List of AI Stupidities

The AI Stupidity I ran into was once I had an enemy helicopter in one of my city squares. I couldn't move anything adjacent to it because it had a zone of control. I wanted to build a road in that square but couldn't. It just stayed there for about 3 turns, so I sent out some units to make sure there wasn't a new enemy city anywhere nearby. I had the place scoured at least 10 tiles out, nothing.That damn chopper stayed there for 10-20 turns!! No exaggeration!I wasn't even blocking it's path.It finally left. Must of had one hell of a gas tank!

Helicopters don't run out of gas anyway. They just have their energy bar go down as they stay out longer, but as long as they aren't attacked, you can even keep your own in the air as long as you want to.

But the whole coming-into-your-territory-for-no-reason thing is still pretty dang annoying. In a game I was playing recently, I had every square within my control fully developed (railroads, farmland), so it was obvious at a glance where my 'borders' were; and the Aztecs, with whom I was at peace, kept sending tanks right *next to* those squares and then away again. I could never order them out because they weren't technically coming into my territory at all. It's like their military was doing that "Does this bug you, I'm not touching you! Does this bug you, I'm not touching you!" thing to my country. I don't know what they were hoping to accomplish. The AI military wastes a lot of time, if you ask me. . . .

Alpine Troops are VERY effective earlier in the game and veteran Alpine Troops can hold their own against most weapons (nix Veteran Bombers, Stealth Bombers, Stealth Fighters and Howitzers) and the computer never upgrades the weapons. I use Alpine Troops often because it makes my defenses fast (If I fear I can't hold a city I could pull out easily) and I don't have to worry about losing my city until Mobile Warfare.

Not so much a stupidity, but the AI seems to have an abundance of veteran units only 20 turns into the game, standard required time to build a barracks.

The AI correctly uses a tactic of building fortresses to ring their cities for defense, but when I invade for the first time most, if not all of the fortresses are unoccupied. This allows my amphibious force to unload and immediately surround the target city, thus cutting off reinforcements.

Agreed. It also makes it almost impossible to take out Howitzers, which can be stacked with a Mech Inf in a fortress and become basically invincible until next turn when they beat the crap out of the AI city.

Is there a way to "expel" other civs' diplo's?? If not, that's darn stupid. Should be able to keep them from getting embassies without starting a war for killing the darn dips!!!!

1)This seemed more prevelant in Civ I but if you have rookie (non-veteran) attack units up against AI veteran defending units 9/10 times the AI unit wins whether or not they are even close in relation to their strengths. I mean when my armor are being destroyed by Phalanx behind a city wall it seems a little ridiculous.
2) When you sign a peace treaty with the AI and you have a unit in their territory, why is it they won't move out of the damn way to let him out but they will irritate you every turn that he is there?

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"All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost;" -LotR

[This message has been edited by Cedric Greene (edited February 04, 2001).]

I have occaisionally seen Barbarian Triremes that contain more than 2 units.
The AI is a dirty rotten cheater, but its far too stupid to gain an advantage.

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Originally posted by Kremlos:
Is there a way to "expel" other civs' diplo's?? If not, that's darn stupid. Should be able to keep them from getting embassies without starting a war for killing the darn dips!!!!

Click to expand...

Yup. Simply move like you were going to attack the foreign dip/spy and if you are at peace/cease with the other nation a box will appear with the options of either expelling or attacking the intruder.

Now this IS stupid...

My current game. It's 1800, I have 80 cities and am just ahead on tech. In the past few decades, I've picked a fight with one civ (demanding tribute), completely rolled over it, and did the same to its ally that declared war at the same time. And I've reduced to rubble a backward third civ which tried to steal technology (saving one city as a 'pet'). I've just taken a couple of turns building up a formidable army of howitzers to do a complete overnight annihilation of the next biggest civ's 26 cities, and I'm nearly ready to go... My strength is Supreme and my reputation is Spotless.

Now imagine you're another civ - claimed to be "Rational Perfectionist". You've 15 cities on a couple of separate islands, you've no current wonders, but you do know recent history. There's this really big guy on the mainland, the writer of all that recent history, WAY ahead in every way, and he's currently not bothering you. What do you do? I know what I would do: send an emissary, make a few friends, build a defensive shield, and wind the science right up. But no. Oh no. Our AI civ launches a sneak attack on a ship sleepily defending a harbour. So what does the big guy do? He redirects a few howies, armour, engineers and spies, sticks then on a couple of transports, and ROLLS OVER THE IDIOTS.

Now that's what I call stupid.

Sounds like Pearl Harbor to Nagasaki.

Maybe this gets better at Emperor or Deity (although I doubt it) but it seems the Barbarians wage a better battle than the 'real' civs.

At least the Barbies land a half dozen offensive units on my shores and stand a good chance to take a city if it's poorly defended. They make a decent effort, anyway.

Let's see what the other AI civs have done in my current game:

Romans: Hey, let's land 2 Knights and an explorer(why) outside a walled city with musketers and a crusader.(WHACK!).

Carthaginians: The vikings just established a city on our shores, I think I'll just move a few catapults next to their city one at a time. (POW!POW!POW!) Then after 10 turns I'll take my best defender out of the fortress that is between the vikings and my capital so they can set up shop there (CH-CHING!)

