Does the AI care if it wins?

I know the AI is...artificial. It doesn't feel anything, but I finished my latest game last night. In a loss....

It just seemed that the AI didn't care if it won, that it only cared if I did. Let me explain.

I was playing as the Dutch. Alexander vassalised Huyna, Isabella, and Churchill. I was going for a space victory, so was Alexander, pumping out spaceship parts, so he wants to win you would think. Pacal has had his culture rate very high for a while now because hes been researching the same tech for over a 100 turns, he just had a second city turn legendary culture, with his 3rd one coming up in 30 turns, I get some extra troops ready, get my transport fleet, Right before my military buildup is done, Alexander declares war on him, good. But Alexander only took two or three of Pacal's smaller border cities. Pacal becomes Alexanders vassal... and still has his cultured cities. Not good.

I move my fleet with troops right outside Mutal's borders, declare war on Pacal, along with the rest of Alexanders realm. Take over Pacals capital Mutal, it was easy since Alexander crushed most of his forces before. After a few turns, I leave a small chunk of my forces behind, as well as some units I airlifted, as the rest of my forces sail off to Athens, 11 turns away. As my forces are halfway to Athens, Alexander catches me of guard with a huge stack outside Mutal, 3 turns later he captures it. Next turn another Mayan city goes legendary. A few turns later right as I'm reaching Athens, I get a message saying Pacal has won a cultural victory, I go tru the ending, click on "just one more turn" and see that Alexander has liberated Mutal to Pacal...

I think I should of raised Pacal's city

ALWAYS raze legendary cities when a space victory is within reach. That's the moral of this story.

100% raze it. It feels dirty razing a city with wonders in it, but its better than losing.

I think a major defect, and someone please correct me if I'm wrong, is that if you disable victory conditions, the AI doesn't adjust it's game. Thus, if you only enable Conquest, the AI will still try to go Cultural or build the Spaceship. Now that's dumb.

bestbrian said:

I think a major defect, and someone please correct me if I'm wrong, is that if you disable victory conditions, the AI doesn't adjust it's game. Thus, if you only enable Conquest, the AI will still try to go Cultural or build the Spaceship. Now that's dumb.

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No, I think you're right. The annoying thing about the AI is that it keeps disabling victory conditions for me when it sets up it's game...

I usually raze cities anyway, unless there is a wonder I really want or if it is a Holy city or something like that. But for the most part, if I go to war with a civ, my goal is to destroy it. Unless it is a war I get dragged into that I don't care about I go for complete devastation.

Apparently the AI doesn't want to win as bad as you'd think.

Two games ago, i pulled off a cheap win (Monarch). I had started isolated, and was somewhat behind, due to unfavorable land. Later I attacked on conquered ragnar who was also isolated.. but that took forever, and now the best i was probably gonna manage was a space race victory. I turned his green continent into a giant workshop (state property) for building space ship parts.

Anyway, Hammurabi was going for space as well, but i looked like i could beat him. Mansa however was going for culture and was only 40-50 turns away from winning. Willem, who noone liked built the U.N., so with me having the most population.. it was either him or me. I won the election.

Mansa was very friendly with me (+15) and had the next highest population, hammarabi very pleased and he was 3rd in size. After a few diplo victory tries i was only about 5-6 votes short of winning.

So i worked on Hammies attitude toward me some more to get his votes.

All this time i was assembling my massive armada with the intent on razing Mansa's capital if it came to that. I was in position just 6 turns from it going legendary, and was about to Attack, when the U.N. diplo-win vote came up again.

I won the votes just barely.

Had that not happened, i would have had to raze my +15 friend's capital.. and have half the world declare on me. Would have had to fight them off while doing space victory.

So yeah, 6 turns from winning.. Mansa voted for me to win. It wasn't a guarantee that i'd raze his city either as all 3 of them were about 2 squares inland... and i might have gotten romped before attacking. Though i had 2 fully loaded carriers & 3 cruise missle laden subs to soften him up with. Not to mention about 4 ICBM's, that i had just built.. though i wanted to avoid using them if possible. Global warming sucks.

