Air unit mechanics vs AA mechanics

Can someone please simplify this for me? Im having an issue in which the AI builds as many 'Mobile Sam' as tanks, which is not so bad i guess, but they completely neglect their fighters and bombers. I think it might have something to do with the attack and defense values i gave them vs the Jets' and bombers'.

By Vingrjoe

''First off, the Air Defense value. This works like regular combat. When a bomber goes to bombard a ship, the ships Air Defense value acts like an attack value, and is checked against the bombers defense. So, the standard combat formula applies, Attackers Attack Value[ship's Air Defense Strength] divided by (Attackers Attack Strength+Defenders Defense Strength). If the bomber makes it through the Air Defense of the target ship, then the Bomber's Bombardment Value is checked against the Ship's Defensive Strength. Again, the standard combat formula applies. If the bombardment ROF is 4, then I'm assuming each volley is checked against the ships Defensive Strentgh to see if each volley makes it through or not.''

Can anyone please explain what this means?

In my game:

1-Fighter===4attack---2defense---15bombard---1rof---AA
2-Jets=====8---------4-----------21-----------2-----0
3-Erly Stlth=10--------6-----------25-----------3-----0
4-Late Stlth =12--------8-----------30-----------4----0

5-Flak======6----------6------------------------------3
6-Mob Sam===6----------10-----------------------------6

I need help with the math here please. The AI builds the initial fighter in small numbers, then Mobile sams start to show up all over the place and they stop building aircraft. They build almost as many as mech infantries for defense, and it doesnt make any sense since a mech infantry is still way stronger, yet they build both, but they stop building fighters. I yet got to reach the technologies in my game to build the early and late stealth fighters with the better numbers to see what happens, but so far they dont build air units at all.

Did i buff my AA too much? Please let me know, im going bald here...

I could really use the help...

Also i forgot that i added a new unit called 'Spec Ops' for the modern era. It happens to be a medium power Invisible unit with a movement rate of 2 to simulate stealthiness (Able to do its job and leave immediately right after). I modified 2 units in the game to serve as detectors in hopes that the AI can build them more often and also serve a purpose. The first modified detector is the Radar artillery, and the second happens to be the Mobile Sam ... Maybe this is why my worst enemy, Germany made the decision to make 60 mobile sam and counting.

I noticed that they got 22 Spec Ops units and stopped building Modern armors at around 30, and their numbers are dwindling. My game is pretty much ruined. There is no way 60 6/10 unit can beat my 24/14 units

!!!!!I might have also unintendedly discovered a way to manipulate the AI into building lots of artillery!!!!!! If my theory about the detectors was right, and i remove the Mobile Sam as a detector, then maybe they will build lots of artillery since its the only detector to defend against my invisible units on land. Maybe artillery works just like 'Infantry' in the industrial age. They are flagged for both offense and defense but the AI will not use them to attack unless they got X amount defending a city. Maybe by tricking the AI to build artillery this way they get X number to defend cities, and then send the rest to work offensively. After all there have been games in which non captured artillery came out of their cities to attack me. It happened very few times with certain civs who love artillery. Heck this is worth people's attention and im creating a new thread so ppl can see it and try it.

ZergMazter, you might want to search the threads that Antal has been posting, as I think that there might be something in there, and also run a search on aircraft use. I have played around with both AA and Aircraft, but have not really worked on trying to determine the odds. Plus, based on my experience, I am not sure if the AI is using the same probability of success as a human player. I loose a lot more aircraft to AA fire than the AI, unless I bump up my AA fire a bit and keep the AI from having the same ability. Note, I have not documented that, however.

Oh man i've tried but i wonder to this day how that guy understands what hes reading in form of code. Im the type of person when i see a lot of tiny digits or unbroken txt my mind blocks on me and i cant move forward. I cant make sense off of it lol.

About the artillery there might be something up though. I've just spied on 3 countries and their Mobile Sam is their highest in numbers, followed by defenders, followed by radar artillery, followed by tanks, and finally spec ops. Maybe if i take the Mobile sams out of the equation and the radar artillery be the only detectors the outcome would be different. Oh man oh man im gonna play a new game just to check it out. Changing my settings right now.

