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[jkp1187]

I would hazard to guess that this would also happen with any two move unit when dealing with fogged terrain. Such as pillaging horse units. They move two and get whomped by your pike. Or, they move one, see the pike, and then run away.

Wodan

Which is another reason why I'm skeptical of making the change -- at least, not at this juncture. If the AI is designed to function this way, I'm inclined to let that process stand for now. (At least, not for the 1.0 build). Goes under the "ain't broke/don't fix it" heading.

(Look at me! Talking as though I'm the one who has to do the work on this project! )

 

[Roland Johansen]

I would hazard to guess that this would also happen with any two move unit when dealing with fogged terrain. Such as pillaging horse units. They move two and get whomped by your pike. Or, they move one, see the pike, and then run away.

Wodan

That would be a similar issue and even worse. It would be extremely stupid if they would just attack a pikeman with a knight just because they didn't take the time to look. Such a thing has never happened to me before since playing civ (and that is since civ1).

That would surely not be an acceptable error from the AI. However, I must say that I haven't seen this type of crazy 2 move attack behaviour from the AI, so maybe they don't do this.

 

[jkp1187]

That would be a similar issue and even worse. It would be extremely stupid if they would just attack a pikeman with a knight just because they didn't take the time to look. Such a thing has never happened to me before since playing civ (and that is since civ1).

That would surely not be an acceptable error from the AI. However, I must say that I haven't seen this type of crazy 2 move attack behaviour from the AI, so maybe they don't do this.

Oh -- I thought he meant that they move two, end up next to your pike, then get whomped when you attack the next turn. (Which is, sometimes, an acceptable loss, especially if you are scouting....)

 

[Roland Johansen]

Oh -- I thought he meant that they move two, end up next to your pike, then get whomped when you attack the next turn. (Which is, sometimes, an acceptable loss, especially if you are scouting....)

In that case, the knight probably couldn't have seen the pikeman after 1 move and I don't see how stopping and looking again could have helped the knight. If the knight can see the pikeman after 1 move (standing on a hill for instance), then I don't think it should move next to the pikeman.

 

[Wodan]

Yes, that's what I meant... move two, and then you attack with the pike on your turn.

As for the "haven't seen this type of crazy 2 move"... what about the old move-onto-a-hidden-sub-and-cause-declaration-of-war?

Wodan

 

[Roland Johansen]

Yes, that's what I meant... move two, and then you attack with the pike on your turn.

As for the "haven't seen this type of crazy 2 move"... what about the old move-onto-a-hidden-sub-and-cause-declaration-of-war?

Wodan

Yes, that was an ugly bug in civ3. The human player would get a warning that the move would cause a war, but the AI would just attack completely oblivious to the fact that the move would declare a war. It's slightly different again as what you were describing above.

It could surely be true that the AI will just attack the pikeman with the knight. But it is also clear that this is not a good AI decision and thus should be avoided if the betterAI team can program the AI better.

 

[bolt144]

Tried 1/30 MP game and got an OOS early on. Neither computer had a file called MPLog.txt that Blake mentioned, even though we turned on logging in the INI that was recommended. The game and all files in the log folder from each of the 2 PC's are attached.

 

[phlucas]

Basically what happened here is that the AI decided where to move before he saw the hut.

It is pretty easy to change it so that explore units only move one plot at a time, but that will slow down the turn times more, as scouts will make twice as many decisions.

Anyone have any thoughts? Is it alright for the AI to make some 'mistakes' or should it act perfect every time?

This seems like a good non-quantitative difference of bahaviour for the various difficulty levels: Let the higher AI levels play smarter by thinking more (or more often, as in this case).

 

[jray]

1-30 asserts build, Monarch level.

Maybe this particular goof is due to the AI's inability to recognize UU's. But anyway, I had 2 Immortals parked at Berlin's doorstep after doing some pillaging. Suddenly a Settler from Germany's only other city shows up one tile away from my Immortals, on a flat plains tile, escorted by a single archer! Needless to say I won easily with > 99% odds.

Just for kicks, I left a scout to guard the captured worker to see if Berlin's LONE DEFENDER, a Garrison I archer, would seek vengeance. (Frederick had been sending his other defenders, of which there were as many as 3, who-knows-where every time I would go pillage something and lose sight of Berlin for a turn.)

Lo and behold, the Garrison I archer DOES attack the scout on the next turn, and of course is plucked easily by one of my Immortals. I don't know why he did that, since the AI doesn't get to keep captured workers. Now Berlin is left with a newly popped, unpromoted archer with no fortify bonus. It's not even on a hill, although it is on the other side of a stream from my Immortals.

FYI, Frederick had spent the first 100 turns or so founding Judaism and building the Temple of Artemis in Berlin. His only other city was in a really poor location. He should have known better with Alexander next door (who is the AI who brought me into the war in the first place).