AI doesn't care one bit about anything. It throws a pseudo-dice then does something based on the result. Strategic planning like "gift this back and I lose" is not considered or known. The AI is very limited in terms of knowledge on anything outside current turn information.

maybe at immortal and lower levels, the AI doesn't seem to care...but at diety, they are pretty serious. :|

computers don't care about anything. Civ AI is all just numbers and probability dressed up to look human.

to OP
if you mean if the AI factor possible win in some case: yes it does.
for instance declaring a war if a civ has a victory condition available is more likely albeit not groundshaking. Happens if more than a single civ can be a target which is not very often, though since there are other limiting factor.
AI does 'care' if can win domination and stuff but again there are other limiting elements.

I had a game go all the way to 2050 tonight. I won by only 150 points over Caesar, who was my neighbor from the very start of the game. We were extremely tight friends, going to war together, long term trades and such. It did feel a bit like cheating that my half of our shared continent was lightly defended from his huge army, which he could have used to crush me and easily "win".

katipunero said:

maybe at immortal and lower levels, the AI doesn't seem to care...but at diety, they are pretty serious. :|

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Seriously handed ridiculous bonuses.

The AI isn't really even supposed to play to win. It's not simulating opponents in a MP game, it's simulating other civilisations.

The biggest clue is that it votes for you in UN/AP elections to be the winner. That's a decidedly suboptimal choice if you're playing to win.

Playing to win is the biggest advantage humans have over the AI really.

Irgy said:

Playing to win is the biggest advantage humans have over the AI really.

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Since I seldom play to "win", the AI isn't really handicapped then?

Irgy said:

The AI isn't really even supposed to play to win. It's not simulating opponents in a MP game, it's simulating other civilisations.

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This!

If you look under the hood you can see all the work that the devs did in tweaking the AI's numbers to try and get the civs/leaders to behave as they did in history. For example, there's a reason everyone playing the game sees Gandhi as a military cupcake. And there's a reason people grown when they see that their close neighbor is Monty, Alex, or Shaka. Isabella is deeply devoted to her religion.... I could go on and on.

IMO, f all the AIs played to win the "game" it wouldn't be civilization any more because they would all play mostly the same and would be even more predictable.

To me it has always been a case of Civilization being a very indepth game which an a.i can't really handle. Firaxis solution to this has been to dish out huge bonuses to the a.i so that even though it is inefficient it can simply brute force its way to success and for the most part, it works.

nothing compares to the BS the AI pulls in every single EA Sports game ever made!!

imagine Charlton Heston in Planet of the Apes when I say DAAM YOU EA SPOOOOOORTS!!!

Maybe they care, I guess, As long as it in their way. I saw Cathy use her nearly numberless (for me.) army to vassal the world twice, As she gave plenty of land to Russia in real life. The way that AI play is base upon his/her real life if...
1. There are just few civization.
2. They are immortal. (In fact, Fleshy undead. Except Sid.)

BUT! If you read civilopedia. There said "Often. the leader behaves like his or her historical counterpart. But don't count on it! - Gandhi will USUALLY be peaceful and friendly, but he may from time to time turn out to be warmonger backstabber." I alway want Cathy to be a little girl in Russian soldier uniform. Actually, she was. But I didn't want she think the world as her toy! Oh, last sentence. "You have been warned."

bestbrian said:

I think a major defect, and someone please correct me if I'm wrong, is that if you disable victory conditions, the AI doesn't adjust it's game. Thus, if you only enable Conquest, the AI will still try to go Cultural or build the Spaceship. Now that's dumb.

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I believe that to be false. Grand strategies like going for a culture win or diplomatic win do in fact rely on the victory conditions being enabled. If I'm mistaken, then perhaps it is only Better AI in which the AIs take the VCs into account.