Is the AI better? yay or nay.

Masquerouge said:
Oh yay, the AI is much better than in Civ3 ! Then don't do stupid things when they attack, they pillage a lot, but more importantly when an AI is your friend they will not betray you ! That's pretty cool :)
The only thing that pisses me off is watching them move their boats around in circles and back and forth and crap like they've always done. I mean it probably makes sense to some extent to use up movement points by checking out areas you can't see, but I swear a ship will cover the same spot 3 or 4 times in one turn. drives me crazy
 
Yes, but I believe some of the AI scripts are predictable. For example, in every war i've been in so far the AI has always attempted to send a pillaging unit - usually horse archer - to destroy my improvements. This is a realistic, good, and useful action for the computer to do but is usually predictable.

As well, I suspect some degree of cheating when the AI does any attacks of opportunity against weaker cities. I've had the AI simply walk past my fortified border city and try to attack a city with a weaker garrison it could not have possibly seen.

I'm not sure how easy it is to manipulate the AI yet, although I bet shared religion will have a major part in controlling alliances.
 
The AI always send a pillaging unit, a fast unit in at the start of the war. ROP rapes are not allowed, declare war and all units move to the edge of the border.
Pikemans are great against mounted units, it is hard right now for me to think of a pikeman as an offensive unit, but it works great to stop the pillaging. I have been outflanked twice, while defending my cities. So far I am enjoying the learning curve, and seeing some predictable moves from the AI.
 
Speciou5 said:
Yes, but I believe some of the AI scripts are predictable. For example, in every war i've been in so far the AI has always attempted to send a pillaging unit - usually horse archer - to destroy my improvements. This is a realistic, good, and useful action for the computer to do but is usually predictable.

As well, I suspect some degree of cheating when the AI does any attacks of opportunity against weaker cities. I've had the AI simply walk past my fortified border city and try to attack a city with a weaker garrison it could not have possibly seen.

I'm not sure how easy it is to manipulate the AI yet, although I bet shared religion will have a major part in controlling alliances.

War is usually predictable ;) History never repeats, but it always rhymes.
 
Yea. Maybe not necessarily smarter, but more realistic in its reactions. E.g. an AI's opinion of you actually seems to determine their behavior toward you.
 
Better, yay.

Meaner - definately yay!

I went to war with the persians, who had finished a war a while ago with the Greeks. This was fine, the greeks were fairly strong held their own while i took on the tough stuff in the north. (Persians were #1 civ)

I get the 'mutual struggle message' all seems rosey. The war ends, i get some trade with persians and we're back on good terms. I start to build a bit of culture - when who hits my weakly defended south? The damn Greeks - take a base and now i'm locked in a very tough battle (where they have tanks :S - 3 turns to go for me)

Obviously my south is weak when i'm fighting a huge battle in the north for the past 100 years. Ofcourse his north is sctrong for the same reason. Very mean! lol.

I think the great thing about the AI is the fact theyy react to the situation rather than have specific goals which they follow to a tee - its almost like the AI is learning from you (ie attack with mounted units, they build pikes - etc.)
 
yay, but i did notice that during the start of one of my wars, an enemy unit seemed to just magically appear in the middle of my civ. and i wish that pleased civs would be little more generous. i suspect the there is still a little bit of cheating on the part to fo the ai. but overall, it is still much improved.
 
Orion66 said:
While I was playing my game on NOBLE:

- AI was PASSIVE
- AI was STUPID

That's funny. On Noble, I keep going for a culture win [seriously, it's a lot harder than it used to be] and the AI keeps beating the crap out of me both militarily and scientifically [at alternative times]. I think the AI is a heck of a lot better than the AI was in Civ3.

Now if only I could get that culture win...
 
I'm not sure how easy it is to manipulate the AI yet, although I bet shared religion will have a major part in controlling alliances.

Yes, that's one of the keys. I converted to a strong AI's faith and made it my state religion, and they turned into my most dependable, patient, forgiving and helpful ally. It's not a strategy I'd always use, but I had entirely too many shared borders (somehow I was right in the middle in that game) and definitely needed a partner. When another AI converted to the same religion, "the three of us" formed a fairly strong, cooperatively (well, for AI standards) playing alliance.
 
I think the AI responds to an invasion a bit smarter too. In the previous games (especially c3) you could attack them on one side of their country with a small force and draw the might of their entire military on it while your larger force could take and fortify cities on the other side quick and easy.

Doesn't work now and the AI is much better at mixing up his forces as well.
 
The thing I like best in this game is that every civ does play different...

In Civ 3, it's almost certain that you will get a threat asking for a pledge / tribute after you founded your 2nd town... Then after a few times of ignoring them, you're ass is grass...

In this game, they actually stay "away" from contact until they feel like they're in position to push you around... Even still, if you show you're not a push over, they tend to sit there until the right moment is there...

I still feel the AI don't care what the player thinks of their actions... I mean it would be nice to see a weak AI pay tribute to you in fear they'll be crushed... If there were events like this to balance out the bully tatic, I'd be glad to keep a small civ under my wing permenately...

However, the only thing those weak civs are good for is a good warfare...

I have yet to see AI gang up on each other though, but believe you me, they did that one on me more than once...

I have also gotten the AI to join fights with me, something that was very poorly done in Civ 3... Mostly because they'll turn against you in about 10 turns after the war...
 
On Noble, invading the rather small and backward Roman empire (me: 15 catapults and 25 swordsman and macemen; they: mostly archers, some preaetorians and catapults).
- they used catapults quite good in a defensive role
- they made a good counterattack when my front exposed a weak spot
- they send a small convoy with settler to the other side of the world, to set up a New Rome, preventing me from annihilating them, taking away my motivation to take smaller border towns

While laying siege to one of the bigger Roman towns, I noticed a convoy of mighty China, waiting outside the coast with a settler and some protecting units, for me to conquer the Roman town, freeing up some territory for the Chinese to land in!

SO, Yay. QUite impressive
 
I think the AI responds to an invasion a bit smarter too. In the previous games (especially c3) you could attack them on one side of their country with a small force and draw the might of their entire military on it while your larger force could take and fortify cities on the other side quick and easy.

On the contrary, I find this tactic to work better than ever. The AI even takes units out of its backline cities in order to reinforce the front ones. Then when your secondary force hits them from behind they're screwed.
 
Partly yay.

I've had a nice - if somewhat frustrating - highlight when some Barbarian Archer attacked a border town of mine with only one warrior as defender (my mistake). Boom ... Barbarian town. This town was crucial for me, since I used it to block Isabella from entering what I considered to be my part of the continent (she constantly asked for open borders). I rushed over to retake it, but Isabella was faster :cry: A few turns later, she plonked two additional cities in my area. I was never able to recover the lost territory (not so bad) and the associated resources (very bad).

In the same game, I had to turn off the "show enemy moves" option, because I could no longer stand to watch the stupid "flotilla moves in circles" of the other civs near my borders.
 
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