Is the AI's war brain broken now?

vilemerchant

Prince
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Jan 30, 2006
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Since upgrading to 2.08 i've noticed something which is beginning to bug me. There are certain situations where the AI seems to not recognise that it's being invaded. My stacks can just rome around their territory at will pillaging everything and capturing any by destroying its 3 or 4 defenders.

I've attached the Monarch game i'm playing now where i've attacked Hatshepsut who had a large empire and easily the best power graph at the time. To avoid her bribing or vassaling other powers into the war I bribed Mansa and Brennus into attacking her, as well as a few civs from the other continent (Free Religion rocks for this btw). This seems to be the problem, she's got her heart set on pillaging mansa's land with a horde of cavalry and capturing useless small cities instead of counter-attacking my large stacks of infantry which look like they'll be able to capture all her cities almost unopposed. I've captured 3 major cities and razed 1 or 2 and she's yet to directly attack my stack once. The only units she's sent to the front are the occasional solitary catapult or treb which are picked off easily for no damage.

My memories of V2.0 Warlords were most wars starting off with a huge battle between opposing stacks, which was predictable but there was at least a fight that had to be won. Now the AI seems to get confused as to the difference between an offensive and defensive war and unable to recognise it's main enemy in a war. She's more powerful than mansa and the overseas civs so she's on offense mode sending her stacks there when they should be destroying mine and trying to recapture her cities at the front.

Also, thanks to the AIs newfound enonomic building brain there's now a huge gulf between Monarch and Emperor. v2.08 emperor I get blown away economically in the 2nd half of the game, but I think after this game I will go back to v2.0 Emperor where the AI would research quite fast without it being ridiculous yet still put up a decent fight on the battlefield.

Does anyone agree that there's something not quite right about the AI's war behaviour now?
 
The AI builds more workers, I see less stacks of doom, so I think the AI's behaviour wasn't quite right the whole time, but now you recognize due to the lesser amount of troups.
 
I don't think there are much changes to the AI war logic. In your case, you got Hatty into a multi-Front war which she can not handle well. AIs can have a very high power graph, but they will only ever attack with half of whats on that graph(the other always garrison cities). When her offensive units are busy with Mensa, she will not pull them back to defend.

In my 2.08 games (Immortals/Deity), the AIs are very capable in fighing with large number of mixed units. However they are never as aggressive as the Humans in attacking (i.e. sometimes AIs pilliage too much instead of going right at the city, that gives human player more time to gather defense. Also, sometimes AI will only attack if it has like 3x of human's power score. The biggers problem is that the AIs do not utilize its tech lead well in military aggression against Human, they tend to wait too long.)

In any game at any level, if the human gets the AIs on defense, they are pretty much already won.
 
I have recently played an emperor game with 2.08
I managed to bribe Saladin and Roosevelt into a war with Napoleon by selling them music. After 10-15 turns, as my stack was sieging Lyons, I opened up the world builder 'cause I was curious as to how the war between the AIs is going. And what do you know, in addition to pumelling my offensive stack with catapults and war elephants, Napoleon has successfully captured size 13 Atlanta (located on a different front), and on a third front he has successfully captured Bombay from Arabia, who had a gigantic stack stationed there after having captured it from stupid Gandhi.

I guess some AIs wage their wars in more moronic ways than others. Napoleon was doing just fine against the three of us, plus, Arabia had a tech advantage - had longbows and trebs, and some knights during the last turns of the war, while Napoleon had eles as his best units.


Btw, we couldn't bring him down, even the three of us, except for me barely capturing Lyons and sueing for peace the next turn 'cause a stack of 15 eles+cats appeared next to Delhi (which I captured from India early on).
 
for the first time in Civ history i have seen the AI retreating in my last game...I had a spy in their territory so I saw it happening pretty well...while i was advancing with 2 stacks in ennemy territory the AI were leaving the frontal cities l with about 3 units in them (compared to at least 10 to 12 units stationned in it when I invaded). the AI was not overwhelmed and was about the same as me in power. they retreated in their capital and another city leaving maybe 3 or 4 cities to me..I think it a bad strategy. anyone saw this?
 
