feedback on AI combat behavior

[ilteroi]

hey all.

what is your impression of the tactical AI in the latest version? i made some tweaks but i have little time to play myself. so i need feedback from you!

is there anything the AI does especially well? or regularly fails at?

are they aggressive enough? or too aggressive, meaning they send units into certain death for no gain?

what about naval combat, that has been a sore point in the past?

i can't promise i'll be able to make major improvements but i'll try.

 

[crdvis16]

I haven't gotten to play a ton on the most recent versions but starting from a few months ago the tactical ai got wayyyy better, so thanks for that.

The AI regularly catches me off guard when it is playing defense with the use of roads to focus fire units that I am too careless with and didn't realize were too exposed. I think the AI is maybe a bit worse on offense but that's probably just the nature of offense being harder- they are in my territory attacking cities I settled with defense in mind and being subjected to my road mobility.

I haven't gotten to do much naval fighting lately. I think in the past the biggest issue was the AI not keeping its naval units together as a group when moving around such that they would arrive to fights in 1s or 2s and get killed off before they could be a group threat. I think that's been improved lately? I did see get hit with 4 or 5 Quinquereme by Carthage in my current game and they all arrived at my city together so that seems promising.

Overall, though, I can't think of any current examples of truly terrible AI tactics that I've seen. The AI is less careful with its units than a deity player but I don't think that's actually a bad thing- the AI should be fine with trading units if it has the bigger army so being less careful in order to finish off units is probably a good thing.

 

[DeAnno]

is there anything the AI does especially well? or regularly fails at?

I think the AI is still too careless with its settlers, too often I see them moving completely unescorted into dangerous situations.

 

[glider1]

As of the previous beta Aug-21 the AI was building nice naval formations and even taking cities with them. Only critique I noticed is that often they would build a largish fleet but not use it on a target, so the fleet would remain in port at a financial cost and supply cost. I wonder if the disbanding algorithm could be a little bit more aggressive that if there is unlikely to be a naval attack or defense target in the medium term the fleet could be pruned starting with the least experienced units.

Really looking forward to trying out the air combat code in the latest beta. The AI was hardly building any air units in prior version over a number of auto-plays I did.

 

[andersw]

King.

Sea warfare:
AI builds a lot of ships but dies en masse from my land ranged units.
The AI will kill stuff if I place units at shoreline but doesn't grasp that there could be ranged units inland.
With the latest change that makes ranged ships end their turn after shooting I wonder if the AI's should really build as many ships as they do.
On the other hand I've been caught in some amazing surrounds at sea so the AI is well versed in handling ships vs ships especially when I don't bring enough ships.

Land:
The AI can really carpet, todays menu was pictish warrior carpet.
AI goes around my empire with one or two units to pillage strategic resources way off their lands which is annoying and impressive, something I would never be able to pull off (thank you rome for trading me a very expensive iron so my swords could heal).
Skirmishers are very weak after recent nerfs, I don't bring many and I tend to catch enemy skrimishers, maybe more weakness of the unit than the AI.

 

[Dolen]

I feel like AI is more careful about risking their troops in combat, in both defending and attacking; at times it turns out well, other times poorly.
At one time, I was besieging one of their cities and although they had an army of considerable strength with numbers, they just sat back leaving their city burn to the ground.
This is also often the case when they are assaulting a city; too many troops sitting back leaving their comrades getting picked off one by one.

Did you release the changes without testing it out yourself? I have to say that's kinda... yeah.

 

[azum4roll]

I haven't played the latest version (staying on 7-29 until things stabilize). Does an AI unit still gain extra movement if it ends up on the same hex as another unit so that it can unstack itself? I feel like this is a weak point of the AI. Usually the stacked unit moves itself into a dangerous spot (into water or being exposed). With the carpet of units the higher difficulty AI has, I assume it'll happen more.

Another problem I noticed is that the AI would leave a city unguarded if it realizes it'll lose the city in the next turn. This is fine, but the AI always forgets to bring civilians (workers, missionaries, great generals) with its army.

 

[Stalker0]

In the latest version, it definitely feels that the AI is building more units again....something that I had noticed had fallen away in recent versions. I am seeing lot more units on the board period now.

 

[Gazebo]

Did you release the changes without testing it out yourself? I have to say that's kinda... yeah.

He handed the code to me, I tested before publishing.

