AI Stupidities: CIV IV

[Ramesses-Rules]

Did you consider the fact that they are perhaps themselves 2 turns away from liberalism?

That would make it a fair trade, albeit insignificant. However, in this case, it was Julius Caesar and he wasn't far enough up that tech line to possibly be researching Liberalism at the time.

I think it is stupid because even a beginner isn't going to fall for this trick. When I started playing, I laughed out loud the first time the AI tried it.

 

[Fei Kelei]

I think it is stupid because even a beginner isn't going to fall for this trick.

Don't be so sure. When I was a beginner I didn't really think about trades and pretty much agreed to anything anyone offered, though since it was Chieftain difficulty it hardly mattered. Maybe this kind of thing should stop at Noble and above, though.

 

[CrusaderKevin]

Don't be so sure. When I was a beginner I didn't really think about trades and pretty much agreed to anything anyone offered, though since it was Chieftain difficulty it hardly mattered. Maybe this kind of thing should stop at Noble and above, though.

Nah, it's funny to see the AI make stupid offers!

 

[JujuLautre]

That would make it a fair trade, albeit insignificant. However, in this case, it was Julius Caesar and he wasn't far enough up that tech line to possibly be researching Liberalism at the time.

If you could offer him liberalism, this means that he could research it. Did you have enough espionnage points on him to be sure he researched something else ?

If I am correct, the AI always offer "fair" trades (with perhaps 10 or 30% more for them... well, "c'est la vie" ), considering both the number of beakers remaining for you AND for them. Thus my remark.

I could be wrong obviously, but just keep this in mind when you get offer such trade: they may be fair, but you will not "see" it because, unlike the AI, you do not know how many beakers are already invested in the tech for the other leader

 

[The Almighty dF]

If you could offer him liberalism, this means that he could research it. Did you have enough espionnage points on him to be sure he researched something else ?

If I am correct, the AI always offer "fair" trades (with perhaps 10 or 30% more for them... well, "c'est la vie" ), considering both the number of beakers remaining for you AND for them. Thus my remark.

I could be wrong obviously, but just keep this in mind when you get offer such trade: they may be fair, but you will not "see" it because, unlike the AI, you do not know how many beakers are already invested in the tech for the other leader

AI never offers fair trades.
I've had someone offer Polytheism in exchange for Currency.

 

[JujuLautre]

AI never offers fair trades.
I've had someone offer Polytheism in exchange for Currency.

Did you know at this time exactly how much beakers the given AI had invested into currency ?

 

[cabert]

The AI offers fair trades "if available".
Meaning that if it doesn't havemore to offer, he offers what it has.
How many times did the AI offer me his world map (which it did give me just 1 turn before = worthless to me) for rifling or astronomy?

 

[The Almighty dF]

Did you know at this time exactly how much beakers the given AI had invested into currency ?

None.
I'm big into espionage.

 

[Ramesses-Rules]

If you could offer him liberalism, this means that he could research it. Did you have enough espionnage points on him to be sure he researched something else ?

If I am correct, the AI always offer "fair" trades (with perhaps 10 or 30% more for them... well, "c'est la vie" ), considering both the number of beakers remaining for you AND for them. Thus my remark.

I could be wrong obviously, but just keep this in mind when you get offer such trade: they may be fair, but you will not "see" it because, unlike the AI, you do not know how many beakers are already invested in the tech for the other leader

My point is that I know he had put zero research into Liberalism, because I know he had not yet acquired Education, etc. which precede it in that tech line. This deal has happened to me countless times where they wait until I am 2 turns from something, and then try to trade it to me. It is an annoying waste of time. Anybody who accepts an offer like that shouldn't be playing civ-4.

 

[Ramesses-Rules]

If you could offer him liberalism, this means that he could research it. Did you have enough espionnage points on him to be sure he researched something else ?

If I am correct, the AI always offer "fair" trades (with perhaps 10 or 30% more for them... well, "c'est la vie" ), considering both the number of beakers remaining for you AND for them. Thus my remark.

