The AI needs a lesson in effective application of force

[Wodan]

First, the story. If you don't care for that, skip to the bottom.

Napoleon hasn't been in a war all game. He's hemmed in by Saladin on one side and Monty / Genghis on the other. I've got a continent all to myself, and there's another continent with two civs, and the big continent with 8 civs on it (including Napoleon).

Anyway, I've got destroyers, and have a spy wandering around Mongolian territory on the big continent, when I see a French fleet going by offshore. He's a bit behind me in tech, and the fleet has 3 frigates and 3 galleons, filled with 9 cavalry. They're going to invade somebody. I wonder who. I send my spy along the coast to parallel that fleet. Soon, the choices narrow down to one: me.

Fine. His continent is a 4 turns away. I position my destroyers and get my land defenses in position. I don't want to pre-emptively hit the fleet and get the dip penalty, as Napoleon has friends. Especially Monty. I don't know how he managed it, but Monty is friggin huge, top in tech, power, and size.

I do, however, send a single destroyer to parallel the French fleet. Hey! There's another fleet, 1 turn behind the first one. Same size. Wow. He's hitting me with 18 Cavalry?!?

No... there's a 3rd fleet! Make that 27. How am I going to handle this???

By this time, the first fleet enters my territory and he declares war. They don't land, however; as luck would have it, his fleet moves 4 and the 4th move put them 2 away from my coast. So, he declares war but hasn't landed troops.

My destroyers make mincemeat of the first fleet. Troops drown at sea. 9 cavalry down the drain. Nice.

Long story short: there aren't 3 fleets, there are SEVEN. Each has 3 frigates and 3 galleons, with 9 land units. Total: SIXTY-THREE. How the little general managed it is beside the point. Not a single one landed. I faced 6 ships I had to kill, each turn, and that's all (not 54! and not 63 cav!)

Lesson one: the AI needs to end their fleets' move 3 spaces outside the target's borders. They'll be invisible. Delcare war, move them in, and land all in one turn.

Lesson two: move the units in TOGETHER. land or sea invasion, the same.

Humans can learn these lessons, too, of course. Proper application of force: assemble out of sight. Mass your units, don't dribble them in.

Wodan

 

[T.A JONES]

Nothing has been improved upon in that sense. On another related point Ai has yet to hold off any real massive run of troops when they form a direct line into their heartland.

If they only moved a few units guarding each of their towns to the front lines or drafted one unit from every city then spring them all at once quickly into action they could create a much more padded and more effective resistance to my powerful lightning attacks. Its frustrating from a offensive and defensive standpoint when you now their holding back on some punchs.

 

[Naismith]

I vastly prefer to take territory adjacent to my own, given city maitenance costs and the additional complexity of defending two unconnected territories. This advanced concept seems to elude the AI. Your description isn't quite specific enough to know this, but I suspect he could have done better against one of his close neighbors. So the AI's ability to concentrate forces and wage war effectively is weak, but the original decision on who is worth fighting is even worse.

 

[Silver Marmot]

The AI can be pretty clueless when it comes to fighting wars.

 

[Gumbolt]

Im impressed. The Ai managed to manage over 63 cavalry units for a big attack. Okay sunk at sea but the thought is there. I wonder where they found so many units?

 

[Naismith]

Im impressed. The Ai managed to manage over 63 cavalry units for a big attack. Okay sunk at sea but the thought is there. I wonder where they found so many units?

Just think if he had skipped building the transports, and used it for building more military. Then he concentrates his forces and attacks (gasp!) a near neighbor. It would make a world of difference in the ability of the AI to compete with a human.

In one game, I saw Monty assemble a military force of about 80 or 90 units (mostly war elephants and horse archers), and march them halfway around the world (large panagea) to raze Mansa Musa's 5 cities. All of this when Izzy was sitting right next to him, ripe for the picking.

