The Stupidity of AI in War after 1.21.....

[Sentinali]

This AI of 1.21 is just pissing me off!! Case in point, I was playing as Japan on a pangea map. Zulus to the SW, Russians to the SE, French to the North and far in the NE the Aztecs. Early game, just expanding and chomping on some territory when the Aztecs march right though France and declare war on me with 2 lousey Jags attacking a city with 3 spearmen. What the Fuk!

The Aztec essentially turn themselves into a barbarian like tribe at this point as all they are good for is glorified harassment. I never saw this type of utter stupidy from the AI prior to 1.21!

Anybody else noticed these suicidal tendancies?

Sent.

 

[Grey Knight]

When the AI runs out of space, it looks around to see if it is stronger militarily than anyone else. If it is, it declares war.

Logistics (i.e. by the time his swords get to you they will be facing muskets) and strategic importance matter not.

In this case you simply the "weakest" militarily.

Cheers,
Shawn

 

[Sentinali]

Unless the AI divides units by the number of cities to determin strength, this was not the case. I had 5 cities to the AIs 2 to 4 and has at least 2 units/city with some warriors/archers wandering around.

The behavior is even more odd in that the AI fights battles it has no chance of winning (ie; 2 JWs against 3 spears!).

This is a change with the patch, or else I am going crazy (maybe I should post that in a poll,he he)

Sent.

 

[Shink]

In theory, the AI doesn't know you have three spearmen there.

 

[Zouave]

Originally posted by Grey Knight
When the AI runs out of space, it looks around to see if it is stronger militarily than anyone else. If it is, it declares war.

Logistics (i.e. by the time his swords get to you they will be facing muskets) and strategic importance matter not.

In this case you simply the "weakest" militarily.

Cheers,
Shawn

Well, that explains a lot.

The braindead AI FLOODS the world with its Settler Diarrhea - INSTEAD of creating a more viable society and working more on its infrastructure. It will settle anywhere, and it constantly - and annoyingly - infringes on your own territory. It will build settlers and then send them wandering into tundra, instead of more rapidly building that needed barracks or library.

That is a major reason why there is nothing left to explore by the time we get to caravels.

Then, with nowhere else left to expand to, the AI will declare war if stronger - and that explains why Polite and even Gracious civs I have had good relations with for many centuries suddenly attack me.

It is absolutely ludicrous.

 

[Crunchy]

I hate the way the AI stomps across your land as if it was theirs, then when you offer them a ROP they have the cheek to be insulted! ATM it just checks to see if you have more cities/territory than them rather than if it would be useful to get somewhere.

 

[Daffy Duck]

When the AI intrudes into my territory with stacked settler/ (warrior or spearman), I require token of appreciation. If AI refuses, I attack, take his settler (= 2 free workers). This works well, UNLESS he has an unseen stack of swordsmen just out of my sight.

Chances are he has also trollped through my neighbors territory, and unless he has ROP with them, repercussions will be long in coming.

 

[punkbass2000]

"Then, with nowhere else left to expand to, the AI will declare war if stronger - and that explains why Polite and even Gracious civs I have had good relations with for many centuries suddenly attack me.

It is absolutely ludicrous."

This doesn't sound so ludicrous to me, the AI simply takes advantage of its opportunities. I believe most human players attack AI that they have been friends with for lux. or strat or land or even out of boredom. Personally, (esp. in Civ1, pre-reputations), I would always attack my friends if I had the slightest reason, though I try to do it honourably.

 

[Fascination]

seems to me like theyve always done this, to an extent. Maybe not with only a couple jags, but Ive had AI traipse across half the map and somehow get ROP with the three other civs they have to get though just to attack with a couple knights. It so stupid

 

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Zouave

It will build settlers and then send them wandering into tundra.

He who controls tundra, controls oil. If I don't have desert in my terrain I make dammn sure to settle some tundra - as much as possible.

 

[Marlos]

The AI's methodology here is not entirely "ludicrous", although it certainly isn't a strategy I would use.

First, the fact that it was the Aztecs that attacked you is no coincidence as far as I can tell. The Aztec AI is probably programmed to attack first and ask questions later. :slay: Remember, the Aztecs made live sacrifices to their gods. To die a warrior's death was, in a sense, honorable (i.e. Klingon!)

Second, remember that a jaguar warrior will trigger a Golden Age for the Aztecs as well. Given that the JW's ADMs are so poor, they have to attack en masse. :rocket3:

Finally, the AI loves to grab all available land, whether it is near or far, mountainous or frozen because (1) of the possibility of resources appearing there later and/or (2) because the amount of land controlled is the largest part of the overall score. These "crap cities" usually end up get assimilated because they are so far from their capital that the AI can't support them militarily or with cultural improvements.