Aztecs: At least we managed to steal a Viking tech (from our former capital) before laying down and selling out the rest of our cities to viking diplomats.

Sioux: I've got 2 riflemen and a partisan fortified outside that city the vikings just captured in a bloody battle, giving them their first beachhead on my continent. Should I attack their tired forces now? Should I hold my ground and keep them isolated (and hungry, by the way) in their place? No, I'll wait a few turns for them to rest their forces, buy city walls, and bring in some more cavalry and a couple spys... THEN we'll take some potshots at the walls with one of the riflemen (BAM!), and move the other rifleman OFF of that strategicly placed mountain.

Sioux (Again): Uh-oh, those big, bad Vikings just put a cavalry unit in one of my 27 unmanned fortresses... I think I'll put 3 of my best offensive units (cannons) in a stack right next to them, but not even attempt to attack. (THUMP! 3 units destroyed). Repeat twice, but this time only move the cannons up one at a time (THUMP! THUMP!)


Now, I *know* I've got some pretty poor military tactics, but the AI is just awful. One of these days I'll have to do a multiplayer game just to find out how the Big Boys do things.


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There are some who call me...Tim

Another AI cheat: I forgot to hurry up and but SDI defnce for one of my cities before declring war against a nuke power. So, you guessed it they nuked that city. I went back a saved game and bought SDI and low and behold no nuke attack!! In fact I never seen a nuke attack against a city with SDI!! So nice to know which cities have SDI before you nuke is it?!?

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I agree with all the AI stupidities and cheats posted so far.

Regarding poor city placement, I like to position cities on an isthmus to allow ships to cross thru rather than having to go around the continent. AI civs invariably go for less strategic placement.

Engineers are pretty stupid. When automated, they run off and help make farmland for an adjacent city with 18 food surplus, while their own city has a deficit. Or they run around searching for a mountain outside a city radius to build railroads on instead of mining coal inside their own city. Or they run off to clean up pollution half a world away, and sometimes attempt to get to the pollution even if they're on a different continent, and then they never come back, leaving you wonder why their home city has so many unirrigated squares with no roads.

I find that AI choices in tech development, either by my science advisor or by AI civs, have no strategic plan to them. I have long since stopped listening to my science advisor, unless what I want to research isn't being offered at the moment. Same thing with military and domestic advisors for city improvement decisions.

There's a lot of good advice and strategies in the other topics. Too bad the AI doesn't have an INTELLIGENT strategic advisor to help plan out long range goals and ways of getting there.

here's what the english did:

They were the only civ left, except for me. I was playing the Euroland map, so they were on a small island. They had 5 cities:
London-size 7
York-size 5
Coventry-size 6
Nottingham-size 6
the other city-size 3

I had 218 cities. Most of them are size 8, some 10, moscow, my capital, was size 12. It's around 1600. The reason why my cities were so small is because i have about 250 setters creating roads and irrigation, and they take up food. I have every wonder so far, and my cities are defended each with 2 fanatics (i was under fundy). Their cities are defended with legions and phalanxes.

What do they do? the send 2 chariots and a settler onto northern europe. they attack my coastal city, and die instantly.Immediately, in the next turn, i use 1 destroyer killed all their triremes, which, by the way, wasn't even near land. Then i kept bombarding their cities, reducing population.

I conquered the rest of their cities in 2 turns with a couple of size 5 cities producing calvary. They only have 1 city left, coventry. They are still at war. I keep killing their defending units, and they keep rush building them. i did this until their city was size 1. Then i offered them my map, and showed them my 230+ cities. What do they do? Demand the knowlegde of railroad!!!!!

Then the barbs attacked them with 4 dragoons, and killed them. ofcourse, i reloaded because i wanted to keep them alive for a higher score.

i mostly play on prince now but last week i played a game on deity and let me tell you that the ai is not as stupid up on that level. the ai still uses questionable land forces like rifle men to attack but they had a fleet of cruisers and battleships and they (the spainish) were landing transports loaded with cavelry, mariens, and artillery every turn two and three a turn (they were fundamentalistic). the only thing that saved me from losing any cities was i gave up on the space ship and just produced tanks and howitsers thank goodness they did not have those advances!!!!

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"democracy is the worse form of government, except for all the others" winston chruchill

I would enjoy Civ much more if I had a worthy adversary, instead of one who makes up for lack of strategical and tactical know-how with numbers produced via cheating, and immunity to rational penalties like the trireme and air unit fiascos. It is proof of Santiago's maxim that even numbers will not save the AI from itself, as it foolishly attacks my strong points, while abandoning its own. In my early carreer as an armchair general, I have come back from amazing defecits in tech and military power to win games that would have been written off. How? Judicious theft of intellectual property, coupled with political infighting(the AI loves an underdog), and brilliant use of terrain. Anyone can beat the Civ2 AI. Saddam Hussein could beat it, and he acts like it most of the time.

There is but one stupid thing a ai player ever does :

and that is start messing with me

cause i always chrush them with me UT


[This message has been edited by MadMelkor (edited February 11, 2001).]

How about:

Using a sail to attack own of your cities, even though it is stacked with units, or, defending your cities with their SDI's.