AI Stacks of Doom

How come the AI can get it together to send a stack of 8 barbarian horsemen into my cities, but the AI Civs send 2-3 units at a time? The main problem with this is that if you are equal or even smaller than an enemy AI Civ, they have zero chance of taking a city ever. Likewise wars between AI Civs. I've been on a huge pangea map and for the entire game only one civ has ever lost a city!?! All wars between AI Civs have to be insanely mismatched for one to have an advantage.

It just seems ludicrous that the AI would march 2-3 units each at 5 different cities when they could easily take one city with 10-15 units. Are there any mods that could affect the ability of inter-AI conflict to actually cause cities to change hands once in a while? Or for them to be a threat without smackin' me with the nerf stick of Emperor or Deity play? I want better combat, not slower development.

sometimes, the Ais do use SODs, but the best way to get proper opponents is to play PTW with humans. The AI is poor in many respects

Here's why:

When the AI goes to war with you, first they will send every single spare unit that they don't need for city defense at the very beginning. Then, as they build more units, they are sent immediately out into the field. Only in peacetime can the AI amass forces for a concentrated attack. Which is why all you ever need to do to beat the AI in most wars is to survive that initial rush of units then counter-attack with decisive strikes.

The reason that barbs can move in huge stacks is that when there is a massive uprising (which happens when two civs reach a new era), all of those horsemen are created on the same tile on the same turn so they will likely stay together in normal Civ 3. In PTW, unless there is an especially juicy target like an exposed settler or undefended town, the barbs will just wander aimlessly and break up their stacks.

And as for the "nerf stick" of Emperor and Deity, it isn't the player that is penalized so much, it's that the AI gets things for cheap. The only time that is turned around is for tech prices so that the tech pace is slowed down a bit. Your city growth, shield production, gold income, etc. are the same on Deity as they are on Regent and Chieftan (though you have fewer "free" content citizens on Emperor and Deity, you'll have to have some form of happiness starting with size 2 instead of size 3, be it the lux slider, temples, luxuries, or military police).

And yes, it's this lack of decent tactics that makes Emperor and Deity winnable (along with the AI's refusal to work the luxury slider except under the most dire circumstances). If the AI actually could wage effective wars, it would be a lot more difficult to beat.

I've seen an AI stack of 80-100 units once!

Thanks Carbon for some clarification on Emperor and Deity AI/Player balance. It would seem to me though that the tactic you describe the AI doing is nearly identical to my own. Send nearly every unit I can spare into battle on turn one. Of course I lump most of them together toward one target however. The AI doesn't seem to 'wait' until they've got their units in a winable formation, they just launch from wherever they are. I read elsewhere that someone had a mod that allowed everyone to have 10 unit armies from day one which immediately gave the AI an opportunity to use an 'en masse' unit. However, since I've seen the AI send a transport with a single cavalry 10 turns across the sea to attack, I'm not sure this will actually result in the intended AI formations. Though its a novel approach to a solution...

Also, I'm curious if a 10 unit army gets to attack 10 times or only once, in which case its useless except as an uber-unit.

Originally posted by Chieftess
I've seen an AI stack of 80-100 units once!

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So did I; and it was all infantry. First time I saw it; scared the **** out of me...

Fortunately, they were riflemen (the civ had no rubber!) defending their homeland from another civ's SoD. This was the 1st demogame. A mighty mountain war.

Originally posted by Chieftess
I've seen an AI stack of 80-100 units once!

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Yeah, me too. 100's of Mech.Infantry charging towards my drafting cities... with almost only conscript Infantry, I defended my country. (They razed some major cities near my FP.)

That was a Deity game (GOTM7 with Iroqouis)

And I drafted in that game, oh yeah... 300-500 infantry or so (didn't really count, but I had nearly 60-80 or more cities and I drafted out of almost each of them for several turns in a row).

When Persia ran out of Mech.Infantry (and I started to get Mech Infantry too) the war turned, they were running out of troops, and I got Tanks, and later Modern Armor. And I went trhough their nation, metro after metro. And razed their Space Ship project. Although some turns later Rome, my Ally built the spaceship.

So yes, I've seen them use Huge Stacks.

Originally posted by Oddible
How come the AI can get it together to send a stack of 8 barbarian horsemen into my cities, but the AI Civs send 2-3 units at a time? The main problem with this is that if you are equal or even smaller than an enemy AI Civ, they have zero chance of taking a city ever. Likewise wars between AI Civs. I've been on a huge pangea map and for the entire game only one civ has ever lost a city!?! All wars between AI Civs have to be insanely mismatched for one to have an advantage.

It just seems ludicrous that the AI would march 2-3 units each at 5 different cities when they could easily take one city with 10-15 units. Are there any mods that could affect the ability of inter-AI conflict to actually cause cities to change hands once in a while? Or for them to be a threat without smackin' me with the nerf stick of Emperor or Deity play? I want better combat, not slower development.

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GREAT QUESTION read my current post the AI STRIKES BACK in this forums. dreadknought

Originally posted by Oddible
Also, I'm curious if a 10 unit army gets to attack 10 times or only once, in which case its useless except as an uber-unit.

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Armies can attack only as many times per turn as one of its individual units could attack in one turn. An army can only hold 3 units, 4 if you have the Pentagon. You need 4 armies to be able to build the Pentagon, IIRC.

