Another stupid thing the AI does

[svv]

They always seem to fritter away their cavalry. With everybody else they hole up in their cities, but their cavalry they'll send here and there to try to pick off a unit or two. Then you just pound them with the nearest pikeman (two pikemen if the cavalry is undamaged).

I'm playing my first game at a serious tech disadvantage. I don't have cavalry and my opponents do. I'd be in a panic if I had to attack the cavalry in the cities. If I select a pikeman, of course they'll defend with a rifle or a mace, and my pikeman is blown away. If I attack with my grenedier or mace, then they put the cavalry up and I lose again. By wasting all their cavalry, they make it pretty easy to pound the city-defending riflemen with the grenediers and maces.

 

[ratrangerm]

There's a lot of nutty things the AI does. In my recent offline Prince game, Napoleon managed to slip a couple of units past my stack and near one of my cities. I had just a couple of Spearman and an Axeman defending and Nappy had two Axemen and a Horse Archer. A stack I had put together was just outside the city and couldn't get to his mini stack in time. So you would think Nappy would win, right?

Well, he would have, except he just attacked with one Axeman, beating the Spearman, but then he _never_ followed up with his other two units and just waited. Naturally, I finished off all three of his units with my big stack and so much for his attempted invasion.

 

[Sisiutil]

They always seem to fritter away their cavalry. With everybody else they hole up in their cities, but their cavalry they'll send here and there to try to pick off a unit or two. Then you just pound them with the nearest pikeman (two pikemen if the cavalry is undamaged).

I'm playing my first game at a serious tech disadvantage. I don't have cavalry and my opponents do. I'd be in a panic if I had to attack the cavalry in the cities. If I select a pikeman, of course they'll defend with a rifle or a mace, and my pikeman is blown away. If I attack with my grenedier or mace, then they put the cavalry up and I lose again. By wasting all their cavalry, they make it pretty easy to pound the city-defending riflemen with the grenediers and maces.

I actually don't have a problem with the AI doing this. Mounted units get no defensive bonuses and can't get City Garrison promotions, so it doesn't make sense to use them for city defense. With their 2 movement points, they should be ranging about, picking off stray units, pillaging, performing recon, and so on.

Riflemen are the best unit in their era for the task of city defending, so it's appropriate that the AI should use them in that way. In my experience you need plenty of slow-moving, vulnerable Cannon to deal with defending Rifles.

What the AI needs to be programmed to do is to more actively defend its cities. I usually leave a Catapult or Cannon or two in a city at the front to damage any enemy stack that wanders too close. The AI should do the same, but often makes the mistake of relying on its siege units for city defense--what's up with that?

 

[shadow2k]

There's a lot of nutty things the AI does. In my recent offline Prince game, Napoleon managed to slip a couple of units past my stack and near one of my cities. I had just a couple of Spearman and an Axeman defending and Nappy had two Axemen and a Horse Archer. A stack I had put together was just outside the city and couldn't get to his mini stack in time. So you would think Nappy would win, right?

Well, he would have, except he just attacked with one Axeman, beating the Spearman, but then he _never_ followed up with his other two units and just waited. Naturally, I finished off all three of his units with my big stack and so much for his attempted invasion.

Why would your Spear defend vs an Axe? Wouldn't your Axe have been the top defender for that? I mean, the way you laid it out there, I'd think his Horse Archer would end up vs a Spear...and he'd lose that fight almost every time.

 

[Anaztazioch]

His spearman obvoisly had citydefance promotion, and axeman did not. Reasonable for me.

 

[carl corey]

Spearmen don't get city defense promotions. No melee unit does, for that matter.

 

[cabert]

His spearman obvoisly had citydefance promotion, and axeman did not. Reasonable for me.

doesn't seem right unless the axeman was half destroyed.

But I can tell the same kind of story.
I played a bit yesterday, was at war with Qin.
My main stack was in chinese land, and I had a very long border = front, so i couldn't really see where the AI would counterattack.
At some point I saw 2 elephants near a city defended by a lonely axeman!
I started a pike, but couldn't rush it (not enough pop).
I brought units from other cities, including LBs and pikes but it took 3 turns to bring them where I needed them.
I thought I'd recapture the city after losing it.
But I didn't need to. The elephants pillaged the cottages then got piked to death in the next turn .
The AI sure is inept at city taking/warmongering!

 

[Winston Hughes]

For me the worst AI military problem is that they don't seem to whip out defenders when your SoDs pull up next to their cities, even though they're in Slavery and have plenty of population for the job. It's particularly weird when you spend 30+ turns rampaging through their lands capturing and razing cities, and yet by the time you finally reach their capital, it's still only defended by a couple of archers, and still they won't reach for the whip. I've lost count of the times when a single extra defender would have thwarted my attack, and yet the AI just sat there waiting to die.

 

[Atlas]

They always seem to fritter away their cavalry. With everybody else they hole up in their cities, but their cavalry they'll send here and there to try to pick off a unit or two. Then you just pound them with the nearest pikeman (two pikemen if the cavalry is undamaged).

Have you tried the "Better AI"?

 

[svv]

I don't have warlords.... Can I still have the better AI?

I actually don't have a problem with the AI doing this. Mounted units get no defensive bonuses and can't get City Garrison promotions, so it doesn't make sense to use them for city defense. With their 2 movement points, they should be ranging about, picking off stray units, pillaging, performing recon, and so on.

