Is there anybody who DOESN't hate the AI?

Lordlombax

Chieftain
Joined
Feb 1, 2008
Messages
25
While the AI is the most important part of civilization, considering its completely one player, there are always those things that they do that reallllly get on my nerves (and im sure yours). To me, every thing that they do that pisses me off stems from one main thing, which is how the AI will do everything that they do NOT want you to do to them. Heres some of my biggest annoyances:

How they will frequently "be insulted by" the offer of trading one luxury for another. Its a completely fair trade, SCREW YOU!

How they will rarely accept fair technology trades, but will constantly offer to trade monarchy for a industrial or modern age technology

How they offer to trade a world map for a valuable technology (again, they would be completely insulted if you offer it).

How, when they are at war with another nation, they will constantly send hordes of troops with 1 move value through your territory, and every time you order them to return to their territory they just start over again.

When they do the above and you order them to move out of your territory and they declare war.

I'm sure there are many others that i just can't think of right now. Does anybody else have any particular annoyances with the AI?
 
My favorite AI behavior is when I ask them to join me in an alliance (or they ask me) and after a few turns they sign a peace treaty.

The luxury issue isn't that big of deal: the AI takes into consideration how much an additional luxury will help you. If you have access to four luxuries and you want to buy a fifth from an AI, you will have to pay five times the worth of it. If you have four luxuries and the AI two, then you will have to provide more than one luxury to compensate them. They want fair trades, although sometimes their definition of "fair" is absurd. I've witnessed the AI stubbornly refusing to surrender a technology even though my troops had razed over half of its empire and were approaching its last cities. They're especially clingy about government- and wonder-technologies.
 
Yeah i think its funny when you destroy almost everything they have and then they refuse to give you a technology when you want peace. Ah, that one isn't as frustrating though, since you can just take out the rest of their empire.

I can't say mcuh about signing an alliance and then making peace, b/c i do that all the time :D. However, it is frustrating when you sign an alliance with the AI so you think you're buddies and then 2 turns later they sign an alliance with another enemy and they attack you. Not fun.

I also love it when they offer music theory and free artistry when the wonders have already been built.
 
Once you research Navigation and can trade maps, the AI constantly annoys you with offers of World Map for World Map and Steam Power. I've learned to reject all AI envoys but some envoys don't have an accept/reject option.
 
Hey, look now, the AI isn't ALWAYS unfair. ;)

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(this was offered by Mao and accepted by me)

:mischief:
 
I don't hate the AI. Having only 1 turn left of reserach on a tech doesn't count Elear. Nice try though... your shady tactics DO come in handy.
 
I had over fourty turns left on Fission. ;)
 
I've learned to get along with most of the AI peculiarities... but the alliance-then-immediate-peace-treaty thing is annoying I agree. Also, there is a period in the IA when they seem to like to dance cavalry and ironclads around your borders, making the IBT last way longer than it should. I think there is some way to turn off AI patrol, I know, but I'm not in the mood to mess with it.

I think the award for most annoying is when they finish a wonder and you are one turn off... :mad:
 
Elear said:
I had over fourty turns left on Fission.

If you studied it with a lone scientist you would have had 40 turns left on Fission. But, if you had studied it at max research, you would have had but a single turn left on it.
 
They want fair trades, although sometimes their definition of "fair" is absurd. I've witnessed the AI stubbornly refusing to surrender a technology even though my troops had razed over half of its empire and were approaching its last cities.

That's one of the failures human players make: to call this absurd behaviour of the AI. The opposite is the case. AI leaders know that they will be eliminated anyway, so the don't see the point to gift you a technology for that aggression. Very clever ;)
 
AI leader's don't 'KNOW' they will be eliminated. There's been plenty of discussion on this and the censensus seems to be most AI play to stop the #1 Civ from winning, whether its human or AI. And the #1 Civ, if its an AI, play to stay on top, so they become very aggressive especially if they know you're weak. (I found this out myself in the higher difficulty levels)

As for the thing that kicked off this thread, 1 to 1 luxury trades don't work beyond Warlord and below and it has nothing to do with the AI. The game was programmed with a trade penalty for the humans as a recognition that human players will be better at trading than computer players. This penalty gets higher and higher the higher difficulty level players choose and it starts at 110% (that is it cost human players 10% more to buy stuff from the AI)

Luxuries, techs ,workers all have a gold value attached to them. This is what makes the Civ3 model flexible, but the downside is indeed that anyone playing on moderately decent difficulty, say a level as low as regent, will find the AI will value 1 to 1 luxury trades differently, because to then, they're not getting 1 to 1 luxury, the trade model skews the trade to .8(if I remember correctly, Regent's trade penalty is 20%)

So yeah, it would be nice to have the AI treat lux trades different and see it as a Lux to Lux trade, but they don't. They take into account your empire size (how much happiness will be generated) as part of how they value the trade, but because the trade penalty is often very high on any level above Warlord, the human player would have to be trading to a large AI empire to see 1 to 1 trades happen.
 
For me the silliest thing is being on an island. The AI lands a small stack of troops and when questioned is polite. No option to leave or Declare war. Just have to wait until they attack. Its just silly. I wouldnt say I really hated the AI as such, except for maybe Portugal or America; they appear to have the weirdest behaviours.
 
The worst is when they are stranded on an island. I once tryed to invade rome that was stranded on an island and very backward. I forgot to send riflemen with the stack, and found my cavalry fighting 20 legions, 10 MI, and 15 knights. no transport ships whatsoever
 
The worst is when they are stranded on an island. I once tryed to invade rome that was stranded on an island and very backward. I forgot to send riflemen with the stack, and found my cavalry fighting 20 legions, 10 MI, and 15 knights. no transport ships whatsoever

What's bad about that?
 
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