AIs and the Art of War

[Necratoid]

*Considers the scenario that civies are now unaffected by war*
*Nuclear weapons, altilery, and hoards of mechanized military unit... battlemechs, tanks, nanotech swarms ravage the world*

*Meanwhile the civies ignore it all and sigh again as the landscape is trashed and again contemplates why anyone would be stupid enough to actually join the military or live in a city. After all joining the civilian work corps means being immortal*

*The TV announces that for quality of life reasons all civilian workers will be replaced with expendable clones and robots.*

*Cue the weeping of all the workers as their death warrants are signed in the name of humanitarian reasons.*

 

[JosEPh_II]

Never argued that keeping the TWs in the city was Not optimal. Arguing that the AI Will send TW's to "trouble spots". (Am I that hard to understand? Why is it that I can't make my point clear? Am I too verbose? What?)

JosEPh

 

[Necratoid]

Well your making sense to me JosEPH_II so your not speaking moon languages.

Let me try to explain it...

What he is saying is that if you surround a city with units with crime spamming promotions and crime spill over starts to happen the city will get locked into a loop of spamming anticrime units and never address the actual cause of the crime. Basically patching leaks in a dam and ignoring the ballista poking holes in the dam in the first place.

Seriously the best use of crime seems to be making peace with your enemies and parking a hoard of units with crime spamming promotions in their cities. Thus causing them to endlessly produce anticrime units until they go broke.

 

[ls612]

Well your making sense to me JosEPH_II so your not speaking moon languages.

Let me try to explain it...

What he is saying is that if you surround a city with units with crime spamming promotions and crime spill over starts to happen the city will get locked into a loop of spamming anticrime units and never address the actual cause of the crime. Basically patching leaks in a dam and ignoring the ballista poking holes in the dam in the first place.

Seriously the best use of crime seems to be making peace with your enemies and parking a hoard of units with crime spamming promotions in their cities. Thus causing them to endlessly produce anticrime units until they go broke.

That is what dogs and otehr similar units are for. The AI doesn't use those well so that tactic might work well against them, but if you tried that against me or another human you'd have some horsemen making your units' lives miserable.

Making anti-Crime units is generally a very good idea if your crime is positive as they cost less than crime does, and that AI code does not need to be changed. The part that needs to be changed is reaction to criminal units and a bug with handling of specialists.

 

[MaXimillionZero]

That is what dogs and otehr similar units are for. The AI doesn't use those well so that tactic might work well against them, but if you tried that against me or another human you'd have some horsemen making your units' lives miserable.

Except that you can give crime promotions to any Melee, Archery or Gunpowder unit, and with open borders can have them in another civ's territory without it being a hostile action.

 

[Koshling]

Except that you can give crime promotions to any Melee, Archery or Gunpowder unit, and with open borders can have them in another civ's territory without it being a hostile action.

This is a very good point and it indicates somewhere that gameplay is actually a bit broken (independent of AI issues). It means you can put arch-criminals into other player's territory and they are immune from being attacked (because you are no at war and they are not hidden nationality). That seems broken to me. IMO crime promotions should only b available to the criminal line (which all have hidden nationality).

 

[DRJ]

This is a very good point and it indicates somewhere that gameplay is actually a bit broken (independent of AI issues). It means you can put arch-criminals into other player's territory and they are immune from being attacked (because you are no at war and they are not hidden nationality). That seems broken to me.

IMO crime promotions should only b available to the criminal line (which all have hidden nationality).

Either that or you "teach" the AI to identify foreign crime spreading units and prioritize its defence against that by assaulting them with their hidden units (not perfect though as it would be exploitable for the player who'd put them on forested hills and farm xp^^)

Another idea to keep crime spreading non hidden units would be that a unit with a certain/crime promotion would not be able to enter foreign lands with whom you are at peace/open border
(look, this seems the most elegant solution to me as most countries of today or also in the past did not let criminals enter their borders legally, let alone a whole battalions of them - I think when writing came up criminals from foreign countries were easier identified and with playing minor civs start ON writing is about the time when open borders become possible anyway.

