Sneaky A.I.

[ngin]

ok ill just admit it...i got my ass handed to me by the a.i. on emperor setting.
thats not that surprising maybe since its my 3d game or so but the way the a.i. got me was pretty cool.

i was japanese and romans where my neighbours...in the beginning i didnt have that much military units, so when to romans demanded a 200 gold tribute i tought id better give it to them..so i pay em 200 and the next round they attack me!...sneaky basterd!

so i manage to fight him of and meanwhile build up an army and when i finnaly defeat his army in my borders and have some backup military, he ask for peace.

so the game goes on and i focus much more on military this time (i invented samurai and upgraded my older units to em and cross/long bow man)..
all the while i keep my eye on the romans and they dont seem strong enough to attack me...then the the aztecs declare war on me (i had some troubles with them but thats another story)..they now got a HUGE army of musketiers and they start attcking my capitol...my brave samurais hold of the army pretty well..even the gunpowder units..but slowly they get wiped away by sheer enemy numbers.

so im thinking about reinforcing my capitol with troops from other cities when all of a sudden these sneaky romasn see their oportunity and attck me on another front!..it was like the roman a.i. was just waiting for this.

from then on its a sad story of samurai,s trying to defend their home country..but cant keep up with the more avanced gunpowder opponents..

 

[Silica_Pathways]

Are u playing with agressive AI enabled ?

 

[zeeter]

Wow! Cool story. I haven't had anything like that happen yet; usually I take my neighbors out early on so that I have the continent to myself. Doesn't help my diplomacy, but then I can spend centuries building culture and infrastructure without worrying too much about military.

But it's cool that the AI is smart enough to do that to you. I've found that the AI is VERY good in this game. They send fleets out rather than just harmless destroyers and such. They use their units in conjunction with each other. They exploit any advantages they see over you. Best of all, they don't necessarily attack you because you're the Player, as they seemed to do in other civs.

 

[Cironir]

I am in the middle of a game where I have been constantly attacked by a never-ending number of barbarians (in the early game). When I was worn down by the constant attacks, but finally had a bit of breathing space, Rome snuck up on me and attacked from two different sides. Haven't had nearly as much barbarian acticvity in my other Civ4 games so far,

 

[diet_punk_rock]

could u specify what level you were playing? thank you

 

[Vraslosken]

In my only game, i only had ONE war, and it was between two AIs and lasted ONE turn. I paid them to stop I'm a peaceful guy.

 

[ngin]

i was playing the game on emperor (its called that right?...the one after monarch...so not the tougest setting..not the second but the tirth most difficult setting.

and also agressive A.I. was disabled..and the personalities of the a.i was standart (not random)

it was especially cool since those 3 times were the only times i was attacked (by civs) in the whole game (took about3/4 hours on epic till i my empire got crushed in 1500ad)...so it seems the ai is really waiting for a good time to attack ...it also used the aproproriate units to attack my city (artillery) and it diverted some units from its main army to attack my surrounding improvements (i got those with my samurai(-

kk im of to play a new game..ill let you know how the rise&fall of my new civ went

 

[elderotter]

I'm still playing chieftain to get used to the game - and the barbarians can be a problem depending on the maps you use - Inland sea has a lot of them, and right now islands has a a bunch - captured 2 barb cities 1 an 8 pop and one a 9.
They had great infrastuctures a nd the resources were being harvested. I was more than happy to take over for them....Note: I am using aggressive - the reason I failed at warlord on my way up is this new combat method - once I get used to it I will work myself back up.

 

[Inflammatory]

I must also lift my hat off for the AI. In the game I play as the Arabs I had previously declared war on the Aztecs to lay claim on an area they managed to settle only two turns ahead of me (I'd done the dirty work and razed a barb city just to get to that site). I actually founded the city next to the ruins (because the AI wasn't quite as clever when picking his city site, going for a spot two tiles from the ocean which is a real no-no).

The population of the city I founded (on the coast) was actually 3% Aztec and 3% Barbarian, so the game remembered what cities had been around the same tiles earlier, which was really ultra cool (I had to go to the loo and...). What was even more stunningly ultra cool was Montezuma's course of action a good while later. I'd reinforced the border cities (the other one was a bit further up north and safely out of reach, or so I thought) and gone about my business without fearing the backward Aztecs particularly. I even neglected my army a bit and went for wonders and other buildings.

