Imperium

Baldur’s Gate has been on hold for weeks now. Race Driver: GRID, the second racing game I’ve ever bought (the first being Driver, which I remember buying with Quake III when it was released), has devoured most of my spare time. It’s so addictive that a few weeks ago I had clocked 17.6 hours of play time according to Steam. I’ll add it to the list of candidates in the next review vote.

The other game that I’ve been playing a lot of in the past few weeks is one that I’ve mentioned before (in my Birth of the Federation review), the similarly addictive Civilization IV. I think we (me, my brother and friendly Pigmental, previously dubbed Raedwulf) started playing our current game about a month or two ago. We’re on the second easiest difficulty setting, warlord (because we’re noobs), and we’re in all in a team against three teams of two AIs each.

At the close of our last play session we were well into the modern age. A while ago (at the beginning of the gunpowder age) we fought and won a war against Bismark and Pacal (an unlikely pairing to say the least), by concentrating our three-pronged invasion on Pacal’s island, quickly overwhelming his defences and leaving Bismark alone and helpless. After crushing Pacal we juiced Bismark for technologies, cash and anything else we could get our hands on (much like bloodthirsty ticks on a sweaty dog) in exchange for a cease-fire. He accepted our offer and we entered a prolonged period of respite and recuperation.

Unfortunately our peace has been shattered by a series of terrible betrayals. A few sessions ago, without any previous indication of animosity, Stalin and Kublai Khan suddenly declared war on us and instantly conquered two of Pigmental’s cities. This came as a shock to all of us because we were gearing up for an invasion of our own against Hannibal (who’s teamed up with William of Orange) which was going to be our strategic magnum opus - a D-Day style invasion that would make our domination of Pacal look like a playground scuffle.

Pigmental’s anger was combined with an equal measure of despair. Those two cities accounted for a substantial percentage of the total mass of his empire. We’re playing on a small map where land to build on is scarce. The loss of even one city is a catastrophe. We had been stung, and it was a painful sting, but we were still standing. Allied forces rapidly flooded to the front line, initially to shore up defences but later in preparation for a wrathful counter-attack. A few turns later we had snatched back the lost cities and we were ready to unleash hell.

It was at that moment, when we were quietly confident in our future victory, that the unthinkable happened: Hannibal and William entered the fray against us, bringing with them our old bitch Bismark, now acting as their vassal (an even lower rank of bitch). Now we were three at war against five - it wasn’t looking peachy. With Pigmental’s continent secured, we began a phased withdrawal of our forces back to our own lands.

We’re currently fighting on two fronts - east and west. To the east lies the main threat of Hannibal and William; to the west Pigmental is struggling against Stalin and Kublai Khan. All is not lost however. I’m now able to train my (America’s) unique unit, the Navy Seal, and as such my island has stayed free from the dreadful yolk of Dutch/Carthaginian government. The waters around America are fiercely disputed, I’m still losing plenty of battles, but the tide is gradually turning in our favour.

What’s struck me in retrospect though, is how crudely the AIs behave in Civ IV, this latest world war being a prime example. One moment we’re relaxing in our post-war paradise of reconstruction, scientific research and general consolidation, and the next the entire world snaps and decides that we have to be disposed of before we get too powerful. I admit we were eventually going to conquer the planet (preferably one team at a time) and I don’t object to the concept of an AI coalition against us in the end-game, but when the diplomatic climate shifts so fantastically without any catalytic action to justify it, what little immersion existed beforehand immediately goes up in smoke.

It’s not like there’s any heated conversation going on between civilizations that builds an atmosphere of restrained aggression or lingering envy. All there is to diplomacy in Civ IV, as in all strategy games, is a simplistic mixture of gift giving, technology trading, highly superficial matchmaking of civics (policies) and religions, and a cumulative record of your past offenses. This is all summarised with a single word signifying disposition, ranging from ‘friendly’ (good) to ‘furious’ (very bad), but it’s a word to be taken with a healthy gallon of salt. William was ‘pleased’ with us right up until war was declared, at which point the other (’furious’) half of his split personality - the part that enjoys kicking pigeons (and occasionally babies) when he comes across them on the street - took control.

I still greatly appreciate Civ IV and I won’t stop appreciating it anytime soon, but the way that Firaxis seem to have put developing AI on hold since Civ II (correct me if I’m wrong) seems to me a missed opportunity. One can’t rely on AIs in Civ IV, there’s no room for building trust with them, and without that there’s no way one can regard them as anything other than impersonal, rigidly programmed entities.

Throw us a bone Sid Meier… throw us a bone.

- Chris