Call me crazy but I think the AI is getting better...

[HazzMadd]

Hopefully from patches, and not evolving on its own. A friend of mine was shocked when I told him the AI cheats, and isn't actually smarter with each difficulty. If it was we would all be biological batteries for the machines because some dumb ass thought he could beat ciV on deity!

Anyway, I say that the AI is getting smarter, at least tactically, due to a war with the French. Me, as Bismarck, was on a long, thin and mountainious continent with France, trapped in a war from the medieval ages to the dawn of the industrial age. The only two ways to get to each others land were a 1 hex pass, guarded by a French city, and a 2 hex pass about three hexes away, also guarded by a french city. Until artillery came along it was a stalemate. But before then the AI did something I'd never seen before:

It attacked my colonies on an island, a but out of the way from France, and certainly under defended. I never saw it cominG, and if a caraval hadn't been randomly scooting around in the area I very well could have lost the colonies.

I have a new respect for the AI, but is this actually a new thing?

 

[smallfish]

Yes and no.

Prepatch, I've had a game as Rome isolated start where I wanted to take out runaway Persia. I was struggling with maintaining beachheads on his continent when suddenly three Persians battleships swooped in to my western colonies and started bombarding poo poo there. A shame he didn't bring in melee units because I had nothing but a lone rocket artillery there.

 

[AfterShafter]

I've had the AI pull a few neat out of view flanking and hit my archers from behind attacks, or embark rather sizeable hosts of units and sneak them well behind my front line and them take out one or two cities almost long before I could hope to adequately reinforce...

But, I still find it is pretty easy to out-finesse the AI on the front lines or in any pitched battle scenario. It tries to move units to safe spots through areas that are under fire, leaves injured units as sitting ducks when it could well get them back to heal, doesn't swap in and swap out units intelligently. In my China game I just started, I'm out killing Alexander probably 4 to 1 in an early war, and two of his units are his unique units which *should* give him a sizeable advantage. Simply put, his front line tactics don't really take into account what I can do with ranged units and a few rivers and hills. Conversely, the ratio would be higher than 4 to 1, but a few companion cavalry have snaked around a nearby mountain range and wreaked havoc on my healing archers.

The military AI goes between impressing the hell out of me and then reminding me that it still has a long way to go. Once you get a number of ranged units with +1 range, +1 attack per turn, and indirect fire, the AI has no bloody idea what to do VS them though - that I can attest to.

 

[MadDjinn]

The military AI goes between impressing the hell out of me and then reminding me that it still has a long way to go. Once you get a number of ranged units with +1 range, +1 attack per turn, and indirect fire, the AI has no bloody idea what to do VS them though - that I can attest to.

wait until the combat strengths/unit HP are adjusted in GaK. the minimum damage and changed strengths will likely cause you more damage and make a pure archer push much harder.

 

[AfterShafter]

Yeah, I'm curious to see how it works out. At this point, I *hugely* prioritize my early game around building up a few super-siege units, and those units are dominant from the early to the industrial era, only starting to lose some of their mojo when air units come into play. G&K is looking to totally mix things up, and frankly, I'm quite excited to see how it works.

Doesn't change that the AI doesn't know what the heck to do about those long-distance siege units though. In fairness, I'd have trouble taking out an intelligent opponent with a current-era siege units with those upgrades...

 

[Kabloosh]

I saw Siam suicide his air force. Over... and over. They should of put it in the script "if said air plane health is below 5 stop using and heal them".

 

[cecilbturtle]

I'm very impressed with the post-patch changes and even more so in G&K. Granted I've only played one full match so far but found that the AI was honing in on my siege units like never before. Considering they are now made of paper maché in G&K, it makes keeping them alive long enough to do damage a real challenge.

 

[RohirrimElf]

I still cant play the game cause i`m European.

Does the AI really play frontline attacks more effectively? In vanilla once u get a nice ball of units there is nothing the ai can do but get steamrolled. Does the AI face u with a decent force and flank from behind/sides now? I understand it does try to pick off units when they get low on health while not retreating his own units when low on health properly.

I like the idea that sea invasions are now possible. It makes the human player spread out his force more thinly and thus making the AI stronger in batles this way. + having to build more ships to scout/defend properly.

Gods and seems to give this game a huge boost. I`m hoping to see a large AI boost in future dlc and probably another expension. I`m willing to pay 30 euros to see the AI get a good boost alone.

Its funny to see that i already spend like 300 hours on the game even do it has some big issues. It shows it has great potential. This game coald be goty if only it was as solid as shogun total war of some paradox games.