Originally posted by Oddible
Also, I'm curious if a 10 unit army gets to attack 10 times or only once, in which case its useless except as an uber-unit.

Click to expand...

THE AI will attack with an army up to 10 times a turn if it has 10 units and will proceed to continue the next turn with all units not critically damaged. If the whole army loses to many points it will retreat to heal. The AI has a much better chance this way.......dread

The inter-AI wars seem to be more decesive on higher difficulty levels. On Monarch and above you often see an AI conquering a not necessarily much smaller neighbour. This is probably 'cos it's easier for the attacking AI to amass a huge initial force and steamroller the other before their more evenly balanced industrial bases really starts telling.

Speaking of AI vs AI, in the Tournament 3-5 game (which was a OCC game - but on a strategic location), the city was in a spot where it could see units steam roll across the land scape. China and Japan were pretty much the same size, and China eventually conquered half of that continent (Japan included). My only luck in that game was when a former Japanese city (then turned Chinese) was razed by the Americans (to my east - whom I had to keep refusing Philly from flipping to me 10 times over) was razed, giving me access to rubber.

But, in the meanwhile, there were tanks (even workers!) streaming across each turn.

everybody already said everything there is;
I'll say it once again - play on higher levels.
I've seen a stack of 40 riders approaching my city when I had less than 10 elephants (deity level).

Originally posted by Carbon_Copy
Here's why:

When the AI goes to war with you, first they will send every single spare unit that they don't need for city defense at the very beginning. Then, as they build more units, they are sent immediately out into the field. Only in peacetime can the AI amass forces for a concentrated attack. Which is why all you ever need to do to beat the AI in most wars is to survive that initial rush of units then counter-attack with decisive strikes.

The reason that barbs can move in huge stacks is that when there is a massive uprising (which happens when two civs reach a new era), all of those horsemen are created on the same tile on the same turn so they will likely stay together in normal Civ 3. In PTW, unless there is an especially juicy target like an exposed settler or undefended town, the barbs will just wander aimlessly and break up their stacks.

And as for the "nerf stick" of Emperor and Deity, it isn't the player that is penalized so much, it's that the AI gets things for cheap. The only time that is turned around is for tech prices so that the tech pace is slowed down a bit. Your city growth, shield production, gold income, etc. are the same on Deity as they are on Regent and Chieftan (though you have fewer "free" content citizens on Emperor and Deity, you'll have to have some form of happiness starting with size 2 instead of size 3, be it the lux slider, temples, luxuries, or military police).

And yes, it's this lack of decent tactics that makes Emperor and Deity winnable (along with the AI's refusal to work the luxury slider except under the most dire circumstances). If the AI actually could wage effective wars, it would be a lot more difficult to beat.

Click to expand...

I'm playing emperor right now and the AI isnt acting that way, well at least one of them isn't, here's the situation

I"m German on a continent with spain and england, I'm right in the middle of them both, england (south of me) declared war on spain (north of me) so I have the rare pleasure of seeing two AI's battle it out because all of their battle's are either happening in my territory or on the north edge still in my line of sight.

My strategy is to watch these two battle it out until they are down to a trickle of units, but england came up with their inititial couple of SoD's and the endless supply of reinforcements of Cavalry and Pikemen never ends!! at first I wanted to ally with spain and help them take england, but since england is so much stronger I just allied with england and now I'm taking spainish cities

so they had the initial SoD's but they also had a mega force to back it up.

Originally posted by sabo10
at first I wanted to ally with spain and help them take england, but since england is so much stronger I just allied with england and now I'm taking spainish cities

so they had the initial SoD's but they also had a mega force to back it up.

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Hmm, I would've gone the other direction myself - ally with the little guy to get the big guy off the map. That way I can crush the little guy at my leisure. Destrying England after they've collected a bunch of Spanish cities too is going to be trouble. The 'mega force to back it up' is probably a well developed industrial base which can pump out units fast enough to maintain a constant stream. When you turn toward them to work 'em over, hit this big cities first...

Originally posted by Oddible



Hmm, I would've gone the other direction myself - ally with the little guy to get the big guy off the map. That way I can crush the little guy at my leisure. Destrying England after they've collected a bunch of Spanish cities too is going to be trouble. The 'mega force to back it up' is probably a well developed industrial base which can pump out units fast enough to maintain a constant stream. When you turn toward them to work 'em over, hit this big cities first...

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I've gotten my a$$ handed to me too many times doing that, I take the little guy first, then after him anyone is fair game

Have you finished this game yet? Because this is something I was thinking about today and I think I know why England was able to have all those reinforcements after the initial troop rush. I think they triggered a military golden age when they went to war with Spain.

If they were fighting with Cavalry it was about the right point in time for them, and though most people don't pay attention to the Man-O-War, it would be easy enough to win a sea battle with one versus any of the other contemporary boat units. If/when you finish this game, since this is a PTW game the replay will show when England reached its Golden Age (if they ever did), and see if theirs didn't coincide with the time they started attacking Spain.

I've seen a stack consisting of about 2 infantry armies and about 45 infantry, a surprising number of artillery (I always thought the AI didn't use artillery) and some tanks. I was glad it was a war between superpoweres greece and egypt, not against me.

That was my first monarch game back when I was a struggling warlord player.

Edit:: 45+ not 35 infantry