Monty pulled a fast one on me yesterday. I've never seen so many knights in my life. He had them with trebs and muskets, and coordinated a brilliant strike on Damascus(and he took it too!). Unfortunately, the stack then dispersed and was slowly picked off by roving pikemen, but it was competent initially at least....
 
well...you were next to Monty? that was as foreseeable as the Arizona Cards missing the playoff that he would attack you...
Thing is, I attacked him...but I didn't quite suspect the AI capable of so competent....and swift a counter...not even Monty...
 
he was probably a very few turns away from declaring war to you then! :)
Possibly...he had to be going stir crazy, he had spent the game thus far sitting on his hands, being a good boy. Maybe with Korea though...and I underestimated the AI. The Turks and Chinese are currently involved a huge war against poor Wang Kon, and they actually managed to capture a city. Keep in mind they came all the way from the other continent. Now Vicky's involved, I got pissed at Cyrus's attitude(demanded tribute, demanded change to Buddhism, demanded I stop trading with Alex), and Shaka ships over a good stack of cavalry when he feels like it. I don't really mind, good target practice for my rifles:goodjob: I couldn't stop him even if I wanted to, I have a grand total of one coastal city, down in the tundra, with miniscule production. Alex is basically blissfully building in the middle of everything, probably building troops. I just hope he doesn't decide to attack me, but he probably will...
 
In your case, you got Hatty into a multi-Front war which she can not handle well.

You got that right. After smashing hatty I used the same tactic on shaka and brennus, then on the roosevelt/napoleon vassals overseas for 1600AD domination victory. I can only think of 2 or 3 occasions during all this where my opponents actually attacked my stack or counterattacked one of my captured cities. I still think something has been changed, if the AI launches an offensive war it has a gameplan, but if it's being attacked when it's not ready for war it doesn't even seem to consider defending itself in any way at all, not even building units. Even their capitals only had a few defenders whereas in v2.0 they'd have half their army in there.
 
Since upgrading to 2.08 i've noticed something which is beginning to bug me. There are certain situations where the AI seems to not recognise that it's being invaded. My stacks can just rome around their territory at will pillaging everything and capturing any by destroying its 3 or 4 defenders.

I've attached the Monarch game i'm playing now where i've attacked Hatshepsut who had a large empire and easily the best power graph at the time. To avoid her bribing or vassaling other powers into the war I bribed Mansa and Brennus into attacking her, as well as a few civs from the other continent (Free Religion rocks for this btw). This seems to be the problem, she's got her heart set on pillaging mansa's land with a horde of cavalry and capturing useless small cities instead of counter-attacking my large stacks of infantry which look like they'll be able to capture all her cities almost unopposed. I've captured 3 major cities and razed 1 or 2 and she's yet to directly attack my stack once. The only units she's sent to the front are the occasional solitary catapult or treb which are picked off easily for no damage.

My memories of V2.0 Warlords were most wars starting off with a huge battle between opposing stacks, which was predictable but there was at least a fight that had to be won. Now the AI seems to get confused as to the difference between an offensive and defensive war and unable to recognise it's main enemy in a war. She's more powerful than mansa and the overseas civs so she's on offense mode sending her stacks there when they should be destroying mine and trying to recapture her cities at the front.

Also, thanks to the AIs newfound enonomic building brain there's now a huge gulf between Monarch and Emperor. v2.08 emperor I get blown away economically in the 2nd half of the game, but I think after this game I will go back to v2.0 Emperor where the AI would research quite fast without it being ridiculous yet still put up a decent fight on the battlefield.

Does anyone agree that there's something not quite right about the AI's war behaviour now?

I've said this in a couple other threads but will say it again. Besides it's other problems it has with tactics and strategies, the AI also emphasis it's economy too much by cutting trees and building too many cottages. The end result is that the AI has a much more difficult time building units quickly during war time.

The AI needs to favor it's economy a little bit less, and production a bit more.

I watched the AI, it's production is so sabotaged, that it struggles to build the buildings it deems really important, and, as a result, doesn't get around to building enough units.
 
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