HP unit in range of an archer but they just don't get rid of it. The aggressive ais could also stand to be more aggressive since I found them rarely declaring actual war on me, just a lot of border skirmishes instead. Hell they wouldn't even raid me when we weren't at war. It's already been said how they have trouble with sieges and I agree with everything said there. They could also group their armies together more, it can get annoying having to run down every single retreating army of 1 horsemen. It's oddly more strategically viable and actually the right thing for the AI to do because of the way reinforcements work and you aren't really punished for spreading troops out, nor rewarded for putting them in a single army. However it's not as fun to deal with and can get annoying, also leads to the unfortunate effect of all these retreats draining war desire and winning the war for you without a fight.

Campaign map AI can actually be pretty decent when it comes to building and empire management. They can due being more efficient since I've noticed their cities can get a little underdeveloped but they do a good job of colonizing the land and city placement. The main issue is as others have mentioned, it advances eras too quickly, and that's true for all of the ai regardless of their personality. The game could really benefit from some sort of leash that encourages the AI to stay in the same era for a bit longer.

It appears to me that the AI has a bit of a problem with deployment and understanding wether it's on attack or defense. It seems to prioritize unit attributes in a strange way. Example:

Sometimes I will engage in a fight with the AI that has only cav and ranged units. This in itself isn't an issue but the problem is that when I attack these armies the AI favors the charge bonus of the cav during deployment rather than protecting the ranged units. It will instead deploy the ranged units in front of the cav so that they have a tile to charge. This is fine if they are attacking and have time to move everything but they will do this on the defense and the archers will be mulched by melee units.

This happened multiple times to me and while I haven't paid attention to other setup problems with different army compositions it does seem like a potential problem 

The archetypes and biases seemed interesting, but for the most part I don't think the AI really "interacted" in a way to show much distinction between them.  I did see difference between some obviously positive and obviously negative attitudes, but for instance an empire which was "solemn" did not seem different from "jealous" in any way outside of flavor/visual cues on their avatar.  I'm hoping this will be more noticeable in the late game, since diplomacy usually skews towards later in these types of games.

Overall, AI seemed equally challenging throughout the game, and increasing the difficulty did not seem to change it much.  In reality, this may just be because as I increased the difficulty, I also got better at the game.

The AI feels like it is way too reactive and not proactive enough.  In terms of large-scale (non-battle specific) tactics, it seems completely predictable.  I didn't keep any appropriate saves unfortunately, but one example is they would never stick around to defend outposts.  I could often slip in a force to raid an outpost (even as it was building) even as the enemy had an equal strength force nearby.  Then when I begin my raid, they would just leave instead of pressing at all.  If I don't like where an enemy army is pre-battle, it was easy to lead them to a more disadvantageous position.  They didn't seem to attempt to raid or pressure me outside of wars and the very rare "happened to be in range and severely outclassed" situations.  They would often spread themselves thin, leaving their units open to being attacked separately.  I know a lot of this can be hard to program into an AI, but essentially they need to look beyond their most immediate surroundings and play a little more aggressively, at least at high difficulties.  I enjoyed being able to circle a mounted army the long way around to catch a smaller enemy I was chasing with infantry.  Doing so not only stopped their "retreat" but gave me the opportunity to control where I started the battle from while also having both armies join as reinforcements.  This is a more advanced tactic, but one I could exploit thanks to AI spreading their troops so thin they have no reinforcements.  If the AI could learn to at least group their units nearby to allow for reinforcements more often, I think that could lead to better battle outcomes for them.  Maybe even have them intentionally identify choke-points within their borders to defend from (or build on top of).  If nothing else, I want them to form larger, varied armies with reinforcements within arm's reach.

