AI unit shuffling worse than ever?

[Greizer85]

Title. In my current game the Huns brought 6 Horse Archers and 4 warriors (Lord knows how they afforded them) around turn 60 as I had two Archers for defense. I bought a third Archer but probably could've managed with two as old Atty proceeded to dance around and about Delhi with his horde of dimwits. In the game before this, Byzantium, France and Germany all did this around my Venice... They come into range for attacking the city, then decide to go home for a teabreak and come back the very next turn, only to retreat again to eat lunch... It's hard to decide whether to laugh or to cry at their indecision.

I remember this happening in G&K to an extent but it was never this bad. Anyone else experiencing this? Did they change something in the AI behavior regarding city attacks?

Fwiw in those two games the AIs wiped out other AIs just fine. It's hard to imagine why they'd behave differently against the human player (in combat that is).

Also, I know: two-game sample size. I'm *hoping* it's just a huge coincidence; that's why I'm asking you guys. Oh, and the map was not random but a custom made Huge world map (Legendary Earth), in case that matters.

[EDIT: To clarify, The Huns and I were at war (they DOW'ed along with China due to my forward settling towards Beijing); I see plenty of early wars but I've only played this one map. Perhaps it's somehow map-dependent?]

 

[Maxym]

You mean he actually DoWed but was inept?

Yes I noticed that too, not as much shuffling but not targeting my long range units with all they got. I find myself able to keep artillery in the field even with them having air force.

I have not had a pleasure of many early wars, but just watching some AI ones I notice the tactical incompetence actually increased in BNW

 

[steveg700]

Were there any trade routes going to or from your city to the Huns'?

 

[DaveDash]

I just got steamrolled by the Huns who had 1xHA, 2xRAMs, and 4xWarriors.

Went straight for my cities with the battering rams and there was no mucking about.

 

[spfun]

Yeah i have noticed no change with the combat AI, they are completely inept. Dancing around while i destroy them with city + ranged is the norm. AI relies on huge numbers of cheaply produced units but still can't take cities with them.

 

[Louis XXIV]

I had this happen too. The city was on a hill on a one hex isthmus, so that limited the space to attack to two tiles (and the enemy was mostly warriors), but he did have Comp Bows and pikemen and I literally had one archer in the area. Still, it looked to me like he was too intimidated to attack and just moved around a bit while I positioned more units to slowly destroy his attacking force.

Of course, other times, I have seen them attack. And they did at least declare war very early (he had Civil Service, but it was Babylon and I think he was the first to get it), so that criticism didn't apply.

 

[RedFuneral]

I had this happen in a Duel game I played with the Huns as the AI opponent. They'd land their rams on my island, embark, and repeat. They also had my island completely surrounded with ships. They did eventually denounce me(It's a duel game Attila, stop worrying about diplomacy!) but never DoWed. It's not like I had much of a defensive force either; It was my first time on deity and they were rolling right over me.

I've only played a few other games but now that you mention it the AI haven't DoWed me once. There were a few border shuffles in one game but I had the border locked down hard(as well as a major tech lead) so I wasn't too surprised. Otherwise they do seem perfectly capable of warring amongst themselves. I guess I'll have to play a few more games to say anything for sure. It was only the situation with Attila where the AI had anything to gain by attacking me.

 

[uncle bulgaria]

I was utterly rinsed by a huge Aztec invasion around turn 90 last week. I should have known better but I only had a couple of archers and 2 swordsmen guarding my 2 cities and Monty showed up with a huge army and wiped me out.

Lesson learned. Since BNW i've built less of an army in the first 100 turns and focussed on getting my growth and production up and running.

 

[deity12]

I seem to have noticed a lot less mucking around by the AI. They seem to make the (often wise) decision of ignoring surrounding units and focusing the city, in my experience.

 

[uncle bulgaria]

I've noticed that when the AI does go for it it's a lot more agressive than before but there's definitely a lot more border patrolling and eyeing you up than there used to be.

Something to do with the AI not making the actual decision to DoW but "wanting" to?

When Monty hit me he priortised hitting my archer next to my city then the two swordmen before attacking the city. He did nothing about the back up archer from my second city who was stood on a hill hitting any unit it could reach. I was just swamped in numbers and left with only a garissoned arched in my capital and one outside so it was game over.