But once that would be implemented [Open Borders but not for foreign units with a criminal background] I also plead for another diplomacy option to allow them to come to your lands [Open borders for all foreign citizens regardless of their integrety], maybe a friendly AI wants them to send through, to a neighbour of you it fights? Maybe you like to accept the challange and fight those enemy crime spreading units that visit your fine lands with assasins - to rob those pesky bastards themselves?!)

Or: if someone is losing a war, and sues for peace maybe the victor can bargain a
[Open borders for all foreign citizens regardless of their integrety] driving the weaker part of that treaty into building a huge hidden "guerilla" army to get rid of those blackmailing, bad mannered occupators as they see them?

I guess that would need new code? But if the correlation between unit and territory [ownership] could be deepened there would be whole new "political" layers-
for example imagine agricultural flatland civs, banning possible intruders with forest/guerilla promotions to enter their lands, claiming the wilderness is holy to them and can't be visited by people from afar who are know for disrupting the holy sites elsewhere continously^^

Aside of that absurd, rather greenly inspired example, woudn't the linking of unit promotion to territory [ownership] also finally allow the supply routes, in combination with the promotion equipment coming up?

If the Ai would be able to use it, of course, would be a whole different matter, I understand that.

 

[DRJ]

.....

 

[Necratoid]

Koshling... you do realize the reason tactical crime spam came up was that the banditry civic (apparently should) happily gives a crime spreading promotion to most combat units?

 

[JosEPh_II]

@Necratoid,

See this post. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=12364922&postcount=77

JosEPh

 

[Necratoid]

JopEPH_II
see this line from his immediately preceding post:
IMO crime promotions should only b available to the criminal line (which all have hidden nationality).

This was a question on the entire point of the banditry civic. That and well... Corrupt government official and soldiers are corrupt. Denial is not going to make the UN less so.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Either that or you "teach" the AI to identify foreign crime spreading units and prioritize its defence against that by assaulting them with their hidden units (not perfect though as it would be exploitable for the player who'd put them on forested hills and farm xp^^)

Another idea to keep crime spreading non hidden units would be that a unit with a certain/crime promotion would not be able to enter foreign lands with whom you are at peace/open border
(look, this seems the most elegant solution to me as most countries of today or also in the past did not let criminals enter their borders legally, let alone a whole battalions of them - I think when writing came up criminals from foreign countries were easier identified and with playing minor civs start ON writing is about the time when open borders become possible anyway.

But once that would be implemented [Open Borders but not for foreign units with a criminal background] I also plead for another diplomacy option to allow them to come to your lands [Open borders for all foreign citizens regardless of their integrety], maybe a friendly AI wants them to send through, to a neighbour of you it fights? Maybe you like to accept the challange and fight those enemy crime spreading units that visit your fine lands with assasins - to rob those pesky bastards themselves?!)

Or: if someone is losing a war, and sues for peace maybe the victor can bargain a
[Open borders for all foreign citizens regardless of their integrety] driving the weaker part of that treaty into building a huge hidden "guerilla" army to get rid of those blackmailing, bad mannered occupators as they see them?

I guess that would need new code? But if the correlation between unit and territory [ownership] could be deepened there would be whole new "political" layers-
for example imagine agricultural flatland civs, banning possible intruders with forest/guerilla promotions to enter their lands, claiming the wilderness is holy to them and can't be visited by people from afar who are know for disrupting the holy sites elsewhere continously^^

Aside of that absurd, rather greenly inspired example, woudn't the linking of unit promotion to territory [ownership] also finally allow the supply routes, in combination with the promotion equipment coming up?

If the Ai would be able to use it, of course, would be a whole different matter, I understand that.

At first I thought "but what if I need to get my bandits to X's lands but they have to go through Y's to get there. But then I read further and saw you had addressed that.

I have been trying to get a bunch of diplomacy options similar to your "holy forest" example into the game but all I get back is play with the "always at war" or "start as minors" option. Which does not solve the issue at all.

Basically, I wanted diplomatic options that allowed you to specify increasingly which parts of your territory foreign troops (and ships) were not allowed to enter. Eventually getting to the point of your cultural borders sometime around Sed Lifestyle. Or maybe they would not be options just the natural progression of what lands you defend/consider yours.

