Dumbest Thing the AI Ever Did

[lost_etchings]

I was playing as Egypt the other day, and thought that I was great buddies with the Byzantines. Even had a ROP so they could attack a couple of worthless enemy cities on the other side of my empire. The game was mid-industrial age, and I had just finished my rail-network. Theodora moves one Rifleman next to my capitol, declares war, and attacks infantry fortified in a size 18 city, across a river. The rifleman died, quickly. The Byzantine army then moved into my territory, but now much slower because they couldn't use my rails.

The response from my end was swift and just I have no idea what the AI was thinking, as it made little sense to me. But, it was worth laughing at for several turns.

 

[Grogs]

I have also noticed the AI ignore a luxury resource. (perhaps this is a bug). I dont ever remember them ignoring strategic resources. Indeed I think they even 'know' where they will be in the future.

Not always true (about the strategic resources.) And that leads to my example of stupid AI behavior:

In a recent game (Civ3/Regent), I was playing as the Egyptians. I ended up on a small continent shared by the Romans. We both had a pretty good sized piece of land, with a land bridge in between us. In order to cross over the land bridge, our units had to cross no less than 6 mountain squares, making it an ideal geographic boundary.

Around 2500 BC, Ceasar demands tribute (I think it was pottery they wanted) and I told him where to take his demands. Knowing that I don't have enough units to cross over the mountains and defeat the Romans, I sit back and let them come to me. For the next 2500 years or so, Rome sends 2-3 archers over the mountains every couple of turns and I promptly slaughter them with my waiting swordsmen. It was a great war for me as many of my troops became elite and 3 great leaders spawned. Rome probably lost ~150 archers. I lost maybe 10 swordsmen.

When I finally had the military strength I thought I needed for the invasion and enough spare workers to forge a road over the mountains, I successfully invaded Rome. Sitting on top of a mountain right beside the city of Rome was an iron resource. If they had ever bothered to run a road up to it, they could have been attacking me with legionnaries instead of archers (and I would have found it very difficuly/impossible to conquer them before the age of chivalry.)

 

[Corkmaster]

Not always true (about the strategic resources.) (,,,) Sitting on top of a mountain right beside the city of Rome was an iron resource. If they had ever bothered to run a road up to it, they could have been attacking me with legionnaries instead of archers (and I would have found it very difficuly/impossible to conquer them before the age of chivalry.)

It is of course possible; although highly unlikely; that the Iron just happened to appear as your army sighted Rome and before the Romans had time to link it.
The other possibility with the AI not roading strategic resources (again not likely in Grogs game) is that the AI do not have the tech to see them but the human player does. This does not apply to luxury and bonus tiles of course.

 

[BasketCase]

I've seen the AI neglect to road up luxury resources more than once.

 

[Tatran]

Another "golden oldie".
The AI was moving troops in my direction,about 70 units most ancient.
I was worried because I only had spearmen,longbows & horsemen.
I had no iron nor saltpeter and it was at the end of the medieval age.
I needed Physics + Theory of Gravity + Magnetism to get Nationalism.
I tried to buy Physics and the AI accepted,47 gold per turn.
Within 5 turns their units moved into my territory,I told them to leave,
they declared war and within a few turns their whole army was slaughtered
while I only lost a handful of units.

 

[Mr. Do]

An AI down to one city with enemy knights about to conquer it... I decided to investigate it one turn after they finally finished a wonder, and they'd decided to build a settler. Why not just disband the units in the city and bend over?

 

[Grogs]

It is of course possible; although highly unlikely; that the Iron just happened to appear as your army sighted Rome and before the Romans had time to link it.
The other possibility with the AI not roading strategic resources (again not likely in Grogs game) is that the AI do not have the tech to see them but the human player does. This does not apply to luxury and bonus tiles of course.

You have a point there corkmaster. Resources seem to *appear* so infrequently in my games (as opposed to disappearing) I forget it can happen sometimes. Of course maybe I just don't notice sometimes. It's easy to miss the popup and not notice I now have 4 sources of iron instead of 3, but if my last resource disappears, its hard not to notice. As for the tech, I really can't say for sure. They did have contact with most of the other civs (because I traded the contact), but since we never talked over the course of the 3,000 year war I never verified their level of tech.

I really think though it was just a case of the AI getting tunnel vision though. I don't think they produced a single worker over the entire course of the war (they only had 3, I think, in 500AD.), just military units and at some point the pyramids. If they had waited until say, 1000 BC to declare war, they very well may have been coming at me with legionarries instead of archers (if for no reason other than it gave them more spare resources for research.)

