Report Questionable Behavior

[Quagga]

Here's a screenshot of questionable behavior on the part of Hatshepsut. I just captured the nearby city from Washington. H is his vassal. Note the preponderance of MGs. One or two for stack protection I can believe, but this seems a bit much.

 

[uppi]

1/30 build, noble level:

I don't know what Mansa Musa was planning here, but it did net me a quadruple holy city:


He totally neglected expansion (I settled four cities, while he settled none) and just sat there researching religions, neglecting his military so that he wasn't able to put up much resistance when Napoleon and me came to "liberate" this super-holy city. Maybe he was trying to prepare for a cultural victory, but somebody should have told him that you need three cities for that...

 

[Blake]

1/30 build, noble level:

I don't know what Mansa Musa was planning here, but it did net me a quadruple holy city:


He totally neglected expansion (I settled four cities, while he settled none) and just sat there researching religions, neglecting his military so that he wasn't able to put up much resistance when Napoleon and me came to "liberate" this super-holy city. Maybe he was trying to prepare for a cultural victory, but somebody should have told him that you need three cities for that...

What you've never seen a human do that?

Something that memorable shouldn't be fixed .

I do however have no idea why he wouldn't expand since the settler training code has nothing to do with founding religions (he should be able to do both). It mighta been a string of funny dice rolls...
I am going to be a bit more forceful about making them expand from just a capital (assuming it's their original capital).

 

[Wodan]

I've seen a few of them start building semi-valuable wonders right off the bat, resulting in a similar situation. But that was before you de-emphasized wonders (with 1/29 I think it was).

Wodan

 

[Elandal]

I'm one turn from launching a space ship. Been watching the victory conditions screen, as Cathy has been working her culture quite well. She's only 40-50 turns from cultural victory.
Mansa, however, has a problem. Yes, Timbuktu will be the first city to reach legendary status. But he doesn't have more culturally superb cities. And he's running Culture4 strategy - which indicates he thinks he can win that way.. Now he got UN built, and I'm not sure if that's worth his troubles considering he's Cathy's vassall. Can vassall win diplomatic victory?

Save

 

[Mannu]

I'm seeing the same problem with the AI settling only a few cities when they could settle several more.

Wang Kon founded only 2 cities on this landmass. The year is 1589 AD. If I was stuck on it alone, I would have founded 5 more cities, I can dotmap them if need be. I enabled Chipotle cheat code to see if I could figure out what is going on. He appears to be pursuing the Peace strategy. The only thing I can say is it is not limited to him. Catherine founded only 2 cities as well. She shared a continent with me and Hatty who founded 4 cities. Perhaps it has something to do with the map type? I did shuffle and it appears that I ended up with an Archipelago game.



SAVE GAME:http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/62555/unsettled_land.CivWarlordsSave

 

[Nor Me]

I've seen this a few times recently. The AI seems to build a settler but it just sits there.

With 1/25, like Wodan, I've seen the AI build buildings or wonders and not expand for some time. They tend to have a settler but only 1 or 2 units and so not enough to escort it. As warriors and archers are a little cheaper than settlers, this doesn't seem like a good idea.

With the 1/30 build, I've seen the AI building research in a Capital with a settler sitting there! So they think they have enough units. I don't know if the escort is the problem or not.

 

[Elhoim]

Mehmed had his city under siege by my big praetorian stack, but sent two defenders (an axeman and a spearman) out to protect the already scorted settler.

Of course I took the city and then killed the scort and the settler.

 

[Blake]

I'm seeing the same problem with the AI settling only a few cities when they could settle several more.

Wang Kon founded only 2 cities on this landmass. The year is 1589 AD. If I was stuck on it alone, I would have founded 5 more cities, I can dotmap them if need be. I enabled Chipotle cheat code to see if I could figure out what is going on. He appears to be pursuing the Peace strategy. The only thing I can say is it is not limited to him. Catherine founded only 2 cities as well. She shared a continent with me and Hatty who founded 4 cities. Perhaps it has something to do with the map type? I did shuffle and it appears that I ended up with an Archipelago game.



SAVE GAME:http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/62555/unsettled_land.CivWarlordsSave

Thanks for the save!
It's obvious what is going on from looking at it, Wang Kon has loaded his settler onto a galley and is waiting to do something with it - but isn't doing anything with it. This appears to be because he wont load a garrison unit onto it.