I also want the "start as minors" to be changed so that you start at peace with everyone until you get Warfare

 

[ls612]

This is a very good point and it indicates somewhere that gameplay is actually a bit broken (independent of AI issues). It means you can put arch-criminals into other player's territory and they are immune from being attacked (because you are no at war and they are not hidden nationality). That seems broken to me. IMO crime promotions should only b available to the criminal line (which all have hidden nationality).

That was made that way before we had Sub-Combats. I'll change it now on the SVN to be only available to Criminals.

 

[DRJ]

At first I thought "but what if I need to get my bandits to X's lands but they have to go through Y's to get there. But then I read further and saw you had addressed that.

I have been trying to get a bunch of diplomacy options similar to your "holy forest" example into the game but all I get back is play with the "always at war" or "start as minors" option. Which does not solve the issue at all.

Sounds great! I really hope you find out what causes the problem.

Basically, I wanted diplomatic options that allowed you to specify increasingly which parts of your territory foreign troops (and ships) were not allowed to enter. Eventually getting to the point of your cultural borders sometime around Sed Lifestyle. Or maybe they would not be options just the natural progression of what lands you defend/consider yours.

Another good aproach and I think both ways to specify what units are allowed as well as where they are allowed should be possible for diplomacy

I also want the "start as minors" to be changed so that you start at peace with everyone until you get Warfare

Another nice idea, but I'd say we need a little more agression early on, what about ... a semi state of war? Like you can have diplomacy but also attack their units?

Killing enemy units would worsen the attitude to the other minor civ and this could be not good for lets say early subdued animals trade that would be available with tech/civic barter?

Imagine you have a deer you already built all deer myths and herds and your neighbour has a wolverine he doesnt need anymore so he would be fine to trade it to you - hadn't you killed two of his scouts passing by lately making him uneasy to trust you for some time (the attitude should recover after a while but maybe also be influenceable to the positive by small gifts like animals or early equipment.

Also I can think of some kind of early 'civ 5 tech agreement' type deal leading to a slightly higher rate of tech diffusion between certain minor nations - possiblly available with 'cooperation' in combination with 'oral tradition'?

 

[DRJ]

Ok, I think I found a repeatable AI blunder, namely the neglectence of enemy stacks nearby when trying to settle a new place (tribe suicide).

Yes, I know - they send 1 guard with the tribe - but if there are like 3 enemies nearby with a lot of promotions on them, the urge to save the tribe should be bigger than the urge to settle quickly in the anticipated place nearby.

Even if it reaches the spot and settles, the 1 garrison can´t do much vs the many enemy units around the city, AI really it should take that into consideration and be sh.itting their pants to lose the investment in the tribe/settler.

Not taking into consideration that the enemies even would sacrifice one or two units to take out something as valuable as a tribe (means ~40 turns of construction on Eternity whereas an Atl-Atl costs about 4) or a newly founded city hopefully is somehow nerfable.

Yes I think one could be worried that tuning around here would take away the AI incentive to quickly found any cities because of all the then over-estimated danger out there could paralyze it but what about sending at least 3 escorts with each new city? Could be a beginning.

I mean, come on: the AI has so many production boni on deity but it only sends |one| escort with the tribe? (yeah I do that too ), couldn't churn it out one or two escorts more in other cities and send it to the city the settler is produced in, instead of building crap buildings it really doesn't need at that time?

So a build new city mission would have to be a coordinated yet regional thing, involving like up to 4 close cities, 1 producing a settler, 3 producing an escort each and assigning/sending it to the city the settler is built in; when all have gathered they form a stack and are sent it to the place the new city shall be.
Best would be to have the escort diversified (1spear, 1archer, 1melee)

I don't know if this can be 'thaught' to the AI but it would make so much more fun for the players on high difficulties -- picking the AI lout ike now feels like cheating and I have to do it cause I just can't allow the AI to get away with poorly defended border cities that soon could grow into being an annoyance

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Pity barbarians can't subdue animals, they should be sending them along with the tribe to build necessary buildings.

 

[DRJ]

Pity barbarians can't subdue animals, they should be sending them along with the tribe to build necessary buildings.

True. But couldn't it spawn subdued types of its animals in its cities for herds and butcher? Would make it grow much faster. The spawning of the subdued animals should be limited to their cities though.




