AI Stupidities: CIV IV

[CrusaderKevin]

AI Stupidities: CIV IV

Alright, we ALL know the AI marches to the beat of its very own seizure-prone drummer… building quicker, researching faster, and attacking when least logically probable or profitable for itself.

This thread is dedicated to all of the stupidities that have occurred in CIV IV vanilla, Warlords, or BTS. Whether it be economical, civic related, military blunders, or more, I encourage all of you to be detailed in your explanation (and maybe even celebration) of the oddest and most bizarre antics of the AI you’ve seen. Feel free to post multiple times!


I’ll start it off: in my recent monarch game, I was playing on pangea map as Bismarck. There was a Buddhist love-fest going on between me and several other members of the continent, and everyone seemed to be on good terms with everyone (despite the fact that I was building up and army of trebs and knights to declare war on Elizabeth, my neighbor). I have NEVER been in a war yet, and was located in the corner of the standard sized map. Suddenly, out of the blue, Hyunna Capac, who is the SAME religion, almost same civics, and who I have trade agreements with declares war on me… from across FOUR DIFFERENT COUNTRIES!!! He marches a stack of 20 assorted units across four other civs just to reach my border cities, and we were at the same tech pace, so it’s not like I was backwards. I was able to easily crush his tiny stack, but he was an annoying distraction throughout my planned war with Liz. What baffles me is that he had no “red” (negative) points against me, and was friendly. I guess HC’s idea of friendship is throwing spears at you, and then wonders why you punch him back???

 

[Mantic0re]

During a war with Greece on Warlord difficulty I recently saw a micro-stack of 5-6 elephants cross through 2 civs to the opposite side of my empire and destroy a handfull of farms in undefended size 1-2 cities. The pastures and resource tiles were untouched even though the stack spent a few turns on my spice and cow. The land on these 2 cities was developed by another civ before I conquered them. I was on par with tech but had overexpanded and had a small military so I shifted everything to the hot side.

Eventually Ceasar moved his stack out of my borders for no apparent reason and was destroyed 2 turns later when his single Capital-defending warrior was destroyed. If those elephants were closer to his homeland I would have had a very hard time defeating them with my smaller unit numbers, as it was I simply ignored them and got lucky.

 

[mtr12]

I was on Prince and in the middle of a fight with Pericles. I had made 20 Samurai and 5 Cats and split the stack in 2 to go butcher him. He was fighting back hard, although his land was getting pillaged pretty badly.

And then suddenly, he sallied forth. And left only 3 units defending the capital.

The best city of the most advanced nation in the world, with 6 wonders and the Jewish Shrine that dominated the world's religious climate. Defended by 3 longbows facing a heavily upgraded stack led by Toku's finest Great General.

Well, I razed it. When I get back home, I'll show you a graph of what happened next to his culture.

 

[Zeiter]

I remember that during my first Civ4 game ever, I was playing as Sury, and I was at war with Bismarck on my western front, supporting my ally Qin Shi Huang and grabbing some goodies for myself. QSH also happened to be at war with Monty at the time, and invariably QSH calls me up to help out on that front. Monty was halfway around the world, separated from me by Ragnar on a lakes map. So I knew that Monty would be able to reach me eventually, but I assumed that QSH would keep him too busy closer to his home that he would not be able to mount an attack on me. I expected it to be a phony war.

20 turns later, I see a nasty SoD show up on my eastern border. Almost all of my army is on my western border, deep in Bismarck's territory, at least 10 turns from the eastern border. I had 1 archer and 1 axeman defending my border city against Monty's medieval SoD. (This was before I knew of Monty's reputation for being an insane warmonger).

I call up Monty, ready to offer pretty much anything he wants in order to secure peace. Against all reason, Monty accepts a neutral peace. I'm like, "Oh, thank you god!, but WTH?! That's just silly." Then, on his way back, Monty decides to declare war on Ragnar. (Once Monty's stack landed in my territory, I realized my mistake in not getting Ragnar to cancel his open borders with Monty earlier (like I said, I was just learning the game at the time), and I had Ragnar close his borders to Monty in order to make sure no reinforcements could arrive. I guess Monty found the way back home blocked and decided that he might as well declare on Ragnar instead).

