AI Military tactics improved?

[Deggial]

... It is one of the better TBS AIs I have ever seen. Yes it is still horrible, but making good AI is REALLY REALLY hard.

This! And I won't even say "horrible".

But there *are* possible issues that can be improved - and I don't think of tactic evaluations of own/enemy position, terrain, possible future moves and so on.

See warfare / see invasions might be one of them (at least the the ability to actually *launch* this invasions and the composition of the invasion fleet).

The proper use of airplanes is another one for sure:
- Bombing (recently captured) cities is nice and clever - but if there are no ground troops to retake the bombed-down city, the whole bombing is pointless.
It would be *much* better to target the enemies groundforces to slow down their approach.
- Holding back fighters for interceptions is not implemented jet, as it seams.

Both points could be solved by a not-so-complicated algorithm and do not need a decent tactic evaluation of terrain.

 

[fr3nchy117]

The AI definitely stands in need of improvement. But I do agree that it has improved a lot since the game's release. The very first game I played, I would bombard enemy ships with my fully promoted destroyers (with logistics) and then move away. The enemy ships made no effort to pursue and didn't even leave their borders.

Now in the most recent game, I had a destroyer shooting up some land units on another AI's continent when a battleship appears without warning and insta-sinks my destroyer. So I have seen some battleships on king level. In any case. I've seen the AI improve a lot. But it still gets its priorities mixed up and needs improvement.

 

[Becephalus]

And what about overseas conquest, eh? I have never had a problem where the AI has attacked me from overseas. I don't even bother building a navy when I am alone on a continent.

Overseas conquest is the exact same threat it has been in every other incarnation of CIv, in the TW series, in the paradox games, and in every strategy line I can think of (very little).

This! And I won't even say "horrible".

But there *are* possible issues that can be improved - and I don't think of tactic evaluations of own/enemy position, terrain, possible future moves and so on.

See warfare / see invasions might be one of them (at least the the ability to actually *launch* this invasions and the composition of the invasion fleet).

The proper use of airplanes is another one for sure:
- Bombing (recently captured) cities is nice and clever - but if there are no ground troops to retake the bombed-down city, the whole bombing is pointless.
It would be *much* better to target the enemies groundforces to slow down their approach.
- Holding back fighters for interceptions is not implemented jet, as it seams.

Both points could be solved by a not-so-complicated algorithm and do not need a decent tactic evaluation of terrain.

IIRC CIv4 AI did not really use planes at all until the absolute very last patch. I am not even sure if the patch was official. This isn't directed at you, but I am so sick of people acting like getting a solid AI for a strategy game is somehow trivial and that good ones exist. Everyone here loves SMAC here, including me, but look at that AI it is horrifying.

 

[Becomedeath]

The problem is that people do not want to think about the level of sophistication that they're using.

They see the AI, in fact they hear AI and immediately assume that they're dealing with what should be some sort of HAL9000 organism. The fact is, that the AI behind Civ is pushing the boundaries of what has been available in strategic gaming since it's inception way back in the '90s and continues to do so.

Yes, there is a significant difference between what it's supposed to do and what it does, but that doesn't mean it's rubbish.

You have to acknowledge how complex the system you are using actually is before you start attempting to harpoon it's successes. Any AI system is a work in progress, you are always learning new ways of achieving a result and you can always make it "smarter", but at the end of the day it's a machine running scripts filled with "IF X THEN Y ELSE Z" in vary degrees of complexity.

As I continue to say, if you want a trully intelligent opponent, find a person, otherwise simply acknowledge that for what it is, the AI in Civ does a damn good job. It's not making excuses for people who haven't done their jobs right, it's admiration for people who have managed to create something that is capable of performing to the level it is given the nature of the task in hand.

Any programmer worth his salt is continually looking at the code and improving upon it and I have no doubt that over the next year we will see radical improvements in the way the tactical and combat AI functions. But if you want it to change, you have to provide feedback that is above the level of "this is rubbish", if you believe so, then why? What is it specifically that it's not doing that you believe it should?

And if you can't provide something constructive, and you can't do a better job yourself, then what are you even speaking up for?


I wonder how the complaints would change if the AI were close to perfection, never made a mistake, never made a lousy choice and used every facet of the game to it's advantage...how happy would the whiners be after loosing 50 games in a row with their computer virtually laughing at them and writing back to the Friaxis claiming that "the standard of the user is insufficent"?

