Does the AI ever do anything smart?

[Lord Plebian]

Ships are a different matter. As far as I know, they can never be booted the hard way.

However, you are right that there is one fundamental difference between the AI and the human player here: when the AI gives you a hard boot order, you can't ignore it: it's either war, or your units get kicked out to some square outside their borders. The AI however can always chose to ignore your boot order and leave the units where they are without declaring war.

I think the criteria for hard-booting ships is that they can only be hard-booted if they have military units inside. This happened to me the other day and I was surprised. I was playing archipelago and the Zulu declared war on me (look at all my not-surprise). I had to send my galleys through Carthage waters to get there, and they gave me the hard-boot order because I had them loaded with units, iirc.

I too would be interested in seeing this. I've never seen them respond so indifferently to the hard boot.

 

[vorlon_mi]

You can give them the ultimatum. It shows up as "Remove your forces from our territory or declare WAR!" I think. Sometimes they will go along with it, if you're on a lower difficulty. The AI analyzes military strength for that. It's one of the things I like about Civ III's diplomacy versus Civ IV's. Anything they can do, you can do.

I finally got the ultimatum in a recent game, after wishing I could get there before.
I needed to be persistent and insistent -- that is, talk to that AI each turn while its troops are present. On the 3rd turn or so, I got the chance to force them. But if I took a turn off, because it looked like they were moving away, it was just the feeble choice.

 

[tjs282]

Continuing the previous description of my Random Emp Koreans game (at some point I ought to edit my posts in this thread, to move the Spoiler'd story-text to mine instead), Gil's actually being quite smart right now.

Having started and lost two wars against the glorious Korean Empire during the last 100T (the second time he lost ~120 higher-tech units, and about half-a-dozen ex-Russian and -Aztec cities, to my ~20 unit-losses), he's now refusing to rise to my baits and DoW me a third time. Instead, he actually asked to renew our PT the last time it expired.

Spoiler :

I agreed at the time, because he was at war with the Indians, who were MA'd with the Aztecs, and I wanted him to capture Monty's last city on our continent (his current capital) for me -- so I could then take it from Gil without annoying Monty myself. (Monty's teeth were long since pulled, so I'd no real reason to kill him myself, when I can trade with him instead -- but his Cap's in the way of my Farm-land).

I made multiple 'leave or declare' demands while Gil was trekking his troops across my Farm-land to attack Monty's Palace. He complied every time. Then he signed PTs with Monty and Gandhi, which was not according to (my) plan. So I built the IntelAg and planted a Spy (successfully, so no offence). Then I tried to expose his Spy immediately and failed. No DoW. So I planted another Spy immediately (knowing that it would fail). Still no DoW.

And all this despite the fact that we have comparable military strength, and that he was still paying me about 100GPT (plus all his Treasury at the time) for one of my techs (Fission? don't remember, and it doesn't really matter -- he still got it for cheap).

Spoiler :

His caution won't help him any longer though: the GPT-payments ended 3T ago, I got SynFib 2T ago and upgraded all my vTanks (I still have a bunch of eTanks as well), and the obligatory 20T of the PT ended on the last IBT. On the last full turn I played yesterday, I fortified my frontline in expectation that he would ask to renew the PT, so that I could refuse him, then absorb/ decoy his initial rush. But he kept quiet, crawling coward that he is...

So now the PT has expired, I can DoW him from my side of the border, and take the initiative. The next time I load up this game, I fully expect to be able to push his borders back almost to his capital. And then -- having already built the UN to stop anyone else winning a popularity-contest -- I'll finish building my Space-ship, all the while thumbing my nose at Ghandi (who is currently bankrupting himself to buy my tech-lead).

 

[Buttercup]

Here's an odd one that I never see mentioned anywhere:

It's not about AI Civs, but just about the general game AI.

Regularly, and by regularly I mean whenever I notice it because I'm playing in a way that triggers it - some people might just play in a way that never triggers it so might think I'm completely barmy, but...

I will be marching through an enemy territory, hosing down towns because I'm in a very commanding position - and this is using mainly Ancient Age units against Ancient Age Units, but can happen with other variables...

And I will get close to victory, in that there's only a few towns to go and I will start re-directing Units to future locations and reassigning town jobs from military Units to Buildings and...

It's as if the general AI notices this and suddenly decides to give my front line appalling luck. The kind of luck that makes you feel dumb for stopping the Unit spam too early even though the amount of Units in play should be ample by example of all previous battles.

The visual example:

I have about 20 Archers in play, ranging from Regular to Elite.