 

[TheMeInTeam]

The AIs keep voting me to win when they'd be in a much better position if they just abstain .

 

[CrusaderKevin]

The AIs keep voting me to win when they'd be in a much better position if they just abstain .

LOL That is TOO TRUE

 

[StuntedAzrael]

The AIs keep voting me to win when they'd be in a much better position if they just abstain .

Actually, if I'm some small backward civ with no chance to win the game I would vote for you to win just to end my misery.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Actually, if I'm some small backward civ with no chance to win the game I would vote for you to win just to end my misery.

That's just the thing though, the AI can easily be abused to vote for you while *bigger* than you, or more advanced. Or both.

You can get every AI in the world to vote for you if you have favorable AIs and use the AP to its abusive potential, but even the UN works pretty easily.

 

[oyzar]

On immortal difficulty where i was playing romans the AI didn't attack me from the start to stop me from winning. When i attacked them(on turn 12 with my starting warrior), the AI i attacked decided to stay holed up in it's city instead of killing my warrior then killing me. Further the AI never attacked me when i kept attacking the other AI in the game(cept one faraway AI that didn't ever manage to send a troop my way), and this was when i attacked my second AI(i was already #1 power in the world by then). Further the AI kept caving to my demands for gold(or rather could you spare this for a good friend) several times each over the course of the game. They were also willing to buy pretty much every tech for ridicolus amount of gold(something really have to be done with the AI evaluation of gold)... Of course none of the AI's in this game built enough axes or counterattacked my stack when i was attacking. Even when the AI had maces/x-bows/x-bows my praets kept taking cities(together with cats) pretty easily. In general the AI never built enough units, nor decided to go against me despite me obviously being a favourite to win the game. They also kept trading with me despite me being the obvious tech and power leader. Mansa was worst trading away even monopoly techs this way.

 

[PaulusIII]

On immortal difficulty, the AI forgot to put its SoD in a city far out of my reach and put it in a nearby city instead which I could attack straight from over the border. Needless to say, that stack was crushed in a single turn when I attacked.

Worse even, Wang Kon hadn't learned from Charlemagne's mistake so I AGAIN found a stack on the border. Guess the AI doesn't look for danger. I for one know that whether it's a human or an AI playing Shaka, he's coming after you.

 

[Mizar]

When you are next to Shaka, you always keep an eye on him and your military ready.
We were on one side of the world and Shaka decleared war out of nowhere on Gandhi, who was on the other side of the world (they even had ok relations, Shakas worst enemy was a totally different civ).
Thing is, Shaka was backwards and the only one running Judaism while the rest of the world was Hindu. Gandhi does not only have very good relations with all other AIs but also the Hindu shrine, so tons of gold to bribe his friends. Next few turns, Shaka get DOWs from everyone and their mother and finds himself at war with 7! civs.

It was really hard to get my share of the cake, just sooo many "allied units" running around

 

[PaulusIII]

Actually, if I'm some small backward civ with no chance to win the game I would vote for you to win just to end my misery.

It's worse than that. An AI once called an election for religious leader WHILE NOT BEING ELIGIBLE FOR ELECTION. That's even worse in terms of stupidity.

 

[CrusaderKevin]

It's worse than that. An AI once called an election for religious leader WHILE NOT BEING ELIGIBLE FOR ELECTION. That's even worse in terms of stupidity.

HAHA
Smooth move, AI

 

[CrusaderKevin]

When you are next to Shaka, you always keep an eye on him and your military ready.
We were on one side of the world and Shaka decleared war out of nowhere on Gandhi, who was on the other side of the world (they even had ok relations, Shakas worst enemy was a totally different civ).
Thing is, Shaka was backwards and the only one running Judaism while the rest of the world was Hindu. Gandhi does not only have very good relations with all other AIs but also the Hindu shrine, so tons of gold to bribe his friends. Next few turns, Shaka get DOWs from everyone and their mother and finds himself at war with 7! civs.

It was really hard to get my share of the cake, just sooo many "allied units" running around

I've had something like that happen before....
I was preparing to war the civ that everyone ended up attacking, so I really had to rush in and grab what I wanted quickly!