 

[JWAT44]

they could do like creative assembly and let the ai comprehend the manual to make it better.. i have seen tanks and fighters from the ai the whole time ive had the game, havent seen any bombers or very many ships at all. im playing a game as egypt currently and the arabs declared war on me. they sent a ton of pikemen and one archer behind them to attack memphis and after i killed most of their pikemen (terrible attempt to conquer my city because all i had defending it was a couple of war chariots) they retreated and offered peace on their turn! i was surprised that they did that so i think that they improved the ai's ability to decide when to fall back and request peace (and to determine more reasonable terms) when they are beaten which improves the diplomacy a tiny bit and improves combat a little which is a good thing

 

[qemist]

Dear All,

I want you please to share your experinces in the subject above:If AI military tactics improved or not.
...
3:When at war,the enemy's great Generals are still unprotected and near your borders without protection?

Frequently they seem to be loitering hoping to be picked up. So no improvement.

4:Ranged weapons are first in line or stay back?

Seems to be random.

 

[Aspon]

The AI knows it's a computer and has an inherent fear of water.

generally true not sure if there has been an update in the last day or so but in my last game i was taken by surprise when for the first time ever the ai launched a full scale over water invasion against me even going the long way round instead of the closer direction.

immortal difficulty declared on the ottomans because they put a settler on my land and did not want to see that city built.

played dozens of games this is the very first time I have ever witnessed the ai launch an over sea invasion so Im assuming a recent update.

 

[gingerbill]

1) ive seen the AI build fighters alot and tanks and battleships , not sure about bombers.

2) definetly uses them better than before.

3) i still see generals unprotected , usually when there army is nearly beaten.

4) i think there ranged is fine.

i would rate the AI as good now but im realistic and judge the AI on what is possible in a game this complex. It was poor on release though.

they could do like creative assembly and let the ai comprehend the manual to make it better..

your praising CA's AI? wow . ETW was the worst AI in the history of PC gaming , was abysmal , massacred it on VH/VH as a middling nation on my first ever go. Not played shogun 2 much as i'm boycotting it after ETW. Played it round my brothers and it was better than ETW AI for sure but its a very simple game of a few units off paper/scissors/stone.

 

[nokmirt]

your praising CA's AI? wow . ETW was the worst AI in the history of PC gaming , was abysmal , massacred it on VH/VH as a middling nation on my first ever go. Not played shogun 2 much as i'm boycotting it after ETW. Played it round my brothers and it was better than ETW AI for sure but its a very simple game of a few units off paper/scissors/stone.

ETW is not worse than CiV at least after patch 1.6. NTW is better than CiV, and Shogun 2, which I just started playing, though I have had it since release, is really good and far better than CiV. A lot better thats for damn sure. The thing is, I have always loved the civ games more, and wish I could switch the AIs so CiV could have a real good AI for once. They should hire the TW programmers to help with CiV's AI.

 

[JWAT44]

1)your praising CA's AI? wow . ETW was the worst AI in the history of PC gaming , was abysmal , massacred it on VH/VH as a middling nation on my first ever go. Not played shogun 2 much as i'm boycotting it after ETW. Played it round my brothers and it was better than ETW AI for sure but its a very simple game of a few units off paper/scissors/stone.

not praising it just saying they could try that to improve the ai

 

[Wezqu]

I don't know how you people see AI naval invasions as bad or say that they aren't even bringing ships to protect them. Every time I have seen AI doing a naval invasion they protect their embarked units with at least four ships. One time they were even close to taking one of my cities. Just barely managed to get my troops there before the city would have fell. It also tooks some time to take out those four ships that were destorying all my water improvements that they could see. I don't claim that whole sea battle and invasion should not be improved as even I have seen some stupid things like AI moving its invasion fleet on my territory and then declaring war. This of course causes the units to be moved out of my territory and lose their movement for that turn. That invasion I managed to stop before it even got near my shores but only because of the earlier invasion I mentioned earlier. I had build bigger fleet at that point.

 

[bryanw1995]

The AI in Civ4 was okay at appearing to play the rules of that game well enough. It was actually pretty bad at war when first released and it had no real strategy of any kind. The Civ4 AI only became decent at war in the expansions when Firaxis adopted the work of a modder named Blake.

