Why is the AI so useless at attacking..

At the moment I am playing on Emperor (the one just before diety) and have not yet lost a single city, apart from when I forgot to put a unit in defense in it

I have noticed also, that if I instigate an AI vs AI fight (which the AI never seems to start itself either) nobody ever takes an opponents city.

And dont get me started on the (attack 27) planes that suicide themselves every turn on my Battleship Fleet (defense 82)

kuldiin said:

I have noticed also, that if I instigate an AI vs AI fight (which the AI never seems to start itself either) nobody ever takes an opponents city.

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That's because they only stay at war with the opponent you want for as many turns as they said, often like 4 turns witch isn't much and maybe not even enough for a single fight..

Leopeo said:

That's because they only stay at war with the opponent you want for as many turns as they said, often like 4 turns witch isn't much and maybe not even enough for a single fight..

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I'm not sure if it applies to all game types, but in the Blitzkrieg and Apocalypse (or Armageddon, I can't remember the title) scenarios, the AI wars with each other quite often and even knocks other AI civs out of the game. I have played those scenarios and noticed there was suddenly only one other civ left although I had only captured one civ myself!

I saw the AI take out a human Civ's capital in like 2700BC in a multiplayer game yesterday. I was shocked, how does someone let that happen?

The AI will always take a spy/settler/city/great person that is unguarded. Even if its at peace it will declare war no questions asked and take said city/setter/great person.

I'm assuming that by 2700bc the player knocked out simply didn't have any units in the city for defence (which I do as well quite often).

I've occasionally seen an AI vs. AI battle in SP mode, though rarely. More likely is to be advised that civ X and civ Y have signed a peace treaty, without any indication they were fighting, so what damage they've done to each other is unknown.

And while I did play a game where the Chinese AI took a Spanish AI city, I still have yet to see an AI civ going for the domination victory and actually claiming a capital. Nope, usually it's me that's the punching bag for the others civs, who line their units up outside my city to take a shot. Luckilly I believe the best defense is a strong offense, so I let them come and then annihilate them with horsemen/knights/catapults/etc. until I get to tanks and bombers, in which case it's payback time, no matter what victory I'm going for.

I think the AI is lousy at attacking anything other than the human player (even then there is no strategy in the AI, just throw unit after unit at you with no sense of a plan).

I have seen the AI at war with itself, but have units pass by each other without attacking. What is up with that? I can't have any unit out that doesn't take a beating from the AI, yet they pass through each other's territory without combating each other just to get to me!

Sometimes they catch me off guard when I havent built up my defenses, as I take that risk to get a building done. I sometimes lose a city in a bad beat. Losing my 12 defense archer army to a 9 attack legion, or even worse, my 18 FORTIFIED archer army against that legion, or a veteran horseman army.

I believe the AI is also lousy when it comes to attacking humans.
They just seem to send 1 unit by 1 unit to attack my stack of army.

It would be great if the AI would be smart enough to
group armies more often before attacking.