I'm pretty new to Civ 3 so people may have noticed this before, but just some examples of AI stupidies I've noticed.
The world has been at constant war for much of the last two ages. It was NOT my fault BTW. After defeating the Japanese and taking a couple of German cities (Leo and dyes) I attempted to play a peaceful game but unfortunately Bismark had other ideas. He got crushed by my tanks in one go but in a typical domino war effect...Fortunately I've been able to keep Russia, the next most powerful civ my ally or neutral.
But I've been able to observe the AI troops and is it just me but does the AI NEVER upgrade? We are fighting with infantry and tanks (in fact I got mech. inf a few turns ago) but the traitorous Chinese (when they had no coal, I sold them coal, even when I lost my second source and thus was forced to buy coal from Russia to keep my trade agreement with China and they still chose Germany over me. Oh well, at least I got my coal back. But there are all those other times I was nice to them too...) came at me with a Stack of Death - of archers (not long bows, plain archers), horsemen and spearmen. They didn't do too well against my Stack of Death of infantry, bombers, artillery and tanks that I have on my border cities. I know the Chinese have infantry, cavalry and later even tanks so I'm scratching my head going, "What?" Not to mention a lot of AI troops are obviously not built in barrack cities. I managed to turn the Russians and Chinese against the English (the English attacked me, when I went to attack them, I signed up the Russians, not because I needed their help but because I needed to pull troops from my border with Russia and I didn't want them to attack me. The Russians then pulled the Chinese into it). I swore I just saw a Chinese tank take an English city and next to the city was a Chinese warrior! The English have tanks, infantry, bombers etc. Yet I've attacked English cities defended by a mixture of spearmen and infantry! They also have enough rubber and oil to build tanks (and have a few) but they seem to keep on sending Stacks of Deaths of marines and infantry at my stacks of tanks in land battles (they don't last long due to my fleet of bombers).
The second thing I noticed about the AI is that they tend to want to sign a convoluted sequence of mutual protection pacts. The problem then is when one civ in the pact is too aggressive then it drags the other AI into an aggressive war even when it is against their best interest eg. China losing their sole source of coal when they turned against me. And the civ they signed with was dead in one go anyway. Not to mention that they love signing mutual alliances. Whenever I get attacked I try to sign up a neighbour to the attacking country to attack my attacker. But I usually find that in a few turns, the neighbour I signed up has signed up everyone else against the attacker (saves me money I guess)! The AI really seems to love going to war. But they don't seem to be that good at it. The Russians right now are stuck in taking their first English city while I have taken half a dozen because of stupid tactics (The Russians and English are about as equally powerful). I'm just watching them going "What the - why are you doing that?"
And finally has anyone else noticed when you are at war with a civ, they have say 3 cities left and you see a sign popup going, "The English have started building a wonder"? What is the AI thinking at this point?
The world has been at constant war for much of the last two ages. It was NOT my fault BTW. After defeating the Japanese and taking a couple of German cities (Leo and dyes) I attempted to play a peaceful game but unfortunately Bismark had other ideas. He got crushed by my tanks in one go but in a typical domino war effect...Fortunately I've been able to keep Russia, the next most powerful civ my ally or neutral.
But I've been able to observe the AI troops and is it just me but does the AI NEVER upgrade? We are fighting with infantry and tanks (in fact I got mech. inf a few turns ago) but the traitorous Chinese (when they had no coal, I sold them coal, even when I lost my second source and thus was forced to buy coal from Russia to keep my trade agreement with China and they still chose Germany over me. Oh well, at least I got my coal back. But there are all those other times I was nice to them too...) came at me with a Stack of Death - of archers (not long bows, plain archers), horsemen and spearmen. They didn't do too well against my Stack of Death of infantry, bombers, artillery and tanks that I have on my border cities. I know the Chinese have infantry, cavalry and later even tanks so I'm scratching my head going, "What?" Not to mention a lot of AI troops are obviously not built in barrack cities. I managed to turn the Russians and Chinese against the English (the English attacked me, when I went to attack them, I signed up the Russians, not because I needed their help but because I needed to pull troops from my border with Russia and I didn't want them to attack me. The Russians then pulled the Chinese into it). I swore I just saw a Chinese tank take an English city and next to the city was a Chinese warrior! The English have tanks, infantry, bombers etc. Yet I've attacked English cities defended by a mixture of spearmen and infantry! They also have enough rubber and oil to build tanks (and have a few) but they seem to keep on sending Stacks of Deaths of marines and infantry at my stacks of tanks in land battles (they don't last long due to my fleet of bombers).
The second thing I noticed about the AI is that they tend to want to sign a convoluted sequence of mutual protection pacts. The problem then is when one civ in the pact is too aggressive then it drags the other AI into an aggressive war even when it is against their best interest eg. China losing their sole source of coal when they turned against me. And the civ they signed with was dead in one go anyway. Not to mention that they love signing mutual alliances. Whenever I get attacked I try to sign up a neighbour to the attacking country to attack my attacker. But I usually find that in a few turns, the neighbour I signed up has signed up everyone else against the attacker (saves me money I guess)! The AI really seems to love going to war. But they don't seem to be that good at it. The Russians right now are stuck in taking their first English city while I have taken half a dozen because of stupid tactics (The Russians and English are about as equally powerful). I'm just watching them going "What the - why are you doing that?"
And finally has anyone else noticed when you are at war with a civ, they have say 3 cities left and you see a sign popup going, "The English have started building a wonder"? What is the AI thinking at this point?