The Dumb AI

[Bowsling]

Once I was playing as the Dutch on Regent and I was at war with the Incans. Cuzco, neighboring Rotterdam, was taken at the beginning of the war by me. The Incans sent an archer and two swordsmen to take Rotterdam, perhaps my most important city, only which I only defended by a spearman, as I expected the Incans to only try to retake Cuzco or Coryhuachina. I sent a retake force of a spearman and 2 swordsmen, which couldn't make it to Rotterdam the turn the invasion did. While any smart player would attack and raze Rotterdam to induce my surrender, the Incans decide to attack my retake force, and I keep Rotterdam, and learn my lesson to defend it better.

 

[draggar]

I've seen too many times where there's an AI city with a goody box one block outside of their city, sometimes several turns after the city is made.

 

[Taras Bulba]

its just the idea that the AI values aggressive units more highly than defensive units. So if it could kill an archer over a spearman it would, even if its trying to capture a city

 

[GONdorman]

Hmmph, perhaps one of the reasons of changing units to have "strength" instead of "deffense" and "offense" was this tendence of the AI to value offensive units over deffensive ones

Anyway, CIV 3 has a very decent AI, obviously not as good as human intelligence, but it isnt completely idiotic (Total War anyone?)

 

[Taras Bulba]

Hmmph, perhaps one of the reasons of changing units to have "strength" instead of "deffense" and "offense" was this tendence of the AI to value offensive units over deffensive ones

it could very well be, but in the long run, having defense and offense be different is a good thing. I mean, in reality, alot of weapons were only used for one thing.

Look at archers. Archers were weak and NEEDED to be protected, but were VERY excellent attackers. Pikemen would be HORRIBLE for an offense, but as a defense, are exemplary

 

[Bowsling]

Anyway, CIV 3 has a very decent AI, obviously not as good as human intelligence, but it isnt completely idiotic (Total War anyone?)

You're right Taras, they still are pretty smart, and don't get me wrong, Civ III was an excellent game.

 

[Peebo]

You're right Taras, they still are pretty smart, and don't get me wrong, Civ III was an excellent game.

was? still is

But the AI is fun to laugh at. In my game just now, the Mayans landed a conquering force of one swordsman and one javelin thrower next to one of my cities on an island and declare war. Luckily I had a few defenders and their troops quickly died. Goodbye attack force. I wonder if I can expect any more surprise attacks?

 

[Calis]

was? still is

But the AI is fun to laugh at. In my game just now, the Mayans landed a conquering force of one swordsman and one javelin thrower next to one of my cities on an island and declare war. Luckily I had a few defenders and their troops quickly died. Goodbye attack force. I wonder if I can expect any more surprise attacks?

In a recent game I played the Portuguese landed a single Longbowman in my territory. He was rather unlucky when I rolled him over with my Modern Armor

The AI is very bad at executing unit landing assaults...

 

[capnvonbaron]

my favorite is when a galleon sails over and lets off a single, out-dated unit.

Really? I mean, the AI couldn't wait like three turns to load it full with up-to-date stuff?

 

[darski]

my favorite is when a galleon sails over and lets off a single, out-dated unit.

Really? I mean, the AI couldn't wait like three turns to load it full with up-to-date stuff?

And what is this AI fascination with reg warriors?

The first choice of Whackjob AI everywhere

 

[Snarkhunter]

Look at archers. Archers were weak and NEEDED to be protected, but were VERY excellent attackers. Pikemen would be HORRIBLE for an offense, but as a defense, are exemplary

Ah. . . historically, not true. Not completely, anyways. Western armies used archers as fire support, generally speaking--attack/defense didn't really matter. Other cultures used horse archers, and they were definite attackers, although could be attacked themselves.

And settling a battle by "push of pike" was a valid, even preferred, tactic for hundreds of years, all the way until the 18th century, when it finally ran out of steam (although de Saxe still preferred pike to musket, to some extent). You could say that it was the rapid growth of musketry in the late 17th century that began the distinction between offensive and defensive weaponry in western armies. Even then it was less the weaponry than the use of it: we use machine guns for attack and defense, but it was the tactical shortcomings on offense that allow a 6-10 value for infantry to be reasonable in the game. If there were storm troopers in the game, this wouldn't be accurate at all.

kk

 

[Taras Bulba]

well... I'm not saying that all units have DEFINITE and the ONLY attack/defense values, but lets get real.... if a massive army of archers charged (while firing) at a massive army of swordsmen (same size army) I'd say its pretty obvious who'd win.

