Test: AI has no sense of using leaders at all

[Theoden]

Obviously the AI has no sense of using leaders. We all know that they prefer to rush a cathedral or whatever instead of building an army. But that is a matter of priorities and can be explained by that the AI has no sense of the value of different actions. However a test I made shows that the AI is more stupid than I ever would have imagined

The test:
I gave the AI a few leaders in a city and a large amount of troops to fill into any eventual armies. I also turned of the leaders ability to rush buildings. This means that the AI has only one single choice of what to do with the leaders: create an army. Apparantly it doesn't want to and the leaders just remain in the city doing nothing.

This shows that the AI just refuses to create armies even if it has no alternative. Also it had plenty of troops to fill into the army if it created it.

This means that the army bug is even worse than I originally thought it was.

Theoden

 

[Zeekater]

It gets even better, if you make an army spawning wonder, the AI refuses to fill them up!

They had enough other land units but they just didn't want to put them in the army.
Instead they put one unit in some of them and left them in the city.

One other time I put enough units on a tile together with an army unit (my units were close) and the AI retreated the army with one unit in it, the rest retreating first.

Armies, such a fun thing of the game, but the AI doesn't use it well enough

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

It's extremely sad that the AI doesn't form Armies, but it will fill prebuild ones (and in general, a filled Army will be used).
The reason why you see nearly no Armies filled in the unmodded (that is, except the Army-spawning imporvement) game is the unit selection:
After the Swordsman, the best attacker is always a fast unit. So, the AI will load one of those (Knights, Cavs, Tanks), and since now the speed of the Army no longer matches the speed of the single unit, it won't load more of it. The only real chance to see an Army autogenerated by the MilAc is a 1 Tank/2 MA Army. Now, if you make Marines a lot cheaper, you will see more.
That's the reason why you see the AI using Armies in RaR quite frequently.

 

[Ginger_Ale]

What about SGLs? I thought of doing a test for these a little while ago: do they rush wonders? (I might try this later)...my guess is probably not however.

 

[wilbill]

AI's refusal to build/use armies isn't stupidity. It's a bug that appeared with Conquests. In PTW and Vanilla, the AI wouldoccasionally build and use armies. It's a shame Conquests has this problem since, at the same time, armies have been strengthened.

 

[citizen001]

That's one contributing factor to people being able to beat the game on sid.

 

[bingen]

Hopefully, you gave the AI more than one city in your test as you cannot make an army with only one city.

In my experience the AIs do use SGL to rush wonders.

 

[Theoden]

Hopefully, you gave the AI more than one city in your test as you cannot make an army with only one city.

Yes, the AI had five cities and the number of cities required per army was reduced to one so they could have used all of their leaders to create armies if they wanted to.

Theoden

 

[Pfeffersack]

(...)
The test:
I gave the AI a few leaders in a city and a large amount of troops to fill into any eventual armies. I also turned of the leaders ability to rush buildings. This means that the AI has only one single choice of what to do with the leaders: create an army. Apparantly it doesn't want to and the leaders just remain in the city doing nothing.
(...)

While I agree with your general result (the AI doesn't use leaders for army creation), I think the fact the leaders in your test do nothing is caused by taking away the improvment rushing option - because this inevitably disables the AI strategy flag for leaders.

Under normal conditions the AI has (theoretically) at least the option to use its MGLs for rushing, but I'm not sure if they do it at all (the few times I spot AI leaders in standard epic games in Conquests, they rather seem to disappear without a trace than causing a project to be finished earlier...).Maybe for units (what should be impossible!) or for Improvments, but not (consequently) for Small Wonders.

 

[Theoden]

While I agree with your general result (the AI doesn't use leaders for army creation), I think the fact the leaders in your test do nothing is caused by taking away the improvment rushing option - because this inevitably disables the AI strategy flag for leaders.

Exactly. The result of the test was that the AI doesn't know what to do with a leader if it can't rush something. If i hadn't done that, the test would just show that the AI prioritizes(spl?) rushing higher than army-creation, not that the AI refuses to create armies. By removing the rushing ability, I was able to prove that the AI directly refuses to create armies, even if it has no alternative.

Under normal conditions the AI has (theoretically) at least the option to use its MGLs for rushing, but I'm not sure if they do it at all (the few times I spot AI leaders in standard epic games in Conquests, they rather seem to disappear without a trace than causing a project to be finished earlier...).Maybe for units (what should be impossible!) or for Improvments, but not (consequently) for Small Wonders.

According to the rumors I've heard (I havne't tested that myself) the AI either disbands the leader or uses it to rush an improvement.

Theoden

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

Theoden, Pfeffersack is right; if you remove the AI strategy flag for something (except Terraform), the test proves nothing.
If you'd remove e.g. the 'Offense' flag from Swordsman, you could as well claim 'The AI has no sense of using Swordsman at all'.....

 

[Plotinus]

Suppose you had a Wonder that spawned an army every so often, and you ensured that the most powerful attacking unit available had a movement of one, and there were two-move units also available. Would the AI fill the armies and use them then?

 

[Theoden]

Theoden, Pfeffersack is right; if you remove the AI strategy flag for something (except Terraform), the test proves nothing.
If you'd remove e.g. the 'Offense' flag from Swordsman, you could as well claim 'The AI has no sense of using Swordsman at all'.....

I have only removed the ability, not the strategy. But I just noticed that the strategy flag get's grayed out when i remove the ability That explains my confusion.
Well, that means that this test is less useful than I thought it was.

Theoden

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

Plotinius:
Exactly. Works well in RaR.

Theoden:
You know, the entire Leader issue is bugged in the C3C editor...if you chance anything here, the Strategy flag gets greyed out.
And, ever noticed you have no access to SGLs at all? You cannot even change the stats/animation via the editor.
If you create a new unit with the 'Hurry Improvement' flag, this unit can only rush Great Wonders, nothing else .

 

[Theoden]

I have actually wondered where SGL's where in the unit list as I couldn't find them. Also, I noticed that standard leaders have the SGA flag enabled. Seems like SGL's are using the same unit as MGL's in some respects and not in others

 

[Willem]

The test:
I gave the AI a few leaders in a city and a large amount of troops to fill into any eventual armies. I also turned of the leaders ability to rush buildings. This means that the AI has only one single choice of what to do with the leaders: create an army. Apparantly it doesn't want to and the leaders just remain in the city doing nothing.

This shows that the AI just refuses to create armies even if it has no alternative. Also it had plenty of troops to fill into the army if it created it.

This means that the army bug is even worse than I originally thought it was.

Theoden

No, this means that by turning off the ability to rush improvements, you've disabled the AI strategy for Leaders. You have to have both abilities selected or it doesn't have a clue what to do with them. You'll notice in the editor when you do this that the strategy is greyed out, meaning it's no longer functioning.

 

[Willem]

It gets even better, if you make an army spawning wonder, the AI refuses to fill them up!

That hasn't been my experience. I've added the abilty to create an Army with my Palace and I have seen full Armies on the field.

 

[Pfeffersack]

That hasn't been my experience. I've added the abilty to create an Army with my Palace and I have seen full Armies on the field.

Not always, it depends on the first unit the AI puts in.As long as there are faster units available for the second and third unit there is no problem, but the AI won't fill the army complete, if the first unit is one of the fastest available (because of the bonus movement, which gets added)

 

[Chieftess]

I've seen that too when I give them GLs using debug mode. Giving them an Army say, every 150 turns in their palace seems fine. Although, they tend to use the armies a bit more defensively.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

...and that is the reason why it seems to work with the palace (Warrior/Sword + Horses), and not the MilAc.