Btw I ranted over AI in my last post. I have to take that back partly.

As it seems, the AI begins stupid but learns out of its mistakes After I killed like 3 of their tribes on the same spot where I once destroyed a city of them, I pillaged the ruins and after that they didnt go to the spot anymore or when showing up with a tribe near there they had much better escorts. To me, it made the expression as if the AI remebered losing important stuff there, trying to prevent it.

The learning curve just wasn't very steep for deity^^

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

True. But couldn't it spawn subdued types of its animals in its cities for herds and butcher? Would make it grow much faster. The spawning of the subdued animals should be limited to their cities though.

Interesting idea and can be done right away, not that I have time just now, SO has asked me to do many things and I thought I should at least look at some of them.

All it would take is for the SpawnInfos file to be copied and all UNIT_ replaced by UNIT_SUBDUED_. Although that would cause hordes of barbarian subdued animals to appear and probably overwhelm the players since they can enter your territory. OK the spawn rates would need to change dramatically and the Neanderthals removed also.

 

[Nakkimunakas]

So the biggest problem with the AI attack seems to be their inability to deal with attacking cities they can't attack directly without bombarding.

Example: Here India has a steamroll military/tech advantage against the congolese but they don't know what to do about the city defences. They just keep nuking the population and defenders till there is nothing left. There is lots of cities size one with no defenders around but the citydefense blocks the attackers from entering and taking the city.


Example: India was able to take over russia gradually over time. Here Cities of Moscow and Magadan held over 30 turns until they both fell into anarchy a few turns apart. When that happened the near by indian forces took the cities within 1 or 2 turns since they could now attack directly without the need for bombardment.


Exampl: India was at war with Xiongnu for ages and they finally made Xiongnu their vassal since they could not take the Xiongnu city.


In general it seems that the AI sometimes gets a siege going with bombarment but mostly not. When they don't actually have to do anything and can attack directly at a city - they go for it without problems. This shows especially from middleages onwards when allkinds of defencive building become available. Not musch conquering happens after that. This has been going on over multiple versions (This example V27) but this India example shows it more clearly since they are so superrior compared their neighbours.

I don't know how hard this is to fix but a temporary solution might be to disble the whole 'can't attack until city defences are low enough' property so that you could attack a city no matter now high its defence bonus is. In this case those indian tanks would propably steamrolled all their naighbours no matter what their defence bonus was if they only could have attacked.

 

[Koshling]

So the biggest problem with the AI attack seems to be their inability to deal with attacking cities they can't attack directly without bombarding.

Example: Here India has a steamroll military/tech advantage against the congolese but they don't know what to do about the city defences. They just keep nuking the population and defenders till there is nothing left. There is lots of cities size one with no defenders around but the citydefense blocks the attackers from entering and taking the city.
View attachment 349520View attachment 349521View attachment 349522

Example: India was able to take over russia gradually over time. Here Cities of Moscow and Magadan held over 30 turns until they both fell into anarchy a few turns apart. When that happened the near by indian forces took the cities within 1 or 2 turns since they could now attack directly without the need for bombardment.
View attachment 349523

Exampl: India was at war with Xiongnu for ages and they finally made Xiongnu their vassal since they could not take the Xiongnu city.
View attachment 349524

In general it seems that the AI sometimes gets a siege going with bombarment but mostly not. When they don't actually have to do anything and can attack directly at a city - they go for it without problems. This shows especially from middleages onwards when allkinds of defencive building become available. Not musch conquering happens after that. This has been going on over multiple versions (This example V27) but this India example shows it more clearly since they are so superrior compared their neighbours.

I don't know how hard this is to fix but a temporary solution might be to disble the whole 'can't attack until city defences are low enough' property so that you could attack a city no matter now high its defence bonus is. In this case those indian tanks would propably steamrolled all their naighbours no matter what their defence bonus was if they only could have attacked.

That's a relatively new modifier (well, was added by ROM/AND I think), and you're right -the AI doesn't really understand it. I'll look into doing something about it...

Could you post a save with a good example where an AI is poised to attack but doesn't/can't due to this, so I have a good test case please.