List of AI Stupidities

[B52]

I have never been able to figure out the whole diplomacy thing. In my games, I am by far the dominant nation in the game, and from the start I bend over backwards to be nice to my neighbor AI, who is hopelessly pathetic and backward. I shower him with gold and technology whenever he asks, and defend him against everyone else. And still, after a while, he will inevitably show up at my door and state that he "grows tired of this tiresome alliance," and starts demanding some unreasonable amount of money or something! If I politely refuse, he breaks the alliance, and I am back at square one.

It seems to me that, no matter how you treat the AIs, they always just end up hating you anyway. So, I usually say screw it and start carpet-bombing the whole lot of them.

It is so funny, though, to see this puny little AI civilization, with like 3 cities, and still throwing spears while I, their neighbor, have 511 military units including a large stealth air force, and they have the won-tons to tell me to get lost?! I laugh and then reduce them to one city, which I save like a zoo-display, of this formerly glorious AI civilization in its natural habitat...

 

[funxus]

Yeah, it's annoying, but when you grow strong they'll hate you out of principle. I think the only way you can stay at good terms with the AI is to be a weak civ, e.g. when you play OCC.

 

[CaptTuttle]

This may already be here, I read all 12 pages once but I don’t have good short term…what was I writing about????

Anyway the AI needs some Prozac.
Run into civ unit late in the game. Ask to meet with me, whom they worship.
Next screen Give us X or else, I say no! Next, Would you like to sign a peace treaty, they are friendly again? , However, I know better and say no. Last screen: Be glad you have the accursed UN around your finger or else we would teach you a lesson.
So in 4 screens we have we love you, we hate you, we love you, we hate you.
Maybe the AI needs time out in a corner, or maybe that was the problem in the first place???

 

[Marlos]

Originally posted by CaptTuttle
So in 4 screens we have we love you, we hate you, we love you, we hate you.

Sounds like some of my ex-girlfriends. And some were on Prozac, trust me.

 

[yoshi]

The fact that this forum is so large should be some indication that Sid and friends may have skipped a few steps in developing the game. Granted, many players play multi-player games but video games are traditionally designed to be a single-player experience. I must agree with all of you who say that the AI is Civ2's greatest flaw. I even started to make a simple FAQ file indicating what the AI will do under what circumstances (using the original Civ2, not CIV2:MGE. I did so purely for my own scenario-making purposes to save time in the testing process, but I came to find that there are SO MANY AI STUPIDITIES that the file has begun to take the form of a short novel! It should be noted though, that perhaps the Sid Crew simply underestimated the level of imagination of game-players. Also, considering the AI capabilities of most strategy games (including Civ3, as we are frequently reminded of in the CIVFANATICS homepage), Civ2 is still an Einstien in comparison.
NOTE TO CONTRIBUTERS TO THE AI STUPIDITIES FORUM: One should note that many of the oddities such as eternally hovering bombers, unsinkable triremes, endlessly wandering AI units, ect. are necessary default actions designed to prevent the AI from @!#*ing up to seriously.

 

[Thanakis]

I propose a game, it's to mimic the AI when he talks in diplomacy or when its brave warriors attack a city with a wall and a rifleman (looooooooooool)
Im waiting for replies ^^

 

[eyeball]

Not sure if this qualifies, but in one Civ 2 game, it was late in the game and I was trying to find enemy cities. I find a small island with a hut on it. I enter the hut, and get an advanced tribe. When the city appears, it is already size 4.

 

[Ace]

No. late in the game, advanced tribes are size 3 or 4 with two or three improvements too.

 

[Alex the Great]

I was playing as the Spanish on a world map. I was at war with the French. I had set up a line of fortresses in the Pyranesse with pikemen in all of them, occasionaly they would send a unit for slaughter. Then they send a huge army. All my pikemen are suddenly bribed when there were no diplomats !! The army marches in and is slaughtered outside my cities, but still that's not fair.

 

[Marlos]

Originally posted by Alex the Great
All my pikemen are suddenly bribed when there were no diplomats !!

Unless you are in Democracy, Alex, do not defend chokepoints with single units. You must send them out in pairs (preferably one defense unit and one attack unit), since a stack cannot be bribed.

Of course, the stack can also be simultaneously destroyed, so you must be careful!

