AI stupidity

[limaike]

Has anyone else found when you have a stack of doom sitting outside an AI enemy city that units much better suited to defending give up their defensive bonuses by attacking the stack? For example, longbowmen with a 50% city defense bonus will leave the city to attack a stack of knights and catapults. I understand that AI can't imitate human cunning, but defensive troops abandoning cover is just stupid

 

[Stylesjl]

Sometimes i do that too, but that is only when the stack isn't overwhelmingly big or powerful

I think its funny when the AI attack for no reason at all and then have all their troops slaughtered or when they don't seem to account for defensive pacts

 

[SPQR300]

I have found the same thing. Very annoying. I hope they will fix it, because it's ridicolous. It should only attack from sieged cities with catapults, or when there are no overwhelming attacker forces, so defending the land from pillage is worth the units. But when the city is doomed to be captured, the AI's units should hold out in the city as long as possible to slow down the offense.

 

[rilke]

I think its funny when the AI attack for no reason at all and then have all their troops slaughtered or when they don't seem to account for defensive pacts.

I do that too. All the time.

 

[Sisiutil]

I do that too. All the time.

So you're saying that perhaps the folks at Firaxis intentionally programmed human-style stupidity and short-sightedness into the AI to make it more realistic?

Pure genius!

 

[*Nosferatu*]

I find the AI smarter then humans.

 

[SPQR300]

I find the AI smarter then humans.

And I don't

 

[Shoot the Moon]

Neither do I. No human would do some of the stupid things the AI does. Would an human wait for you to stack up all of your units along the border and do nothing about it? Would any human build a city in the middle of nowhere, just because there was open space? Would any human put more importance (in trading) on religous techs, after the religion that tech gives has already been founded? I wouldn't say the AI is smarter, just sometimes harder because of the huge bonuses they get.

 

[lost_civantares]

They still did a much better job with this AI than civ3's. It's incredibly hard to program a workable AI remember.

 

[MrPaladin]

At times I've had the AI pull off sneeky stuff.... other times I've walked all over them...

 

[Sahkuhnder]

Different tactics can sometimes work great and sometimes not.

The only really truly stupid thing I've seen the AI do is to build a worker in an isolated 1-tile island city. (And I don't mean as part of a settler expedition). If a city has one tile of land and 20 tiles of water in the fat cross, then don't build a worker.

What was the AI going to do with the worker on that island?

 

[lost_civantares]

Yep, same here, I actually just posted a screenshot of that in the funny pictures thread a day or two ago.

Having the AI on the same team can be frustrating, sometimes it decides that it will start to build a wonder in a city that won't finish it for another 70 odd turns, despite the fact that it could build it with in 10 or 20 in another city that is just building obsolete units.

 

[limaike]

Usually the AI gives me a run for my money combat-wise (i currently play prince), using varied stacks, using terrain wisely, exploiting tech advantages, so the problem of AI defensive troops abandonning the bonuses of city defense really stands out.

 

[Zombie69]

I find the AI smarter then humans.

Maybe the humans you hang out with aren't very smart.

 

[Mrdie]

I have found the same thing. Very annoying. I hope they will fix it, because it's ridicolous. It should only attack from sieged cities with catapults, or when there are no overwhelming attacker forces, so defending the land from pillage is worth the units. But when the city is doomed to be captured, the AI's units should hold out in the city as long as possible to slow down the offense.

That and the AI building citys in locations that really don't help them at all (Even hinder them in some cases) are the only major problems I've seen with the AI.

 

[Roibeárd]

A few games ago, I was involved in this long, low-intensity war with one of the AI's - I forgot which one.

The funny thing was, that the AI kept sending the same little "invasion" force to the same square over and over again. Every few turns, I'd see two Frigates and a Galleon drop off two knights and a cannon. I would just dispatch three or four cavalry and kill them instantly . This happened at least five times in a row. I even decided to build a road to the square with some idle workers. I thought about attacking them at sea, but the Frigates would probably put up a good fight and sink some of my attacking ships. It was easier to just let them land and take them out in one turn with the cavalry.

 

[N3pomuk]

Yea I get the feeling that the ai still isn't all that good with his navies... although much better than civ 3. But it still somehow does not see the advantage of naval superiority and massive amphibious landings behind the fronts.
cheers

 

[Bushface]

The daftest example of "artificial idiocy" that I have seen was when the last remaining AI civ started to build an SS Casing in its last remaining city, which was already under heavy air attack and surrounded by tall stacks of my Modern Armour units. I have visions of the city governor frantically wielding a spanner and mumbling "Must ... get ...away ...Must ... escape ..." - but he didn't.

 

[TrailblazingScot]

And I don't

Well I do

And I've played you

j/k

 

[Mista]

I've seen it both ways. I launched an invasion against Monty once and the city I chose to invade had 5 transports loaded with troops. He was furious at me at the time, and Ican guess that he had intentions ...
On the other hand, Last night when I was pushing Japan into a corner, she had only six cities left, two defenders in each, she suddenly sent her two remaining galleons and three frigates on an invasion mission .... Unfortunately, (for her) they did not make through my destroyer screen.

BTW I was known as Moulton in Civ III days.