Kudos to Alexander though for waging a very organized war! He ended up unlucky though. I decided not to risk my injured Immortals on Berlin, and Alexander showed up a few turns later with a Stack of Doom. After he battered down the new wave of Berlin's defending archers (obtained I assume thru slavery), I just picked off the last two injured ones and got Berlin for myself.

Incidentally, I suppose that's a much more advanced issue to address, but I have noticed that the AI can sometimes make the dumb mistake of leaving a big prize to an ally like that.

I'll try to get you some screenshots and savegames soon. I saved every turn during this bizarreness.

 

[JMaltman]

1-30 asserts build:

I was Russia, prince level, in a long term war with my only direct neighbour - Ramses. While I surrounded his capital with axes, and he had another city SW, another W, and another SE - but I was sitting on his only metal... whenever I left a gap he'd send out a settler with a couple of units (archer/archer or archer/warrior) to the north toward me, which I'd kill off within a turn or two. Happened 2 or 3 times. Not the best prioritization, if you ask me.

I also had Toku declare war on me from the other continent when I'm pretty sure he only had caravels. Then Izzy vassalized him, and later sent her first galleons to attack me, just as my first Cossacks rode up to slaughter her attackers.

Other than those slight oddities, its been a great game - I finally stomped Ramses after a while, but my new southern neighbour is Roosevelt and he has Mansa as a vassal, and he's doing really really well - and starting the naval assault on Brennus on the other continent. I'm curious to see how that goes - and whether Izzy comes up with any better ways to come at me navally in the future. I'm thinking I'll probably have to try for a space race - using my UU to help it go quickly... because militarily I don't think I can ever rival Roosevelt with Mansa as his in-house tech-whore.

 

[jray]

1-30 asserts build, Monarch level.

Maybe this particular goof is due to the AI's inability to recognize UU's. But anyway, I had 2 Immortals parked at Berlin's doorstep after doing some pillaging. Suddenly a Settler from Germany's only other city shows up one tile away from my Immortals, on a flat plains tile, escorted by a single archer! Needless to say I won easily with > 99% odds.

Just for kicks, I left a scout to guard the captured worker to see if Berlin's LONE DEFENDER, a Garrison I archer, would seek vengeance. (Frederick had been sending his other defenders, of which there were as many as 3, who-knows-where every time I would go pillage something and lose sight of Berlin for a turn.)

Lo and behold, the Garrison I archer DOES attack the scout on the next turn, and of course is plucked easily by one of my Immortals. I don't know why he did that, since the AI doesn't get to keep captured workers. Now Berlin is left with a newly popped, unpromoted archer with no fortify bonus. It's not even on a hill, although it is on the other side of a stream from my Immortals.

FYI, Frederick had spent the first 100 turns or so founding Judaism and building the Temple of Artemis in Berlin. His only other city was in a really poor location. He should have known better with Alexander next door (who is the AI who brought me into the war in the first place).

Kudos to Alexander though for waging a very organized war! He ended up unlucky though. I decided not to risk my injured Immortals on Berlin, and Alexander showed up a few turns later with a Stack of Doom. After he battered down the new wave of Berlin's defending archers (obtained I assume thru slavery), I just picked off the last two injured ones and got Berlin for myself.

Incidentally, I suppose that's a much more advanced issue to address, but I have noticed that the AI can sometimes make the dumb mistake of leaving a big prize to an ally like that.

I'll try to get you some screenshots and savegames soon. I saved every turn during this bizarreness.

Okay, here's a packet of 7 savegame files for you that I think tells as much of the story as possible in 600kb. Let me know if you want more... I have 164 saves encompassing almost every turn.

You'll need to make an empty mod called "jrayUGH" for this to work (or, you can download jrayUGH from the link in my sig). It's unaltered gameplay, and I expect the savegame compatiblity will be fine.

EDIT: I was using the Better AI Handicaps, in case that's relevant.

 

[shadyforce]

As far as I know, if you set a unit on go to about say 4 or 5 squares away, but on the third move it encounters an unfriendly unit (barb or war enemy), then the automated movement is cancelled. I assume that's the same for AI moving? So this really only applies to huts. And vote to keep it as is. It's not that big a deal, and it's a fairly human mistake, which isn't always a bad way for the AI to be.

 

[cf_nz]

A random observation from my current game based on revision 336.

The run away tech leader (Incans) failed to pick up liberalism despite getting to education way before me. A free tech is to good to pass up.

 

[Quagga]

Strange behavior noted with 01-30 build: Neighbors with Open Borders park units in my territory.

I had a couple Alexander units just sitting in one of my border tiles for many, many turns. In fact, one unit was upgraded or exchanged for a maceman, so it doesn't seem accidental. Then I noticed that one of my other neighbors (Saladin, I think) started doing the same thing (this time a warrior). Just sits there on one of my border tiles.

