Do you want to see the AI use artillery? You got it.

[Charles 22]

In my current game, beyond the year 2000, I have a spy at one particular civ's capitol. I managed to see his forces this way, something I'm sure a lot of you are very familiar with, and guess what? I found that he had 35 artillery pieces. Mind you I haven't seen anybody with artillery in this particular game yet, but in the only other conquest/domination only game I played on Civ3 it was the same way (I haven't invaded that AI's territory to see how he has them stationed - though cursoring over the individual units may provide that information). That game ended up being me against a very much more powerful AI civ, and one barely anything left other AI civ. It's apparent what the dominant AI civ's plan was. Part of it involved him using all or the vast majority of his artillery in a very protected stack (though he had many stacks without artillery attacking at the same time).

I wondered how that dominant AI could just start rolling through the other civs, and apparently them being willing to use artillery offensively made a huge difference. In the current game it's looks as though I'm the only one to "use" them so far, since every civ still exists and the borders have only changed radically in my direction.

So the reason this is occuring is because I picked up the habit of playing only domination/conquest when I got to realize how wimpy Civ4 was playing any other way to victory. If you want to see the AI use or at least defend with artillery, assuming you're attacking a dominant civ who might build them, then you will play domination/conquest only, too.

 

[MAS]

I've seen AI have artillery (that they didn't capture from me, so they must have build it too) in their possession often enough. That includes even catapults!

But I've never seen them use it!

Of course, when I attacked their city that had artillery in it, the defensive bombard will kick in. But other than that, no...

All you have evidence of is that they have it in their possession, have you actually seen them use it offensively?

 

[Bartleby]

I once had the AI bombard one of my Armies using a stack of artillery. This was during the early stages of an invasion during an AWM game on a continents map.

 

[MAS]

I once had the AI bombard one of my Armies using a stack of artillery. This was during the early stages of an invasion during an AWM game on a continents map.

Ok, never seen it happen myself, but I believe you. This means that offensive bombard is in the AI's programming, now the question is, why do they use it so little? What triggers it?

 

[Bartleby]

I've seen it only once. Offhand I can't remember how heavily-defended the Arty stack was; maybe they need to have a certain amount of artillery and a certain amount of "excess" defenders to dedicate to the stack.
FWIW, It was the Germans who did it, and also if I remember rightly it was a consdiderable setback for me.

 

[axehaxe]

Actually, this has happened to me before. Romans had modern armors and like 60 artillery. They had a HUGE empire and suddenly ROP raped me first artillerying the 7 or 8 or so mech infantry in each of my 5 cities on their continent and taking them with the modern armors. Luckily I had like 247 bombers sitting inside my own continent and I owned the Romans before the game ended using a multiple point coastal attack.

 

[civverguy]

I think the AI will only use artillery defensively.

 

[cometflash]

If I had Worrier upgrade it to catapult, and move catapult (lets say to construction), would the AI upgrade their worriers?

 

[Charles 22]

I've seen AI have artillery (that they didn't capture from me, so they must have build it too) in their possession often enough. That includes even catapults!

But I've never seen them use it!

Of course, when I attacked their city that had artillery in it, the defensive bombard will kick in. But other than that, no...

All you have evidence of is that they have it in their possession, have you actually seen them use it offensively?

Oh yes, I alluded to that earlier. In the first game I played on Civ3 with just domination/conquest on, they not only had a minimum of 20 artillery pieces (all artillery, no cats, etc.) which dismayed me, but other large stacks as well. If it has been by itself I wouldn't had worried too much, but it was only being protected by at least 10 modern units. They also had about 4 stacks of at least 30 units each to deal with elsewhere. They used the artillery to bombard one of my two oil resources and the unit guarding it. I was so low on units after trying to deal with their other monsters, that I saw no way of winning the game and conceded defeat.

It would had been interesting to see what further they would had done with that stack, but I didn't feel like waiting around just for that, besides, since so many of my cities fell so quickly after that, there wasn't a more typical setup left over to get a good feel for what it would do in such a typical environment beyond that first stage. As I said earlier, apparently it was using this stack to mop up every civ, one after the other, though it did have quite a lot of power besides that stack. I was somewhat bewildered how it was achieving so much once it started seriously warring, and then seeing it using artillery effectively made it all so obvious.

 

[Charles 22]

The key to these two games where I have seen the AI building artillery (in the current case) and using it in the other, is that both games are domination/conquest victory conditions ONLY.

In the current game, although I know one civ had almost triple the arti I have, I haven't seen them use them, but then again I didn't invade that civ's territory yet. Yes, I do think they are more for defensive purposes, but also notice the other key condition of the first game I played like that, and that is that the civ in question had a dominating empire.

