Dumbest thing you've seen the AI do

[Tachii]

^ Lol'd. More so at Attila. The guy moved that many units like 20+ tiles up just so he can surprise either you or the Ottomans and possibly Sweden? What a troll.

You should've just take Istanbul so he will never catch up with you. I mean, this is already the second peace treaty.

 

[smallfish]

^ Lol'd. More so at Attila. The guy moved that many units like 20+ tiles up just so he can surprise either you or the Ottomans and possibly Sweden? What a troll.

You should've just take Istanbul so he will never catch up with you. I mean, this is already the second peace treaty.

Yeah I tried making friends with the Huns by denouncing the Ottomans (they denounced the Ottomans like around T10+), but they never responded back and they certainly weren't planning on friendly alliances when I offered them myself (I must decline). Then before that Ram picture, one of my deals with the 'Tila renewed and I got it as "the deal has faded in our eyes over the years..."

Yeaaaaaaaah, no.

I've considered it, but that would sandwich me between Caroleans and Huns. I think I will discuss with Gustavus (we have DoF, and he has been a target of Ottoman aggression one too many times too), but I've put off aggressive capital sniping simply because of the Sandwich Syndrome.

It means I will also need to start building catapults. Already spammed enough wonders (Petra and Hagia Sophia) at the moment, and another 2 Unis should be finishing soon...

 

[Tachii]

Istanbul looks pretty safe though. The other 2 cities acts as a buffer from Sweden and the Huns. I'm guessing if you took the capital the other 2 cities will quickly get smothered by Attila. And it seems like one catapult is enough for the job of just taking Istanbul with 3 CBs and a pikeman as the meat shield.

The thing about Attila is he will always war first before a DoF, I don't think I've ever seen him try a DoF unless he was weak in military strength (which is often never). Kind of just the way he make friends - through combat first.

 

[Smokeybear]

The stupidest thing I see civs do, over and over, is make weak attacks, with too few of their total forces, and give up those attacks too quickly when they could have carried through and wiped me out. When a human player organizes an invasion of their opponent, you send your best and strongest and mostest, as many as you expect it will take to accomplish the mission. I'm sure most players overstock their invading forces as much as possible, as opposed to skimping on them. It's because we know stuff happens, and you don't send a pack of girlscouts to do the work of ten armored divisions.

But a huge majority of the time, I see civs at all stages of the game sending small fractions of their total forces, and often not even the best units they have on hand. When I'm curious about such things, I just push the mod button on my interface that removes fog of war, and you can see all of the enemy units they have squirreled away everywhere in the world. Many a time, I've seen huge military powers with militaries many times my size, send out just a handful of units to attack me, while leaving 9/10th's of their more powerful forces idling around doing nothing. Another of their favorite tactics, is to send out sporadic piecemeal waves of forces... each one too small to succeed, each one easily defeated, and never all of those forces together in one powerful element.

And many a time, even if they do happen to send a powerful force that could settle my hash, if I bloody their nose good on the first rush, their attack will usually fragment and hie off in all directions like startled cockroaches, instead of sticking together and pressing a solid attack and using reserves to finish off my lesser number of badly wounded remaining units. Then you kill the scared cockroaches easily, and the rest take off for home with tails between legs.

I used to feel like Custer when I saw a big force coming towards my little, budding cities... "OMG, this is it! Game over, man, game over!" Now, I've played long enough to just think, "Ok, what stupid tactic full of fail are they going to use, this time?"

 

[hobbsyoyo]

The stupidest thing I see civs do, over and over, is make weak attacks, with too few of their total forces, and give up those attacks too quickly when they could have carried through and wiped me out. When a human player organizes an invasion of their opponent, you send your best and strongest and mostest, as many as you expect it will take to accomplish the mission. I'm sure most players overstock their invading forces as much as possible, as opposed to skimping on them. It's because we know stuff happens, and you don't send a pack of girlscouts to do the work of ten armored divisions.

But a huge majority of the time, I see civs at all stages of the game sending small fractions of their total forces, and often not even the best units they have on hand. When I'm curious about such things, I just push the mod button on my interface that removes fog of war, and you can see all of the enemy units they have squirreled away everywhere in the world. Many a time, I've seen huge military powers with militaries many times my size, send out just a handful of units to attack me, while leaving 9/10th's of their more powerful forces idling around doing nothing. Another of their favorite tactics, is to send out sporadic piecemeal waves of forces... each one too small to succeed, each one easily defeated, and never all of those forces together in one powerful element.

