I'm drastically decreasing my Civ play because I'm dissappointed that at Emperor and above the only/predominant way to keep up & win is to attack early & often. I'm all for combat, but to me the game is funner at the lower AI levels where I can do a combo of military builds & infrastructure builds in the first two ages.

The problem seems to me to be very simple to solve. The AI levels the playing field at the higher levels mostly by building stuff faster. As such it gets way ahead in tech so one is forced to attack quick and often. The real problem though is that the AI does not operate its workers & military units as efficiently as a good player can. So why not change it so only workers and military units are harder to build for the human player? If we have fewer workers operating efficiently then that equates to the AI having more workers operating more efficiently. If we have less military units because they are harder to build then we won't go to war as much. There will then be more incentive to build infrastructure. And the s/w can change so we don't fall so far behind in tech. Keep tech growth equal for the AI & the human player, which is then needed of course since we won't have as many military units to go force it away from our rivals.

I agree - the Civ3 difficulty modifiers are not ideal, but wouldn't it be better if the AI could be changed to use its units more efficiently?

Right, I'm assuming they will give that a shot but that it will be impossible to program the AI to handle the military as well as we can.

Does this idea has any merit & feasibility of getting into Civ4? If so, do I just post it as a new thread over in the Civ4 ideas forum instead of this "General Discussion" civ4 forum?

Right, I'm assuming they will give that a shot but that it will be impossible to program the AI to handle the military as well as we can.
"Depends" would be the answer to that.

How do you think that the human handles it better? If those areas can be identified, then perhaps the AI can be reworked to improve those areas.

If the game focus is on combined arms, then an AI that can use combined arms effectively could be quite strong.

The human player thinks in terms of campaigns and strategy. The AI looks at the immediate picture. So the human player is more omnipotent than however much programming time they can afford to put into it. To see the whole picture and conduct a proper military offensive is easy for us, but seems difficult to program.

So the human player will put together a nice stack, and probably a combined arms one at that (defensive val units, lots of offensive fellers, some artillery, etc). After critical mass is attained we will make a logical sequence of moves & battles to win the campaign (take some cities & get great peace terms).

In contrast the AI sort of wings it. It throws units at ya, making poor tactical and strategic decisions.

Back to the main theme in case I didn't state it well. This whole "hit 'em early and hit 'em often" required strategy at the high AI levels is very dissappointing to me. That sort of game should be called "World Conquest" (even if one uses conquest to build a spaceship first ...). I'd rather play "Civilization" where there must be more depth to a victory than just whalloping your rivals on the battlefield. I've no problem with going to war, but to not also have to build up the civilization infrastructure to support it is ahistorical. A simple analogy is the Roman society could support the large and good army because their cities had the aqueducts & sewer systems and farming to create and sustain that army. I had more fun while learning and doing a combo of building city improvements and doing military campaigns. Those main articles in The War Academy (very well written btw) on how to play at the high levels somewhat prove my point. "Get over it" about not building early wonders, and "only build workers/settlers/military" in the early going from those articles shows exactly what's wrong with Civ3 at the higher levels. I haven't "gotten over it", I do think we should be able to do some of this stuff. I guess I could regress some levels and play that way, but then I'd always win ...

I agree with the analysis about the AI's weakness, but not with the conclusion.
Granted, the AI will not be able to make proper plans in Civ4. It won't be able to do so in Civ5, either.
But I think it can be drastically improved in short term analysis of the conditions - especially when it comes to defense -, by that limiting the human player's chance "to get over it".
There seem to be very few optimization cycles in the current game, and here is the first point where an improvement would make sense.
Furthermore, I feel that there are too less improvements to be built. I think it would drastically change the whole game, if you would have that many improvements that even a production powerhouse wouldn't almost unable to build them all. In combination with pop-consuming units this would make easy warmongering much harder and would force the human player to take a less war-happy path.

The AI is not that bad at military in Civ3, the problem with the AI is it never goes to war with another AI very much and definitely does not expand. AIs should seek to grow and expand their empire to overwhelm you. The AI's on civ3 rarely went to war with each other and even rarer for them to conquer each other. I do not know a game were AIs have better military strat then humans. It just not going to happen but they can overwhelm you by invading each other like they do on MTW. I will be expanding but on the other side of the world is another comp who is beating people and expanding his empire as well.

In contrast the AI sort of wings it. It throws units at ya, making poor tactical and strategic decisions.


While I'll fully agree the AI military ability needs improvement it is able to pull off some good moves. I had started an all out ICBM war with Spain and their counterstrike seemed disorganized until I realized they had wiped out all my railroads connecting my 5 different uranium deposits to my cities, giving the AI the advantage for a couple turns.

If the in civ 4 can start making more coordinated, strategic assaults, it would be great!

In most game I play a civ or two is taken out by another civ. The real problem I see with the AI civs is they send on unit at a time. This becomes very clear when you form a military alliance with an AI civ against another civ and your ally must send troops through your territory to attack the enemy civ. I watched as he built a unit he immediately sent taht unit to attack. One unit is useless. He does not build and send a reasonable SoD. He does not have a plan to take this number of cities and then back off, and so create the sufficient number of units to perform this plan.

It has been suggested by some, and I agree, that the civ needs long term goals, and the short term goals it chooses should support those long term goals.