There's some other flakiness with settling too - the AI seems to always prefer sending out settlers on boats over land settling targets - regardless of respective quality. This certainly explains some of the AI settling problems.

edit: I've fixed these issues, and more. The AI now must pass a sanity check before actually loading the settler onto a galley, it will also always be able to load a garrison unit onto the galley.

 

[Uncle_Joe]

1/30 Follow-up Report:

OK, I've played a few more games using 1/30 with my usual settings (Fractal, Normal size, 7 players, Epic, Custom Handicaps). Here are few more observations:

1) Finding your closest rival and knocking them out in the Classical Age seems to (still?) be the best way to go. Whether its a peaceful builder whom you can exploit and take over or a warmonger whom you dont want to let live long enough to become a problem, its still looking like a very viable way to go (dare I say 'optimal'?). Indeed the more military emphasis of the latest builds really encourage nipping nearby AIs in the bud so you dont have to risk attacks by hordes of units and/or an attendent arms race.

I dont know exactly what can be done unless the AIs have 'scouting' routines that can be enhanced to see when a neighbor is beginning to amass troops. Simply having the AIs build more troops early on isnt really an ideal solution IMO since in many cases its just slowing them down. But its also pretty obvious that they dont stand much chance if the player (or any neighbor for that matter) builds up 10-12 Axemen/Swordsmen and goes in to kill them. Early game mobility tends to be too low to allow for a 'zone' defense and its not practical to assume that any particular city (even the capital) should be able to withstand that.

Of course part of that is more of a 'Civ4 problem' than a 'Better AI problem'. This same thing happens time and again in MP games...if someone decides to 'axeman rush' and the other person isnt aware of it (and prepared for it), they are likely dead. Again, I dont know exactly what to do for the AIs except perhaps keep an eye on the military ratings of their neighbor? If it starts to spike, perhaps build a few more troops? Even that is an imperfect solution as it can encourage arms races even if a particular AI is not 'the target'.

2) Perhaps its just been my random samplings, but the AIs dont seem to be as proficient with amphibious invasions anymore. A few builds back it was launching some vicious attacks overseas. I havent seen one in any of my 1/30 games.

3) Many AIs seem very reluctant to adopt Free Religion. I believe that lack of 10% extra research across the board contributes to some of their late-game bog downs. Also the 'religious wars' that occur when AIs have perpetually bad relations due to different religions can continue for the entire game. If more AIs adopted Free Religion in Industrial, this might cut down on some AI hostility towards one another.

4) The AIs still seem to build too many farms. In my current game, I took Shaka's capital in Classical and he has Farms...lots of Farms around his capital. Yes, he can probably be using Slavery, but his GNP sucks and he is making little tech progress with no Cottages. I see the AIs (and my auto-workers sometimes) continue to build Farms even when Cottages would probably be better in the long run. Are the AIs capable of running a competent SE? If so, perhaps thats what they are attempting, but by and large I think the safer long-term play would be to build more Cottages than Farms.

Overall, I still think that 1/30 is the best build yet. I've has some close games and some not so close games. The ones that have been the easiest have been the ones where I kill my nearest neighbor ASAP and then develop in relative security and with 2 capitals to boost the econ. It can be rough going when first aquiring the early conquests, but it really pays off shortly thereafter. Hopefully some easy solution can be found to better balance the early game a bit between defense and expansion.

 

[Arlborn]

Overall, I still think that 1/30 is the best build yet. I've has some close games and some not so close games. The ones that have been the easiest have been the ones where I kill my nearest neighbor ASAP and then develop in relative security and with 2 capitals to boost the econ. It can be rough going when first aquiring the early conquests, but it really pays off shortly thereafter. Hopefully some easy solution can be found to better balance the early game a bit between defense and expansion.

But THAT is the best early strategy in CIV4(even if you are going to a peaceful game after) since it came out. Its completely a vanilla 'problem'. Maybe the team can see to that, but as you said it would be probably hard to 'fix' it..

 

[shadyforce]

That happened in my recent game, but I wasn't involved at all.

Noble, 1/30, Tiny, 12 civs, Fractal, Aggresive AI.

I started on a small island with Ragnar. I beelined to construction, invaded him with cats and secured my island and started teching in peace with no contact with anyone else whatsoever.

