That's simple, much like with how all the complexity of Civ 2 was left behind I don't think any modern games programmers have the intelligence or the patience to get through something like that. It's the same reason why we see even 4x strategy games getting frequently dumbed down.
As an example I do quite like a good grand strategy game, decided to try re-installing Stellaris which I do legally own and oh boy poking at the AI pathfinding was just annoying. It was Total War Warhammer levels of bad with cheap no fog of war scanning going on and little real design happening beyond "Go here if system is empty" so even if you tried invading deep into enemy territory the AI would go on a suicide run against you rather than retreat back to defending itself.
Compare that to older games and how much time they spent on designing their AI to be half-decent and it's easy to see why modern games are so shit now. I also can understand why even though I crap on Rimworld's AI a bit people prefer that game because there is a lot more design that's gone into that. The indie creator though clearly put some proper time into it unlike the big studios of today most modern AI design is pathetic.
In fact you can see this trend with some utter failures when they tried to turn RTS games into MOBAs or mobile games. EA did it with command and conquer where they tried to simplify the mechanics to get it onto some shitty mobile game and then there are other games that simply did away with base building elements among other things again so they could fit it onto mobile. They essentially behave as IP squatters on certain stuff too because I think it's partly that they don't want legit competition going near these franchises and potentially fucking them over.
It's the same reason why we see even 4x strategy games getting frequently dumbed down.
The main issue with modern Civ is that the AI can't play or pose a challenge within its own environment.
The bare-bones vanilla base game drops and the AI is dogshit, but also represents the pinnacle of PvE play because every subsequent DLC and game update adds new mechanics that the AI simply can't handle.
The player ends up either having to avoid new content or use house rules to keep things even remotely balanced.
That's simple, much like with how all the complexity of Civ 2 was left behind I don't think any modern games programmers have the intelligence or the patience to get through something like that. It's the same reason why we see even 4x strategy games getting frequently dumbed down.
As an example I do quite like a good grand strategy game, decided to try re-installing Stellaris which I do legally own and oh boy poking at the AI pathfinding was just annoying. It was Total War Warhammer levels of bad with cheap no fog of war scanning going on and little real design happening beyond "Go here if system is empty" so even if you tried invading deep into enemy territory the AI would go on a suicide run against you rather than retreat back to defending itself.
Compare that to older games and how much time they spent on designing their AI to be half-decent and it's easy to see why modern games are so shit now. I also can understand why even though I crap on Rimworld's AI a bit people prefer that game because there is a lot more design that's gone into that. The indie creator though clearly put some proper time into it unlike the big studios of today most modern AI design is pathetic.
In fact you can see this trend with some utter failures when they tried to turn RTS games into MOBAs or mobile games. EA did it with command and conquer where they tried to simplify the mechanics to get it onto some shitty mobile game and then there are other games that simply did away with base building elements among other things again so they could fit it onto mobile. They essentially behave as IP squatters on certain stuff too because I think it's partly that they don't want legit competition going near these franchises and potentially fucking them over.
The main issue with modern Civ is that the AI can't play or pose a challenge within its own environment.
The bare-bones vanilla base game drops and the AI is dogshit, but also represents the pinnacle of PvE play because every subsequent DLC and game update adds new mechanics that the AI simply can't handle.
The player ends up either having to avoid new content or use house rules to keep things even remotely balanced.