One area where the AI have a combat advantage over us

Almost anyone who likes to play a domination islands map would probably have come across this scenario.

We have four ranged attack naval vessels attacking a City that contains one x-bow, and we know that individually, all the naval vessels have enough hit points to withstand the return fire. On the AI turn they produce a second x-bow in the City which takes a shot then moves out of range, along with the City bombard and the other x-bow we then loose one of our vessels!

I am not complaining because at the end of the day we hold most of the advantages. I have also seen the same thing happen when they produce a second range attack naval vessel, it takes a shot and then moves into an adjoining coastal water tile. I was wondering if anyone knows what would happen if a second Naval vessel was produced by the City but all available ocean spaces were taken up by my Navy? What would happen to ours in the same scenario in reverse, would the game crash?

Something is strange with the AI and ranged attacks sometimes. Another example would be several Impis attacking the same target: They all do their ranged damage before even the first of them goes into melee. On the other hand, the AI seems to have problems with moving AND attacking with a ranged (land-)unit in the same turn (or attacking twice), at least that's my impression. I had one game where England had a gifted Chu-Ko-Nu and never got to using the extra attack. Was before BNW though.

NiceOneEmlyn said:

I was wondering if anyone knows what would happen if a second Naval vessel was produced by the City but all available ocean spaces were taken up by my Navy? What would happen to ours in the same scenario in reverse, would the game crash?

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I've had this happen before. Basically you don't get the new unit the production stays at 100% so you lose a turn a turn of productivity - this will continue until there is a space for the new ship to move into.

Redaxe said:

I've had this happen before. Basically you don't get the new unit the production stays at 100% so you lose a turn a turn of productivity - this will continue until there is a space for the new ship to move into.

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Yeah this happened to me in one game as well

Redaxe said:

I've had this happen before. Basically you don't get the new unit the production stays at 100% so you lose a turn a turn of productivity - this will continue until there is a space for the new ship to move into.

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Thanks, it's good to know that the game doesn't crash as a consequence of such an action!

Cerilis said:

Something is strange with the AI and ranged attacks sometimes. Another example would be several Impis attacking the same target: They all do their ranged damage before even the first of them goes into melee. On the other hand, the AI seems to have problems with moving AND attacking with a ranged (land-)unit in the same turn (or attacking twice), at least that's my impression. I had one game where England had a gifted Chu-Ko-Nu and never got to using the extra attack. Was before BNW though.

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I think it is a mistake to introduce features (double attack, move attack, ..), traits, or others (ideologies: I had the ai choose an ideology disregarding influence and instantly go into civil war) that the ai cannot use/understand.
Chess programmers learned this lesson. First they used well established opening libraries for the first moves. But sometimes the program did not understand the value of a position and tried to undo the 'mistakes'. Now they evaluate all moves in the opening library by the ai and keep only moves the ai understands. ..

Better units that are an area ahead or with a better promotion often have a better combat advantage over units that arent that advanced or that promoted.

NiceOneEmlyn said:

I was wondering if anyone knows what would happen if a second Naval vessel was produced by the City but all available ocean spaces were taken up by my Navy?

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If it is enemy units depriving you of hexes, the unit will not spawn. If all friendlies, the unit will spawn but under crowded conditions, it is possible to make it so "next turn" is not an option. There is a message instead to moved stacked unit (which you have probably seen) but if you are not careful, you can end up with a stacked unit, but no possible moves. It is not crashing of course, but the game is stuck, and your only option is to reload or delete a unit.

beetle said:

If it is enemy units depriving you of hexes, the unit will not spawn. If all friendlies, the unit will spawn but under crowded conditions, it is possible to make it so "next turn" is not an option. There is a message instead to moved stacked unit (which you have probably seen) but if you are not careful, you can end up with a stacked unit, but no possible moves. It is not crashing of course, but the game is stuck, and your only option is to reload or delete a unit.

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This is exactly what I thought would happen, you are quite right when you say "stuck", I only said crash because of my lack of knowledge of correct terminologies. This is however a contradiction of what Redaxe and Stormtrooper412 have stated!

EDIT - So what would happen if the AI produced a second ship, but my blockade reduced the possible moves to zero?

