[BTS] Stumbled upon an AI trick I'd not used before…

[lindsay40k]

So I'm Ramesses II with horses and my neighbour's Sitting Bull. I don't want him to spread or get Copper online so I go to fairly early war with a few War Chariots picking off exposed units but avoiding his cities. It's a success and he never gets a fourth city settled. In the middle of his three hilly cities is an open space in which I bulldoze his roads to isolate his cities. I've got a War Chariot that's taken like 80% damage trying to heal but he keeps sending units chasing after it. My other WCs just keep mowing them down and I conclude that a wounded, fast unit is far better bait to draw AI units off of their walled cities than my usual captured Worker.

By the time I get Construction and take his good cities, I've got a super healer GG, a pair of WCs with Medic and Recon (one to accompany a mounted territorial army, another to accompany a foot army with siege gear to stay in exposed capured cities and heal troops without keeping the GG from leading a march to another target), and a second GG to settle. .

I'm definitely trying this again!

 

[lymond]

So, what is the trick exactly? Using a wounded unit to draw units out? You can do that threatening other cities, which is quite easy mounted units.

Question is ..why didn't you just take SB out with WC's asap? WC's are a Top 3 unit in the game, and on certain difficulties/maps you can run the whole map with them. Construction? Wouldn't even have bothered with that.. SB should be dead way before you trade for it.

 

[lindsay40k]

So, what is the trick exactly? Using a wounded unit to draw units out? You can do that threatening other cities, which is quite easy mounted units.

Well yeah, but this seemed to consistently draw out a single unit, as opposed to him redeploying his large defence forces. It had a really low overhead and seemed to yield more reliable results.

Question is ..why didn't you just take SB out with WC's asap? WC's are a Top 3 unit in the game, and on certain difficulties/maps you can run the whole map with them. Construction? Wouldn't even have bothered with that.. SB should be dead way before you trade for it.

Couple of reasons; WCs are awesome but they're not 'smash a hilltop city with CGIII guards' awesome - especially when he gets Masonry early on. I wanted to contain him, and farm über units & workers & GGs.

The hammers I saved by choking his cities and fighting in the field rather than committing to all-out war of conquest to grab a capital that costs 10 upkeep went into Great Lighthouse, Pyramids, and a bunch of wiggly river sites.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

I like it, feeling it's a pretty good trick.
There are plenty of uses to baiting units. Mostly it makes warring cheaper, keeps the AI's unit count low, promotes units and prolongs the warring.

The AI looks at the overall power stacked on a tile when deciding how to react (dunno how they evaluate a worker bait).
So using stray wounded units as baits would indeed make them chase with more diligence.