I then beelined to optics so I could go meet the rest who started on the big continent. Having gotten there, I discovered that Brennus had a few hundred more points than me and TWICE the score of the nearest AI civilisation. He was the most powerful, but even scarier was that his economy was thriving, he had the most culture, food, and highest GNP. He was a monster.

It was then that I realised that there were only 9 new civilisations. On further investigation, Brennus had a city called 'Madrid' nested within his empire and I concuded that he must have invaded and wiped Isabella off the map before I even discovered her.

So not only had he efficiently invaded and conquered someone. He consolidated his gains too. That's what I would expect if there had been a proficient human player on the other continent. So it seems that the classical early invasion is the best strategy, but the AI can do it too!

 

[Tiberias]

edit: I've fixed these issues, and more. The AI now must pass a sanity check before actually loading the settler onto a galley, it will also always be able to load a garrison unit onto the galley.

Take another look, I'm not sure that's the problem. I've seen the AI on the 30 Jan build have a Settler sitting in the capital city for a LONG time. I suspect the AI builds the Settler first, intending to build the garrison next, but hits a tech with a Wonder in the interim, switches over to the Wonder, and then doesn't build the garrison until after the Wonder is done. Wonder-happy leaders are building annoyingly large numbers of Wonders, but are building very few cities and easily getting knocked out.

By the way, the warmongers are on a tear with this build, I've seen Shaka and Genghis out of control, good job on the changes to warmongering for the AI.

 

[jray]

I LOVE the diversity of the AI personalities in the 1/30 build. Playing with default settings, I see some civs amassing huge armies and bullying others around, while other civs hole and up crank out religions and wonders.

I really don't know whether to complain about this, because I've been having the time of my life the last few games ... BUT, I think some of the civs are just plain doormats.

In my current game on Monarch (with the Better AI handicaps), I ended up on a continent with Ramesses and Roosevelt. They spent the BC years just sitting there pumping out wonders and building very few settlers or military units. I guess I can't blame them too much, since they're industrious, but they could have used a bit of moderation. I easily took all their cities before 0AD and won several holy shrines and wonders in the process, and I was even building quite a bit of infrastructure at the same time. I didn't even really have to do "rush attacks"... I just sent in my fogbusters and realized to my amazement that they were enough to take the capitals.

I managed to trap Ramesses on a peninsula and keep him to a single city. That's something I've noticed a lot... I think the AI can use a little training in how to avoid being blocked off, and how to block off opponents too. Sometimes they just expand into their backcountry.

Anyway, later I met Ragnar, and he threw the kitchen sink at me as soon as he got astronomy, even though he'd been trapped on a 3-city peninsula the whole game and had a much lower military rating than me. Now THAT was fun!

 

[jkp1187]

(small.tectonics.9 civs.normal speed.noble.1/30.Roosevelt/American)

Okay, my most recent game was an exciting thriller all the way to the end (or, to be precise, 2048AD). Really enjoyed playing it. The AI is doing a great job of keeping up in tech and in military building/warfighting. I found myself in a serious fight for control of the seas for the first time in a very long while -- I felt so threatened from sea attack that I even joined a Great General to a destroyer (which worked out very well.) I even had my a serious bid to seize control of the Incan lands defeated -- first time THAT's happened in a VERY long time. (France went to the rescue of its vassal and chopped my invasion force to pieces. Had to abandon Cuzco three turns after I took it.) And if it hadn't been for nukes, I would never have stopped Hannibal from launching the spaceships. (Ahh, nukes, the great equalizer....)

That said, I have a couple of critical observations. These certainly didn't make the game less enjoyable, but perhaps are areas that could be improved.


1.) I started on a continent shared with Stalin. I out expanded him two-to-one: when I had four cities, he had two. More importantly, there was no chokepoint or other way for me to block his expansion, he just didn't do it. He actually beelined for feudalism (he was on "Get Better Units) and had longbows when I was still playing with swords and axes. If he'd had a third city, I would have had serious trouble taking him down even with my elephants and cats.

2.) In the end game, after I built Manhattan Project, I noticed (via spies) that Hannibal was starting to build SDI in Utica. I quickly built some nukes and did a smash-and-grab attack on Carthage (which had the bulk of his army and something like 6 wonders.) Once I took Carthage, though,
he switched from building SDI to artillery. This was incredibly daft, since he had Mech Inf, since I only had a comparatively small force of SEALs/tanks (with one or two artly pieces,) and I was building a nuke every 4 turns in Washington. So I just did another smash and grab then mopped up his remaining two cities with my conventional forces. WHY did he stop building SDI??!? He was maybe 7 turns away from it when he switched, but since I was only building one nuke every four turns, he might have been able to complete it before I could get in position to take the SDI-producing city (which was inland, far away from the coast.)


