AI and military tactics

[Tyrant Roger]

I'm most of the way to winning a domination post-patch Emperor win, pangea, inca, normal speed. It was a fun and demanding game, but marred IMHO by the incomprehensably bad mliitary tactics of the AI. For example, at two different points in the game I invade an AI who has loads of good ground units [rifleman, infantry] and an enormous stack of cannons. Each time the AI sends one or two cannons to attack my SOD and the rest either disappear [retreat from view?] or turtle up in the AI city waiting for me to kill them without ever unleashing their collateral damage attacks on my SOD. The ground units also turtle up in the AI cities. In each case the AI was easily defeated by my seige weapons.

Now winning is fun, but it would be much more satisfying to win against a competent military AI. While I appreciate the difficulty of writing algorithms for military tactics in this game, surely Firaxis or Blake or somebody can do better than this. Would it be difficult to program the AI to use its seige weapons against SOD of a certain size? Surely the AI could be programed to use its seige weapons against a SOD when it is next to the AI city containing the AI seige units.

The AI at present is a pretty good opportunistic counterattacker. If I leave workers or unprotedted cannons in reach of AI calvary or the equivalent, the AI will kill my vulnerable units. The AI is also reasonably proficient at pillaging. But it is woefully blind to the danger a SOD poses to its cities as the SOD trudges step by step towards its capital or other major city.

Would it make sense for this thread to identify certain military tactics that the AI could be programmed to use? If we can identify rational military tactics for the AI to adopt when invaded, and when invading, then this would be a much better gaming experience.

Has anyone attempted anything of this sort in the past? I assume our friends at Firaxis monitor this site and have the programmers necessary to translate a set of military tactics into the necessary code.

 

[Eggolas]

I had precisely the opposite happen to my SoD against the English. I rolled up to the city and was immediately met by six cannons unleashing their collateral damage followed by a major cavalry assault against the ground troops, mostly Infantry. When the dust settled, figuratively, the SoD was pretty much done and limped back to home territory to heal.

The AI then unleashed an offensive. Very nice tactics.

 

[Mr. Civtastic]

I can say that the ai has attacked my SoD before with siege weapons. And of course its usually quite effective. Ive also seen him take cities with SoD composed mainly of seige weapons. My last game I captured a border city from an enemy, only to watch the ai reclaim it with a stack of around 20 cannons! My army was deep in his lands, leaving the heart of my civ exposed. It was quite a surprise...I didnt see his SoD at all even though I could see a majority of his land. So the ai does have it in him (her) to attack decisively.

That said...more often then not what the op described is what happens. The ai turtles up. But when he presses the attack, its quite impressive.

 

[Sisiutil]

I believe Blake is currently working on improving the AI to be better at war. A scary thought, as it's the one advantage I as a lowly human seem to have.

Based upon my own experience, I think the different AI leaders are better or worse at war depending upon their programmed preferences and personalities. Montezuma, for example, will create a very large stack of units, though usually of obsolescent units because he lags behind in research. Napoleon is one of the most effective mid-to-late-game AI warmongers I've come across--large stacks of modern units, especially Cavalry, Rifles, and Cannon. The more peaceful AI leaders are, understandably, less effective warmongers.

 

[JackOfClubs]

I believe Blake is currently working on improving the AI to be better at war. A scary thought, as it's the one advantage I as a lowly human seem to have.

I would like to see a better AI implemented for the higher levels (say monarch and above) but leave the current AI for the lower levels. That way you could reduce some of the affirmative-action style advantages that make playing emperor so depressing.

I don't mind if the AI uses its resources more intelligently, but I find it annoying playing catch-up for most of the game.

It's probably too much to ask to have separate algorithms for the different levels though, but that really should be what "difficulty" means.

 

[Admiral Kutzov]

I've found that surviving the AI depends on your SOD. If you have a mix, they don't attack. To illustrate, if you have a pike in your stack, the AI will avoid attacking with knights. If you also have an ax or mace they'll avoid attacking with melee units. HA deter cats etc... Anyone else agree?

 

[cabert]

I've found that surviving the AI depends on your SOD. If you have a mix, they don't attack. To illustrate, if you have a pike in your stack, the AI will avoid attacking with knights. If you also have an ax or mace they'll avoid attacking with melee units. HA deter cats etc... Anyone else agree?

HA shouldn't deter catapults!
That's bad programming if it does.
But you have it right, if you want to move freely in enemy territory, have a mixed stack.

 

[Quagga]

But you have it right, if you want to move freely in enemy territory, have a mixed stack.

It's not necessary to have a perfectly mixed stack. One should consider what the enemy has at the ready. That's influenced by resources, tech level and UU.

For instance, don't worry about spears if you know the enemy doesn't have horses and construction plus elephants. AI with no metal? Then forget axes and send more swords.

Sometimes the AI fields a bunch of archers or longbows, especally when it has nothing better. Cover promotion is your friend then. I noticed with the 12-09 Better AI build that even the AI puts Cover on some of its maces.

The Better AI loves its UU. Expect to see a lot of them. Plan to counter.

 

[johnny_rico]

The Better AI loves its UU. Expect to see a lot of them. Plan to counter.

That's ironic. I'm started a new game this weekend where Monty showed up with stacks of HA/cats around 600 A.D. No Jags. He's currently the tech leader and has already exterminated Mehmed, just declared war on Roosevelt, whom he will no doubt eliminate. I fought him off but at the expense of giving him a city (jungle covered) in return for 10 turns of peace. Funny, the city he wanted was on the edge of my cultural borders. He cleared the jungle and built it up real nice; then the city culture flipped. My guess is, he's not happy about it.

Anyway, my point is that Monty is not using his UU in a game I'm playing. He's also good at war/aggresive but he happens to be the tech leader as well. My guess is he's bullied his way into most techs.

Sisiutil made a good point in that on the upper levels of difficulties, war strategy is the only advantage you have. On monarch and up, you need an early war to level the playing field. I think if the AI was fine tuned in the art of war, these levels of difficulty would be nigh impossible. Could you imagine trying to invade an AI civ with the protective trait, that actually knew how to promote its troops and defend it's land. Zoinks.

 

[Quagga]

I (Brennus) also played against Monty this weekend. He did come at me with Jags. But he also had lots of HAs.

I finally got control of his horse supply. Suddenly he had War Elephants and Cats. Then he brought Toku in against me. I fought them both off and took cities from both, but fell so far behind in tech (Asoka, Mansa and Frederick) that I resigned. I was playing a Normal speed game, which I find I still don't like.