The problem is they need to use a combined-arms approach to defending. My SOD was heavy with grenediers and pikes. By having just riflemen in the cities, I easily pound them with grenediers - I didn't even need to suicide any cannon. If they had left the cavalry in the city, the cavalry could have defended attacks from grenediers.

Later in the same game, they actually attacked by SOD with all of their riflemen as the SOD reached the city gates. Each of the riflemen was killed by a grenedier. Then they tried to defend the city with just the cavalry. Amazing.

 

[Elandal]

Yes, BetterAI is available for both vanilla and warlords.

 

[ratrangerm]

In my case, maybe it wasn't an Axeman... but I know I had at least one other unit there and it wasn't a strong unit. Yet despite Nappy having a slight advantage, he still only attacked once and left it at that.

Now, while I'd imagine it would be tough for them to come up with an AI that will do just about everything a human player does, I do think if the AI is going to send a stack intent on taking a city, said stack should do so at once, not one unit at a time.

Of course, the AI has civs that are intent on taking back cities they lost, but when it comes to capturing cities, the AI is too conservative, and remains so at the higher levels. I can understand having an AI at lower levels that isn't a step ahead of the human every time, but as you go up in levels, you'd think the AI would be programmed in a way so that it's got more advantages than just free Workers and additional techs to start with.

 

[DarkFyre99]

In my latest game, I took Wang's capital, which was Buddhism's holy city. Imagine my surprise when I found that Wang hadn't build Buddhism's shrine. He had spread it to all his cities, it was the state religion of one of his neighbors, and he had been actively spreading it to me.

I was surprised because he had built the shrine of Taoism, which he had also founded, and had spread to only three cities!

 

[shadow2k]

In my case, maybe it wasn't an Axeman... but I know I had at least one other unit there and it wasn't a strong unit. Yet despite Nappy having a slight advantage, he still only attacked once and left it at that.

Now, while I'd imagine it would be tough for them to come up with an AI that will do just about everything a human player does, I do think if the AI is going to send a stack intent on taking a city, said stack should do so at once, not one unit at a time.

Of course, the AI has civs that are intent on taking back cities they lost, but when it comes to capturing cities, the AI is too conservative, and remains so at the higher levels. I can understand having an AI at lower levels that isn't a step ahead of the human every time, but as you go up in levels, you'd think the AI would be programmed in a way so that it's got more advantages than just free Workers and additional techs to start with.

Well you have to remember that on Prince, the AI's simply are not as easily able to build a huge Stack of Doom. This is really just a difficulty level issue, for so many reasons. I don't really want to get into the city and land improvements, because that stays the same at all levels. But pound for pound vs a human, they simply cannot push out the same level of efficiency when it comes to building an army, and that just gets magnified at lower levels...so they simply can't bring enough troops to take your cities.

They're not going to pre-chop all the forests around a city, hit construction, trade for math, and then knock out 10 cats in 10 turns. They don't plant a city around 4 food resources, build Globe Theatre, and whip a unit every other turn. They won't do any of the "strategies" that human players use to get an army up and running quickly, so it takes them longer to build it, and hence, they have to pay more for it in the long run. Therefore, they send 3 troops at you, attack with one, then realize that they can't accomplish their goal and decide to stop.

To combat all this, you simply move up a level. The troops are cheaper, so they get built quicker. They have higher limits on unit support, so they can build more of them. And suddenly you'll see larger stacks at your doorstep, and they won't be so hesitant to sustain their attack on your city.

 

[CivMonger]

this weekend I was playing a earth map as the chinese. Had open borders with the Indians and Persians, so I went through their land to take out the greeks, then the romans, then the germans. The Indians were buddied up with the germans so they died then too. So I had the Persia empire surrounded on two flanks, with the Egyptians, my Permanent ally, to the south. Declared war, sent in helos to blast their empire in half by chopping the road systems. Attacked from opposite corners on both sides of the no-road line. The persians then brought out 3 massive stacks of calvary to counter. Messed up some choppers, but they just stayed where they were after that, as if tehy couldn't decide which front to fight on. I ended up bombing the crap out of them and mopping up with tanks. I had the techs, but he definately had the numbers. Fun stuff though. Was one turn away from winning a conquest game when I won from domination. woulda been my first conquest

 

[svv]

The closing animation for conquest is cool. Disable domination wins sometime so you can see it.

 

[Nick53]

I was attacking Alexander (my first 'better' game) and he had about 8 units in his capital. Longbowmen, Riflemen and the like. Anyway, I just sat there on a hill with 4 cannons and blew him apart. I also had a prototype fighter but they kinda suck. Is it just me or is air battles like realy dumbed down?
[edit] it was on noble

 

[Sisiutil]

I was attacking Alexander (my first 'better' game) and he had about 8 units in his capital. Longbowmen, Riflemen and the like. Anyway, I just sat there on a hill with 4 cannons and blew him apart. I also had a prototype fighter but they kinda suck. Is it just me or is air battles like realy dumbed down?
[edit] it was on noble

The AI seems mostly content to "turtle" inside its cities and wait for the various city defensive bonuses (cultural bonus, walls, units with city garrison promotions) to convince the attacker to go away. The AI rarely pursues "offensive defense" by attacking attackers, certainly not to the extent that humans do.

As for air units, Fighters' main purpose seems to be SAM fodder so your Bombers can do their work unmolested.

 

[cabert]

fighters also do the interception duty much better than sam

 

[Infantry#14]

also, AI dont make oversea invasions