Fall Patch, AI asking for the moon: a Theory

I don't think that on higher difficulties when you defeat their invasions you are actually making much of a dent in their military. They hold a considerable reserve force and probably start replacing the invasion force as soon as they send it to you. By the time it gets there and you kill it the next invasion is probably about ready to go, leaving the power balance about where it was when they decided to attack you in the first place.

I also don't think refusing to talk is part of the peace deal spectrum. It seems like it comes from war being declared too recently or maybe being untrustworthy/warmonger.

I don't see why counting military losses as part of the equation would be particularly abusable. I don't think you would want the AI to make concessions based on that alone but it could be a good indicator that the war is a waste of effort. Obviously there would need to be a weighting there since a war where the AI is losing one unit for every one of yours it kills is actually going really well for the AI. How sure are you that it doesn't do this already though? I would swear I've read on these forums before that the AI did figure that in somehow.

To count anything beyond that the AI would have to assess its tactical position. I can't imagine how you would quantify that. I don't think the game as it is now attempts to do it at all.

One thing I can think of that would be smart to figure into the equation is the promotion level of troops. In the hands of a player a nice range + logistics promoted range unit is probably worth about 4 completely green units.

TyBoy said:

One thing I can think of that would be smart to figure into the equation is the promotion level of troops. In the hands of a player a nice range + logistics promoted range unit is probably worth about 4 completely green units.

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I believe the military strength rating already takes promotions into consideration. You can have a much smaller force than the AI units wise, but if you have highly promoted units your rating will be close to the AI's still.

This makes me wonder if some of those complaining the AI won't offer fair peace terms are building units in cities with armories. I never build a unit without an armory present once it is unlocked. I love producing units with the Cover promotion.

Tachii said:

I didn't take your comment out of context. I was asking for clarification because that's the part I didn't get.

If you click negotiate for peace and s/he won't even let you do it, that's a game mechanic - it has nothing to do with "AI stupidity" (it might indirectly make the AI look stupid, but it's not about how dumb they are), it hardly even have anything to do with relative army strength. I've had the same situation pop up before and sometimes it's because you have to wait like some turns due to a game mechanic (for example, if they were bribed into war, they need 10 turns before they can negotiate peace, EVEN IF they are losing everything.) Or, they just need some turns after they DOW before they can even negotiate. If it's a long war in most cases the negotiation choice becomes accessible.

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I'm very much aware of the game mechanics, therefore I did not mention the 10 turn period as it is obvious such a situation did not occur (we were at war since medieval era, game ended in modern era).

There was a situation where I conquered the AI's with 4-5 7 level battleships with assistance of a couple of submarines and 2 destroyers. So in army sizes my army was waaaaay smaller than either of the AI's (even the defeated ones), therefore no one wanted to negotiate peace treaty with me. But since I got a domination victory it is obvious for me, that the DoW/peacy treaty signing system does not work.

I can only guess that Persia (my last opponent) had much large ground forces than me and thought he'll get the capitol right back after I conquered it. But clearly I had all other capitols and the game would end, so why not negotiate peacy when there was a chance? The AI does not recognize such a situation, that is the problem. It does not take into account that large ground army vs small naval army on for example archipelago map has 0 chance of succeding (and vice versa on for example great plains map).

And to answer a second question - why would I want to sign pecae treaty in such a situation - I didn't, I just wanted to check what he'd be willing to give me on peace treaty while beeing completely against the wall.

Sidor1982 said:

And to answer a second question - why would I want to sign pecae treaty in such a situation - I didn't, I just wanted to check what he'd be willing to give me on peace treaty while beeing completely against the wall.

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I get the curiosity of it, but I still think the AI should not be looking for peace in this situation, nor should the developers at Firaxis be concerned with the AI looking for peace in this situation.

TyBoy said:

I don't think that on higher difficulties when you defeat their invasions you are actually making much of a dent in their military. They hold a considerable reserve force and probably start replacing the invasion force as soon as they send it to you. By the time it gets there and you kill it the next invasion is probably about ready to go, leaving the power balance about where it was when they decided to attack you in the first place.

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Hmmm...Has there been a change in the algorithms that govern this, to make the AI keep a reserve? I'm accustomed to the AI throwing everything (including the kitchen sink) at me in one massive invasion. If I can shred that invasion force, it's often a (relatively) easy counterattack into their lands, because the blood of AI soldiers is in my furrows nourishing my crops. They typically don't have much left with which to resist.

Pook said:

Hmmm...Has there been a change in the algorithms that govern this, to make the AI keep a reserve? I'm accustomed to the AI throwing everything (including the kitchen sink) at me in one massive invasion. If I can shred that invasion force, it's often a (relatively) easy counterattack into their lands, because the blood of AI soldiers is in my furrows nourishing my crops. They typically don't have much left with which to resist.

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The AI definitely build more units than it used to. It's hard to tell whether it holds a reserve, or simply rebuilds the 2nd invasion as quickly as you can annihilate the first.

The AI definitely has rebuild priorities, as well. If the Navy is too small, the AI will prioritize BBs. Which is ok with me, I prioritize subs. A face-off between subs and BBs is rather one-sided....

dac050 said:

The AI definitely build more units than it used to. It's hard to tell whether it holds a reserve, or simply rebuilds the 2nd invasion as quickly as you can annihilate the first.

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Actually, it's pretty easy to tell, with a mod that removes fog of war on-demand

The times I've played with this capability, it's readily apparent that the warring AI's very seldom (pretty much never) send all of their units to attack you. If they did, you would rarely survive, I'd wager. I've seen huge warmongering runaway civs with 10 times the military I have, and yet they only send a relatively small handful of their total units in your direction, each time they do an attack 'wave'.

I'm betting the devs discovered early on that if they allowed the more powerful civs with lots of units to send them all in one big mass, that they'd very often wear you down by sheer numbers, killing your units by attrition since you'd never have time to heal them, or if you tried, your reserves would get creamed before they could heal up enough (assuming you even have any reserves...). It can be touch and go sometimes with just the smaller bunches they send at you- imagine if they sent 50 units instead of 10?

^

Yep on higher levels I think it probably would be impossible if AI sent all of their units unless you had very defensible terrain each game. But still - it makes sense to have "reserve" units on borders/etc to protect even during war.