Report Questionable Behavior

[Wodan]

Some more general feedback... probably for the next major release (not 1.0).

The AI is still way to easy to sucker. Set up a defending stack in your most vulnerable city, or in a forest/hill/fort if possible. Let them fortify for 5 turns. Declare war.

The AI will dink around for 3-4 turns, and then send in a stack. It literally does not matter how bad the odds are. When the smoke clears, all the AI's non-garrison units will be gone.

I just set up about 8 riflemen and saw Qin suicide a mix of over 50 units, including about 20 knights, 15 maces, and the rest cats and oddball old units. Not a single rifle died.

It's part of the game to occasionally be in a "non fighting" war. A war where it simply isn't wise to fight. Eventually you declare peace and everyone goes on. The AI should realize this too.

Sending knights and maces against fortified rifles? Sheer suicide.

Wodan

 

[shadyforce]

20 Knights and 10 Cats should take a city with only 8 riflemen defending it. What went wrong? Did he not siege the city properly?

 

[Blake]

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.

Wodan

Huh??? The AI should almost never place a city which will preclude tiles from being worked, it's SEVERELY penalized for doing so unless it's literally impossible to place a valid city which blocks fewer resources. I'd need a screenshot of this because the code to prevent resource-deadlocking is mega-reliable (it can't make a mistake and has on occasion pointed out better city sites to me...)


Btw the next version the defensive siege should be used to far greater effect...

 

[Wodan]

20 Knights and 10 Cats should take a city with only 8 riflemen defending it. What went wrong? Did he not siege the city properly?

Knights are base ~10 vs fortified Rifles at base ~30. That's what went wrong.

Other points, in addition:
-- He didn't attack with ALL the cats first, to inflict collateral damage. He mixed up the unit attack order.
-- He also didn't attack all in the same turn. He did about 30 units (leaving 20, about half of which were damaged knights or cats due to retreating). Next turn, he threw the rest of his good money after the bad.

Wodan

 

[Wodan]

Huh??? The AI should almost never place a city which will preclude tiles from being worked, it's SEVERELY penalized for doing so unless it's literally impossible to place a valid city which blocks fewer resources. I'd need a screenshot of this because the code to prevent resource-deadlocking is mega-reliable (it can't make a mistake and has on occasion pointed out better city sites to me...)

I'll see if I can find the save or recreate the situation.

Btw the next version the defensive siege should be used to far greater effect...

kewl.

Wodan

 

[Roland Johansen]

Questionable behaviour: the AI builds too many spearman for city attack duties.

I've seen the AI attack with stacks with 6 spearmen, 2 axemen and 1 swordsman. I saw the same behaviour when I was continuing my game today and I thought I'd report it. I do have some horse based units (chariots), but not that many, so there's no reason to build that many spearmen. Below are two screenshots where you can see the relatively large amount of spearmen. Both screenshots are from the same year but a different empire (both stacks are there to kill me). I've seen worse than this, but I'd say that even in these stacks, there are too many spearmen.

My guess is that the AI views the spearman as a better city attack unit. Both units can get city attack upgrades. One has strength 4 and a 100% bonus against a specific unit and the other strength 5 and a 50% bonus against a specific unit. The AI probably doesn't look any further. However, the 100% bonus is against units that rarely defend cities because these units (mounted units) don't get defensive bonusses.

So maybe you could code something that when buiding units for city attack purposes that a specific bonus against units that don't get defensive bonusses is not considered valuable. So the 100% bonus against mounted units from the spearman is not considered interesting for city attack purposes because it is a bonus against units that don't get defensive bonusses.

Of course, spearmen are still needed as stack defence units.

Maybe the AI builds that many spearmen for a different reason. I'm just guessing here.

