Overkill - why the AI is so bad

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

I signed a ROP with the Zulu. Since then, I watch over 80 units move around my territory, hunting down the 1 or 2 barbarian Warriors that roam the Tundra to my south.
The AI has absolutely NO CLUE how many forces are sufficient to do a given job. It will throw all at one unti, then move then back the next turn - evn several turns.

STUPID!!!!!!!!!!


Is there anyone out there who has any ideas how this might be fixed easily????

 

[bobgote]

Is it really a problem? Sure it's not realistic, if it happened in reality it would be a huge waste of resources.

I guess you could use it as an exploit ie all the units out of cities and then attack. If this is your problem, it's understandable. You said it was the zulu, does it happen with others? it might be their aggresiveness that does it.

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

bobgote: it is a serious problem because it is so easy to exploit that i tend to do it without realizing.... I simply know they won't come for two different towns (which I ALWAYS do),.....

 

[bobgote]

yeah i get that.
but is this the first time you've noticed this? The zulu are set to be very aggressive, which may result in sending an overkill amount of units. If you can isolate the exact problem, it may be fixable.

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

any civ does it, it was just this game right now where it became that obvious - I hardly ever deaqlt our ROP, but now I tried being nice

 

[MSGT John Drew]

along the same lines...

From a recent game:

I already built a huge rail network taking units everywhere. I also had about 100 units (cavalry, infantry, artillery). But my inner cities were defended by only 1 or 2 units or some none at all. I had ROPs with the other 2 civs that are #2 and #3 on the power scale (i was #1) and they mostly had cavalry. When I declared war with Rome I brought those 2 into the fray and it really scared me when they started moving their cavalry units inside one end of my empire to pop out on the opposite end to make war with Rome. I mean "yeah, that's good. you can help me take them out since I'm in a democracy and if you can take them out faster then the better for me not to fall to anarchy" but it also really scared me that if even one of those ROP-allies I had were scheming to attack me they could have taken a dozen of my cities in 1 go.

So has any of you ever been ROP-raped before with your railroads?

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

Not really, the AIs send their troops through, but hardly ever enough to do serious harm if they sneak me. But i do make sure I am secure....

 

[Richard III]

They're just following the Powell Doctrine, that's all.


But seriously, it's not perfect, but is this AI relatively bad compared to where AIs are at? The only one I've ever seen that's any better was (ironically) SMAC. And that's it, pretty much.

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

R III

have you played AoE? That one was better at moving forces

still, completey different genre i have to admit...

 

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by bobgote
Is it really a problem? Sure it's not realistic, if it happened in reality it would be a huge waste of resources.

Wasting resources on foolish adventrues? That would never happen in real life!

 

[Gastric ReFlux]

[channel]

Must we again go over the idiocies of the brain-dead AI which is like playing an evil ******** person? It's obvious and been said many times, and the only way Firaxis could save it was by putting in non-historical nonsense like CF as well as unrealistic amounts of corruption and nonsensical combat values.

[/channel]

But it would be good if the AI had some concept of when something becomes overkill. I suspect it would also be very tricky to program, and in the end, turn out to be exploitable in some way by the human player.

In many things, the AI acts rather reasonably. Unfortunately, we humans excel at discovering absurdities where reason becomes unreasonable.

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

Wh can't the AI simply add up the units it wants do destroy, takijng D factor into account, then take four times as many units and that's it? They had 55 (!) knights going for 1 (!) fortified barbarian Warrior!!!!!!!

 

[DaDoo]

Perhaps some were on "patrol"

or getting free territorial map...

*shrug*

or they just don't know what they are doing

 

[Gastric ReFlux]

Originally posted by Lt. 'Killer' M.
Wh can't the AI simply add up the units it wants do destroy, takijng D factor into account, then take four times as many units and that's it? They had 55 (!) knights going for 1 (!) fortified barbarian Warrior!!!!!!!

Yes that could work but...

The human player could then use the code to create delays. Add a unit to where the AI is aiming to go, and the AI stops to add more units to its stack. Lather, rinse, repeat.

 

[GI Josh]

The problem with the AI, as with any intelligence that's not organic, is that it's entirely rule-based. And no matter how much you endlessly add rules, nuance rules, change rules, or make rules more complicated, there will always be situations where particular facts make a rule (which is in its very nature general) look absurd.

How do I know? I'm a lawyer and I see it every day . . .

 

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by GI Josh
How do I know? I'm a lawyer and I see it every day . . .

 

[Vorlin]

I'm thinking what we are seeing here is a universal 'invasion' AI response. And in many situations it is the best one the AI can use. During any Civ-vs-Civ conflict you generally have a new target close to where the old target you just beat was located (another city, a defending unit, something). So when the AI gang-rushes units to a hotspot it can usually count on finding some action for them nearby. If I'm reading this right and that's what the logic for doing that is, then the flaw is in not being able to see when this doesn't apply (such as in cases cited in the first post, where there are only 1-2 units that need killing). But it's hard to code judgement into an AI, so if you can't do that then the massive wave approach is probably the next best thing. Because it's definitely very bad when an AI sends in units in dribs and drabs, they just get defeated in detail that way. Lots of RTS AI's have this problem.

 

[Catt]

Originally posted by MSGT John Drew
So has any of you ever been ROP-raped before with your railroads?

I don't think the AI is capabale of RoP Rape - at least not as I see the term used by human players. I have come to define RoP Rape as using an RoP to set up numerous units for a multipronged attack on many targets simultaneously (as you allude to by saying "taking dozens of cities").

I have certainly had an AI opponent abuse our mutual RoP to attack an interior and lightly defended city; but in each instance, the AI uses the RoP (especially railroads) to move one unit to the interior, attack with that unit (thus breaking the RoP), and then having to attack conventionally from border positions.

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

Originally posted by GI Josh
The problem with the AI, as with any intelligence that's not organic, is that it's entirely rule-based. And no matter how much you endlessly add rules, nuance rules, change rules, or make rules more complicated, there will always be situations where particular facts make a rule (which is in its very nature general) look absurd.

How do I know? I'm a lawyer and I see it every day . . .

Sure, but why must it be obvious things..... a little more work on the Ai wouldn't have hurt hte game.....

 

[Cartouche Bee]

Originally posted by Catt


I have certainly had an AI opponent abuse our mutual RoP to attack an interior and lightly defended city; but in each instance, the AI uses the RoP (especially railroads) to move one unit to the interior, attack with that unit (thus breaking the RoP), and then having to attack conventionally from border positions.

Yes, they have done that single unit break ROP to me too but over on the AI forum the AI's complain about the human cheating and attacking multiple cites while they were on ROP. Their main beef is their programming does not allow them to do partial moves with units so than can get all their units in position and then break the ROP and then attack with all the units in position. This inability to ability to break each units moves into different steps causes great unwarranted security in SOD formations.