If I march 8 of them next to a city, say 4 Regular, 2 Veteran, 2 Elite and then attack next turn - then they will all die tragically while barely denting the enemy defenders - in the most recent case 2 Legionaries, 1 Spearman and 1 Archer. I end the encounter with one Archer with 1 HP left. The regulars were barely worth bothering with. No enemy Units die.

However

When I reload and cancel my change of productions and continue to send Units towards that city, and gradually surround the city, so that I now have 12 Archers around the city...

I find that the 4 defenders fall almost instantly, even Legionaries will die to Regular Archers. And I lose just one Archer and complete the conquest within 5 or 6 Archers.


As if there's some kind of hidden 'siege' stat that effects such scenarios.

Yes, I know, RNG variables, confirmation bias etc etc. But I have noticed this on really quite a large number of occasions.

We know that the general AI will always look for weak spots (like land troops next to the empty city, attack just before a building is complete, etc etc etc) and perhaps the changing of the production and the re-direction of excess troops suddenly clicks it into "spotting a weakness" mode. It 'can' defend against 8 and you've not covered all bases, so, therefore, it 'will' make you lose.

However, if it knows you're just going to keep pumping Units into excess and over-kill and there's little point (or avenue) for spotting a weakness, it will just be quite human and kind-of resign...?

Anyone else notice this or is it just something I notice because I often start re-directing my strategy a few turns too soon?

 

[agonistes]

Yes, that happens to me all the time. I will upload a .sav file, when I see it next.

Interesting. I've never seen this before. For me its always been that either the AI leaves, or declares, if I use the ultimatum.

I have, though, on numerous occasions had enemy foot units in my territory with offensive capabilities and it would take more than two turns for the ultimatum to come up.

My personal suspicion is that there are a number of factors that go into it... relations, relative military strength, and (I really believe this) if and how long ago you last gave the ultimatum.

I have never tried to pin down the exact mechanics of it, but after years of playing the game, I sort of have a feel for the timing window on when to begin asking for foreign troops to bugger off so that they do not leave either too early or too late for my plans.

There is certainly no hard rule about the second request always being an ultimatum for ground units. It can take several turns, and sometimes never occur at all.

I also suspect there may be a random variable too, like a % chance, that increases or decreases based on other factors.

It is also possible that the AI's 'intentions' may affect the occurrence of the ultimatum. If the AI is up to no good, I think the ultimatum is more likely to occur. If the AI is simply running a spearman across your territory, then it is less likely to occur. Whether or not you have an embassy may also be a factor.

Again, I have not tested this out. I am positive about there not being a 100% 2nd turn rule for the single offensive unit though.

 

[agonistes]

Anyone else notice this or is it just something I notice because I often start re-directing my strategy a few turns too soon?

What's your sample size?

 

[Lanzelot]

I have, though, on numerous occasions had enemy foot units in my territory with offensive capabilities and it would take more than two turns for the ultimatum to come up.

My personal suspicion is that there are a number of factors that go into it... relations, relative military strength, and (I really believe this) if and how long ago you last gave the ultimatum.

...

There is certainly no hard rule about the second request always being an ultimatum for ground units. It can take several turns, and sometimes never occur at all.

I also suspect there may be a random variable too, like a % chance, that increases or decreases based on other factors.

It is also possible that the AI's 'intentions' may affect the occurrence of the ultimatum. If the AI is up to no good, I think the ultimatum is more likely to occur. If the AI is simply running a spearman across your territory, then it is less likely to occur. Whether or not you have an embassy may also be a factor.

Don't give the Firaxis programmers too much credit... It could as well just be -- a bug
In some special circumstances they could just have forgotten to put that button onto that darn popup-window...

 

[Buttercup]

What's your sample size?

As I said, it could be confirmation bias. My sample size is just every game where I happen into a circumstance where it's possible.

I was playing today, for example, and this happened:

I was having the usual AI assault upon my island of 3 Frigates and one Galleon full of Elephants. I had a strong Galleon fleet from upgraded Caravels but I hadn't bothered making a fleet of Frigates yet. Anyway, I put Frigates and Artillery into immediate production. It got to the point where I had about 5 Frigates circling each batch of 4 invading vessels and where my Frigates only needed to attack fully red-lined enemy vessels (because of my Artillery).

When I attacked a stack of four red-lined enemy vessels with just 3 of my Frigates, then I'd be lucky to even sink two of them and I would even lose a full health Frigate. However, once I had a good group of 6 Frigates circling each red-line gang of four, then the enemy would sink really easily with barely a scratch upon my attackers.