 

[ElephantU]

Originally posted by CaptTuttle
So in 4 screens we have we love you, we hate you, we love you, we hate you.

Ever notice how the North Korea sounds a lot like the AI? I wonder if Kim Jong Il plays Civ?

Originally posted by eyeball
I enter the hut, and get an advanced tribe. When the city appears, it is already size 4.

There is a transition date, something like 1000AD, where that will start to happen. You get some Improvements in the city, too. I'll try to find the thread over at Apolyton.Net.

Originally posted by Alex the Great
All my pikemen are suddenly bribed when there were no diplomats!!

There has been some documenting of what is called the Contact Bribe; search for that term over at Apolyton.Net. It happens sometimes between AI military units and single human units. I have not heard of it happening to a string of units. Are you sure there were not Dips/Spys under the AI stacks? To prevent it, stack your units as Marlos says or switch to Democracy.

Originally posted by Marlos
Of course, the stack can also be simultaneously destroyed, so you must be careful!

He said he had fortresses, in which units can only be destroyed one at a time.

 

[TimTheEnchanter]

Originally posted by ElephantU
There is a transition date, something like 1000AD, where that will start to happen. You get some Improvements in the city, too. I'll try to find the thread over at Apolyton.Net.

Yep it's 1000AD. After that it ranges from 1-4 with improvements.

Here is Samson's exhastive Study of Hut Outcomes

 

[Civ2Addict]

I find it very dumb when you are destroying an AI civ and they send you message: 'We have decided to rid the world of your pathetic civilization!' or something like that..

 

[ben_weller1991]

Originally posted by someone else
A barbarian ship wants to land troops to attack my city. I put two settlers there to block the shoreline. That ship would have waited there forever. I finally moved and let them land so they could kill themselves by attacking my city.

Wasn't that action a waste of population

 

[mardukes]

As in a waste of barbarian population?

 

[TimTheEnchanter]

Originally posted by ben_weller1991
Originally posted by someone else
A barbarian ship wants to land troops to attack my city. I put two settlers there to block the shoreline. That ship would have waited there forever. I finally moved and let them land so they could kill themselves by attacking my city.

Wasn't that action a waste of population

If you didn't replace those settlers with some other units as soon as possible so the settlers could go do work or found cities, well that would have been wasteful!

 

[ben_weller1991]

orogonally posted by the enchanter
If you didn't replace those settlers with some other units as soon as possible so the settlers could go do work or found cities, well that would have been wasteful!

Glad someone agrees!

 

[extar]

Oh this is my favourite!
As far as I know, it is entirely possible to win the game with nukes, without knowing where America is, or respectively any other continent with no civs on!
I just love the scenario where say in 1975 or whatever, you finally conclusively crush those bloody babylonians who were residing in North America with your huge army of tanks and marines with stealth bomber support! Right the world is mine! But no! Look who's popped up over in italy? The Japanese! Right, shouldn't take long. Go over to Kyoto with my armour-plated death army. Inform them of their impending doom, shortly after I tell them how to make a wheel. They send out two guys with spears against my stealth-death-army. Right. Realism! After this, I have some spare nukes, nuke kyoto a few times, then steam roll the remaining Granary with my tanks. Now I am the undisputed leader of the world! All shall bow before my- What? South America? Where's that? Zulus? Who? Come on, it's alread 1989, better blow 'em up quick! Anything to worry about? Oh, annother spears and horses job? Hmmm, send the stealths. Right, let's conquer the world for real this time!
I mean, how the hell do all these guys in the Middle East get their guns now? Has Saddam Hussain researched gunpowder? Has he built the manhattan project for all these supposed weapons of mass destruction of his? If only the world was as logical and sensible as Civ 2!

 

[extar]

Oh yeah, how about this classic conversation:
"Hello, we are the invincible Vikings, we laugh at you pitiful Indians."
"Right, would you like to sign a peace treaty affirming our eternal friendship?"
"Oh okay then!"
"Right don't worry about those Legions assembling outside your capital, we're friends now after all!"
"Hey!

 

[extar]

It's 100bc, I am the Celts, I have dominion over most of Europe and Central Asia, my new army of musketeers is marching off to Africa to blow up the American's who are still playing around with swords and stuff! Heh! Swords, that is sooo last century, get with the times, gunpowder is all the rage now!