I could be wrong obviously, but just keep this in mind when you get offer such trade: they may be fair, but you will not "see" it because, unlike the AI, you do not know how many beakers are already invested in the tech for the other leader

My point is that I know he had put zero research into Liberalism, because I know he had not yet acquired Education, etc. which precede it in that tech line. This deal has happened to me countless times where they wait until I am 2 turns from something, and then try to trade it to me. It is an annoying waste of time. Anybody who accepts an offer like that shouldn't be playing Donkey Kong civ-4.

 

[Ramesses-Rules]

If you could offer him liberalism, this means that he could research it. Did you have enough espionnage points on him to be sure he researched something else ?

If I am correct, the AI always offer "fair" trades (with perhaps 10 or 30% more for them... well, "c'est la vie" ), considering both the number of beakers remaining for you AND for them. Thus my remark.

I could be wrong obviously, but just keep this in mind when you get offer such trade: they may be fair, but you will not "see" it because, unlike the AI, you do not know how many beakers are already invested in the tech for the other leader

My point is that I know he had put zero research into Liberalism, because I know he had not yet acquired Education, etc. which precede it in that tech line. This deal has happened to me countless times where they wait until I am 2 turns from something, and then try to trade it to me. It is an annoying waste of time. Anybody who accepts an offer like that shouldn't be playing Donkey Kong civ-4.

 

[Wurth]

I was playing a game on noble difficulty where I had sniped asoka's capital while it was undefended in turn 8. The only remaining civs on my continent were zara and tokugawa. I used hinduism that asoka founded in delhi to garner good relations with my other two neighbors. When I got to theology, I was beat in the last 5 turns to building the AP by zara. At this point in time, I was overfocusing on growth and not enough on military, so when I saw a huge stack of 12-15 guys on the Toku border, I started to sweat a bit. Toku declared war on me and started rushing for my border.

The turn he started to bombard my weak city, the AP popped up with 'stop the war against tokugawa?'. I didn't think I had a prayer, even with my 100 votes I didn't have a clear majority on my own.... but the resolution passed unanimously! Toku voted to stop the war he started the turn before he took my city

Edit: I forgot to mention that afterwards I decided to press my luck, and kept my military low. Toku stopped his own war thanks to AP votes a total of three times that game.

 

[Skallagrimson]

Sounds like a sweet exploit, lol.

 

[Ramesses-Rules]

Today was the dumbest war I have ever been party to. Alexander and I were at war with Elizabeth. According to the "power" ratings, Alex was #1 by a wide margin, so I figured that together we could make quick work of her. Then I see that he went into the war with no Catapults against London's population 9 and 60% cultural defense. Elizabeth had 5 cities, including 3 really nice coastal cities next to me. She pulled most of her military back to London to fight Alex, so it was fairly easy to take them. I briefly considered trading Construction to Alex so that he could take London, but decided to let him beat his head against its walls while I picked up my three cities. Eventually, Elizabeth traded with somebody to get iron, and then it really went bad for Alex. He ended up making peace with Elizabeth and got nothing. I got three cities plus Calendar off of her at the end, and I started with the weakest military of the three of us. I didn't know this kind of nonsense can happen at Monarch level..

 

[lightsedge]

My point is that I know he had put zero research into Liberalism, because I know he had not yet acquired Education, etc. which precede it in that tech line. This deal has happened to me countless times where they wait until I am 2 turns from something, and then try to trade it to me. It is an annoying waste of time. Anybody who accepts an offer like that shouldn't be playing Donkey Kong civ-4.

I think usually the reason you're offered the trade when you're close to getting it us because the AI waits until it considers the trade fair or better. If I have a tech with the same beaker value as one that I want, but the AI refuses to trade, I will sometimes either research a few turns into the tech I want, or get more gold. Then I can offer the AI something closer in value than perhaps a 2 for 1 trade.