As for the pike, yes, it was used for attacking, but that was also when most of the weapons were too expensive to build, and building pikes/spears was a real cheap and efficient weapon, and I'm not sure of anyone who was fully educated on the subject would say that the pike was more efficient when attacking than when in the proper defensive stance.

and a better example of defense to offense would be during the crusades. The crusaders had tons of armor on, making it very difficult to penetrate with the arrows the Muslims were using. However, the armor came to prove to be a problem.


if it were to be entirely accurate, there needs to be a way to "obsolete" a unit type, that way spearman can't kill a modern tank. (and so that you don't build like spearman in the modern era, (if you skipped nationalism) which is ridiculous)

also, there needs to be more unit types (such as mechanized, foot, mounted, range, etc...) That way you can set certain units to be better verses one type of unit (eg-a pikeman is stronger vs. mounted units, or an anti-tank system is stronger against mechanized units, etc...)

 

[capnvonbaron]

... and I still wish that Sid made "archers" and "longbows" bombard units, if only applicable toward unit bombarding. Just give archers the same bombard strength as cats and longbows the same as trebs, except only against other units and not against buildings/improvements. The advantage is that they are available before the cooresponding siege weapons are, but with the drawbacks that I stated. Really, thats what archers were used for. I may cite Braveheart as a movie reference for what happens when real combat units are able to reach the archery lines...

 

[Marsden]

I always skip nationalism, but I rarely build defense units unless I have a major continental invasion in planning. I like the defense/offense thing but it's true that any weapon can be used either way. I think it's hard to define, in Agincourt the English longbows were nominally attacking the French Knights but they were really defensive in posture vs the charging knights. I think archers or longbows in a fortess would be very good defenders.

 

[Optional]

... and I still wish that Sid made "archers" and "longbows" bombard units, if only applicable toward unit bombarding. Just give archers the same bombard strength as cats and longbows the same as trebs, except only against other units and not against buildings/improvements.

It's very easy to give archers and longbows offensive bombard by using the editor (I know nothing about the Vanilla editor, though), But not to single out units.

Talk about dumb AI: what if you're at war with a nation, and the first units that show up are a settler escorted by a spearman, heading for some open space in your backyard. Hey Catherine, do you want me to explain what WAR is?!!
Or that Roman settler pair I saw in my current game, that went out of their way to reach the only cow in the area, only to plump right on top of it.. yeah, that'll help!

 

[Bowsling]

they seem to change sides quickly. I've played the game I wrote about further. I was at war with the Incans when the Mayans where polite and rop with me, then they cancel the rop and declare war on me same turn I take Ollantaytambo and get an army. I leave the incans Tiwanaku and Machu Picchu in exchange for all they had (two workers, they where broke) and an AN ALLIANCE VS. THE MAYA!
Honestly, who gets themselves near wiped out by one civ and saves themselves by going to war with another?
smashing a javelin thrower with a fortified swiss mercenary behind a wall was a great way to get a golden age while denying a ga

 

[GONdorman]

You're right Taras, they still are pretty smart, and don't get me wrong, Civ III was an excellent game.

Hmmmm... I was the one who commented about the AI, not Taras

EDIT: To billybones27 and Optional:
Well, if you laugh at CIV3 AI, I cant imagine what would your reaction be if you played either Rome or Medieval2 Total War

 

[capnvonbaron]

Talk about dumb AI: what if you're at war with a nation, and the first units that show up are a settler escorted by a spearman, heading for some open space in your backyard. Hey Catherine, do you want me to explain what WAR is?!!

I had a game where I was on an offensive against India, and they were able to rail in and pop a settler down THREE TIMES in the same spot where Delhi was before I razed it. And of course each time it was named Delhi. And they never reinforced it with anything stronger than a regular rifle, so retaking it never took more than a turn. After the third time, I just razed all the rails in the area to keep the buggers from doing it again. Then a galley sailed in from nowhere and dropped off a settler and musket (you guessed it) on the very same spot.

At least I was able to nab that one before he was able to settle.

 

[Optional]

EDIT: To billybones27 and Optional:
Well, if you laugh at CIV3 AI, I cant imagine what would your reaction be if you played either Rome or Medieval2 Total War

To clarify: I wasn't laughing at the programmers. It's probably very difficult to make a good AI. Also one of the objectives of the game makers will be to give the player a good playing experience. We're often laughing at the pathetic landing parties the AI throws at us, but it's probably better programmed that way than that they only came when they had depressingly huge stacks of state of the art units. Sometimes you can laugh at the AI, but you can't say it's always letting the game down.
And I don't play other computer games. My computer is pathetic and can't handle anything. I played some Heroes of Might and Magic III before this. An old game, but very good. With a very good AI.

 

[Spoonwood]

Yea, AI attacks would work out much less fun in the begginning at least if the AIs trained 2 longbowmen from each city and attacked you instead of putting 2+ pikes in their cities before they start much on offensive units (or however it works). Also, the "fun" factor would go down for *most* (not experienced ones) if the AIs did things like use armies well or use artillery well.