List of AI Stupidities

That is a good one Magnus.

Here is one I ran into. I had a transport ship , WITHOUT ANY LAND UNITS ON IT, which was surrounded by Zulu destroyers for a radius of 3 squares for six turns unit I was finally able to move the transport. What the AI forgot to watch was my task force of 8 battleships, 2 aircraft carriers, and 2 submarines which went close by and attacked one of the Zulu ports. Go figure.

why does then ai build marco polo´s when they never use it. i was play the europe map, flat, on deity with the original starting positions. the completly isolated americans built it and after about 20 turns i cheated to see if they had used it. the answer was NO. they had not exchange techs with any other civ and had neither peace, war or cease fire with someone else. why the hell did they build it?

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Multiple nuclear attacks on the same city... which has SDI...

I don't know whether to call this an AI stupidity or the most nefarious AI cheat of all; I do know its damned annoying.

When one of your cities increase in size, one would assume that the computer will allocate the new "worker" to the most valuable square available. But there is no accounting for some of the AI choices. My favorite example, you have a city with a harbor; and the computer will allocate your new worker to an undeveloped grassland that doesn't even have shield; same food, but unless redistribute your worker, you're out three trade arrows. Another example: The computer prefers to distribute a worker to a forest square next to the city rather than a silk square in one of the four corners; again, same food, same production, but three trade arrows down the drain.

Since trade is source of happiness, wealth, and science, you might call this the worst AI cheat of all, because it is effecting your cities. And it is most annoying when you are in "We Love the Consul/Prez/PM" mode and you have to go through each of your cities to make sure that the idiot computer is screwing up your growth through the miss allocation of resources.


(Never mind the oft idiotic things your civil or military advisor suggest that you build; an option that I keep toggled off.)

I guess this one is a classic, but I felt I had to post it.

After I had wiped out the world, except for one Babylonian city, barbarians attacked my capital and destroyed all units inside. I killed them with another unit coming from an other city (which was now defenceless) and put it in my capital (Rome). Then the Babs moved a cavalry unit to the defenceless city. I found the last Bab city and attacked it, destroying all but one unit. Next turn, the stupid Babs move their unit out of their last city (not even attacking me!) and fail to just walk into my defenceless city. Is it me or is something wrong with my Civ II version?

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I know it seem hard sometimes, but uh...
remember one thing:
through every dark night,
there's a bright day after that,
so no matter how hard it get, stick ya chest out
keep ya head up and handle it.

A couple days ago, I was playing GOTM 4 (for comparison, since I'm new to the board), and fairly late in the game (about 4 AI cities left, I had about 80), some barbs landed in my home area from a frigate. The first dragoon attacked my coastal city (no walls, one diplomat only). Dip was toast, and city pop dropped by one (no big deal, Democracy means instant growth to regain the point). The second dragoon go out, took a road right up to my empty city, and.... pillaged the irrigation! The big, fully developed city was totally defenseless... What I actually expected was a demand for tribute, then a sacked city when I refused.

Anyway, for a hostile AI civ, and especially the barbs, not to take an undefended city is such a load of crap. I felt like entering the Cheat mode and becoming the barbs and doing it the right way for them. It is not too hard to add the proper code for such an obvious course of action... and the logic is not so obscure that one could easily assume it was just overlooked.

no big deal, but I wonder if other variations of Civ 2, or even ToT, have the same core logic (I'm running Civ II MGE, 5.4.0f, March 99).

posted April 17, 2001 06:02 PM by Az:

Actually the AI tries to nuke the cities that have the most units inside. As far as I'm concerned the AI ONLY nukes cities of mine that have SDI because all of my big cities have it!

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Myself (and doubtless others) have posted at length about the AI, nukes, and SDI.

Summary: The Civ II program code allows the AIs to know exactly which city has an SDI. It is not possible for an AI to attempt to nuke any city (AI or human) that has an operational SDI inside it. Conversly, the AI has absolutely no idea if a city is protected by a nearby SDI, and will waste dozens of nukes in a single turn on a single city that has no SDI, but is protected by a nearby SDI.

I've tested extensively to determine the nature of target selection (empirically under controlled circumstances, and in normal games), have never, ever observed the program logic differentiate target selection based on the value and/or quantity of units contained within a city. The differentiators are city size and SDI.

For instance, an empty size 20 city will be repeatedly nuked, while a nearby size 2 city with 20 nukes, 10 battleships, 10 fighters, and dozens of other units will be ignored. As the big city gets smaller, the odds of continued nuking are reduced. The smallest city I've ever observed the AI to nuke is a size 5, on several occasions.

I do not know if this is a hard-coded bottom limit, or merely a statistical unliklihood to not nuke a size 4 or less city. But without a doubt, the AI absolutely does not consider the value of the contents of a city when it nukes.

Note: these results are for Civ II MPE, 5.4.0f, March 99 (Microprose patch 3).

EDIT: add quote's author and time.


[This message has been edited by starlifter (edited June 26, 2001).]

There are some subtle variations over the AIs between Civ2 "classic", MGE & TOT..the bottom line is that they are all pretty stupid. I, for example, find that putting a unit on good defensive terrain just outside of an AI city in MGE, will not infrequently trigger a series of suicide attacks & I can just waltz into the city after they are done.

Dog

I agree,

I reckon thats the biggest problem with 'any' AI and 'any' game. There must be a way to make the AI able to make a descision that it is gonna be mince mean if it attacks.

