how much of a combat advantage does the AI get?

[MarkJohnson]

I've been noticing I get my butt kicked a lot in combat. for example:

I captured a city last night. I had 3 tanks and almost full power with 2 promotions, 1 for collateral and 1 for gunpowder units. The AI sent in 3 infantry and killed all three tanks.

Also, I had a similar scenario when I was on top of a hill. I had a few units and the AI was attacking from open ground with weaker units and wiped me out again.

I've quickly found that I need to retreat from cities and regroup when I get declared war on. If I try to defend I get wiped badly, and I usually have good city defenders with city defense promotions. usually he will capture the city and wait a few turns to regroup and then attack again, and hopefully I've had time to gather up a small force then I can usually wipe him out easy enough.

Thank goodness for catapults.

-=Mark=-

[MyOtherName]

The AI gets no advantage, except against barbs.


If you open up the combat log, you can find out just what the odds were for the AI attacking.

[Bushface]

You were hit by one of the streaks produced (quite correctly) by the RNG. This one favoured the AI's attack; there have been hundreds reported which caused players to lose when they expected to win. Remember that chances are indeed just chances, and odds are odds: the hope of beating the odds is what keeps casinos profitable !
Also, you don't say what promotions the AI attackers had, nor exactly how much your tanks were below full strength, and in defence the tanks' collateral damage promo does not apply as you are attacked by only one unit at a time, not attacking several. Without full knowledge of all these details it is impossible to say what your chances were, but reference to the combat log will show the conditions at the start of each fight and how it progressed. Do not be surprised if it shows that your units took a whole series if successive hits: I have lost units to as many as eight successive hits by weaker opponents, the theoretical chance of this happening being less than one in a million. But as Terry Pratchett said, I think in "Guards ! Guards !", one-in-a-million chances always happen.

[mystyfly]

Well, many people complain losing battles at ~90-95% odds but do they complain when they win battles at 10% odds? As Bushface said, these are just odds.
Where were the fun if there wasn't this RNG which overthrows whole games with one simple dice roll?

[Verge]

Since it cannot be reiterated enough, the AI does not get combat advantages.

[MarkM]

The AIs get a bonus of 00.0000000000%

And double that at Immortal & above

[Refar]

Originally Posted by mystyfly

but do they complain when they win battles at 10% odds? :

Actually i would like to complain...

In my recent game i whipped out two Civ's in a early rush (Persia and Maya) without loosing a single unit...

I was Boadica - attacking with gallic warriors against Archers mainly - that helped for sure, still those were perhaps 30+ battles without a loss - the initial attacks at just above 50% and many at somewhere aroun 65%. Every single won. I ended up with a huge force of CRIII+GuerillaIII Gallic Warriors

[Whitedragon]

Originally Posted by Refar

Actually i would like to complain...

In my recent game i whipped out two Civ's in a early rush (Persia and Maya) without loosing a single unit...

I was Boadica - attacking with gallic warriors against Archers mainly - that helped for sure, still those were perhaps 30+ battles without a loss - the initial attacks at just above 50% and many at somewhere aroun 65%. Every single won. I ended up with a huge force of CRIII+GuerillaIII Gallic Warriors

I'd complain too...I hate it when a game is won without even a minor hiccup.

My last game (as Ragnar), I got the event where all my melee troops were given cover...Then just as I accumulated enough axemen for a rush, I got the event giving them all shock as well...Combat 1/Shock/cover/CR1 axes right out of the barracks...You can imagine how that game went.

[Refar]

The minor hiccup was i couldn't pay for all those troops... I built more then i could sustain - i expected to loose like half of them...
I had to disband a couple. The less experienced of course... still disbanding a CRII Gallic Warrior hurts

[Shirastro]

The game is over boys.
We know that you guys are all payed by Firaxis!!!!
Your little ploy is busted, we know that AI gets better odds.....MU HA HA HA!!!

[JustinianVII]

It happens. You'll lose some you expect to win. You'll win some you expect to lose. It's annoying, but if you gamble on expecting to win a siege or hold a position with just a few soldiers, things probably won't work out too well.

[Still_Asleep]

I am almost certain taht BTS goes much more with the odds than vanilla did.

Vanilla sometimes felt like everything was 50/50, nowadays things seem to go as predicted more often.