Never saw the AI do THAT before

[kendric]

I was playing on the new "real" ai setting(Aggressive AI). The tech level was right around infantry. Suddenly suverayanmana(spelling???) declares war on me and his 2 vassals join as well(thats now 3/5 ais declaring war on me at the same time). At first I see some token attack forces heading my way. But then.... out of the fog of war.. comes a stack of no less then 84 units!!!!!

HOLY COW!
I was totally overwhelmed.
This was on a standard size pangea map. The computer had his own piece of the pie, and then some portion of his vassals.

I was very impressed. Nevertheless I want to know how he could afford the upkeep on that many troops in foreign lands(2 coins per). Anyhow it was awesome to see the AI make that large an army and kill me with it. Hats off to the guy who did all those aggressive AI changes for BTS.

 

[MarkM]

I saw stacks > 35 units in WOTM10 (Warlords game), also with vassals mixed in, so the AI actually did do that before (that was a small map with way too many opponents, so you'd expect a smaller stacks given that there was only enough map room for each civ to have 1-4 cities).

 

[JFLNYC]

I had a game recently where Mehmed sent a stack which included 62 Cavalry. I couldn't even COUNT all the units arrayed against my poor city.

 

[winddbourne]

Actually if your playing a peace game and are good on the defensive you can whip the aggressive AI easier than the normal AI, it techs slower, supports tons of troops it doesn't "need" and generally is over specialized for dealing with a rush.

Of course I have the opposite problem with the normal AI, it still techs slower than me (but I'm playing below my level to play with AI changes) but keeps up relatively well so long as it's able to trade freely. If there is any real flaw in it the flaw is that neither AI is really equipt to handle limited or no tech trading so I have to play with them on for a "fair" fight.

Ideally I'd like to see both options used in a single game. So some AI's are rabid unit builders, and some tech faster.

The way it is now is almost cheap. If I'm not going for war it's easier to win on aggressive AI, keep stacks in my cities, build forts, and keep fast moving units and defenders in the forts. The minute someone invades my territory attack their stack with fast unit stacks from forts and cities, make peace soon. Similiarly a rush on normal AI is an easy way to get ahead quick.

These new AI's aren't Versatile. They don't stand alone well. Together however they would be a challenge. But I can't call either one "the New Real AI". I'd have to call it more the newest exploit. It's fun to win, and to play differently than I normally do to handle the different AI's, but . . . it's still kind of cheap and eventually I'll have to force myself to NOT play well against either AI, unless we get a patch with some new options.\

Am I the only one who's seen this as a flaw in the new game design?

 

[MisterBarca]

How do you know how many units that the AI stacks have?

I thought it only shows up to 20 or so units per stack?

 

[Xiahou Mao]

I was very impressed. Nevertheless I want to know how he could afford the upkeep on that many troops in foreign lands(2 coins per). Anyhow it was awesome to see the AI make that large an army and kill me with it. Hats off to the guy who did all those aggressive AI changes for BTS.

I believe Unit Support costs are 1 gold per 2 units over the 'free' limit, not 2 per 1. The actual Unit Cost has to be factored in as well, but it's still not quite as bad as 2 coins per troop even counting that. And by the late game, he should have enough Markets/Banks/etc. built that by running at 50-70% Research and the rest gold, he can make quite a profit.

The AI still doesn't quite pay the full Unit Cost/Support costs, but they get a lot less freebies than pre-BTS.

 

[Unthinking Pain]

How do you know how many units that the AI stacks have?

I thought it only shows up to 20 or so units per stack?

There will be a number next to the unit name indicating how many of that unit there are. I *think* it's in parenthesis? So you might see something like Longbowmen (8), etc.

 

[kendric]

I dunno about those unit costs. I seem to recall may times deleting a unit in enemy territory and my net money in the top left would go up 2 coins.

 

[Xiahou Mao]

And that could happen if said unit was the unit pushing both your Unit Cost and Unit Supply up by 1 each. If that was the case, though, then deleting a second unit immediately wouldn't reduce any maintenance, because both Unit Cost and Unit Supply are advanced on a 1 gold/2 units ratio beyond the free ones.

 

[MisterBarca]

There will be a number next to the unit name indicating how many of that unit there are. I *think* it's in parenthesis? So you might see something like Longbowmen (8), etc.

Ah, thanks. I remember seeing numbers inside parenthesis before. I used to wonder what they were, but what you said may have provided the explanation!

 

[kendric]

ahh maybe that was it
Thanks.

Btw this was his entire army, his vassals had their own stacks comming at me, but they were no where near as big.

 

[Bad Brett]

Actually if your playing a peace game and are good on the defensive you can whip the aggressive AI easier than the normal AI, it techs slower, supports tons of troops it doesn't "need" and generally is over specialized for dealing with a rush.