G

 

[Stalker0]

Also, while I am noticing a lot more units in general, seeing a significant increase in naval building. All of the AI I have been fighting have had a significant Dromon prescense.

 

[Dolen]

Maybe they are building a little too many ranged naval units?
That's what I felt playing the previous patch.

 

[andersw]

Maybe they are building a little too many ranged naval units?
That's what I felt playing the previous patch.

As I mentioned above they build a LOT of ranged naval, but after sleeping on my answer its not bad the bad is AI not understanding when the navy is outdated.
Dromons do very well with careful play, dromons vs composites and catapults out of range of the ships dont do very well, even in range it can be risky and leads to a lot of bad trades.
Dromons facing crossbows are up for a massacre, with move and shoot the dromon fleets would have just wiped the floor but not now .... which is good for the balance.

 

[theMisterRud]

I don't know if it is tactical AI, but I feel like Defensive Pacts don't work well with naval combat ? Like, I started an invasion against Aztecs, and the allied Mongolia had a huge navy 25 tiles further, which stayed there and didn't support the ally.

 

[Gazebo]

As I mentioned above they build a LOT of ranged naval, but after sleeping on my answer its not bad the bad is AI not understanding when the navy is outdated.
Dromons do very well with careful play, dromons vs composites and catapults out of range of the ships dont do very well, even in range it can be risky and leads to a lot of bad trades.
Dromons facing crossbows are up for a massacre, with move and shoot the dromon fleets would have just wiped the floor but not now .... which is good for the balance.

Well that's just a consequence of difficulty- lower level AI lack the gold to modernize everything, and the AI promotes highest-level XP units first (which is typically land units).

 

[crdvis16]

My current game as Sweden playing on deity has me impressed by the AI's tactics. I'm in a war with the Iroquois and fighting on his heavily jungle/forest turf is really really difficult. The extra movement he gets in that terrain makes a huge difference as the AI is good at moving units around to focus fire. Any units of mine that attempt to push in get smacked down quickly. I'm able to score kills because of range promoted siege surprising him but it's not enough to really take cities. I've had to basically resign myself to attrition because fighting him straight up just doesn't seem workable which is great- it's a super challenging war and exactly the struggle needed to keep the game interesting.

 

[andersw]

Well that's just a consequence of difficulty- lower level AI lack the gold to modernize everything, and the AI promotes highest-level XP units first (which is typically land units).

Ok I get your point, I'm overdue in my stay on king diff.
AI navy on diety got to be scary with the recent changes, brrr.

 

[SpankmyMetroid]

Landwise, AI is able to show pretty nice restraint in refusing to attack if the situation wouldn’t benefit them, even if they outnumber me. Such as, me leaving a spearman in a defensible position to bait a couple Hunnic warriors. Maybe it’s different if the AI protocol changes, they were on defense from me, if they have a plan to take a city they might be more aggressive. Though, even if I leave a spearman in a bad position it seems like the AI is passive to attack, they would usually rather shuffle archers around rather than attack, and I’ve never seen an AI garrison attack from a city unless it would have killed my unit that turn. So maybe a bit too passive? Anyway, my usual plan of grinding down larger armies might not work too well anymore. So kudos to the AI’s strategy!

Should also mention stationed AI barbarians are now leaving their camps every once in a while to take free hits at pathfinders, like in civ 6. It’s as exploitable in this game as it is in that one...

 

[Stalker0]

One thing I will say is that the AI is sneaky with its pillaging. I've noticed it doing more moving to the side and pillaging what it can as opposed to just bluntly moving forward.

 

[ilteroi]

ok, summing up it seems we're in a good spot overall.

minor issues:
* too easy to snipe settlers from the AI. hard to fix, just don't do it
* AI doesn't commit all available troops for a fight. i'll check that.
* AI loses ships to bombardment from land. a hard problem. i would rather tackle this via increased sight and increased crossdomain attack penalties.

anything else?

 

[Stalker0]

I have seen a few times when the AI had a unit near a city dead to rights if it had focused fired a little bit more, but it splinters the attack and I manage to withdraw the unit. It’s happened a few times.

Also, if a melee unit is garrisoned, the AI is loath to attack with it, even if I have a ranged unit adjacent. While some restraint is good (you don’t want your defender to die), often 1-2 attacks with that unit plus the city attack can force a key unit to withdraw