That's when Montezuma declared war and he actually went for his old baby instead of the closer cities. What actually really impressed an old kook like me locked in a Civ I-III frame of mind, though, was that he made a massive sea assault with three galleys and several military units plus a settler! All of a sudden I had three horse archers and an axeman standing safely in the woods outside a city I thought was well out of danger (and thusly only guarded by a single axeman). He didn't stand a chance and now I'm gonna have to try and retake the city, which actually might prove tricky because of the lack of quality units I have in the area. Nifty!

 

[Zhahz]

AIs do this to me even on noble. I've played standard continents and had everyone spread out on 2-3 land masses - and the games were largely peaceful. It's easy to expand and make allies and hard for the AIs to mess with you because water is a huge deterence to mass invasion.

I'm trying pangea now and it's a nonstop blood bath - AIs fighting frequently with each other and me. I screwed up (I was tired) and didn't get an early religion going and I've never got any AI above cautious - so I have no allies. Early on one AI (greeks) attacked me with authority (and I thought my defenses were good - and they were good enough to keep my cities but my lands suffered). Fortunately I'd just researched cossacks (wicked UU, IMO), had some gold, and was able to sell some tech for more gold, and I upgraded 3-4 units to cossacks to hold off the initial carnage while I built even more cossacks.

The greeks ripped my lands to shreds with pillaging but could do no more - then the persians attacked too, mostly at the same spot while also pillaging along my border. The persians hated the greeks and they'd just been at war a few turns before - so he wasn't helping a friend, he saw the weakness in my border defense and response to the greeks.

Eventually my cossacks saved me and I killed tons of the AIs units (hop out of city, kill a unit, hop back in city, repeat), getting lots of promotions. I also started building catapults for defense. So when they finally asked for peace their armies were destroyed - and I had a huge army with siege. And I held a grudge or two. Peace only lasts 10 turns, suckas!

So I built up some more, made both of them give me tribute, built up even more, and then I assimilated "greece" - and now only the perians border me and I have a massive army. My further revenge will be sweet - I'm pressing on while my cossacks are still the dominant unit.

The best part was that when I attacked greece the distant arabia joined in on their side and sent lots of pillagers to me from a distance that my reserve/defense units fed on for easy experience and promotions. Eventually they gave me a ton of gold for peace which was hilarious since I never attacked them once except to stop them from pillaging.

My previous pangea game (different kind of map - very little land) was bloody too - I lost it so fast it was ridiculous. I played as Japan thinking I'd be a great conquerer, and I was rolling along building up a nice infrastructure, building wonders, and doing everything BUT being a warlord - and Napoleon declared on me and entered my lands from multiple locations and in huge numbers. He pillaged like crazy, took out my key resources fast (can't build samurai without metal - and if you lose it while you're building the units stop building and you get zero refund). I just quit that game because it went from me winning to me losing in about 3 turns. The AI just tore my empire apart pillaging resources (all my cities became far less productive in a hurry) and by severing my critical metals resources (iron/copper). My main problem in that game was that I had ok city defenses - but I had zero counter attack units so when I was attacked I could not get rid of the pillagers and he cut off my resources which prevented me from building my better units. Oy, lessons learned.

 

[Good Omens]

I'm playing as England (noble setting). I've had an unsteady relationship with Roosevelt, but we've been basically friends. A while back, he asked me to join him in warring against Persia, but because they're on another continent, I declined. Later, Cyrus asked me to join him against the Aztecs, also on that second continent; I had a good military force lined up after wiping out the Romans, so I agreed and started mobilizing. 2 turns later, Persia and the Aztecs make peace, but I decided to keep going after the Aztecs and eliminated them.

Persia and the US were at war, but not doing much. I decided to try pushing into Persia and got engaged in a massive, bloody seige trying to take 2 of their border cities, relying heavily on bombers for softening them up. Suddenly, one turn I can't build bombers! Hunted around and found out that, somewhere along the line, Persia and the US made peace, and Roosevelt decided to send over a single bomber to destroy my only oil mine. Bloody Yank! He'll get his, assuming that the game doesn't end first (it's 1983 or so, and I'm still embroiled with Cyrus, but I did take two of his cities and destoryed his only iron source.)