Example of AIs being totally incapable of warfare (w/ save&screens)

[IronCrown]

I specifically set up a game to get crushed by the AI. The game is on Monarch level with Aggressive AI option on. Duel size lakes map, with me as Alexander and two warlike AIs, Montezuma and Genghis Khan.

I had copper near my capital and built a mine on it. Apart from that, I was very unlucky. My scout and my only warrior were eaten by bears. Then there were several random events that destroyed farms or caused unhappiness in my capital. On top of that there was a slave revolt and my city was down to size 2 with no workable tiles because I had 7 unhappiness due to whipping and the revolt.

So I had a single phalanx in my capital when Montezuma declared war on me. My second city was completely undefended. Monty came with a formidable stack of axemen and some jaguars. What did he do? His stack went to a hill with a mine on it two tiles away from my city. There they remained and never did anything.

Next turn Genghis Khan joined in and also declared war on me. He managed to take my second city by moving into it, there was no unit in it. Maybe he did this accidentally, anyway it was the only thing my enemies were ever to accomplish

I built and whipped one phalanx after the other in my capital. The aztec and mongol hordes kept sneaking around my capital. Genghis actually attacked sometimes with small stacks, but he never killed a single unit. Monty never even tried to attack.

Not attacking was actually not so stupid because my capital was on a hill and they had no catapults. BUT, they NEVER destroyed a single improvement! I could have done NOTHING to stop them from destroying my mines, my farm and above all, my copper!

Well, long story short, I could build a huge stack of phalanx and spearmen. I got two great prophets which I settled so I had the money to pay my defenders.

Eventually Genghis came with elephants and catapults. I had gotten two Great Generals by then and killed them off almost without losses. Still I could work my mines, my towns, my farm and my copper. When I stopped this farce, I had researched feudalism and started building longbows

On a sidenote, there was a random event ("mercy shown to the wounded") which brought peace with Monty. So his units were removed from my land, the war with Genghis continued so I couldn't leave my capital. Ten turns later Monty declared again, his troops moved onto the same hills as before and resumed their sleep

Two screenshots are attached. The first is 5 or 6 turns after the war started. You can see that my second city has been taken and I have a small stack of hastily whipped phalanx and one archer in my capital. It is turn 96, 475 BC.
The second screen is from turn 174, 1140 AD. All improvements are intact except two completely unimportant farms that Genghis had destroyed, whohoo Look at my elite stack of highly promoted phalanx, spearmen and longbows.

I also provide a savegame, though I'm sure this is not related to this specific game but rather general AI behavior which I have seen in other games.

 

[Bursk]

Oh dear. This is lame.

 

[jonpfl]

I am seeing the same thing in a game I am playing. I was attacked by Stalin and he had chariots sitting on hills and I had no horses/copper/iron so he should be running around destorying my resources but he decides to sit on a hill (outside of my city border but within my borders) for a quite a few turns until I could respond

 

[hoopsnerd]

I'm not so sure about this one, it's weird. I read this last night, so I had it in mind when I was playing... I got invidaded by Asoka with a huge SOD full of chariots, horse archers, catapults, and a couple war elephants and macemen. In my city, I had about half the amount of defenders as he had attackers, but I had Knights, Longbowmen, Macemen to defend. He brought his stack over and parked it right next to my city, and bombarded defenses the next turn while I brought reinforcements. He had plenty of units standing on a cottage, but he didnt pillage it. It looked to me like my city had about a 50-50 chance of survival if he were to just attack it with all of his troops, but I wondered why he didn't pillage... Then I thought "hey, isn't the AI supposed to be improved?" I don't really know what other players do, but I almost NEVER pillage enemy improvements unless I just have a stray unit in their territory for some reason. Why don't I pillage? I don't want to have to rebuild those improvements when I capture the enemy city in 3 more turns -- and maybe the new AI doesn't want to either. I also don't suicide a huge SOD into a city if I don't think I've got at least a 75% chance of success, does anyone else? I'd just as soon wait for reinforcements than have all my units die in a losing battle. What do I care if they waste a few turns in enemy territory, its better than dying trying to attack a well-defended city. Furthermore, maybe he's trying to get your city defenses weaker by making you attack his units with your units in the city? It did work, I did attack him when my reinforcements arrived... and when I did attack, I killed most but not all of his troops in one turn. The remaining troops, having absolutely no chance of capturing my city, began to behave quite differently. The few chariots left in the stack went pillage-mad, even though they had left my improvements alone for 3-4 turns with 2 MP units fortified on top of them. It seemed like once capturing the city was no longer possible for him, then he turned to pillaging.