3.) Hannibal didn't have oil, yet he could build Mech Inf. That just doesn't make sense. (Not a "Better AI" complaint!)

EDIT: I also used the air unit Explore option for the first time. It worked, but not as well as I'd hoped, since the air units were exploring areas that I wasn't interested in scouting. I eventually turned it off and manually ordered the air unit recons.

 

[jray]

I experienced a weird quirk in the 1/30 build (with handicaps). I'm not sure whether it's a bug, so I'm posting it here as "questionable behavior". I was at war with Ragnar. At the beginning of a turn, I got the trumpets announcing that Kublai Khan declared war on me. But the first thing I saw was a dialog from him asking me to change to Bureaucracy! I said "No", and then I was able to enter the trade screen with him and sign a Peace Treaty! Afterwards I saw a message that he had vassalized Ragnar... which explains why he declared war on me. But why was I able to end a war before it even started? Don't get me wrong, I've always WISHED I could bribe someone to change his mind about attacking me... but I have a feeling something fishy is going on here.

See attached save from the end of the previous turn, which uses the jrayUGH mod (empty mod will be fine, since it has savegame compatibility).

 

[Tiberias]

OK, saved games for questionable behavior attached below.

The first is illustrating the "slow expansion" and "sleepy Settler" tendencies some of the builder AIs are showing. Elizabeth has a Settler sitting around in her capital, that Settler will be there for another ten to twenty turns, far more than would be needed to build the garrison unit--I'm guessing she's working on a Wonder. Built the Settler, started on the garrison but then switched over to a Wonder, but that's just a guess. Also note that Qin Shi Huang has no expansion cities, and he won't build any for a LONG time (at least twenty or thirty turns.)

View attachment 2007 Jan 30 Build Camped Settler England.CivWarlordsSave

The second save shows some odd warmaking behavior. Shaka has a large stack of attack units, but no siege, and consequently they're just sitting there. I have no idea why there's no siege (maybe he doesn't have the tech?), but that stack hasn't gone anywhere and doesn't go anywhere. Also, note that Qin Shi Huang has some very lightly defended cities, a couple of coastal cities with only one defender (I'm seeing a lot of AI cities with only one defender.)

View attachment 2007 Jan 30 Build No Siege Stack Zulu.CivWarlordsSave

 

[Wodan]

1/30 build... the AI is still doing questionable city site behavior.

For example, Qin just created a city with 3 tiles of overlap with his capitol, and it also precludes working two dye tiles for the rest of the game. There is another site location he could have chosen that works both dyes and only has 1 overlap.

Both sites have coast access, both are non-hill (no hills anywhere around), neither have cultural pressure from other civs, both have fresh water, both work the only other resource tile (a rice).

I think that about covers it. Bottom line conclusion: either the algorithm could use some more tweaking, or else I'm missing something.

Wodan

 

[Quechua]

The AI was defending its capitol with a spearman, an archer, and a few axemen. I brought a force of axemen, horse archers, and chariots w/ flanking, intending to first weaken the spearman with my chariots (hopefully keeping some). I placed the mounted units behind my axemen.

Spoiler :

The AI moved the spearman out of the city to the tile right of the axemen, presumably to attack my mounted units. It also replaced the spearmen in the city with a swordsman with no defensive promotions, and used one of the axemen defenders to attack my stack. The spearman move especially seems bad since I was clearly (to a human) moving the mounted units next turn to attack, and now I can pick off spearman with axemen if I wish.

 

[Doomed_UK]

People have already mentioned this one, but I will echo it.

The AI builds too many defensive siege units and fails to use them.

I am playing a 4 human multiplayer where we all have 1 AI ally each, always war, no tech trading, hub map.

I have a stack of about 12 units parked outside an enemy AI city, which has almost 20 Hwacha and various other units in it. My stack could easily be wiped out, but the AI does nothing.
Mind you, listening to the moaning of the AI's human ally is worth this behaviour in amusment value

I will say that my AI ally is doing a stirling job of building a good defensive force in its vunerable cities, including those that could be attack by marine assault.