In battle, the AI is very poor.  In a separate post I've mentioned my love for battle mechanics, but the AI seem to have no concept of them.  They do seem to move their units uphill if it gives them an advantage on their IMMEDIATE attack, but they never seem to consider when they stop their units in a "dangerous" position (such as at the bottom of the hill).  They should prioritize higher ground even when not attacking, and they should actually attempt to defend their camp.  If they are outnumbered, try to identify choke-points and allow the enemy to initiate attacks (making it a war of attrition, where they could win by time running out).  I had one instance (wish I had the save on hand) where they ran to the bottom of a 3-step hill (2 downhills in a row), only to end their movement NEXT to the higher ground.  On top of that, this entire path was a choke-point and the middle step (which they ran AWAY from) was their base!.  This meant that I actually took their base and attacked them from high ground all in one step.  Had they lined up and tried to stand their ground, I may not have taken it in 3 turns.  Had they retreated to higher ground (which they had, away from base) they could lose the battle but save their troops.  Instead, they took the literal worst possible option and lost their base and units all at once (especially because where they ended their movement actually allowed me to slip additional troops through my first one to engage, ALL with high ground).  In short, they feel like they only take notice of advantageous ground immediately when attacking, and do not even consider defense, much less 1 or 2 turns ahead.  Also, they tend to spread their attacks out instead of focusing on weak units, which allows me to keep most units with at least 1 health.

I have many good things to say about this game, but the AI is not one of them.  Thankfully, I understand that as mechanics change, AI must change.  So, I'm giving the benefit of the doubt and assuming that AI improvements will come as the mechanics become more solid.  I am optimistic about this, and I am looking forward to the next opendev!

Before I give my thoughts on AI difficulty, I want to give background on the type of player I am when it comes to difficulty. Generally when I play games I desire challenging gameplay, but only to a certain extent, I'm usually don't try to complete the highest most difficult challenges like other player. When it comes to 4x games specifically, I desire a more casual laid back experience that still has challenge but only to a certain extent.

I regards to the AI difficulty in this OpenDev, overall I liked this AI, it's definitely an improvement over Lucy OpenDev. I have criticisms for it, but I found that some of my criticisms and desires for the AI would be solved at higher difficulties. I mostly played on Nation difficulty and I got in half of a playthrough on Empire difficulty before the OpenDev ended. Those criticisms were that the AI didn't attack enough and that they were not as competitive when it comes to religion. The AI aggressiveness was much better on Nation and Empire, and their religion competitiveness became better on Empire difficulty.

My main criticism that I still have is that the AI is most difficult early game, but they aren't as competitive or difficult mid to late game. Around the mid to late game, the AI just doesn't seem to snowball the same way that I can. Early game is the most stressful as the AI in this OpenDev seemed to have consistently gotten a better luckier head start. Ohkwhaho in particular always seemed to enter the Ancient Era with 4 fame stars, and first culture pick. Early game also seems to be where the AI is most aggressive, slowing my early game growth. Their aggression falls off mid game, but that also could have been because I had vassalized some of the AI opponents. I find that early game the AI can surpass me by at most 1500 fame points, but by mid to late game I can surpass them by at most 3000 fame points. It'd be nice if that gap were smaller and instead of a 3000 point lead I had around a 500 to 1000 point lead.  

I haven't really noticed if the AI was playing to their biases, it was hard to observe if that was happening. From my experience the main driver for AI behavior was their current feelings toward me, and diplomatic grievances.

As for the AI in combat, the AI is pretty good in my experience. They are taking the high ground more often as well as going to flaking bonuses. The weirdest tactical misstep I've experienced from the AI was when an Assyrian army comprised of entirely cavalry attacked my city and rushed it without making any siege weapons. Since cavalry can no longer cross walls, they basically could only run around the walls with nothing to do. It was very odd.

The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales wrote:

• Does the AI play in a way that feels consistent with their Archetypes and Biases seen in the diplomacy screen?

Very rarely.

The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales wrote:

• How did the AI evolve throughout the game? Did it feel equally challenging at the start and end of your game? Does increasing the difficulty increase the challenge as much as you expect?

I think difficulty is sufficient fore now.

The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales wrote:

• Does the AI commit any grave strategic missteps? What is the AI doing and what do you think it should do? (Please provide saves if you can.)

It probably should ask for truce sooner, if it loses or starts to see war as unfavorable strategy.

The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales wrote:

• How does the AI perform in battle? Does it make any obvious mistakes it should avoid? What would you have done in that situation? (Please provide a save if you can)

Somehow it doesn't take advantage of high ground on normal and hard difficulty.