I don't agree. I got a great start on emperor, with lots of resources and rivers. I built a huge empire early on without cutting down on the tech slider.
I also managed to trap Byzantium so that they could expand. I've played this game long enough to know that it was just a question of time before he would attack me, so I went for feudalism and built tons of longbowmen. I also built the statue of zeus to scare them.

A few turns later, they attacked on of my best cities. With tons of defenders, it was no problem to defend it even against huge stacks. I noticed how his score went down as I slaughtered his troops, but that didn't stop him from keep attacking me. He wouldn't have been too hard to fight down. The only problem was that after like 100 turns of war, my citizens were so angry that I couldn't build any new weapons. I tried to give him techs and gold for peace, but he only wanted the damn city. His score kept going down, so I guess he had the same problem, but still he refused to make peace.

It shouldn't be like this. After his suicide runs, he would have no chance of ever winning the game. The only thing he did was to ruin my game. It's pretty absurd that the opponents demand your best cities to stop messing with you. No sober human player would wage war for 100 turns without capturing a single city.

The game would be a lot more fun if they decreased the war weariness for the defending civ, As it is right now, it's not possible to play a peaceful game on higher difficulty levels. And the oppontens should strive to win, not make suicide attacks just to mess with you.

 

[snarko]

Warweariness is already modified by culture ownership. If you fight in territory mostly under your/teammates/vassals/those you have open borders with's (don't ask me why!) culture you'll get reduced warweariness, assuming the other player/etc have any culture influence there. If they don't you get zero WW.

Sound to me like it's more a problem with the AI being unreasonable than with warweariness.

 

[Lord_Azazel]

Suddenly suverayanmana(spelling???) declares war

I think from now on it's spelled Superman

 

[Dan Quale]

Once I get a good economy, I can support, over 100 offensive troops by the rennaisance, that is with cottaging at least, The SE got me great things in warlords, but I've mostly abandoned it in favor of mass income centers, while running 1 main and sometimes a secondary gp farm. My modern ages with a strong economy, you can finance absolutely any number of troops. Ive had stacks, containing litterally hundreds of units, and the AI will do the same occasionally. Shaka especially comes to mind. -70 percent maintenance costs in cities = a lot more free troops.

 

[kendric]

to Bad Brett:
You do not gain war weariness defending your cities I believe. There is a big write up of what generates war weariness. I was in a game 2 days ago where the computer attacked my friend(team game) and we never did anything but send more and more troops to the city. The war lasted a long time, and we never got any war weariness. There are certain war actions that are safe such as defending. You may also get no weariness for attacking in your culture and winning. I think mainly its loosing troops that generates it, and only either outside your city or outside your culture.

 

[Solomwi]

Last night, I actually saw an AI use what could properly be called an exploit in human hands. Justinian was at war with me, despite being on the other continent. I had submarines and destroyers creating a zone of visibility off my west coast, and wasn't too worried about anything. The fighting at that point was limited to a small flotilla of mine blockading his coast, awaiting my Navy SEALs to be built and shipped over. All of a sudden, I see a stack of 5-7 of Justinian's units march into my borders from a little spot of unclaimed desert on the west coast. No big deal, because they were outdated and I had cavalry close enough to wipe them out, but I was puzzled. I searched and searched to find out what ship he had that could have dropped them off without my ships spotting it. Then I went back to the turn before they appeared to see if I just overlooked his ships approaching. What I found made me chuckle.

He had open borders with Sitting Bull, to my south. The turn they appeared, he no longer had those borders open. Needless to say, that little desert patch was the closest unclaimed territory to Native America. It may well have been just a happy coincidence, and the teleportation didn't play any part in the OB cancellation, but I still like to think the AI intentionally teleported his units to my border.

The same game, I later found Wang Kon literally starving his cities and bankrupting himself to build up his EP against me and fund an all-out espionage assault against me. A couple were successful, but every turn I would catch a Korean spy or stumble across an unnamed spy or two. Korea has since been annexed. Although annoying, it was heartening to see the AI adopt a somewhat unorthodox approach like that.

 

[toft]

The AI is actually rather easy. When/if you annihilate that initial attack-squad, then they are left behind with a very poor defence. Thats my observation anyway. And also rather weird that they dont spread out, instead of having 50+ units in one stack of doom...

 

[Recidivist]

Hehe, talk about big stacks

early 1800. BTS, Prince, Huge random map. Just now Carths declared war on me, with their 2 vassals. They were using Cavalry with some rifleman and trebs. I mostly had infantry and machine guns.

Since one of my city was right in the choke point, nicely stationed on a hill. i made sure it had 30+ defenders. I clicked turn, then checked my clock and realized i'd have to go to a meet in exactly 30 minutes. 35 minutes later they were still attacking that city. They couldnt take it.

 

[Recidivist]

check that, early 1900s