It's like if I take a gamble, or try to 'push-it', then I'll lose, but if I waste production time by over-producing Units to excess then it feels like I'm also losing, because I'm not being efficient. For someone whose quite OCD on finding the perfect number of Units required to achieve XYZ result, this game infuriates me for the above reason, and could be why I notice it more. It always seems to be either lose with appalling luck or win with amazing luck, there's very few examples of watching HP bars go down in any kind of uniform way when relative equals meet, and the extremes depend on whether the general AI thinks you've over-produced enough to warrant the amazing luck or have tried to push you're luck too much and therefore warrant terrible luck.

 

[justanick]

There is an easy solution to it: Get used to disbanding units. That way the useless units become usefull as they add some shields where they are needed. Conquered cities usually do need some buildings and disbanding some units can help at that.

 

[Buttercup]

There is an easy solution to it: Get used to disbanding units. That way the useless units become usefull as they add some shields where they are needed. Conquered cities usually do need some buildings and disbanding some units can help at that.

Thanks for imparting some random advice, but I have no idea what this has to do with my point. I do disband old Units to boost production, with the Ancient Cavalry and Crusaders you kind-of have to, you have no choice. Also, there's little point upgrading Regulars as you can't upgrade them into Veterans, you'd want to just build a new Unit anyway than waste that upgrade money.

The only reason I can see why you've posted this is because of the sentence "I already had lots of Galleons from upgraded Caravels", to which I have no idea what this has to do with my narrative, it's just descriptor fluff to provide a reason as to why I got in the situation where I had only 3-5 Frigates in the situation I required to describe.

You have no idea whether I wanted all my Galleons or whether having those Galleons was in some way a hindrance. The fact in this case is that they were all required and providing an excellent service to me and I instantly upgraded all my Caravels with glee and abundance. So I can only assume you've either failed to read my tedious posts or that you're trying to wind me up?

 

[justanick]

I just described how i handle the overproduction problem. By disbanding units i make sure there is no overproduction of units and peace of mind instead.

 

[Buttercup]

If you've built a Unit then you've already spent 5 turns building that Unit, disbanding it wont get your 5 turns back, maybe get a turn back, but it's hardly 'solving the problem'... You've completely lost me

We should have some kind of warning on this site - "Don't broach forum posts in the form of stories, people will pick-out all kinds of crap that you had no idea was coming. Instead, write in as few words as possible some random point or question".

 

[ZergMazter]

I wish I knew how to hex edit :/ I got many AI improvements in my mind I would do. Out of all things if I could make them do one thing right, that would be transporting units.

That alone would make the game incredibly challenging as you as a human would not drop your guard on coastal cities. Something maybe like civ 4 style amphibious attacks.

I still remember my first time. I thought the AI was just as stupid and oh boy did they get me good.

 

[Buttercup]

The only reason people/AI build so many cities on the coast is because you mess-up the food allowance from Coastal/Sea squares if you don't. You also can't build naval Units if you don't. Am I right in thinking that in Civ 4 you don't effect Coastal/Sea production by building in-land one square? Or am I misremembering?

Perhaps the reason the AI has crap naval landing skills is because it was deliberately nerfed to account for the fact that it new people would be pretty much required to build so many Coastal cities because of the mechanics of not doing so? If you do get to do your Hex editing it might be worth altering the value of inland Coastal/Sea squares as well.

The part I don't get at all with naval AI is why Units can't get back in the boat once they've landed. Never once have I seen the AI retreat back onto a boat, even if peace has been declared. Apparently, I've read here before, that this occurs because the AI can't enter a boat via anything other than the 'load' option. You might need to change that as well.

 

[justanick]

If you've built a Unit then you've already spent 5 turns building that Unit, disbanding it wont get your 5 turns back, maybe get a turn back, but it's hardly 'solving the problem'... You've completely lost me

The goal is not to get the five turns back. You will not get them back. If your goal is to avoid building military in core cities my approach won't suit you. If the goal however is to get freshly conquered cities up to specs fast, than this requires to build quite some military in core cities in order to disband them.

 

[Buttercup]

Obviously. But why are you talking about freshly conquered cities? Or, more importantly, why are you talking to me about freshly conquered cities? Or are you talking to someone else?

 

[justanick]

My statements were not directed to you in specific but anyone confronted with the overproduction problem.

 

[agonistes]

If the goal however is to get freshly conquered cities up to specs fast, than this requires to build quite some military in core cities in order to disband them

Cash my friend. Cold hard cash.