Settler Warfare?! (Combat AI)

[Becomedeath]

I'll post a screenie when I get home, but just wanted to throw this out there.

I had a quick bash at a Deity game yesterday, I don't usually go past King as I prefer the pace but had a day off so figured I'd give myself a challenge.

So here I am on a tiny map with 4 other Civs and as is typical I get Monty's legions of doom on my map (he's always there when you don't want him!)

Naturally, he declares war because of some odd cloud formation or whatever his excuse was and it begins.

Now the war starts as most do in Civ 5, he sends down a stream of units that my archers and city defences chomp through. Nothing major and there's a bit of a stalemate for a while.

As he won't agree to peace without me giving him pretty much everything I decide to give him a little incentive and show I'm not a pushover.

So I assemble a slightly larger Army and head off up to take one of his coastal cities. Lay siege to it after getting my units in place and have 3 Archers on little crop of hills.

Now, Monty isn't really fighting back, I get single units coming in and while disruptive, his tech is clearly higher than mine (I'm firing at musketmen with arrows...) so either he's not too concerned for just not trying.

Anyway, I get the city down to about half and then, out of now where, this Aztec settler appears nearby. Odd behaviour I thought, but I'm not letting myself get distracted.

The settler moves TOWARDS my army....erm...AI, hello? Anyone home?

Apparently they were completely at home.

Monty settles a city so it's bombard range crosses over my archers, enabling him to now city bombard my archers from two cities!! With a grin I call him a "clever sneaky b@$74rd" but as it happens I took the city as this move by him came a little too late.

Now is that thinking and planning, making the most of your resources or just some darn lucky city planning?

Has anyone else seen anything like this post patch? From where I was sat, that was a very creative move.

 

[Tavenier]

Personally I think it was a lucky move by him. He was afraid to lose his settler with the rest of his city so moved it out in hope it would go through your units ' undetected'.

I did sacrifice a settler of worker very seldom if my city is about to fall. When I know my city is doomed if I don't get an extra turn I sometimes move out my settler of worker so one of the enemy units attacks it and doesn't attack the city. That gives me one more turn sometimes for the cavalry to arrive!

 

[Arnold_T]

I used this tactic myself recently to defend against Barbs, but I doubt the AI would be programmed that way - it was just a lucky coincidence I think.

 

[Louis XXIV]

I'm going with luck, but that's pretty funny.

 

[AriochIV]

The AI does not appear to even consider protecting its civilian units, and I've seen them settle cities in the middle of a conflict they were losing (against a third party), but this is likely because the AI routine for settlement targets an action and carries it out, paying no attention to other factors or change in circumstances. The fact that this action happened to be useful is almost certainly pure chance.

 

[AmbientDarkness]

In my most recent game, Songhai prevented its demise by spamming settlers. As I was burning down cities with crossbows and longswords, they continued to send settlers into spots their previous cities (now burned down) had occupied, behind my army. By the time I was done with them, I had razed the city if Jenne three times and Tombuctou (sp?) twice. It seems that the AI does use settlers to help itself in war. They were completely unprotected though, so if I had paid more attention I could have had a few extra workers.

 

[CivOasis]

I once saw a CS build a settler (which remains unexplained), and then try to ATTACK a pikeman with it. The theory brought up int the C&C forum was that the combat AI was the only one it could apply to it.