But the more important point is that combat in Civ4 was really really easy for the AI (and the human). Balanced attack forces weren't really necessary when combat was about putting 20+ units in a stack together. Relative positioning of individual units on the battle field was nonexistent.

The Civ5 AI has to deal with a much more complex game with far more variables. Under the hood it has advanced by leaps and bounds because it had to even to give the current level of behavior. For example, the AI now has cities specifically running a military production strategy, and it's offensive and defensive operations will request specific units that they need to balance their forces. These simple abilities are new to the series!

I remember reading that deity Warlords succession game that blake was in, everyone kept trying to get him to help predict the AI behavior and he was saying things like "We're all dead".

There are several problems that civ 5 has introduced for the AI. First of all, 1upt is an enormously more complicated situation to handle. As much as I like it, I think that they might have been better off holding that off until civ 6. Secondly, the terrain-specific promotions of +20% instead of the flat +10% vs all that civ 4 had. This is a great idea for human players in multiplayer, but terrible for an ai that is already struggling in other areas. Next, the flat terrain penalty is often difficult for the ai to handle, though now that it's down to -10% it isn't nearly as crippling as it was originally. GG's add a level of complexity. The ai is finally using them offensively, but still in general they are more of an advantage to the human than the ai. And something that I personally really like but is just difficult for the ai to grasp is flanking bonuses. The ai will put several melee units into very vulnerable position to get a +10 or +20% flanking bonus on an attack that is still often non-lethal. A human would never do this.

Adding up all the additions to combat complexity, it looks to me that it was just too much to put on the ai at once. A couple of simple fixes for the ai: remove terrain-specific bonuses and go back to +10% all instead, and give ai units + 1/2 sight per difficulty level (immune to blocking terrain). At settler and lower difficulties this has almost no impact to the human, but by the time you get to emperoror/immortal, the ai will know where your forces are like it did in civ 4 and thus be less likely to stupidly throw his units into harms way.

 

[Adrenaline15]

i just realized something. AI starts out great, but is it pumping reinforcements to the frontlines? thats something i cannot confirm. the 1st wave when the AI declares war is fun. i get punished for advancing too quickly, horsemen comes and rape me, my swordsmen getting flanked and arrowed to hell.

after i finally get my act together, setting up my catapults on hills, bombarding to hell then slowly creeping ahead, the AI doesnt seem to be able to send out another similar wave to impede my advance. it doesnt send much to defend the city under attack as well. then they give up and gives me a bunch of gold, gpt and luxury resource.

but there's also mechanics involved in making the AI a bloody steamroll. 1 is the lack of real frontline units. apparently every unit gets bombarded to hell because of the pitiful 10hp thing. this makes holding the line complicated as it has to be constantly reinforced. I have thought of giving some units low attack power but greater survivability. for example, pikemen. they aren't the best attackers but history has it that they are numerous and easily available. pikes can maybe get 15hp and march promotion in cities with armories to show that they are numerically superior and easily replenished in battle. while longswordsmen have a much higher atk power and act as an elite unit. to supplement pike armies increasing damage as a whole, but only having 10hp, representing their low availability and elite status.

 

[nokmirt]

I don't know how you people see AI naval invasions as bad or say that they aren't even bringing ships to protect them. Every time I have seen AI doing a naval invasion they protect their embarked units with at least four ships. One time they were even close to taking one of my cities. Just barely managed to get my troops there before the city would have fell. It also tooks some time to take out those four ships that were destorying all my water improvements that they could see. I don't claim that whole sea battle and invasion should not be improved as even I have seen some stupid things like AI moving its invasion fleet on my territory and then declaring war. This of course causes the units to be moved out of my territory and lose their movement for that turn. That invasion I managed to stop before it even got near my shores but only because of the earlier invasion I mentioned earlier. I had build bigger fleet at that point.

Next time you see that put up some screenshots, so developers can make sure this is just not a rare occurrence, and make it so it becomes more common. I have played this game many many hours and have never seen them escort land troops. It is wonderful to hear though, still seeing is believing.

 

[qemist]

I don't know how you people see AI naval invasions as bad or say that they aren't even bringing ships to protect them. Every time I have seen AI doing a naval invasion they protect their embarked units with at least four ships.

The AI did similar against me today. This was the first amphibious invasion I have seen post patch and it did OK. Even razed one of my cities. I was not at all set-up to resist mind you, and I suspect it cheated by using information about where my forces were that it shouldn't have had. Apparently this was standard in previous titles in the series.