 

[Bushface]

The AI can, however, get it right sometimes. I lost a game to a massive invasion by sea from Mansa, again galleons vs. destroyers, but I could only get two destroyers into defence against (IIRC) five frigates and ??? galleons full of cavalry which I had no opportunity to attack until after they had unleashed their cargoes to wreak utter havoc in my poorly-protected lands (I was busy with a war elsewhere). The attack came out of the blue: Mansa saw his chance, and took it

 

[Naismith]

The AI can, however, get it right sometimes. I lost a game to a massive invasion by sea from Mansa, again galleons vs. destroyers, but I could only get two destroyers into defence against (IIRC) five frigates and ??? galleons full of cavalry which I had no opportunity to attack until after they had unleashed their cargoes to wreak utter havoc in my poorly-protected lands (I was busy with a war elsewhere). The attack came out of the blue: Mansa saw his chance, and took it

That had to suck. One time on a continents game, Catherine surprised me by landing a stack of knights and macemen right on a hill outside one of my cities. I never saw her coming - it was executed perfectly, except for the fact I was assembling an army (for my neighbor Tokugawa) in that city, including about 20 cats, along with a few knights, axemen, etc. It was enough to destroy her entire stack in a couple of turns. It was the only place she could have landed her army where I had a prayer of dealing with it.

 

[sheerin]

I had a similiar thing happen with Caesar last night. I was/am playing a fractal map and it turned out to be in an almost horseshoe shape, with me sitting at the top stradeling both side. I was third or 4th in the points race and was only about 3 techs behind Mansa. But, unforutnately, I have many borders to defend and all throughout the game i was being plagued with border conflicts with Izzy and Napolean to my south east and Cyrus to my southwest. I should point out that Caesar was on the extreme south west tip of the continent, about a 10 or so turn distance from my closest border. After I had gotten peace out of those countires i went to work improving my cities (while also building some soliders and my navy). So after a few rounds of peace, I noticed that Caesar had a couple knights sitting just outside my border, so I position a couple infantry over there to deter them... it didn't work, next round they crossed the border and destroyed a farm. I sent my infantry after them and they were toast. So all is going well, I think to myself. Wonderng if this is all caesar can muster... boy was I wrong. The two turns go by peacefully, as I build up another contingent of infantry and cavalry. Then on the third round I get a warning that the enemy has been spotted by one my cities on the other end of the continent (ie: the furthest point from caesar), so I go over there to find that the little bugger had offloaded six galleons full of cavalry. Unforutnately I made the mistake in thinking that he'd only attack from the west, while also assuming the ocean wasn't an option considering i had 20 frigates patroling it (somehow I missed this fleet). So I rush my forces over there to help bolster the defenses of Delphi (which only had two infantry). Luckily for Delphi, he decide to split his forces and concentrate on pillaging my resources, with in two turns the bulk of my forces arrive and totally destroy his maurdaing cavalry. Again, with a smile, i think to myself that I've survived the worse he could throw at me, and that soon my foces would be big enough to wipe Rome off the face of the map. But learning from my lesson I decided to place a few extra troops on the east side of my empire, as well as moving my infantry and cavalry back to their original positions on the border. Sadly, when they returned I noticed that Caesar had another group of cav, this time aobut 8 just sitting beyond my border, and the next turn they crossed. I dispatched about 10 infantry and 4 cavalry to counter, and just as they begin their assualt I catch a glimpse of more roman troops about a turn away from my border, I quickly scrolling over them to see what I would face and to mydismay i counted 45 cavalry. I quickly decided that it was time to bolster the defenses of the cities that were in danger (namely athens, Sparta and one other big one), I sent a few troops out to meet the main force to slow it down. After two trusn it was clear their intended target was Athens so I moved as many troops as I could to bolster its defenses. By the time they arrived I had about 20 infantry and 15 cavarly sitting in Athens with about 5 canons. Unfortunately, again, at this point I noticed a second wave coming in, this time it was over 40 cavarly. All making a beeline for athens. The first wave attacked and I defended the city for several turns, but slowly and surely my defenses began to fall apart. And by the time the second group of cavarly joined the first Athens was about to fall. The next round saw my capitol fall. Immediately after that happened Caesar sent word asking if I wanted peace, his proposal was that I give him Sparta. What could I do?

He totally desroyed me, and it took me completely off guard. At the time of the first attack I was getting ready for an assualt on izzy (she had the closest oil field), but not after war this. I had never seen such a skifully orchestrated attack by the AI before. Sure I was a little confused as to why he attacked me when he could have easily destroyed Mao and Washington who were at the time at war with each other (and both lagging behind us in the technology race). Though it did make sense, I was completely unprepared for a war against him, and I was about 100 points ahead of him in the points. I went from being one of the best civs in this game to one of the worst. Lets just say next game I'm going to destroy caesar...