 

[Greizer85]

Ahem. Edited op to clarify the situation. I must've killed 10 warriors and fifteen HAs in the end (with comp bows eventually... They attacked me with the warriors once or twice but I can't recall seeing any shots from all those HAs! ). Only Immortal but the difference to Emperor is huge in terms of unit numbers. I don't even want to dabble with Deity.

He didn't bring any rams which I thought very strange. They require no resources, right? Anyway perhaps it has something to do with Attila's AI coding: if he has no rams, perhaps he's coded to wait for them? Would explain the shuffling if they're never to arrive. Although France, Germany and Byz did the exact same thing, that could've been because of a choke-point near Venice. I guess the evidence is inconclusive without more games -- based on your reports also. I'll play a domination game with Gandhi (yes I know ) on the same map next, so there should be some more opportunities to check this out. Meanwhile keep up with the reports.

 

[Johnnymac1418]

I seem to have noticed a lot less mucking around by the AI. They seem to make the (often wise) decision of ignoring surrounding units and focusing the city, in my experience.

Same with me.

 

[JustinianIV]

I saw Hiawatha's troops heading toward my city, so I gave him 5gpt. He thanked me and just blew on by toward France. What a waste of money, I thought he was about to attack me.

He ended up doing nothing with France. I thought it was a sign of poor leadership.

 

[El Caballerion]

Hey, here's an experiment.... has anyone noticed if the AI attacks more efficiently on a flatter world as opposed to a more hilly world (5 billion vs 3 billion years old)? I wonder if the lack of quick movement on a hilly world contributes to an AI that simply cannot navigate attacks successfully.

 

[reddishrecue]

Yeah this is bad because I've seen this happen before to another player who was streaming his Bnw game play against English ai. So the ai gets close to the player's city with a few ship of the lines. I would've taken or even another human player could've taken the cities with the fleet but the ai doesn't and instead loses or withdraws and doesn't take the city. However, ais do take cities when they can.

 

[Tibbz]

You playing on diety?

I find that on diety the attack AI is actually much better than on immortal.

Immortal the AI will dance around brainlessly, but I find on diety they more or less get down to business most of the time.

 

[Greizer85]

You playing on diety?

I find that on diety the attack AI is actually much better than on immortal.

Immortal the AI will dance around brainlessly, but I find on diety they more or less get down to business most of the time.

I suspect that this is simply because they have more units. If there's no room to move to anywhere but the enemy city, then they will attack it, appearing intelligent.

Come to think of it, there are a huge number of rivers (and to a lesser extent mountains) on this map; the area around Delhi is riddled with rivers so that effectively all of Attila's troops had only 1 movement. Now obviously I should play a test game on a map with less rivers; but I'm in the middle of my Gandhi game and want to finish it. Does anyone (other than Tibbz?) have extensive experience from Domination games, ideally on Immortal or Deity, so they could confirm whether this behavior is more common in BNW than in G&K?

 

[Xiao Xiong]

I seem to have noticed a lot less mucking around by the AI. They seem to make the (often wise) decision of ignoring surrounding units and focusing the city, in my experience.

When the AI attacks a CS or a civ you have open borders with send in some units to surround the city they are attacking. Watch the AI hit the city even when it is zero health while being picked off by defenders. Meanwhile it cannot take the city so this goes on turn after turn.

I really wish the AI would get better at just a few basic things:

1. Have a basic plan of attack. Even a simple one. Like "all rush in and attack this one city" or "form up out of range and pick off defenders".

2. If plan not working fall back and regroup. The AI never regroups, if the attack fails the units scatter aimlessly

3. Stop jumping into the water next to my archer

I think the AI works entirely off heuristics without a overall plan for its attack.

 

[HeraldtheGreat]

Maybe he lost the nerve and is looking for a reason to kill you.

 

[Cromat]

I had an interesting experience with Hiwatha on Immortal. He was stronger and hated me for expanding aggressively and killing off the English.

He built the Terracota Army so he doubled his military. He came with a large force of around 10 of his UU, a couple of archers and two or three Catapults. The military advisor said that he has an army that can wipe me off the planet. I had around 4-5 CBs left from my war with the English. He came in with his huge army in a gap between my cities (which I planned on closing with a Settler), but he hesitated instead of declaring war. He spent turn after turn shuffling around his huge army while I built Pikemen and brought all of my ranged units around my capital. I also received two catapults from my CS allies by the time he decided to declare war. His army was big and I did lose some units but he didn't come close to taking my capital. I did end up taking his a few turns later. So much for wiping me off the planet.