 

[thetrooper]

I managed to hold a chokepoint on a hill and built a fortress there. Fortified 10+ infantry, 10+ artillery and a bunch of cavalry in my nice little fortress. India was the last remaining civ and held the other side of the chokepoint. I declared war on them, but didn´t move my troops. Next turn 50 or more crap AA units, 30+ MA units and some IA units attacked my fortified troops and India literally commited cuicide. What do you know - a reg warrior attacking hill-fortified infantry in a fortress? After the first wave of attackers I moved in my offence and it was a clean sweep.

 

[Mr. Do]

"...a reg warrior attacking hill-fortified infantry in a fortress?"

I wouldn't have been surprised if you'd lost that fight though

 

[sabo]

I've seen the AI neglect to road up luxury resources more than once.

I have never seen this, unless they HAD a road to it and it got pillaged, they seem reluctant to build a road to it again

 

[Zydiax]

In my latest game (Which i won like 5 mins ago ),
Cleopatra tried to force me to give them Wines (or some other luxury, can't remember).
I refused, and luckily they did'nt declare war. (I really didnt want a war)
Anyways, i chose the "Would you listen to our counter-proposal?",
just to see what they would offer me for it.
They offered something like 100gp/turn for it, and of course, i accepted.


Oh, and the strange thing is that this was on the same date as Cleopatra commited suicide (IRL).
Creepy..

 

[genghis_khev]

In a previous game I was pummelling the Ottomans while also in a wonder race with them (and others) for Bach's Cathedral (I had a slight tech lead but nothing too significant). As it turned out I kept taking his capitol (it kept jumping to the next city on my "to aquire" list!). Every time a took the capitol and it jumped a turn later the Ottomans would restart the wonder in the new capitol. I would say this way doubley dumb cos:

A) There was now absolutely no way he could complete the wonder first.

B) I was obvoiusly not going to stop attacking him (having quickly assumed numeric military suppremacy over him).

If he'd sued for peace then built the wonder, OK, but not it mid collapse!

Foolish AI!

 

[kokoras]

Well it hasn't done it only once and i am sure that you have all experienced the level of AI when a Civ of 1-2 or 3 cities is declaring war against the most powerfull oponents.It is not exactly dumb,it is the joy of auto-termination!

 

[The Last Conformist]

Suicidal AI wars have to involve some special idiocy to count, like attacking the guy giving you a bunch free SRs like I wrote about.

 

[Mr. Do]

In Civ 2 the smaller, weaker civilisations wouldn't generally declare war on you at the drop of a hat; well, some did (Like the Zulus), but it always felt like it made sense in some warped way. In Civ 3 it just feels completely random (while in fact it's only "mostly random").

 

[TimBentley]

It's always interesting when you're at war with a civ, they only have 4 cities, and 2 or 3 cities are building a wonder. In a recent game, Egypt had only about 3 or 4 cities left and their capital built Leonardo's Workshop. The next turn I captured it. Unfortunately, the only units I upgraded were a couple of galleons.

 

[dgfred]

It's always interesting when you're at war with a civ, they only have 4 cities, and 2 or 3 cities are building a wonder. In a recent game, Egypt had only about 3 or 4 cities left and their capital built Leonardo's Workshop. The next turn I captured it. Unfortunately, the only units I upgraded were a couple of galleons.

what did the game end ? I love Leo's, it is an
almost MUST HAVE for my games .

 

[TimBentley]

what did the game end ? I love Leo's, it is an
almost MUST HAVE for my games .

No, all I needed to do was send my tanks over to the other continent to conquer them. I might have had some obsolete units at home, but I didn't upgrade them. Maybe I should have disbanded some of them. Actually, I did disband my entire army eventually (I was milking the score).

 

[Thriller4ever]

I'm currently playing a game at Emperor level in archipels with Large map and 7 civs + me.

Me (carthage) and Egypt was together on the same island. Me on the south and Egypt on the north.

They decided to assault me and i retalliated (of course).

This thing happen two time, I got 20+ unit in front of a city ready to assault on the next turn with reservist 5 units on the back of them not ready to assault. The Egyptian decided to attack .... my 5 reservist ..... they kill 3 to 4 of them ..... but i take there city.

It's hard to understand the AI sometime ...

 

[SesnOfWthr]

This may have been mentioned before, but a pic is worth 1000 words....

One turn.....

And the next....