AI tries to attack when nearly dead

megalomaniac

Push the red button!!
Joined
Dec 31, 2005
Messages
64
Location
South Korea
You've probably seen this scenario:

You're only have to take one or two more cities before you grind your enemy into dust. Suddenly, a group of transports lands on your coast and deploys about 10 or so units to try and attack one of your cities when they could be put to better (although futile) use defending their last strongholds. This of course makes these units easier targets, but there's not as much challenge.

I know the AI is dumb, but that is a completely different level of stupidity.
 
i've had that happen on warlord. were your guys in the enemies border or outside of it?
 
I've had that happen before, too. Trying to rationalize it, I could see the opponent (in this case, an AI) trying to attack what is hopefully a weakly defended but well-developed city, hoping to get a foothold somewhere else before it loses its last cities. Trying to rationalize it, that is. :)

I think it might have something to do with the units being already headed your way on transports. In this thread maltz wrote about how the AI will commit units on transports and then those units follow through regardless of other factors. Maybe the AI doesn't ever consider bringing those units back for defense? I dunno. Still, this has made it interesting for me in at least one game where my homeland really was weakly defended while I was off waging war elsewhere. If I hadn't pop-rushed defenders, the AI might have been able to take a good city from me. So sending troops to attack via sea could be a useful strategy to avoid total destruction, but I agree with megalomaniac that the AI troops would be better used defending the last cities left.
 
Maybe the AI simply calculated it had a better chance against what it could see in your homeland against whatever you had near their cities.

If he see's a 75% chance of sucess in one conflict, and a 10% chance in another.......I expect the AI will always choose the better odds..... regardless of the overall importance of the conflict.

The fact he'll obviously be able to see most of your invading force, yet probably only sees a tiny fraction of your homeland, backs this up. The AI only accounts for what it can see..... so if it can see into one of your citys through religion or a spy, and only sees a single rifleman it'll "assume" all the blacked out squares don't contain units, and all it's going to face is the one unit it sees.
 
AI doesn't calculate at all - it will ALWAYS send some landing force, if it has ships. You can verify this by examining the AI cities before war, through some spy; you will notice that the landing force is prepared beforehand, together with the ships, and just waits for the "launch" button. This, as correctly pointed in the article of Matz, is just another serious deficiency in AI warfare - you know it will come, so you just wait for it and kill everything in the sea.

As for the "target" of the invasion, a usual candidate is a weak city they can "spy" (through religion).
 
It can be effective.

I had to sue for peace with Ghengis in my last game when he sprung some galleys in behind my lines. I had a huge force ready to advance deeper into his territory, but I was forced to sue for peace to protect my homeland.
 
atreas said:
AI doesn't calculate at all - it will ALWAYS send some landing force, if it has ships. You can verify this by examining the AI cities before war, through some spy; you will notice that the landing force is prepared beforehand, together with the ships, and just waits for the "launch" button.
I've noticed this myself. Always assumed that meant the civ was preparing to declare war, but centuries went by and they just sat there.

Toku sent a surprise invasion fleet during my last war with him -- a frigate and 2 loaded galleons. Sank the frigate & galleon with a destroyer & submarine, but the only other ship I had to finish off his unescorted Combat I Galleon full of troops was my own unescorted Combat I Galleon full of troops. So I rolled the dice...and won! :lol: :goodjob:
 
The Rnd gods have blessed you (for the moment). great finish though. I never seem to have this problem probably because In continents map, I have a frigate or destroyer/battleship help bombard with my land units, I blockade the port so his/her ships can't exit. who knew I actually acomplished something with this (though it is probably not too significant).
 
Further to this - Ive noticed that if you are about to destroy a civ, there will be a point where the AI uses its units to attack your attacking forces.

Of course, they always get hammered - and leave that last city very easy to take.

The AI would have had a far higher (10 x zero!) chance of winning the battle if those units were fortified inside the city walls - but hey, may as well make one last stand.
 
Often enough I find myself admiring the spirit of the A1 - still gamely launching attacks when in its position I would long since have thrown in my hand - and refusing to give in to exhorbitant demands even when facing imminent anihilation.
 
Top Bottom