Bombers have ESP???!!

Greyhawk1

King
Joined
Feb 25, 2003
Messages
725
Location
England
Just had my 4 ship invasion fleet completely destroyed by bombers in 1 turn due to air lethal bombardment. Unfortunately there is absolutely no way the Sumerians could have known my units were there short of ESP.

This means that once flight is researched it isnt possible to invade from the sea since the AI knows exactly where your fleet is and now can sink it immediately due to air lethal bombardment.

Its possible it was a sub that saw my fleet but the Sumerians dont have any - I have a spy planted with them.

This wouldnt be much of a problem if the Bombers didnt have ALB.
 
Do you have the save? It's also possible they did a recon mission.
 
Originally posted by Chieftess
Do you have the save? It's also possible they did a recon mission.

Sorry, I was so miffed I forgot to save it. *slaps forehead*

Anyway, I had a stack of three Galleons with 4 units in each ship escorted by a Frigate (I know - but I had hardly any resources and Frigates are faster than Ironclads).

The Sumerians had 9 Bombers, 2 Carriers and other sundry naval units (they had Oil, I didnt). The area was completely open sea, no other nation's ships in the visible area for Galleons and Frigates.

I think its possible the Bombers were launched from a Carrier since it also seemed to be too far from their shores - the next turn a city about two moves further back from the way I came got blitzed by Carrier based Bombers.

I was thinking about this earlier - do Carriers have a further field of view than Age of Sail ships? If so, that would explain it. I didnt think of that until the game ended...I won with a Diplo victory by the absolute skin of my teeth :)
 
Originally posted by MarineCorps
I thought the AI was able to see where all the players units were at all times?

I think so, too.

The last game something interesting happened though. I was at war with a Civ and they had two worriers near my border. I had a settler south of them with no protection and no possible way to get to it in time with an escort if the AI chose to send the warriors to get the settler. However, even though both my settler and the enemy units were so close, the enemy never sent the worriers to get my settler.

But in a way, that can be good if it has changed.
 
If that's the case and the AI knows exactly where all your units are - if you combine this with air lethal bombardment aren't you seriously unbalancing the game??

I mean how are you supposed to send an invasion force over if they are going to get sunk by planes with mind-reading ability before they get anywhere near land?

What's more you cant do the same to them because you have no such knowledge unless you spend an inordinate sum on spying. A cost the AI never has to make.

I think this really needs to be looked at since the only way I can think of to do an assault from across an ocean is to use Paratroopers only, so no Tanks or Artillery at least until you take a city and rush an Airport.
 
Originally posted by Greyhawk1
I mean how are you supposed to send an invasion force over if they are going to get sunk by planes with mind-reading ability before they get anywhere near land?

Send a couple of aircraft carriers with your convoy filled with fighters. At the end of the turn wake them and put them on air superiority. If you expect not to get sunk, send alot of carriers and fighters!!
 
The AI definitely can see where all your units are. Why do you think they're able to march right to your least defended city? They surly don't investigate all of your cities through espionage! Also hasn't anybody noticed when they go deep into your territory (with a cavalry or something with high movement points) and capture your workers (in one turn)? That basically proves that they can see your units, or else they wouldn't know where to look for your workers that they wouldn't be able to see otherwise.
 
That they can see my units isnt a problem. I would guess that's a programming necessity to get the AI to do what its supposed to without hundreds of AI calcs. In PTW I lived with it since they didnt have air lethal bombardment. It was annoying to get your ships down to 1 HP so easily but hey...

However, with air lethal bombardment it gives the AI an overwhelming edge against casual players like myself. Pro's seem to do civ miracles so I dont expect they are too worried :)

So the *only* way to be able to launch a sea invasion if the AI has flight is to assemble a massive fleet of ships including Carriers, Bomb Fodder (hoping they wont sink your transports) and a swarm of fighters? When the AI has to do nothing of the sort its kind of a major advantage for them.

Of course this means that its almost impossible for a civ lower down on the tech tree or lacking resources to invade and capture resources from the AI. So, unless you get Mass Production and Flight and also have Oil yourself, you're screwed.

I suppose there is a way to unflag air lethal bombardment somehow. Anyone know of a way?
 
Originally posted by Greyhawk1
That they can see my units isnt a problem. I would guess that's a programming necessity to get the AI to do what its supposed to without hundreds of AI calcs.

I think you are right with this assumption. I believe the game engine used in civ3 (and PtW and C3C) was based on an old game (10 -15 years ago ) called Gettysburg (may be wrong !). It was just modified to use the new game concepts. So inevetably it's a bit out of date and does not work the way we would expect.

Therefore to help the AI - it can see everything - like looking at a chess board. Unfortunately it does not have the concept of not seeing things It should not see, outside the range of units. (eye-line vision) or does not recognise hidden units (spys) as being hidden.

Therefore it will not attack the nearest unit, as you would expect - but instead go round them to attack the weakest unit (even though it should not know where it is). Also if you leave a city unprotected (even in the middle of your empire) the AI will send a unit to capture it - ignoring other units or cities in the process.

Hopefully with the possibility of Civ4, they will start from scratch and design an AI capability that does not have these flaws. :)
 
Top Bottom