Smart AI

[cgannon64]

Some new, smart things the AI has done to me in my current game:

- Went to war over a chokepoint. Twice. A very important chokepoint too, it was basically the Panama Canal of our island.
- Cut off my luxes.
- Went to cut off my iron (luckily I stopped them).
- Cut off all roads to a city with a Harbor on an island that gave me Horses. This was especially smart. I had a multiple-city island near my core that gave me Horses; it was my only source. I expected them to go for the Horses, so I defended it. Then, they intelligently went to the city that had the Harbor and cut off the roads to it. Cheating? Yes. But also smart.
- They set up an alliance against me. Yes, the AI is known to dogpile, but this was all Sumeria's doing, not the other AI's decisions. (This may not necessarily be new, but...).

The new AI is using all of my tricks agaisnt me...

 

[silver 2039]

on what level was this?

 

[The Last Conformist]

Originally posted by cgannon64
- Cut off all roads to a city with a Harbor on an island that gave me Horses. This was especially smart. I had a multiple-city island near my core that gave me Horses; it was my only source. I expected them to go for the Horses, so I defended it. Then, they intelligently went to the city that had the Harbor and cut off the roads to it. Cheating? Yes. But also smart.

Cheating? What is cheating about that?

 

[Juhahu]

Originally posted by The Last Conformist


Cheating? What is cheating about that?

Well, human players don't know which enemy city has harbor, so they can't do the same trick. AI "cheats" by seeing inside every town

Well, of course you could check all those towns with spies, but that would be quite expensive.

 

[Cuivienen]

Um... As long as you can see the city, you can see the little anchor that marks it as having a Harbor (or the sword for Barracks and plane for Airport).

 

[One Man Bucket]

Originally posted by Cuivienen
(or the sword for Barracks and plane for Airport).

You cannot see if an enemy city has a barracks or an airport without paying for looking into their city screens. You can only see the icon for a harbor on the outside. (The only other improvement visible from the outside of enemy cities is the citywall which show up around a city when it is build.)

 

[Bucephalus]

Originally posted by One Man Bucket


You cannot see if an enemy city has a barracks or an airport without paying for looking into their city screens. You can only see the icon for a harbor on the outside. (The only other improvement visible from the outside of enemy cities is the citywall which show up around a city when it is build.)

There is a new icon to show barracks in Conquests. Airports are - and always were - visable.

 

[Selous]

i have also seen the enemy fight over chokepoints .... i was impressed .. it was obvious that they were fighting for the chokepoint, because after it was taken the civ died in the next few turns (and he was quite large)

 

[Black Waltz]

Yes. But you cannot see enemy Civilisations barracks, harbours or airports in icon form.

But who says they didn't spy on the city?

 

[cgannon64]

OK, so its not cheating. But its still something smart and new.

 

[unscratchedfoot]

The AI is still outrageously weak. THe hardest part is getting the cities made and basic infrastructure built. If that can be accomlished then the AI just rolls over and waits to be put down. It seems the level Diety tries to handicap the human player as much as possible with lame stuff like one-way cultural conversions, corruption, instant tech trades between all AI's when a tech has been discovered by any AI civ, and instant building of units when AI cities are made. The game would be a lot better if instead of all that handicap BS, the effort had been put into making the AI smarter, not a cheater.

 

[JustBen]

Originally posted by unscratchedfoot
The game would be a lot better if instead of all that handicap BS, the effort had been put into making the AI smarter, not a cheater.

For a practical example of why this is a bad idea, please see Master of Orion 3. The initial release had no "handicap" settings, so no matter what level you played on, the computer was an absolute pushover and the game therefore sucked.

They didn't put any effort into making Deity, anyway. They made the AI as smart as they reasonably could and then said "Here's a handicap if you want it! Play on Regent if you don't!"

 

[Nexushyper]

Originally posted by Black Waltz

Yes. But you cannot see enemy Civilisations barracks, harbours or airports in icon form.

Yes you can. Go play a game C3C 1.12 and walk an unit up to an enemy city so that you can see teh city. If it has a barracks you will see a little white sword icon in a white box, if it has an airport you will see a little black airport icon in a white box, if it has a harbor you will see a little black anchor in a white box. These will appear below the city (slightly) and the barracks icon will appear to the right side near the botom of the city.

 

[Cimbri]

Heh, I never experienced any dangerous AI invasion until recently:


I played as Rome in a Punic Wars scenario I made myself on a modified version of Kal-El’s World Map.


After the initial, and bloody, clash with the Punic army in Sicily, the war went into a standstill and I began a siege of the Carthaginian city of Lilybaeum.

After nearly thirty turns with all quiet on the western front, I experienced a surprising, but also rather cool, Hanniballic-style invasion of northern Italy.

Carthage had allied with the Celts, and in the following turns a massive Celtic/Punic army ravaged Etruria. The sheer size of the Carthaginian army surprised me, and since they had only two cities in Iberia, and many of the units were ‘African Auxilla’ and ‘Numidian Horsemen’, I figured they had reinforced their Iberian army with troops from Africa.

At the same time a large Carthaginian army from Lilybaeum wiped out my pitiful army in Sicily, and a few turns later a Carthaginian fleet landed troops in southern Italy and besieged my even more pitiful garrison in Tarentum.

Back in jolly Northern Italy, the Celtic/Punic army didn’t bother attacking my Etruscan city, but marched straight to Rome, encircled the city and apparently kicked back and roasted marshmallows. They didn’t bother attacking any Italian cities at all, but in Sicily they furiously attacked my tiny ally of Syracuse.

Eventually I ousted the Carthaginians and Celts from my territory, but the invasion was quite a delightful scare.

 

[cgannon64]

My experience was very similar, Cimbri. The country I was fighting was at the top of the continent, with the Portugese in-between us. They sent a huge army of horses and Enkidus down just to grab this city. In fact I probably spent a few hundred years without this city. They seized it early and I didn't have the army to get it back. They started marching on my other cities and I quickly made peace. Then, while I was building up a Horse army to upgrade to Knights, they invaded again. I managed to hold off the very large army (I probably killed 30 or 40 Horses overall) using the amazingly great Swiss Mercenaries and my Horse army.

 

[Gogf]

Speaking from expierence, you can see if there is a harbor, and an airport, because they are trade installations. I have seen them. You cannot see barracks. Trust me, you can't. Ask a developer if you don't believe me.

 

[Pfeffersack]

@ Gogf

But there is an icon with crossed swords since conquests...if it doesn't show the presence of barrack, what it is good for?

 

[AceDragon]

"Smarter AI" but I wouldn't say Smart AI yet. Still no comparison to a human.

 

[Gogf]

@Pfeffersack: Yes, it is for barracks, but you can only see it in your own cities.

 

[robcheng]

Originally posted by AceDragon
"Smarter AI" but I wouldn't say Smart AI yet. Still no comparison to a human.

WHAT!?!?!?! They didn't develop true artificial intelligence that can pass the turing test and emulate human thought processes?!?!?! It's an outrage I tell you! We should all demand refunds and organize a boycott! Darn lazy developers...