MrLeN

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I was playing a game recently where there were 4 civs left, me, the Spanish, the Mongols and the Greeks. I was invading the Greek island casually, with Alpine troops and Howitzers and Artillery. Of the computer controlled civs, none had gunpowder or conscription and their most advanced units were Knights and Legions.
I fortified an Alpine troop next to a Greek city and backed up a couple of Artillery. Next turn when I attacked, the first Artillery got creamed by a RIFLEMAN fortified behind walls. I checked through the UN and discovered that no civs had gunpowder or conscription still. And they hadn't bribed one of my units earlier either and I certainly hadn't given it to them as a gift. They just got given a free Rifleman. Not fair at all.

First, let me just say that this is truly an excellent site. Here goes my first post to the forums..

I don't know actually if this fits to the list of AI stupidities, but it's a strange thing anyway.

It happened to me in my current game that one city both supplied and demanded the same product (oil). How can that be? If it supplies oil, how can it demand it at the same time? Doesn't it supply enough?

Seteh

It happened to me in my current game that one city both supplied and demanded the same product (oil). How can that be? If it supplies oil, how can it demand it at the same time? Doesn't it supply enough?

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I would say this is just a malfunction in the program. Cities are supposed to supply and demand different commodities.

Hmm has this been mentioned....

The AI will trade away any tech advantage that it has. It is almost a certainty that once an AI civ discovers say Gunpowder within 10 turns they will trade it away to all other civs(even enemies!) for things such as pottery, map making, or chivalry.

You have to admire the AI for its respect for nature though.I am always the most polluting country.And i have never seen a pollution in enemy territory. (well ,except when i nuke'd em)
Atleast they are setting the right example.

At least the A.I isn't stupid enough to pollute the planet <IMG SRC="http://forums.civfanatics.com/ubb/smile.gif" border=0>

The A.I should gang up vs the human from turn 1 and make WAR! Or merely programmed to launch offensives in war vs individual cities rather than a trickle of units...that meet my powerful attacking unit -but only 1!

I like my A.I to be less than human...if it gets too bright it gets my homework -well assignments- to do.

[This message has been edited by kittenOFchaos (edited July 01, 2001).]

has anywhere ever supplied uranium in your games?

never in mine could i supply uranium!

As for the dude with a city supplying and demanding oil...we have that in the real work -just a product of capitalism!

posted July 01, 2001 06:40 AM
You have to admire the AI for its respect for nature though.I am always the most polluting country.And i have never seen a pollution in enemy territory. (well ,except when i nuke'd em) Atleast they are setting the right example.

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The AI will never generate Population or Resource pollution. That is why you never see pollution in their city radii. The programming simply won't allow the pollution to occur, no matter how many pollution icons (representing relative probability) a city generates.

It is interesting to note that the AI still "thinks" it might pollute, however. Given the right circumstances of time and peace, it will even build Mass Transits and Solar Plants.

The AI is not "smart" enough to sell off obsolete or redundant city improvements, either. For instance, if it has a power plant and later builds a hydro plant (common), it will retain the power plant. Since it never pays upkeep on any city improvements, I guess that is not such a bad idea, though.

When a pollution icon does occur (nuclear war or human PP/RP) and an AI engineer notices it, the pollution cleanup will become the top (or near-top) priority.

posted July 01, 2001 08:27 AM
has anywhere ever supplied uranium in your games?

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I've never had a Uranium "repeater", but eventually almost every single city will generate a Uranium freight. Those get special attention from me, because they can get you close to 4,000 if the delivery is carefully done.

AI Attacks me <FONT COLOR="Blue">with</FONT c> stealth bomber, but <FONT COLOR="Blue">then</FONT c> 3 turns later that civ discovers steath.

Hi. First post. Several stupidities I've observed:

1. Someone mentioned earlier in the thread that an AI civ had a rifleman defending one of their cities before discovering conscription. This could have happened if they had gotten a rifleman from a goody hut. I would think that if you as a civ stumbled across a superior military unit that was a product of tech you hadn't researched yet, you would debrief that unit to get the tech. Oh well...

2. Speaking of goody huts, once your civ reaches a certain size, you will simply never be awarded a settler or an advanced tribe any more.

3. Someone earlier mentioned hopeless inefficiencies in gathering resources. One thing that makes me grind my teeth is when I make sure that one of my tiny cities has the proper squares selected to bring in just enough food and production, then the city "rolls over" into a new population rank at the same time it finishes producing a settler: Invariably the city will reallocate its resource gathering to maximize production so that, if I fail to catch it, the settler will starve on the next turn.

4. Once I discover espionage, I unleash waves of spies against the other civs and subvert their cities one at a time. Once I gain control of a city, I demand that all foreign units be withdrawn from its vicinty, clearing a path to the next city. The AIs are totally helpless against an attack like this; they very seldom get close enough to expel my spies (and very seldom actually expel them when they do), and they don't start building diplomats or spies of their own to defend themsleves. The only semi-useful response they make is to eventually initiate a sneak attack, but this usually gets totally crushed and also makes it much less expensive to buy their cities next turn.

5. Here's a new wrinkle I've just observed for the first time in my current game. I managed to reduce four of the other civs to their capital city, then kept them around waiting for the Statue of Liberty so I could painlessly switch over to Fundamentalism and do a quick all-purpose crushing. After said crushing, I went searching to try to figure out if the civs had been restarted and, if so, where. Lo and behold, all four new civs had been restarted on the same small island! Three of them managed to start cities, which I conquered immediately; I then founded two other cities to completely claim the island's total area. One AI civ is still wandering around the island as a lonely settler that will never be able to found a city; I think this might allow me to actually finish the game in control of all 256 cities!