Air unit issue solved. Turns out it was my peaceful ways. I think the AI will fight another AI to death without building any aircraft. Its not until the human player attacks someone with a lot of aircraft that it starts an arms race, and everyone begins building a lot of aircraft to challenge yours just like nukes.

Ever notice if u build 20 nukes everyone tried to have around 20 before focusing on something else? Its the same thing with aircraft in my experience. I just tested it right now. I had 20 aircraft, and the AI 2. As soon as i attacked with bombers, they quickly matched my air force pound by pound for a total of 20 vs 20 aircraft.

It triggers an arms race. They wanna have slightly more than you, and when you try to match their number, then they try to beat your number. They will keep this up until someone goes broke. The most important thing about this is your actions. If you are aggressive, they will turn up their aircraft numbers. If you are peaceful like me, then they might only build 2-4 aircraft units lol.

Even at war if u dont use your airfoce then they wont build theirs. The important thing is to trigger that arms race, then everyone joins it and then the AI will compete against each other for air superiority.

NOTE:
This are just my observations. Im using old and new data here. I always had the feeling the AI did this, but it wasnt till i created a scenario with the sole purpose of proving this that i got my proof. 100% of the time in my tests the AI behaved like this trying to match your behavior. I dont think the AI will start an arms race by itself. So far that hasnt been my experience. Yes they might build a couple nuke or aircraft, but its not till the human player takes the right actions that the arms race will begin.

It had nothing to do with my aircraft stats ha!

I have seen the AI mimic my behavior quite a few times as well. As I play on maps with boosted resources: i.e. boosted food yield from irrigated grasslands and the coasts and boosted shield production from mines on hills and mountains, along with requiring 4 population for settlers, I have regularly seen the AI mimic my city placement, which generally is to spread out much more that your typical game. I go for a limited number of highly productive cities, which cuts down on corruption, and makes it much easier to manage them. I also use a Town Size of 9 and a City Size of 21 or 22 to avoid pollution problems. I have discovered that on one-tile islands, with my boosted coastal resources, it is worth going to metropolis because there is effectively no pollution, the game does not allow for ocean pollution, nor does it allow for pollution of the primary city tile. However, the AI does use the same strategy as well, which does make it quite difficult at times to take out the one-tile island city.

This is a cool observing thing. Can´t one say that it is almost as RL ????
It might be the only time that the AI perform naturally.

However the big question is if the human is the only trigger to an arms race?
What about if a civ-nation is set to be aggressive,militaristic and expansionist. That kind of Civ-nation often will pick a fight with a human and have stacked up a lot of units to attack if you dare to dismiss any demands.
Such a bully Civ should then start an arms race or what´s your opinion and observations gents?

The behavior of the elusive AI continue to surprise .....

So i tested the 'detect' invisible on artillery only and the AI still sucks at building them. I think im just gonna go under each civ's governor and tell everyone to focus on building land artillery. Maybe it changes their behavior who knows.

Even if they dont use artillery offensively it could at least help them when im trying to invade them. They do shoot at you if you are staying a turn within its range. Also this will increase the amount of captured artillery which the AI does use offensively. Maybe the aggressive ones will capture more and more of them, and eventually use them in stacks to invade other AI/players.

clamel said:

This is a cool observing thing. Can´t one say that it is almost as RL ????
It might be the only time that the AI perform naturally.

However the big question is if the human is the only trigger to an arms race?
What about if a civ-nation is set to be aggressive,militaristic and expansionist. That kind of Civ-nation often will pick a fight with a human and have stacked up a lot of units to attack if you dare to dismiss any demands.
Such a bully Civ should then start an arms race or what´s your opinion and observations gents?

The behavior of the elusive AI continue to surprise .....

Click to expand...

Based on my observations, that combination does result in an aggressive AI, and with the boosted resources I have in my mods, they do build a lot of units. However, they also have more motivation, as I have boosted the combat capabilities of the Barbarians quite a bit, using the Gallic Swordsman and the Cossack, along with the Privateer, for Barbarian units. A stack of 24 Barbarian Cossacks can do a lot of damage.