I posted this in another thread about the new AI being stupid despite the claims of the game to have improved AI, but it probably warrants it's own thread. It's in response to many people claiming that the AI is completely stupid and incapable of waging war... but I'm not so sure about that, I think it might just be less predictable.
I got invidaded by Asoka with a huge SOD full of chariots, horse archers, catapults, and a couple war elephants and macemen. In my city, I had about half the amount of defenders as he had attackers, but I had Knights, Longbowmen, Macemen to defend. He brought his stack over and parked it right next to my city, and bombarded defenses the next turn while I brought reinforcements. He had plenty of units standing on a cottage, but he didnt pillage it. It looked to me like my city had about a 50-50 chance of survival if he were to just attack it with all of his troops, but I wondered why he didn't pillage... Then I thought "hey, isn't the AI supposed to be improved?" I don't really know what other players do, but I almost NEVER pillage enemy improvements unless I just have a stray unit in their territory for some reason. Why don't I pillage? I don't want to have to rebuild those improvements when I capture the enemy city in 3 more turns -- and maybe the new AI doesn't want to either. I also don't suicide a huge SOD into a city if I don't think I've got at least a 75% chance of success, does anyone else? I'd just as soon wait for reinforcements than have all my units die in a losing battle. What do I care if they waste a few turns in enemy territory, its better than dying trying to attack a well-defended city. Furthermore, maybe he's trying to get your city defenses weaker by making you attack his units with your units in the city? It did work, I did attack him when my reinforcements arrived... and when I did attack, I killed most but not all of his troops in one turn. The remaining troops, having absolutely no chance of capturing my city, began to behave quite differently. The few chariots left in the stack went pillage-mad, even though they had left my improvements alone for 3-4 turns with 2 MP units fortified on top of them. It seemed like once capturing the city was no longer possible for him, then he turned to pillaging.
I can't explain why the enemy didnt attack you in the example in this thread, but maybe the enemy is factoring things in that it hadn't previously factored in... such as "will this capturing this city cause my maintenance to be too high?" or "does capturing this city benefit my empire?" Perhaps the AI doesn't WANT to capture your city because of empire management problems, etc. Maybe it doesn't want to capture your city because it lies as a buffer between him and a much more powerful enemy. Maybe it makes a decision based on all these factors, which is what truely "improved AI" would do. The AI is better about managing tech trades than it used to be (doesn't want to trade for something it's almost done researching saying it doesnt benefit him). Perhaps the "will this benefit my empire?" logic is being applied where it was not applied before. If I saw a very weakly defended enemy city that i couldn't support maintenance on right now but probably could in 50 turns, I wouldnt run in and raze it... I'd keep some units nearby to capture it when I was ready.
My theory is that the AI is trying to play more like a human player would, as the game specified. Human players don't suicide their SOD, pillage improvements of cities they are 2 turns from capturing, or capture cities so far from the capital that it cripples the early game economy.
I got invidaded by Asoka with a huge SOD full of chariots, horse archers, catapults, and a couple war elephants and macemen. In my city, I had about half the amount of defenders as he had attackers, but I had Knights, Longbowmen, Macemen to defend. He brought his stack over and parked it right next to my city, and bombarded defenses the next turn while I brought reinforcements. He had plenty of units standing on a cottage, but he didnt pillage it. It looked to me like my city had about a 50-50 chance of survival if he were to just attack it with all of his troops, but I wondered why he didn't pillage... Then I thought "hey, isn't the AI supposed to be improved?" I don't really know what other players do, but I almost NEVER pillage enemy improvements unless I just have a stray unit in their territory for some reason. Why don't I pillage? I don't want to have to rebuild those improvements when I capture the enemy city in 3 more turns -- and maybe the new AI doesn't want to either. I also don't suicide a huge SOD into a city if I don't think I've got at least a 75% chance of success, does anyone else? I'd just as soon wait for reinforcements than have all my units die in a losing battle. What do I care if they waste a few turns in enemy territory, its better than dying trying to attack a well-defended city. Furthermore, maybe he's trying to get your city defenses weaker by making you attack his units with your units in the city? It did work, I did attack him when my reinforcements arrived... and when I did attack, I killed most but not all of his troops in one turn. The remaining troops, having absolutely no chance of capturing my city, began to behave quite differently. The few chariots left in the stack went pillage-mad, even though they had left my improvements alone for 3-4 turns with 2 MP units fortified on top of them. It seemed like once capturing the city was no longer possible for him, then he turned to pillaging.
I can't explain why the enemy didnt attack you in the example in this thread, but maybe the enemy is factoring things in that it hadn't previously factored in... such as "will this capturing this city cause my maintenance to be too high?" or "does capturing this city benefit my empire?" Perhaps the AI doesn't WANT to capture your city because of empire management problems, etc. Maybe it doesn't want to capture your city because it lies as a buffer between him and a much more powerful enemy. Maybe it makes a decision based on all these factors, which is what truely "improved AI" would do. The AI is better about managing tech trades than it used to be (doesn't want to trade for something it's almost done researching saying it doesnt benefit him). Perhaps the "will this benefit my empire?" logic is being applied where it was not applied before. If I saw a very weakly defended enemy city that i couldn't support maintenance on right now but probably could in 50 turns, I wouldnt run in and raze it... I'd keep some units nearby to capture it when I was ready.
My theory is that the AI is trying to play more like a human player would, as the game specified. Human players don't suicide their SOD, pillage improvements of cities they are 2 turns from capturing, or capture cities so far from the capital that it cripples the early game economy.