Spearmen for city attack 1.JPG
Spearmen for city attack 2.JPG

 

[Wodan]

Huh??? The AI should almost never place a city which will preclude tiles from being worked, it's SEVERELY penalized for doing so unless it's literally impossible to place a valid city which blocks fewer resources. I'd need a screenshot of this because the code to prevent resource-deadlocking is mega-reliable (it can't make a mistake and has on occasion pointed out better city sites to me...)

I was wrong... there's a tile right in the middle where a city could be squeezed. It results in something like 14 tiles of overlap with all the cities around it.

Wodan

 

[Ralgar]

Slightly Offtopic:
That is 3 Swordsman, 10 Axeman, 12 Spearman... did you survive Roland?

 

[Roland Johansen]

Slightly Offtopic:
That is 3 Swordsman, 10 Axeman, 12 Spearman... did you survive Roland?

Yes, I'm still here. And my civilization is too..

I've been in wars since the the year 2000BC in that game. It's emperor level, aggressive AI, huge map and the AI is really agressive. I've been declared war upon for 12 or 13 times now, I'm starting to lose count. So I'm pretty well prepared for such stacks. The first stack in the first war was the hardest one to beat. I'm a bit unlucky that their religion doesn't seem to spread to me, so they don't like me as much as some of their neighbours of the same religion. It's 740AD and I'm well on my way to my fourth great general, just from defensive wars, crazy isn't it.

 

[jkp1187]

Questionable behaviour: the AI builds too many spearman for city attack duties.

I wonder if the problem here is that spearmen are one of those melee units that is eligible for the "City Raider" promotion? Maybe that's skewing the AI decisionmaking process? It sees a cheap unit that counts as a city raider, so when it's gearing up for a dagger it says: "Aha! Lots of spearmen! That's the key!"

FULL DISCLOSURE: I haven't seen AI excessively build spears in any of my games so far....

 

[Roland Johansen]

I wonder if the problem here is that spearmen are one of those melee units that is eligible for the "City Raider" promotion? Maybe that's skewing the AI decisionmaking process? It sees a cheap unit that counts as a city raider, so when it's gearing up for a dagger it says: "Aha! Lots of spearmen! That's the key!"

FULL DISCLOSURE: I haven't seen AI excessively build spears in any of my games so far....

Interesting. Have you been the target of ancient age attack stacks (before swordsmen)? In my game, the majority of the ancient age attack stacks is composed of spearmen. I must have killed about 60 or so spearmen by now and 30 axemen and 10 swordsmen (the lesser number of swordsmen can be explained by a lack of iron from my most aggressive opponent). With such high numbers, it can hardly be a coincidence.

Yes, I also think that the AI think the spearman is a good attack unit because it can get the city raider promotion. But that only explains half the story. The axeman is equally expensive and is build in less quantity. I also added a possible explaination to what I saw in the post where I posted the screenshots. But I must say that it is just guesswork.

 

[Uncle_Joe]

I have to admit that I haven't seen large stacks of Spearmen either. And usually when I do see AI Spearmen they are simply escorting other stacks (often retreating if the other units are killed off). Perhaps its has something to do with the Aggressive AI setting?

 

[Roland Johansen]

I have to admit that I haven't seen large stacks of Spearmen either. And usually when I do see AI Spearmen they are simply escorting other stacks (often retreating if the other units are killed off). Perhaps its has something to do with the Aggressive AI setting?

Have you been the target of ancient age attack stacks (before swordsmen)? I just want to make sure that we're talking about the same situation. The number of attacks with massive amounts of spearmen was just too large to be a coincidence. I mean, one attack with 6 spearmen and 2 axemen at the start of the game could be a coincidence, but it happened a dozen times and each and every time the majority of the attack stack would be spearmen. And the spearmen were not promoted to support the stack either. They mostly had city attack promotions.

Another hypothesis would be that he attacked with so many spearmen because I had scouted with chariots and those were the units that the AI saw. They were not the only units that I had of course.

 

[Arlborn]

I saw monty with a big stack of Pikeman ands siege units, with some maceman in the middle..I did the chipotle function and all pikeman were for city attack..I found it odd too.