And many a time, even if they do happen to send a powerful force that could settle my hash, if I bloody their nose good on the first rush, their attack will usually fragment and hie off in all directions like startled cockroaches, instead of sticking together and pressing a solid attack and using reserves to finish off my lesser number of badly wounded remaining units. Then you kill the scared cockroaches easily, and the rest take off for home with tails between legs.

I used to feel like Custer when I saw a big force coming towards my little, budding cities... "OMG, this is it! Game over, man, game over!" Now, I've played long enough to just think, "Ok, what stupid tactic full of fail are they going to use, this time?"

I've rushbuilt walls in cities under attack. This caused the AI to move to another city, where the process repeated. All the while I'm nitpicking their units to death until they have none left. Whereas if they had stayed the course at the first city, they would have taken it with or without walls and moved on and taken the next as well.

 

[Koiranputki]

I used to feel like Custer when I saw a big force coming towards my little, budding cities... "OMG, this is it! Game over, man, game over!" Now, I've played long enough to just think, "Ok, what stupid tactic full of fail are they going to use, this time?"

Though it can still get a bit dicey sometimes, and, I guess, exciting .... but, yes, if you coolly weaken and pick off their pikemen and archers and maybe a catapult or two, over maybe half a dozen turns you'll usually rout them.

In my current game as William, I "knew" for a while the rush would come from nearby Askai...lots of warning...yet I just couldn't scrape together the cash and when the attack came I had only one archer, as well as a spearman who was busy with barbs....

Amsterdam lost half its hit points before I could get the better of the attackers, but I did buy enough time to build additional units... My two cities...both highly productive...got the units out in three turns each.

I've learned from countless hours of playing that if you remain cool and patient and focus on systematically weakening the attackers you'll probably prevail...though it can be a close thing sometimes... But the real key...not always easy to prioritize in the early game... is to have a good military...

 

[shadowplay]

It does a really crappy job protecting it's great generals... it'ill stay stacked with a wounded and highly vulnerable unit despite the chance for a tactical retreat, for example.

 

[jahsoldier]

T
And many a time, even if they do happen to send a powerful force that could settle my hash, if I bloody their nose good on the first rush, their attack will usually fragment and hie off in all directions like startled cockroaches, instead of sticking together and pressing a solid attack and using reserves to finish off my lesser number of badly wounded remaining units. Then you kill the scared cockroaches easily, and the rest take off for home with tails between legs.

This is why I've started keeping an archer on a hill between my capital and my neighbour's in the early game. When they inevitably declare war and get routed, the archer is there to pick off his wounded army as they retreat (when they're in 'retreat mode' they don't seem to consider attacking the archer either). Makes for some really efficient counterattacks as they're usually left with nothing to defend

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

I gave Harun a lot of Gatling Guns since he was losing his capital. He does everything with them (including liberating a City State on his border) except defend his capital. Almost drove my palm through my skull at that one.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I gave Harun a lot of Gatling Guns since he was losing his capital. He does everything with them (including liberating a City State on his border) except defend his capital. Almost drove my palm through my skull at that one.

I had a similar experience. I attacked the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa because it was relatively completely undefended.

As I'm knocking down the cities health, a large Ethiopian army emerged from the fog to launch a clumsy attack against one of my City State allies. The Ethiopians fail to capture the City State, and also fail to defend their capital even though their army was maybe two turns away and could have ended my conquest.

AI FAIL.

 

[Smokeybear]

I had a similar experience. I attacked the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa because it was relatively completely undefended.

As I'm knocking down the cities health, a large Ethiopian army emerged from the fog to launch a clumsy attack against one of my City State allies. The Ethiopians fail to capture the City State, and also fail to defend their capital even though their army was maybe two turns away and could have ended my conquest.

AI FAIL.

I see that all the time. Always makes me shake my head in amazement. I attack a civ, and the first thing they do is send most of their forces to attack (usually fruitlessly) any adjacent CS's which are allied to me. They are utterly lacking in any sense of threat prioritization.

 

[Light Cleric]

AI India marched an army of Pikes and Swords for about 70 turns across a long, winding hilly Pangaea to attack Korea...which had Machine Guns when he got there. He changed his mind and then ended up turning all the way back around.