 

[Gallean88]

On the topic of overseas conquest. I played an immortal game recently where Augustus Caesar settled 2 cities on my continent, brought his army over, and declared war. It wasn't an unexpected move at the time, but he almost managed to take a city before I repulsed him.

I think this is a clear improvement on the part of the AI, which I have noticed among a slew of new improvements, i.e building aircraft other than missiles, constructing an able navy, etc.

 

[jahsoldier]

I've seen the AI use aircraft and bombers quite a few times now, and even nukes - Washington (who'd been friendly to me all game) nuked 2 of my cities the turn after I nuked one of his. I was pleasantly surprised to lose half my forces this way. However, he then proceeded to invade a small island colony of mine rather than going straight for my undefended capital, which would have won him the game

Still doesn't seem to build much of a navy, but the AI's definitely way better than it was at release

 

[nokmirt]

I've seen the AI use aircraft and bombers quite a few times now, and even nukes - Washington (who'd been friendly to me all game) nuked 2 of my cities the turn after I nuked one of his. I was pleasantly surprised to lose half my forces this way. However, he then proceeded to invade a small island colony of mine rather than going straight for my undefended capital, which would have won him the game

Still doesn't seem to build much of a navy, but the AI's definitely way better than it was at release

Many civs are not so prone to build a navy. England, Danes, Spain. Polynesia, are the ones among a few others that seem to build more ships. I do admit the AI is better, and when I did fight it at see, it foughr better, and put it's ships in a position to support land troops. One AI civ Spain helped support AI Greece's navy with ships from its own, first time I saw that one. Good stuff though, and interesting.

 

[Sgt. Captain]

I just played my first game I have played in months, just to see what these patches have done.

I have to say, I got completely into this game.

I played as Russia, continents, standard.

Everything was going great and I was in 2nd place next to Germany. Then my long time ally and war buddy Hiawatha declared war on me. He was matched technologically with me...so I spent most of my resources on trying to break that tie and hold the front line and two cities that were under siege from the Iroquois. My fall from power happened quickly. Somehow Hiawatha passed me up in technology, and after a few brief periods of peace He builds up a huge wave of tanks, artillery, and various other units on my border.

I wish I had taken a screenshot of that...maybe I can open an earlier auto save, because what happened next shocked me. Unsurprisingly, he declared war...but then a wave of bombers hits me. He takes out two of my units guarding my city using bombers and tanks...Then bombards the city with everything else he had.
In two turns he took over the Aztec capitol city I had captured and had been holding for nearly 100 turns.

Suddenly World War I erupted as my military was now severely weakened from the long term overseas conflict with Hiawatha. Every civilization except for a few declare war on me. In my homeland, China Declares on me...so I turn my attention to that. I actually start pushing China's tanks and troops back to their own lands when out of
nowhere Songhai declares war on me. They were on the other side of the world, so I thought, eh big deal. I saw two destroyers appear next to my relatively undefended coastal city, bombard it...and then a stream of embarked tanks, troops, and artillery rushed in and took the city. In one Turn. Granted the AI attacked the city straight from the water and lost several units doing this, but it worked. Plus it didn't matter because they had even more units to replace those they lost!

So now I have china to the west, and now Songhai to the south, in my own lands with an established beach head!!! For some reason Hiawatha backed off and declared peace. Probably to let others finish me off.

Attached is the beachhead Songhai now has.

 

[nokmirt]

@SGT. Captain very interesting. I get annoyed during my games when everyone declares war on me. Eventually, and it takes awhile, they will make peace. The bad thing about the game at this point is that you can never trust them again, even if they say they are friendly, they end up denouncing you and soon after declare war again, it gets a little silly.

There has to be a way to make the diplomacy more realistic, although there should be a chance of a world war. however, it should be a team of countries, against a team of other countries. Usually in a world war the country being attacked has a couple of allies, even the aggressor has a few allies. The way it is now it is 11 to 1, like in my game, and I had 3 civs not at war with me, one friendly, and two guarded. I think there should be a chance of any diplomatic scenario happening, even one with 11 to 1 odds, because it is not an impossibility. However, I believe this should change from game to game. It should not be that every single game you play, you get to look forward to the AI declaring war on you from every viable angle, it is not realistic, and takes away the fun of playing, and replaces it with aggravation. In short it is not very relaxing or interesting. They need to fix diplomacy ASAP.