Another thing I have noticed so far. Understand, I have taken like maybe 10-15 cities from various AI's in the current game, but most of them were the cutoff variety, such that you would least suspect arti of any stripe being there, and of course there was not. OTOH, when I did spy on that civ rather late in the game they had nothing but arti. and when I say arti, I mean artillery devoid of any of the lesser types such as cats. So what this may mean is that the AI thinks it's useless to produce the lower forms of arti and when the real arti comes, to produce it in numbers, as least if it has a sizeable empire. OTOH, it probably just upgraded them.

Now the current game where I did the spying, that civ has naturally attacked me a good number of times, and with 35 arti's in the wings somewhere he has naturally had them for some time, but I've yet to see one in conflict. You know what the funny thing is? Now understand, I have lots of priorities in the current game, and I happen to be at peace with that particular civ at the moment, but seeing what that one civ did in the other game with it, and even just the thought that this current civ has that much arti, and might save them in cities, or worse yet in counterattacks, should I wish to invade him, that sucker has me scared!

Oh, another thing I noticed since starting to play Civ4 with domination/conquest only, and then to return to Civ3 and play it that way for the first time there, the AI will give you very little if anything for peace. I can tell you that with equinamity because in my old Civ3 days I was getting all sorts of money and various gifts for getting peace, but now they aren't doing that. And it's not that I am any more powerful than I was in those games, as I'm pretty similar in the standings as before. If you play domination/conquest only, apparently you will get something of a different game out of the AI. Man, I used to stay at war with civs just to syphon money from them, knowing it was laying WW on them, but now they hardly seem to care, and as I said, aren't offering money like before.

Another thing too. I'm not too sure how frequently they used to take on fascism, but with these sort of victory conditions the vast majority go for that, which explains something of their reluctance to throw money at me for peace. I'm still in republic with only about 7-8 more techs to discover.

 

[Charles 22]

If I had Worrier upgrade it to catapult, and move catapult (lets say to construction), would the AI upgrade their worriers?

If you are talking about warriors, they don't upgrade to catapults. Catapults are the first unit in a string of artillery units.

 

[Rising Star]

I've had the AI bombard me using cats in the past. I never really allow them to get anything better than that.

 

[Othniel]

Having a ship end it's movement adjacent to an AI city that contains artillery will often result in the AI offensively bombarding the ship. That's at least one specific scenario in which the AI seems to regularly use it's artillery offensively...

Oh, another thing I noticed since starting to play Civ4 with domination/conquest only, and then to return to Civ3 and play it that way for the first time there, the AI will give you very little if anything for peace. I can tell you that with equinamity because in my old Civ3 days I was getting all sorts of money and various gifts for getting peace, but now they aren't doing that. And it's not that I am any more powerful than I was in those games, as I'm pretty similar in the standings as before. If you play domination/conquest only, apparently you will get something of a different game out of the AI. Man, I used to stay at war with civs just to syphon money from them, knowing it was laying WW on them, but now they hardly seem to care, and as I said, aren't offering money like before.

This is kinda off the artillery topic , but either Conquests or the C3C 1.22 patch (I don't recall which) greatly altered what an AI civ will give for peace. For instance, ripping gobs of techs out of the AI for peace is now virtually impossible.

 

[Rising Star]

That's true. Just last night I had the Chinese down to one city, no military units, and completely surrounded by chariots, and the idiots STILL wouldn't give me Bronze Working. The nerve of those guys.

 

[One Man Bucket]

If you are talking about warriors, they don't upgrade to catapults. Catapults are the first unit in a string of artillery units.

I think he means changing the route for upgrades in the editor to make it more likely that the AI will use artillery units.

 

[Ginger_Ale]

Usually I never see the AI use artillery outside of their own cities. If I move within range, say with an army or a stack of units, they'll bombard, but they'll never move the artillery out of the city, not even with railroads.

 

[T.A JONES]

I built some trebs to launch a sweeping attack but quickly had them seized on me. Shortly after the tables were turned and my AI opponant used those same trebs, plus some cats, to grind down not me, but my AI allie's stack of horsemen.
The trebs were added to big stacks of soldiers so they stuck around for a while to dish out attack after attack on the warfront. Quite a nusience, I still havn't recaptured or destroyed the cats that have joined their ranks

I can swear that AI uses arty for offencive punches that sometimes can work out to be very effective. I'll also say their not ever involved in seizing cities directly...least not ever in my games)

 

[Charles 22]

Having a ship end it's movement adjacent to an AI city that contains artillery will often result in the AI offensively bombarding the ship. That's at least one specific scenario in which the AI seems to regularly use it's artillery offensively...



