AI can be stupid, but I can be more

[Old rookie]

I need your help to determine wether I am as stupid as I am feeling now or not.

I've played Civ3, in every version, since 2001 or so. Only a few games before starting to mod and, after modding, I see the AI behaving in a completely not only stupid but crazy way, so I thought I have messed it up.

Then i start working with it for long years, starting over once and again, literally dozens of times, refusing to mod some things or other ones, but I always get to the same end: the AI behaves like crazy. I always give up and stop playing CIv3 for months or years because it was not fun that way.

Now, I tried playing unmodded again, and found that I have the same problem (unlike the first times when I first had the game) so I wonder what is happening. And then I changed one only thing: play with default victory conditions (I always played without space race because I don't like space ships), and it seemed to work properly (AI is stupid but not crazy).

Maybe I am the only one playing without space ships... Have anyone tested it too? Maybe I was not playing Civ3 for years just because of this dumb choice...

 

[jarred!]

What do you mean by "stupid" and "crazy?"

Disabling the spaceship victory doesn't necessarily stop the players from building spaceships, rather stops victory from being triggered by a launch.

The AI is known to make dumb decisions, one of the easiest to notice is the poor allocation of worker tasks. On lower levels, where the AI is handicapped, these errors are more apparent than on higher levels, where the AI needs fewer shields and less food to grow in population and produce units/buildings.

 

[Old rookie]

I mean, AI is always stupid as you say: it can't handle properly certain things and take right decisions, etc.

But when I say "crazy" I mean it behaves like crazy: it starts to declare war on every other civ in game. It makes an alliance with civ A against civ B, and the next turn it makes an alliance with civ C against civ A, and next turn another alliance with civ D against civ C, etc. And it happens between every AI civ, we have several DOW every turn, and no chance of being at peace with more than one of the other AI civs.

 

[Theov]

Other than randomly declaring war, you don't tell us what is 'stupid' behavior that you are seeing.

 

[Old rookie]

What I mean with "stupid" is not the DOW issue. Stupid refers to the standard behaviour in game: dumb decisions, poor strategies, not knowing how to use certains units, etc.

 

[vorlon_mi]

Perhaps stupid isn't the best word to use. The AI has been coded to value certain aspects of the game more than others, and based on the collective wisdom of human players over the past 15 years or so, those decisions are misguided.

Combat: The AI doesn't know how to use bombard units well on offense. It keeps them in cities as defense. I can count on an AI to track down a unit that I leave as a straggler (accidentally or on purpose). The AI will sometimes send out a longbowman (which is the city's next-to-last defender) to get one of my attackers, and the city falls. The AI doesn't know what to do with MGL, and very rarely creates armies.
To its credit, the AI tries to make the human player lose. AIs will invade if you neglect your military, and they will invite others to join the war against the human. The AI doesn't actually try to *win* very well, using one of the other victory conditions.

Building: The AI loves to build every building in every city, and this can cripple its economy. They do know where all the resources are / will be, so their choices of city sites can be informative in an indirect way. The AI seems to value having land tiles for food, so it builds cities 1 tile off the coast rather than coastal cities. Those decisions are "stupid", or misguided, or just simple-minded.

I find it somewhat frustrating when a larger AI declares on me, rather than absorbing its smaller neighbor. If the AI were truly pursuing a domination victory, it should attack the smaller/weaker foe first. Perhaps I just need to crank up the AI aggression setting ...

 

[vmxa]

The game was aimed at 300MH processors and 32MB ram. So it could not afford to do much in the way of logic for the AI. Too many "crazy" things to mention, but a fav of mine is in an AW game, where I have rails, the AI walks a settler next to a stack of my units. Keeps sending settlers into my land, so I can gave more slaves.