Well, I have had the game crash, so I think your terminology is fine! I think my response is consistent with what Redaxe and ST wrote. Thinking about it more, I imagine you could block your own production with units as well, but the scenario is most common when a city is under siege. (Why would you have that many idle units around your own city?)

I am confident that blockading AI cities has a similar effect -- they cannot rush buy or build units if there is no tile to place them. (I am not sure how to test this, but I have never observed the computer "cheating" on this game mechanic.) Later game, the AI is pretty good at using airports to move units to cities under attack. Blockades really help with that!

beetle said:

(Why would you have that many idle units around your own city?)

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I often have up to a dozen privateers and caravels around my Capital City. My personal interest in this is because of one or two stuck games that I have come across just lately whilst playing huge Ocean maps, and I am trying to get to the bottom of the reasons why!

I'll tell you one very strange thing that happened whilst playing a OCC game. I took a Capital City and because it was OCC, that Capital was immediately raised. The caravel that took the City remained sat on the ruins as usual until the next turn. When the next turn came around there was only one move available for the caravel, that move was into a lake in the middle of the Island, so basically suicide for the caravel! Oh! and there were Coastal tiles available in front of the Ruins.

Edit-Off Topic

I reroll a lot. I dont continue with civilization after a lot of times.

chuckh89 said:

I have had numerous games ruined because I had only one Melee Unit dedicated to a city siege, and knew if that unit survived for one turn it would remove that AI from the game. After analyzing the AI'S available units I was sure my Melee unit would survive, and eliminate him on the next turn, But just barely....

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I didn't start this thread as a way of ing about my losses, more a case of trying to understand the AI programming and what might happen in a given situation.

Maybe I should have started another thread when mentioning the strange things that happen in One City Challenges as it is a different subject although very much related. I am not talking about the loss of a City capture caravel due to an enemy ranged attack land unit, I am talking about what moves are available when my next turn comes around. If I have a fleet of frigates and one caravel it is extremely annoying when that caravel can only move somewhere other than the hex where it captured the City from.

Examples.

Inland lake that is not attached to the Captured City.

The other side of a long streaky archipelago island taking an eternity to join up with the rest of the fleet.

A land locked sea.

Into the middle of a fleet of enemy ships.

Half way across the known world to a friendly City State.

Half way across the World to my Capital.

If I am not playing a One City challenge then these problems do not arise. If I am playing a One City Challenge and the caravel has the double attack promotion then it can gain access to the point where the attack happened on the very same turn.

NiceOneEmlyn said:

On the AI turn they produce a second x-bow in the City which takes a shot then moves out of range

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Yeah, I was referring to the AI ability to have a unit within his city, then create a new unit, and fire with both from the confines of his city. Human players have to move a unit out of the city before firing.

Sorry if I was off topic, my rant wasn't directed at you, or the subject you were proposing in this thread....Probably at Firaxis, for wasting my time.



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The scenario you describe is not an AI advantage -- the human player has the same ability (you do not have to move either unit out of the city before firing).

Browd said:

The scenario you describe is not an AI advantage -- the human player has the same ability (you do not have to move either unit out of the city before firing).

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We cannot produce a second archer, fire, then move backwards out of range, which is how I started the thread.

NiceOneEmlyn said:

I often have up to a dozen privateers and caravels around my Capital City.

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Why?

NiceOneEmlyn said:

We cannot produce a second archer, fire, then move backwards out of range, which is how I started the thread.

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We can produce a second archer and fire. It will auto move (someplace, not under our control) at the end of the turn.

beetle said:

Why?



We can produce a second archer and fire. It will auto move (someplace, not under our control) at the end of the turn.

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Your "why" question does not deserve an answer, this is not the tactics forum!

This auto move you mention, I was not aware of, if this is correct then the title of this thread is complete and utter nonsense and I apologise to any members that have wasted their time reading it.

NiceOneEmlyn said:

Your "why" question does not deserve an answer, this is not the tactics forum!

This auto move you mention, I was not aware of, if this is correct then the title of this thread is complete and utter nonsense and I apologise to any members that have wasted their time reading it.

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Thats why you have to find out of things by yourself instead of relying on others to find out information. I guess what im wondering is why his question didnt deserve an answer.