I can't explain why the enemy didnt attack you in the example in this thread, but maybe the enemy is factoring things in that it hadn't previously factored in... such as "will this capturing this city cause my maintenance to be too high?" or "does capturing this city benefit my empire?" Perhaps the AI doesn't WANT to capture your city because of empire management problems, etc. Maybe it doesn't want to capture your city because it lies as a buffer between him and a much more powerful enemy. Maybe it makes a decision based on all these factors, which is what truely "improved AI" would do. The AI is better about managing tech trades than it used to be (doesn't want to trade for something it's almost done researching saying it doesnt benefit him). Perhaps the "will this benefit my empire?" logic is being applied where it was not applied before. If I saw a very weakly defended enemy city that i couldn't support maintenance on right now but probably could in 50 turns, I wouldnt run in and raze it... I'd keep some units nearby to capture it when I was ready.

My theory is that the AI is trying to play more like a human player would. Human players don't suicide their SOD, pillage improvements of cities they are 2 turns from capturing, or capture cities so far from the capital that it cripples the early game economy.

 

[jprc]

(...)My theory is that the AI is trying to play more like a human player would. (...)

At least the AI tries to replicate what smart human player would do!
I suspect that Blake put his brain model into this ("what would I do if...").
It is a matter of fact that cottages can not be hurried, and keeping them intact is often smarter for the one who wishes later to reduce the recovery time of a conquest, quickly reduce the loss for corruption/maintenance and produce faster without rebuilding...

Civilization is not (always) as rush-hours-style as Command & Conquer, and perhaps also behind this there is a random seed : one time Montezuma will "sleep" and hope for an oportunity or YOUR mistake, one time he will go mad and go for assault... It is what I think ...

 

[hoopsnerd]

That's a GREAT point, has anyong tested the random seed for this by starting a game with random seed on and loading it several times to see if AI behaves differently? Also, the AI in my case DID stand a much better chance of capturing my city if I would have lost a few units when I tried to attack the stack... so perhaps him waiting for my mistake is not so surprising?

 

[hoopsnerd]

Perhaps he is also "just sitting there forever" because his units now have a 25% fortify boost and he's waiting for his opportunity to strike your city, knowing that if he moves his units they will lose 25% defense. There are a lot of factors that a human player must factor in, and we just take it for granted that the AI doesn't think about these things.

 

[vilemerchant]

LOL. BtS is plagued by AI stacks that goto sleep indefinitely and of course there's geniuses here claiming it's some kind of great new AI strategy!

 

[IronCrown]

Those are interesting attempts to find an explanation for the AI's behavior that does not make it look bad, but I'm afraid your explanations don't make any sense.

I don't really know what other players do, but I almost NEVER pillage enemy improvements unless I just have a stray unit in their territory for some reason. Why don't I pillage? I don't want to have to rebuild those improvements when I capture the enemy city in 3 more turns -- and maybe the new AI doesn't want to either.

Yes... I don't destroy improvements when I'm about to take a city. But the AIs spent 80 turns in my land without taking that city, even without seriously trying. And they would've probably continued in this way for another 100 turns if I had continued the 'game'. Given that taking my city became ever more difficult - the very reason of which was that they didn't pillage - there is no way to justify that behavior, it's just plain wrong and inadequate.
Btw, the very least they absolutely had to do was to deny me my copper. They didn't even need to destroy the mine for that, moving one of their many units onto the tile would have been enough.

I also don't suicide a huge SOD into a city if I don't think I've got at least a 75% chance of success, does anyone else? I'd just as soon wait for reinforcements than have all my units die in a losing battle. What do I care if they waste a few turns in enemy territory, its better than dying trying to attack a well-defended city.

Yes... but as I said, Genghis Khan did suicide lots of his units on my city. He kept attacking with small stacks. So while Montezuma showed idiocy by doing nothing, Genghis showed his own idiocy by doing the obviously wrong. Two idiots on parade

Perhaps the AI doesn't WANT to capture your city because of empire management problems, etc.

It was a duel map and both the mongol and the aztec capital were very close.


I think your speculations are right in what the plans for the AI were, it's just they don't work. Not yet. I'm confident that things will improve a lot. From Blake's posts I gather that things were rushed and he didn't nearly have enough time.

Really, there's no need to blandish things that are clearly wrong and broken...