In short, all of this is perfectly normal and I haven't even had the time to play a 1.21 game yet.

 

[jloe4037]

Makes me wonder how much better the AI would be if it just evaluated Military Strength based on the total shield cost of all of a Civs units. The calculation is absurdly simple. I guess if they really wanted to be cute they could subtract out workers and settlers.

Originally posted by Grey Knight
When the AI runs out of space, it looks around to see if it is stronger militarily than anyone else. If it is, it declares war.

Logistics (i.e. by the time his swords get to you they will be facing muskets) and strategic importance matter not.

In this case you simply the "weakest" militarily.

Cheers,
Shawn

 

[planetfall]

Originally posted by Crunchy
I hate the way the AI stomps across your land as if it was theirs, then when you offer them a ROP they have the cheek to be insulted! ATM it just checks to see if you have more cities/territory than them rather than if it would be useful to get somewhere.

If you really, really hate it and can't think of anything else, go into editor and add ZOC to a few units. voila, very few tresspasses.

 

[Civanator]

I was playing a game as the germans with all the agressive civs. Even though they're agressive, i didn't think they would be stupid.

So here I am minding my own business when out of no where a Babylonian galley unloaded a WARRIOR right next to my strongest city. My city had 5 musketmen and 4 cannons in it.
The babylonians are my closest ally too. So next turn they declare war on me and use the stone age little warrior against me strongest city. he loses and then gets all the other nations in the world to attack me except Persia. So i'm the 2nd strongest civ in the world right under the Aztecs. then the next thing I know as i'm about to unload the biggest Cavalry attack in history (Somewhere aroun 450 cavalry) on the aztecs, persia, the smallest nation in the world declares war. What an idiot. he has one city and it is right next to my city with the forbiden palace. Next thing he knew he was in heaven. so i then took my cavalry amd went to aztecs land. but his navy wouldn't let me so i went to kill babylon. and here comes stupid thing #2. he took 1 galley to attack my new elite Ironclad. of course he lost. so i unload and this is what he does: he takes about 160 archers and trys to kill my cavalry. only 7 succeded but i got 2 GLs and got 2 armies of cavalry in 3 turns.

 

[TheBard]

Maybe its just me, but it seems that since the patch, everytime I'm between two civs when I prepare to attack one the other one attacks me. I think a few other people have mentioned this happening.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Happened to me recently. After I and Persia had chewed up Zululand, I started to prepare for war against Egypt (for the very good reason they had the highest score). What happens? Xerxes declares war on me. First turn saw tremendous Persian and Babylonian (ie, mine) Cavalry forces annihilate one another on the plains of Zululand, and a Persian invasion force got annihilated in the worlds first Tank Blitz. Gonna continue now; Die die Xerxes!

 

[Shink]

In the two games I've played on 1.21f, I've ended up being at war with everyone in the game in the latter stages. I think in my case it's a combination of being ultra aggressive and very conservative in trading (i.e. I own so much that there's no need to trade).

The only thing that sucks is that I end up going into Communism or Monarchy and at best am only technological equivalents of the rest of the world. I end up having to control resources to achieve my domination victory... They can have all the techs in the world but if my initial bombardment campaigns destroy their sources of oil and rubber, they will lose.

 

[Zouave]

Further comments on Settler Diarrhea. . .

By throwing up these crappy towns all over the map, be they in tundra, jungle, overseas, or near your own capital, all the AI is doing is being annoying AND wasting its resources on weak towns.

All these "Diarrhea Cities" will never produce much due to corruption and bad terrain, they might eventually Culture Flip, and are almost indefensible if a war breaks out.

So Settler Diarrhea is not just annoying; it's a demonstration of a dumb AI and bad programming.

 

[Grey Knight]

Good programming...

Bad [game] design!

Shawn

 

[Shink]

Originally posted by Zouave

All these "Diarrhea Cities" will never produce much due to corruption and bad terrain, they might eventually Culture Flip, and are almost indefensible if a war breaks out.

So Settler Diarrhea is not just annoying; it's a demonstration of a dumb AI and bad programming.

I could not disagree more. Any disadvantage you may have from having a ton of cities is almost completely offset by never having to trade for luxuries/resources at all. Plus, during a war, you really have no extremely vulnerable areas (e.g. your lone source of iron) because you end up with a ton extra of everything. I utilize this strategy on regent/monarch on standard maps. Mind you, I don't go with Settler diarrhea - I believe massive amounts of settlers is a complete waste of shields. I rather build up an army that is reusable and steal enemy towns no matter how poorly placed they are.

The only big downside of this strategy is that your first leader's appearance is the single most important part of the game. You absolutely must have a well placed Forbidden Palace for this to work adequately.