Strategy, or Exploit?

[obsolete]

An interesting case last night, and not the first time i've done this either.

I had taken a city with massively upgraded city raiders. Next thing I know, russia declares war on me and moves a large stack right next to my city. This is a forested hill. Now with my city raiders defending a city with hardly a turn for fortification bonus, or culture, I really wasn't going to win. I can't hold, and I can't attack.

I then pulled out of the city. Army moves in, and then I attack his units now that HIS stack has 0 def modifiers. Now my level 3 and 4 city raiders smashed his stack without even a loss (and harly any hitpoints). 2 turns later, another stack from Russia comes, and I run the same silly thing. And of couse the AI falls for it.

Now I know this doesn't make sense realisticaly, and so it starts to make me wonder if it's more of an exploit. Strategy is strategy, but this certainly was stupidity on the AI's part. I know vs any competant player I would have had a real problem on my hands. It's a serious fault with the AI, and probably wont be fixed as there are too many other things that need fixing as well.

 

[NKVD]

its not exploit...but you probably lost a couple of city improvement and population...You were lucky the AI dont destroy the city...thats what I would have do seeing your pack of city raiders

 

[Tigerclaw]

I wouldn't call it an exploit. Think of it as more of... laying an ambush. Much like the Battle of Hastings. You attack, then retreat. The ragged, undisciplined enemy thinks "Aha! We have them on the run! Men, abandon your positions, let's liberate our city, and give chase to those wretched scum!". However, being an unpaid, undisciplined rabble, they get sidetracked, and loot and pillage their own city. You then sweep in whilst they're distracted and dispersed throughout the city, and kick them back out.

It's not really an exploit, more of a tactic.

 

[Unconquered Sun]

Trap cities are a valid tactic against the AI.

 

[wioneo]

Trap cities are a valid tactic against the AI.

I would like this if maybe the AI learned after getting completely slaughtered the first or maybe second time, but they would keep doing this until they ran out of units.

EDIT: On second thought, the AI can't learn, but maybe a check could be run after a significantly lopsided kill-death ratio is returned(kill-death ratios should be returned after combat involving more than x (which should be scaled by era) units by the way) to maybe tip the randomized actions towards something different.

 

[RIcs]

I would do the same... when outnumbered in a sudden declear war...
I see no hope in defending that city, I just withdraw all my forces...
hoping they don't raze my city, and strenghten deeper defends.

And sometimes just know I won't have enough to defend that new city.
I just left it with last troop standing. And lurk more enemy come to defence. They lost their fortify bonus. And you can catch some just on their way in open country.

Both of the above are some real life gurilla warfare tactics too.

When one day, AIs finally mastered "Distraction" "Lurking" "Traps" , players should really scared... (I guess starcraft, warcrafts AIs do these thing better... they are warring AIs.)

 

[ABigCivFan]

In general, especially on high levels, the AI always have much higher power graph than the human player. It is almost always the case that when you start a war with a strong AI, you mass Barrage siege weapons with other offensive units; declair on AI, and wait for the AI sending in its SOD into your territory. Then you can quickly destroy AI's units with combined action which then tip the balance to your favor.

 

[obsolete]

I've noticed Monte is another Dumb AI highly exploitable. When he declares war on me, and I suddenly have a bunch of horses racing through to my city, I will rush-build a wall. Yes, I hate building walls. But this is one of the only times I will bother. Now I don't know for sure if monte is a pure idiot or not, but the very next turn he will slam all his horses into that city with a newly build wall in place, despite it is pure suicide. He will suicide all his army off at that one city, despite he literaly will have 0% chance to take it.

I keep reading on these forums the AI is much more improved, but it would seem there needs a lot of improvement yet.

Now I have a theory, that when the AI declares war on a city and you suddenly rush-build a defence building, this does not get checked at the begining of the next round, and hence the AI blindly attacks it, thinking it is much more weaker than it is? I may be wrong, but it's a theory I've had for a while. I suspect once Monte declares war and decides to attack a city, he has made up his mind and no matter what you put in it, (500 modern tanks), he is still going to throw everything including the kitchen sink at it.

 

[Unconquered Sun]

The AI scripts cover only the most basic factors of the game. It's simplistic and generalistic. Scripting counters to the various human anti-stack tactics will be very hard. But I do hope to see an AI that builds spears when neighboring Persia and axes when neighboring Rome, the way humans will do in MP.

 

[Mr. Civtastic]

Not an exploit at all. Ive done this on Vanilla too. There are always some risks doing this...the city gets razed, or he moves in more units then that stack.

Historically, I think to Russia in WWI and WWII when they would pull back from their cities, in particular Moscow. Then they would launch a counterattack that pushed their enemies far from their lands.