 

[hoopsnerd]

Yes, I'm merely trying to explain the strange behavior of the AI... I'm not saying that it's great or even good, only that hopefully it has potential. 80 turns in your land "waiting" for you to make a mistake is completely absurd, I just haven't seen any of such ridiculous behavior in any of my games, although the AI definately acts differently than before. I also want to point out that not capturing/suiciding into cities has more value than you give credit if you look at all the angles. I noticed the computer captured your other cities... why didnt his SOD just sit by them?

Also, allow me to speculate a bit on the example... your defenses in your capital are not SO weak (especially with the hills) that the computer has a huge chance of destroying you without massive casualties. Are Mongol and Aztec friends? If Ghengis loses all of his units but 2 and captures your city, Montezuma captures it next turn. If Ghengis fails to capture your city but weakens it a little, Montezuma captures it easilly that turn... The computer may be calculating "can I capture this city AND defend it for the next turn?" Put yourself in the shoes of the AI for a second, would you throw your entire stack into taking that small city when doing so will kill/weaken all/most of your military units and your enemies, leaving the untouched Ghengis/Montezuma stack to overrun the city you just captured and the rest of your empire? Prolly not, unless you plan to load an auto-save if you die. Just engaging in a huge stack battle with a 3rd party enemy so close would be more stupid than sitting there for 80 turns is, especially if those units arent being used elsewhere (small map, nothing else to do with those units other than attack you or ghengis or defend).

For my experience (I play marathon games on a huge map with 18 civs, monarch or emporer levels), the AI actually seems to be improved from the Warlords game. I've also noticed that the AI will "test the waters" of battle before it commits an entire stack (yes, im guilty of loading an auto-save when the AI kicked my butt). I play with random seed on, and noted an event in which the AI killed my entire stack and captured my city by sending like 10 units at it. After I loaded the game, the AI only attacked me with 2 units and then gave up when he lost the first few battles to my defenders. I'm guessing the logic goes something like yours when you attack a city... "This city has 2 longbowmen with city garrison II... if I can get lucky and take those out or damage them significantly, the rest of the units will topple." If your first few units get killed by the veteran longbowman and said longbowmen dont take much damage, continuing the attack is suiciding your entire SOD.

Anyways, clearly this logic is broken or at the very least far from perfect, I don't think that's even disputable... The point is that the AI is going to (hopefully) be less predictable when the bugs are worked out.

 

[H&K]

1) Did you Win this game? -: I think you gave up didnt you
2) If either of the two computer Players had attacked you, the other one would either have then destroyed the remaining City defences or attacking stack.

Ive played (am playing) a BTS game like that, but its the Incas and I laying seige to a city, niether of us can afford to be the one who attacks it first, because then the other would win it, but every now and then sending a small stack to attack it, to up the adverage promotion level of the nation. It couldnt sally forth because it would die, and couldnt make anymore cities for the same reason. Basicly I, (and I assume the computer), are waiting for it to "Vassal" to one of us.
I might have concidered destroying the Mine, but I wouldnt botther about the cottages at all. You are after all NOT the major apponent there, the other AI is.

Saying the AI is stupid for not finishing you off, is I think a shallow argument. The AI is stupid, but not I think in this case. It doesnt know that the game will end when you are dead. Its still planing what would happen afterwards, and in both of the AI cases this would be a reduced military with an active agressive stack right next to it.

 

[IronCrown]

You should read my report more carefully.

1) First off: I'm quite certain the AI does NOT 'think' sophisticated things like "ooh, if I attack now, the other guy will get the city".

2) Genghis Khan and Montezuma were close Friends. I was indeed their chief opponent.

3) As I mentioned, the war with Monty was interrupted for ten turns by a random event. Genghis could have taken the city during that time without danger of aztec interference.

4) Even if your argument was valid, this would in no way explain the core issue that my example illustrates: That none of them cut me off the copper resource. That's really the heart of the problem because it allowed me to build up that strong stack of defenders. If Montezuma had gone straight to my copper mine, I would have had one phalanx and some archers instead of lots of phalanx, spearmen and longbows.
Besides, Monty could have taken the city before Genghis' forces even arrived.


... no, I didn't win it, and I didn't even try to counter-attack. As I said, this was a test to see how the AI acts in war. Well, at first I'd actually planned to test if I could axe-rush as easily as in Warlords, but after that failed, I transformed it into a test of the AI's offensive capabilities
Why do you ask whether I won that game? Even if they had destroyed me in turn 81 of the war, that wouldn't make things better.