 

[Gumbolt]

On immortal difficulty, the AI forgot to put its SoD in a city far out of my reach and put it in a nearby city instead which I could attack straight from over the border. Needless to say, that stack was crushed in a single turn when I attacked.

Worse even, Wang Kon hadn't learned from Charlemagne's mistake so I AGAIN found a stack on the border. Guess the AI doesn't look for danger. I for one know that whether it's a human or an AI playing Shaka, he's coming after you.

I love it when the Ai does this. On my sitting bull game i took out a 40 strong stack of Boudica's just sitting directly on my vassels border. I then did the same for the Dutch. All in all my stack of 20+ cannons and other melee units took out Boudicas stack in 2 turns. Willems in 2 turns too. Knocked out nearly 80 units i figure over the two cities.

I think the mistake was leaving the stack in a border city. All my cannons were CR3 and pretty much crushed any defender.

 

[schwanger]

I was playing my very first BTS game as Julius Caesar (random leader, I swear ), and I had finished killing Ragnar off of my continent, leaving someone on a small strip of land to the south. To the north was another continent with a couple of crappy Viking cities (Ragnar capitulated to me) plus Monty, Boudica, and someone else. Monty was my next target, and I had a single square of Viking territory where I could land and stage my troops for my invasion of the Aztecs (Ragnar and Monty were blocked by mountains). A few turns before I was going to invade, Monty decides to declare war on me. His massive stack consisted of 2 horse archers. My rifles had a tough time, but I managed to handle this perilous threat, and kill the crap out of him on his little continent.

 

[batavier]

AI's propose and vote for resolutions to

I was on a continent with 5 civs that were all buddhist, and all friendly with each other. The most powerful civ is Gilgamesh, the AP resident, followed by me and Boudica. I manage to get to rifling first and declare on one of the underdogs (Louis). Gilgamesh immediately declares war and then a few turns later proposes an AP vote to stop his own war against me, and everyone votes yes except Louis and it gets accepted. I manage to vassal Louis before another vote comes up.

Not long after I declare on the other weakling (Saladin). This time both Gilgamesh and Boudica declare war on me. A few turns later Gilgamesh proposes another vote to stop his war against me, and votes for it again so I can easily vassal Saladin.

The third war I go for Gilgamesh and the silly Apostolic Palace gets razed to the ground.

Another one was were Kublai Khan asked me to join a war and then proposed a resolution to get me out of it.

 

[Skallagrimson]

Just last night I was in a late-game science rush running Sid's Sushi and Mining, inc. as resource boosts and with a double-shrine wall street capital was making good money at it as well. To my horror Willem Van Oranje establishes Creative Constructions and loads up a Galleon of execs to spam it into my cities, competition-blocking them from getting my preferred Mining, inc. I was just about resigned to it because I didn't have my own execs built yet, and just cringing at the inevitable corp-nuke, and wondering whether I should cancel open borders and cause a rift between his diplo bloc and my civ.

Oddly, the next turn Willem got oil and decides to upgrade his galleon to a DESTROYER. His CC execs all disappeared. That bought me enough time to fully spam Mining, inc., all across the empire.

 

[royal62184]

Intercontinental invasions!!! I can't remember how many times an AI has declared war on a continent/arch map and sent like 2 or 3 galleons and amph assault on superior units and just get destroyed. I have seen some huge invasion forces from the AI but 80% of the time they just can't do an intercontinental invasion very well.

 

[Skallagrimson]

I've often been caught by a sneak overseas attack, where 6 Knights and about 20 siege (cats/trebs) overwhelm my 1 machine gunner and 1 rifleman (in a phase of the game where I'm focused on building factories, etc., to gear up the war machine for later). So they take a marginal city that I hooked up just to grab a gold mine, nothing important in it, and 6 turns later I have about 10 infantry there for a retake. Then the stupid AI *stays* at war, refusing even a peace treaty without any reparations, even though for the entire rest of the game they can't build up the same size stack they had before, and at the most will come later with maybe 4 cuirassiers and a cannon, and by that time they're owned by my beefier defense of infs, marines, tanks, etc. It's really just pathetic. Finally a random event offers up peace and I accept it just out of boredom, waiting in vain for more stacks to kill (and due to a free market-corporate strategy, not really ambitious to go conquer).