The real value of spearman(by AI)

[Bagatur]

This one won 1st place in my Top AI Stupidities Chart. Here it goes.

I had lonely city on my far border. We had long war with Isabella, not even showing each other any weapons, onlythrowing bad looks in F4 screen. Suddenly, veteran Conquistador appeared from German teritory(they were in war with Spain also) and took my undefended town. Second one appeared in the same town also, coming after first(I had worker irrigating around). And until a lil bit of thoughs ran through my mind what he can do next turn and how to prevent this, I saw him disbanding! Mother of God! No fights, he just died immediatelly!

One next turn i found there is REGULAR SPEARMAN!!!!!! awaiting for me, beside first wounded Conquistador. So outcome is:
- minus 1 VETERAN Conquistador
- minus money for hurry
- one wounded Conquistador(1hp), fortified there, instead of being disbanded on place on healthy Conquistador, if we speak something has to be disbanded
- plus one REGULAR Spearman

Tell me something else happened, bcs If i dont mistake, this is really number One

I feel my poor programmers heart broken and my believe in bright future of computers, ruling the world, completely gone.

 

[gunkulator]

The AI places a very high value on spearman because of their almost legendary power against tanks

 

[Admiral8Q]

Bagatur, I've seen modders improve the AI for some games.

Drawback: It takes forever for the computer to calculate a simple move.
Advantage: The AI acts smarter.

 

[skywalker]

Actually, it makes perfect sense. The Conquistador has only the Offense and Explore flags. The Spearman has the Defense flag. Of course, and alternate explanation is that the Conquistador was disbanded due to deficit, and the Spearman was autoconscripted.

 

[Bagatur]

U mean money deficit? No, she had over 2K gold cache, and all this happened same turn, obviously AI disbanded Conq. on purpose. What do you mean autoconscript? City didnt flipped and no one knew Nationalism. Beside this, city was size two, no drafting possible.

Adm8Q: I know about AI scripts(Starcraft, AOE), but unfortunatelly we dont have such engine.
Yes, sure, it could take long time calculating possiblities, but if AI uses less units(less CPU time) smarter(more CPU time) things can be equalized. If I wrote it, and i had opportunity ti work on this I could avoid, first, obvious dumb thing like this and second, making AI tunnable, letting user to know smarter AI will take longer time to move.I see many ppl here are waiting turns for several minutes,even more. I play usually Demigod, huge maps and I never waited on my PIV 2,66 longer than lets say 3-4 minutes IBT. Same for several Deity games I played.There could be written separate logic which works in low priority while human moves and thinks.

But its not the point, I just wanted to share what happened and how AI tricked itself badly.

 

[skywalker]

U mean money deficit? No, she had over 2K gold cache, and all this happened same turn, obviously AI disbanded Conq. on purpose. What do you mean autoconscript? City didnt flipped and no one knew Nationalism. Beside this, city was size two, no drafting possible.

When you approach an AI city, it sometimes drafts a unit, even before nationalism, even if it's below size 6.

 

[Bagatur]

You speak for impossible,tho. At least I never heard or saw about such. Anyone else can confirm it?

 

[WackenOpenAir]

The time the AI needs for a turn also i think has something to do with programming efforts.

I am know we are civfanatics, i know we love the game, but i think programming efforts are really low. In fact, it seems to me the game mechanic's part and AI might have been made by only 1 man.

I think with good programming you shouldn't have to wait for the AI at all to do his turn, even on a mediocre computer.
It should be possible to improve the AI and have it run at decent spreed i think.

What suprises me most is that in other games, the AI can control more than 1000 units real time and civ can't even do it turn based :S

 

[Bagatur]

Exactly my thoughts

 

[bingen]

When you approach an AI city, it sometimes drafts a unit, even before nationalism, even if it's below size 6.

The AI cannot draft units before nationalism. They may hurry production though, just like the human player can.