 

[hoopsnerd]

I played some more this afternoon, and it really does appear that the computer is making a valiant effort at "thinking sophisticated things" as IronCrown put it, but failing miserably when faced with the actual decision in some cases. I think real evidence of the AI "thinking sophisticated things" is the "unofficial" patch which makes the AI more likely to try to stop you from winning domination victories, etc. If the AI wasnt thinking mildly sophisticated things on a short term level then it probably wouldnt be capable of realizing that one person is becoming too powerful and about to win a certain type of victory. The AI sometimes appears to be hatching brilliant plans, but then it can't follow through on the plans if it doesnt predict exactly what will happen. Here are some curious points:

1. Whenever a single AI unit is loose in my empire, its pillage-happy, it is only unit stacks that dont pillage. That's a strike against the AI being "too stupid to pillage" and it may be evidence that the AI uses unit stacks only when it plans to conquer and assimilate your city to their empire.

2. Remember that your AI opponent doesn't get a huge advantage when it comes to production on you any more, and I suspect they don't get as many free city-defense units in every city they own. This means the AI - to be better - would need to be more protective of it's units, and more likely to attack a city only if it will win. This also accounts for the complaint that "the AI is too stupid to defend it's cities." Wrong, the AI is smart enough not to waste a huge stack of early-age units to conquer a city that would only break even in commerce with it's distance to the capital, current improvements, and resources. It needs that stack of units to defend his cities if he gets attacked, so his stack of units is more valuable than your crappy city.

3. The AI uses espionage to pillage your copper/iron/etc. Remember there are other ways to destroy improvements now, and the AI uses them often. If the AI wants to cut off your copper, it quite likely has a spy sitting on that spot and could do so if and when it senses a real threat, and thus the need to spend the espionage points.

4. The AI is more likely to "build for the future" like a human player would. Human players (single player) on a big map may tend to peacefully settle all remaining land before they start warmongering, as it's best on your economy for several reasons. The AI also make seemingly dynamic decisions. This is evidenced by the AIs newfound ability to run-up 1 part of the tech tree, instead of always taking the same path. Anyone notice that EVERY warlords AI reseached techs in the same path? (they all liked Calendar, Currency, Construction, Replaceable Parts, Rifling, etc) I had the computer build an Oracle right before I moved my early age troops in, only to find he saw my stacks and took Fuedalism for a free tech and upgraded to longbowmen. Also note that the AI is capable of being way ahead of you in culture. In every Warlords game I ever played, I was the world leader in culture even though it was my lowest priority, and I played on high levels (emperor).

5. The AI organizes it's defensive troops differently, also more like a human player would. Since it doesn't get bonuses (I'm assuming) the AI must value each unit more than in Warlords, etc. In the early game when it has few units, waging a huge stack battle against any comparable stack is too risky. It also can't afford to build more than 2-3 units in it's satellite (or border) cities. Do human players build 5-6 defensive units in every city? I dont, I build a bunch and shuttle them around my empire as needed, and that seems to be what the AI tries to mimic now. Example: Asoka declared war on me, and I approached his capital with a stack of troops. He whipped out an army of defenders to bolster his 3 defensive units (pop went from 20 to 10), and he recieved 3x as many reinforcements from the southern part of his empire. By the time I got to the capital (I took one satellite city, but could see the capital the whole time), it was well defended by an army comparable to my stack of knights, macemen, elephant, and hwacha.

6. The AI is really stupid about what it does with workers, it just lets fast-moving units kill them without even stopping the job like 75% of the time. The AI gets ripped and forgets about it's workers, just like a human? I cant explain this one.

 

[H&K]

The interuption in monties direct siege of your city, just ment that he was at your boarder, and would still have presented a threat to Gengy if he had taken the City.

To clarify I agree totaly that Not destroying your mine, or at the min not camping on the site was an error. Its a mistake that I have made myself, as Im sure many others have, but probably in this situation it was an obvious mistake not to make.

I still hold though that unless I needed the Copper res, I sometimes would also hold off from taking a city from a defeted opponent, that I might not be able to hold. However I take your point that Both of the AIs acting in this way would make the Computer look stupid. But I still hold that you were a defeted player at that point, and so maybe the AIs also thought it was better to simply bottle you up.

The real problem is that we dont know what the AI is taking into account, so we cannot tell if its acting really stupid or really clever