 

[Gumbolt]

What map size and difficulty were these 2 games on?

 

[wiseguy101]

On higher difficulty levels, the A.I can sometimes get it right when I play against them. I still agree with Wodan that they need to put all of their units in one stack instead of dribbling them into your territory. It would make for some interesting combat, and some interesting wars.

 

[Naismith]

What map size and difficulty were these 2 games on?

Mine was Noble, Continents, Standard, Normal speed. I've since moved up, trying out Monarch now.

I've come to believe that the AI gets it military act together sometimes, but mostly by accident. Often, it's the AI stupidity that can mess you up. It didn't really make any sense for Catherine to attack me, she could have done better on her own continent. So I wasn't ready. I have developed some rules of thumb:

1) If a fairly aggressive but distant Civ like Rome demands tribute, and you refuse, get ready for action. It might come in 40 turns, but be ready.
2) If you don't intend to be the #1 military power in the game, you are depending on luck to survive and win. You can curry good diplo relations all you want - it's no guarantee you won't be attacked, especially by the aggressive Civ's.
3) Consult the demographics screen, Soldiers rating, and do it often. It's good to be #1, because demands for tribute don't come in as much. Civ's that are unhappy with you are much less likely to attack. If they do attack, you have the means to deal with it. If you have a Soldiers rating, say, 30% above the next Civ, other Civ's are very, very reluctant to mess with you no matter how unhappy they are with you.
4) If you border an aggressive Civ, let them see lots of units in the border cities, even if that Civ is friendly. Don't trust them for an instant.

 

[Gumbolt]

quite impressive for noble really. Can you post the game?

We could start a posting for impressive Ai military shows.

Challenge of the week. Survive 20 turns of AI onslaught 50 cavalry.

fun fun fun

 

[Naismith]

quite impressive for noble really. Can you post the game?

We could start a posting for impressive Ai military shows.

Challenge of the week. Survive 20 turns of AI onslaught 50 cavalry.

fun fun fun

I think you want the game from Wodan and/or sheerin. Mine involved a much more limited attack. I deleted all my saves for it long ago.

 

[The Lardossen]

I almost never see really impressive attacks by the AI. Offloading three ships of units is the most it seems to do. That really doesn't scare me, especially since they first rape the countyside, and then attack. They should aim for the cities, and in face of defeat, destroy important resources, not in face of victory.....

 

[cymru_man]

The AI can't often apply force effectively. That's why it gets bonuses so it can have a much BIGGER force than you, the almighty effectively-force applying human

Furthermore - this might be difficult for you dirty backstabbing people , but some AIs like to stay loyal to their friends and not attack their immediate neighbours

 

[sheerin]

Difficulty was I think Nobel, but i can't quite remember, and the size was Huge.

 

[otomik]

I like to dribble my forces in actually, I was playing a one city challenge korea on the earth map against japan. I couldn't muster a large army quick enough so I built a defensive army of axes, spears and archers to repel tokugawas initial attacks, then I established dominance of the seas, and put an axe and spear on his bronze and iron hills. he attacks and loses a lot of forces just trying to take out these commandos while i'm taking away his strategic resources to effectively attack me. Then in due time these forces meet up with my swordsman and catapult (which i needed time to research) invasion force to form a balanced city attack stack. Keep in mind i was playing one city challenge so getting things done with the least amount of troops was a necessity. Galleys are kind of limited so making a whole bunch of them is undesireable.

 

[MookieNJ]

The AI has no idea how to effectively fight a war or defend itself.

 

[Wodan]

Im impressed. The Ai managed to manage over 63 cavalry units for a big attack. Okay sunk at sea but the thought is there. I wonder where they found so many units?

They weren't truly all Cavalry (throw in a few Cannons etc) but yep there were really that many. I was impressed too. What happened basically is a warmonger AI (Napoleon) who hadn't been in a war all game.

To contrast, same game, different AI (the aforesaid Monty), he declared war on me maybe 30 turns later, and hit me with just a handful of ships. Difference? He had been fighting off and on all game. He had tons of land units but hardly any sea.

Wodan