 

[Ramesses-Rules]

How can it be anywhere close to a fair trade when he hasn't even started researching Liberalism yet, and I have only to wait two more turns to get Replaceable Parts? Why in the world would you ever trade for something you can research in two turns -- much less trade a tech as high up the food chain as Liberalism? I wish they would rewrite the software so that such trades are not offered to me.

 

[azzaman333]

How can it be anywhere close to a fair trade when he hasn't even started researching Liberalism yet, and I have only to wait two more turns to get Replaceable Parts? Why in the world would you ever trade for something you can research in two turns -- much less trade a tech as high up the food chain as Liberalism? I wish they would rewrite the software so that such trades are not offered to me.

IIRC, Replaceable Parts costs more than Liberalism, and most games have Liberalism coming before Replaceable Parts

 

[lightsedge]

As azzaman said, replacable parts does cost more. Maybe try comparing how many beakers you have left (not the number of turns), vs the cost of the tech the AI wants. I think your tech might also be worth less if other nations have it. Also factor in that the trade will always in the AI's favor. How much so, and if it varies much, I'm not sure.

In any case, if you trade, you do save 2 turns worth of beakers. And if you don't like it, at least you can refuse without taking a diplo hit, unlike requests for tribute and "help".

 

[PhroX]

Had a game a quite recently with two real stand out moments of AI stupidity. The situation was this: decent sized continent with five people on it: Me (Asoka), Isabella, Monty, Sitting Bull and De Gaulle. Izzy founded Christianity early on (Choose Religions was on) and it quickly became the dominant, and indeed only, religion on our landmass.

The first piece of monumental stupidity came when Monty decided to start his first war. He shared borders with everyone but me, and the power levels, apart from him being well ahead, were pretty even. IIRC, he hadn't found metal or horses, so it was just solid Jaguars. So who does he pick as his prospective victim? Yep. Sitting Bull. I was watching it with a scout, and he must've suicided about 50 Jaguars on one of SB's cities that was not only defended by Dog Soldiers and Protective, +3 exp Archers, but was on a hill.

Eventually, he gave up, but only after giving SB some level 6-7 archers and Dogs, plus a couple of GGs.

The second event of note came when Izzy was the first to research Theology, and founded Judaism. At this point, Monty was rebuilding his armies, Sitting Bull was, well, sitting in the corner not doing much, De Gaulle was stuck up north with a bunch of Tundra cities, while me and Izzy were pretty closely matched as the top civs, roughly 50% higher than the others.

As I said earlier, Christianity was the only religion on our continent before this - the others were founded overseas - so there was a nice bit of religious love going on. Nothing much happened at first, until Izzy popped a prophet and built the Temple of Solomon. She then, pretty sensibly, decided to spam Jewish missionaries. About a dozen turns later, De Gaulle suddenly adopts Judaism. Yes, you heard that right, he chose to switch to a religion where he'd have no allies, yet four enemies, including Monty and Izzy. It wasn't even the main religion in his cities (he had about 5 with Judaism, compared with 7-8 Christian ones).

It took about a dozen turns before Izzy declared, and Monty, unsurpsingly, jumped in too, even dragging his former enemy SB in with him.

 

[Woodreaux]

I think the AI has short term memory, but no long term memory. I was playing as Tokugowa with Khan up north. We had been at war for centuries, we were neck 'n neck military tech-wise. He kept sending poorly promoted units against my well promoted veterans in forts. Although his strength (according to BUG's gauge) was twice mine the body count was lopsided in my favor. I offer him peace, he gives me Rifling, his map & beaucoup gold. After centuries of getting his horde mauled, it only takes ten turns to forget. He demands tribute, I flip'm the bird, he declares war... the cycle begins anew.

Same game. Isabella is my neighbor to the west, she is in last place tech, score and military. She has to know how much stronger I am. She x-bows & macemen, I have a damn strong gunpowder empowered army. She demands a tech, then DoW when I refuse. What was she thinking?