This is kinda off the artillery topic , but either Conquests or the C3C 1.22 patch (I don't recall which) greatly altered what an AI civ will give for peace. For instance, ripping gobs of techs out of the AI for peace is now virtually impossible.

About the latest C3C patch, I can tell you I was playing the game to a very great extent before Civ4 came along, BUT, I think the key in how I'm playing it differently now, is that with nothing to really gain on the popularity front aside from having friends when going to war, the AI doesn't care for dishing out money or techs to keep you from slaughtering 100's of his units that he keeps sending. One of the main reasons for that, is because with them switching to fascism WW has little or no grip. Add to that the factor of there being no space race or political victories allowed. The only way one could fairly comment on what I take is you and I both speculating, is for somebody to had been an avid player of this sort of game where there is only dominance/conquest allowed. I think I have cultural victories on too, but nobody ever wins that way anyway. I can just tell you there's a significant difference between all victories possible post-v1.22 and post v1.22 with only dominance/conquest/cultural on.

Bear in mind one last thing though. As I usually play my games, I am waiting to go on offensive wars till I get the panzers for Germany. All of these games had been played that way, so there is no difference in national attitudes between them, but their playing the way I have suggested is one thing, but it's quite another to wait until you have gone that deep in the game before you wage offensive war and most people don't do that apparently. Anyway, I have plenty of wars before the offensive period, and about 95% of them are not due to my declaring it.

Prior to going to Civ4 I used to make a substantial living out of playing the v1.22 full game by holding onto wars so the AI would settle for higher amounts later, but that's just not happening at all anymore. I bet if I went back to the full blown game, I would be able to do that again easily. I'm not complaining it is the way it is when choosing the game options I am currently playing under, it's just that I thought the WW would force them to the table more, but I have been at war with some of these guys, whilst inflicting maybe a 5X to 10X loss ratio on them (same as before) with them being able to do the same amount of pillaging (very little - but I very regularly will not pillage there's either; same now as before) and they're just not interested in gifting. They will sometimes give very meager gold but there's a very distinct difference in amount and frequency to the game with everything on.

 

[Charles 22]

Usually I never see the AI use artillery outside of their own cities. If I move within range, say with an army or a stack of units, they'll bombard, but they'll never move the artillery out of the city, not even with railroads.

I have hinted here that playing with dominance/conquest/cultural victories only that it may make this change. I will say, however, that though in these two games I have seen artillery that dwarfs my own, I have only seen it used offensively once (alright, I did see one lousy arti used today, but it wasn't protected more than any other small stack) in the first game where I was facing a VERY dominating power, one some three to five times my own. It's army may had been even more powerful than that. I admit in at least my case I very rarely have a situation where I'm just facing one last major power who can whoop me anytime like that, but that was the condition of me seeing offensively used arti so far, but it also appears to had been a very significant reason why he started moping up the map before he got to me.

 

[Charles 22]

That's true. Just last night I had the Chinese down to one city, no military units, and completely surrounded by chariots, and the idiots STILL wouldn't give me Bronze Working. The nerve of those guys.

The funny thing is that when I used to play v1.22 in the full game they would often they would throw that in the deal from the start, such that I wouldn't have to try to maximize the deal. In these two games I'm pretty sure I haven't received anything more than 200 gold, and usually their gold is so low it's not possible anyway. I have considered them giving me the most obscure worthless tech as impossible, if that doesn't show what's going on here. Heck, in this game I had stealth and thought maybe I would condescend by asking for ironclads and they wouldn't hear of it. I'm starting to think that getting a tech in a game with these options on is impossible. Generally I'm not that interested in techs, because I'm often in the lead, but I would like some substantial cash, which I was able to get before. Your tech rating will go up for getting those techs you don't want to spend research time on, but which are useless to advancing your capabilities any. I usually have the Great Library built, so the early, more critical techs, are often no problem attaining and I'm so very rarely at war that early to capitalize.

BTW, are you saying that you are playing the game with only the options I suggested? Because if you are not, I am well ware of the AI stubborness which is commonly known for those type of situations. But the difference you don't understand is that we aren't talking that sort of war in my case. In your case it's more of a lightning early strike, in which they probably aren't even in republic, whcih probably means no WW from the populace. In my case we're talking about a LONG middle to late timeframe where the AI is not behaving in this situation as it used to. IOW, my main waepon was bringing WW onto him, thus bringing him to the table. Now you and I understand your situation is more drastic, but then again we've known about that sort of stupidity for some time. It's only with these longer wars, and more particularly in playing with the current options only, that I am seeing that there is very little knowledge it seems.