But he only attacked me when he got granadiers..

 

[jkp1187]

Interesting. Have you been the target of ancient age attack stacks (before swordsmen)?

Yes. Stalin came after me with a mix of units. I don't think he had any spears. Then again, I did not have any mounted units available either.

Just curious -- what game speed are you using?

 

[Roland Johansen]

Yes. Stalin came after me with a mix of units. I don't think he had any spears. Then again, I did not have any mounted units available either.

Just curious -- what game speed are you using?

I'm playing at epic game speed (1.5 times as slow as normal).

Maybe the building of all of those city raider spearman was a reaction to seeing some of my chariots then. Still, not very smart. Chariots are not great city defenders.

 

[jkp1187]

I'm playing at epic game speed (1.5 times as slow as normal).

Maybe the building of all of those city raider spearman was a reaction to seeing some of my chariots then. Still, not very smart. Chariots are not great city defenders.

I almost always play on normal. I wonder if using the slower speeds has a tendency to exacerbate unit building strategies that aren't that apparent on normal speed. (I.e., more turns available, so more units get constructed, and a larger % are of a type that may not be appropriate for the situation.)

 

[Uncle_Joe]

I play Epic too and yep, I've been the target of a number of Classical attacks. Usually its Axemen, Horse Archers and a few Spears (or Swordsmen if they have Iron). I've also been Archer rushed by the Romans of all people.

The biggest variable is still the Aggressive AI vs non-Aggressive AI, although I dont know what that would trigger more Spearmen than Axemen.

As far as 'seeing your Chariots', does the AI really adapt like that? I have no idea how Civ4 AI is programmed but I would think its more scripts and probabilities than responses to what it 'sees' on the battlefield. It would be neat if it DOES adapt though.

 

[Roland Johansen]

I almost always play on normal. I wonder if using the slower speeds has a tendency to exacerbate unit building strategies that aren't that apparent on normal speed. (I.e., more turns available, so more units get constructed, and a larger % are of a type that may not be appropriate for the situation.)

You don't build more on epic speed. There are 1.5 times as many turns and everything costs 1.5 times as much. Movement stays the same though, so you can move your units a bit further. I can't see any relation with this and building more spearmen.

I play Epic too and yep, I've been the target of a number of Classical attacks. Usually its Axemen, Horse Archers and a few Spears (or Swordsmen if they have Iron). I've also been Archer rushed by the Romans of all people.

The biggest variable is still the Aggressive AI vs non-Aggressive AI, although I dont know what that would trigger more Spearmen than Axemen.

As far as 'seeing your Chariots', does the AI really adapt like that? I have no idea how Civ4 AI is programmed but I would think its more scripts and probabilities than responses to what it 'sees' on the battlefield. It would be neat if it DOES adapt though.

The aggressive AI is visible in the fact that I've had about 12-13 war declarations before 500AD. But I can't see a relation to building spearmen.

The AI could keep a list of the units that it has observed of you and 'react' to that. In this case, that would be very stupid because even if I had very many chariots (something that the AI may not conclude because of the few units that moved through his lands), then still a few other units could stop the spearmen from capturing my cities. Chariots (or horse based units in general) aren't good city defenders, so you don't need city raider spearmen to attack the cities and you do need city raider axemen and city raider swordsmen to defeat the other units.

 

[Quagga]

Spearmen in an attack stack can serve a useful force protection role. That being the case, they should be promoted with Combat not City Raider (leading to Formation). Also, more than two in a stack is not required.

This is similar to the behavior I saw, where an attacking stack had five or six machine guns. One or two is fine for force protection. The rest are nonsense.

I know all of the above is obvious. My point is that these units have a purpose in an attack stack. The AI just doesn't seem to know what that purpose is. It's probably just a matter of fine tuning the composition of attack stacks. Given the correct initial promotions, the AI probably will use the units more appropriately.