Yeah, it's really disappointing that instead of actually improving the AI, they made it cheat to win. Really lazy game design, and very frustrating for someone who largely prefers playing against computer opponents.
Calling it "lazy game design" is not only offensive to me as a game designer, but it's plain wrong. Here's a talk about AI in Civ from Soren Johnson, Lead Designer/AI Programmer on multiple Civ games: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJcuQQ1eWWI
Boo hoo, you're offended by people playing your games. What about us spending money on your game and then hours learning the mechanics only to get beaten by your AI violating the established rules and doing things we cannot.
I don't have have enough time with Civ to have experienced this there, but in Fifa watching defenders with speed and acceleration 10+ points below my strikers outrunning them or that magical switch flipping that says "AI will score now" and watching my own defenders actively run away from the ball or the ball even go right through their legs may not be result of "lazy" design but it's infuriating. Especially when I think of how much money I've laid down to have this experience.
I'm not offended by people playing "my" games - I'm offended by people who can't appreciate the amount of work which is channeled into making games. You can be certain that for every single feature within a (good) game, at least one person spent countless hours thinking about it.
You don't like a feature - that's totally fine. Talk about your grievances all you like, so we can learn and improve said feature. But don't call the people "lazy" if you don't know what you're talking about.
I think we all understand that making a game is a tremendous undertaking. But playing a game on a higher difficulty for the additional challenge should never result in that game cheating. That is lazy design. If you can't figure out how to make the game more of challenge without cheating then simply don't offer higher difficulty levels.
See I agree, but at the same time, Civ achieves being the only strategy game I can think of (I'm sure there's others, I just can't think of them) that actually has a solid AI mode. So is it possible we should heed the lesson we don't like?
I like CK2 a lot, but its AI is nothing to write home about. The game doesn't effectively develop provinces, its strategic war AI is flail-y, and its diplomatic AI is largely deterministic.