 

[Bursk]

Using the Jan 30th build, I think the unit spam situation is much improved, but it seems that one or two civs don't seem to want to build defenders at all. I started a new game as one of those Khan bastards and had Hannibal next door to me.

Even after I'd built 6 horse-thingy UUs, he still had just a single archer in each of his 4 cities. He didn't have access to copper or iron, but had had horses for a while but didn't build a chariot or his own UU. I dispatched him with ease, since he didn't seem to perceive me as a threat. Could the fact that we both had the same religion have been a factor?

 

[Iustus]

Strange behavior noted with 01-30 build: Neighbors with Open Borders park units in my territory.

I had a couple Alexander units just sitting in one of my border tiles for many, many turns. In fact, one unit was upgraded or exchanged for a maceman, so it doesn't seem accidental. Then I noticed that one of my other neighbors (Saladin, I think) started doing the same thing (this time a warrior). Just sits there on one of my border tiles.

This is their fogbusting behavior. They prefer to fogbust unowned territory, but they will still fogbust their borders with other civs if they have no nearby unowned territory.

I would be curious to hear more feedback about the AI fogbusting. Either on land or at sea (or by air).

-Iustus

 

[kettyo]

1-30 asserts build, Monarch level.

Maybe this particular goof is due to the AI's inability to recognize UU's. But anyway, I had 2 Immortals parked at Berlin's doorstep after doing some pillaging. Suddenly a Settler from Germany's only other city shows up one tile away from my Immortals, on a flat plains tile, escorted by a single archer! Needless to say I won easily with > 99% odds.

Just for kicks, I left a scout to guard the captured worker to see if Berlin's LONE DEFENDER, a Garrison I archer, would seek vengeance. (Frederick had been sending his other defenders, of which there were as many as 3, who-knows-where every time I would go pillage something and lose sight of Berlin for a turn.)

Lo and behold, the Garrison I archer DOES attack the scout on the next turn, and of course is plucked easily by one of my Immortals. I don't know why he did that, since the AI doesn't get to keep captured workers. Now Berlin is left with a newly popped, unpromoted archer with no fortify bonus. It's not even on a hill, although it is on the other side of a stream from my Immortals.

FYI, Frederick had spent the first 100 turns or so founding Judaism and building the Temple of Artemis in Berlin. His only other city was in a really poor location. He should have known better with Alexander next door (who is the AI who brought me into the war in the first place).

Kudos to Alexander though for waging a very organized war! He ended up unlucky though. I decided not to risk my injured Immortals on Berlin, and Alexander showed up a few turns later with a Stack of Doom. After he battered down the new wave of Berlin's defending archers (obtained I assume thru slavery), I just picked off the last two injured ones and got Berlin for myself.

Incidentally, I suppose that's a much more advanced issue to address, but I have noticed that the AI can sometimes make the dumb mistake of leaving a big prize to an ally like that.

I'll try to get you some screenshots and savegames soon. I saved every turn during this bizarreness.

Maybe the AI had a good chance to take that city on that turn that's why it attacked. You say all the archers was damaged so this might have been the case just the dice didn't favor him.
This is a hard case.
In a mixed ally attack on an enemy city everyone should attack they can't wait for each other if neither one has superiority otherwise the city won't be taken by anyone of them.
This anomaly could only be solved by simultaneous movement (not possible) or a mechanism where all the attacks on the city are logged and when it falls then it randomly goes to one of the allies weighted by their attack intensity on the city (maybe possible).

Antipillaging anomaly could be corrected easier.
The defender should check whether it has an antipillager unit in city or in attack range with the same or less experience than a rushed new one.
In this case it should use the existing one and rush a new one. When there are more units of similar kind then use the one with the smallest fortify value.
When all units are more experienced then rush an anipillager and throw it at the pillaging unit next turn.

 

[kettyo]

Using the Jan 30th build, I think the unit spam situation is much improved, but it seems that one or two civs don't seem to want to build defenders at all. I started a new game as one of those Khan bastards and had Hannibal next door to me.

Even after I'd built 6 horse-thingy UUs, he still had just a single archer in each of his 4 cities. He didn't have access to copper or iron, but had had horses for a while but didn't build a chariot or his own UU. I dispatched him with ease, since he didn't seem to perceive me as a threat. Could the fact that we both had the same religion have been a factor?

Maybe human players should be considered a high threat always

 

[Tiberias]

Jan 30 build, noting some underdefended cities. Relatively early in the game, only one Archer, which I've never seen before, the AI almost always puts out at least two as soon as possible. Also, AI failed to "whip" an Archer when a large city came under attack.

I realize that's vague and I don't have a save file, I'll work on getting a save where this is happening.

 

[Wodan]

Also, AI failed to "whip" an Archer when a large city came under attack.

Maybe he wasn't running Slavery and wasn't Spiritual.

Wodan