AI behavior with victory points and flags and regicide

[Danr2040]

Hi,
I was wondering if any of the creators here have found the victory point system, regicide mode, or capture the flag mode to be an effective way to control the AI's behavior?
Does the AI understand where the victory point locations are? Does it make a point of attacking those cities/points in force? My goal is to get some more realistic AI behavior for a WWII scenario. For example, when the human controls the Axis, it would be great if the Allied AI would usually try a D-Day style landing to capture a victory point at Brest, and then drive towards another point at Paris.
Also, in regicide mode, does the AI know where the king units are? If the AI would gun for cities where there were king units, this seems like it would also be a good way to control AI behavior.
Same question about capture the princess/flag mode, does the computer attack the flag locations and does it know what to do with the flags?

 

[WildWeazel]

I think the AI tends to keep a unit on a VP location when it can, but it's not smart enough to plan organized attacks to take them. Those tiles will be subject to more attacks, but nothing like D-Day.
Welcome to CFC!

 

[Danr2040]

Weasel Op:
Thank you kindly for the welcome and for your reply. Indeed, I too have noticed in some of my past games that the AI does try to occupy the victory point squares. That is too bad if it doesn't do much more than that. However, even a slight increase in attacks on a particular target could be helpful. Have you tried either regicide or capture the flag mode?

 

[WildWeazel]

I just play the normal epic game for the most part, so I don't have a lot of experience even with VP locations- just enought to know that the AI doesn't value them very much.

 

[Cruelsader]

I have played several PTW regicide games. The comp always fortifies its king unit in the first city and never moves it. It also tries to have a large number of defensive units in the city. Say, an empire with 10 cities would have around 10-15 defensive units (at emperor difficulty level). AFAIK the comp does not understand that killing the king (=taking the capital city of an AI civ) results in the elimination of the civ. A few times the AI has tried to get behind my front line towards my king and in one occasion specifically attacked the interior city where the king was. However, I do not believe that the AI actually tried to eliminate the king. Rather, it was its usual tactic of trying to bypass heavily fortified cities and attack cities with few or no defenders. The occasion where my king city was targeted was, IMHO, a coincidence. I had the RoP with the AI civ and it has several units in my territory. I think that initially the civ was after my other AI neighbor but having units next to my lightly defended cities proved to be too big temptation. It decided to break the RoP and because it had, by chance, a stack of attackers next to the lightly defended king city the AI tried to take the city.

I have also used my king as a scout in early stages of regicide games. In several occasions, the king has ended the movement next to AI attackers but the AI, even the warmongers, have not attacked - a clear indication IMO that the AI does not understand the elimination concept, or at least, does not prioritize it.

In short, I think that the only change in AI behavior in regicide is the large number of defensive units in the capital (king city).

 

[Danr2040]

Cruelsader:
Thank you very much for the feedback; it is too bad that the computer doesn't seem to understand the value of killing a king unit. However, it would still be nice to have the computer defend a city to the death, like in a World War II scenario with mass regicide on, have the Soviets defend Moscow and Stalingrad and Leningrad. I will have to play test this further, maybe the AI understands the king killing idea better in Conquests? Have you tried capture the princess/flag mode at all?

 

[Cruelsader]

I will have to play test this further, maybe the AI understands the king killing idea better in Conquests? Have you tried capture the princess/flag mode at all?

I do not know whether conquests changed anything. And no, I have not tried capture the princess/flag mode.

 

[Danr2040]

Has anyone tried capture the princess/flag mode?