Unbelievably Backward Sitting Bull AI

[SnipedSoul]

My current Justinian game is like a Tale of Two Cities. In the south, Charlie founded Judaism and went hardcore missionary spam mode to myself and Mansa Musa. This resulted in a religious love-fest full of tech trading. The peace lasted only until I got construction and decided to take the Jewish shrine. Mansa built the AP, Great Library, Colossus, and MoM, so he had to be taken out once I got guilds.

My continent also has Asoka, Kublai, and Sitting Bull past the northern jungle. Kublai stirred up some early trouble with wars on his neighbors. I didn't pay much attention at the time, but the results were pretty devastating for SB.

I noticed a new city of Sitting Bull's in the jungle just NE of my capital. We are on opposite ends of the continent, so he is very far from home. The fact that the city is defended by only dog soldiers is very strange as I would expect to see longbows by this time, even on monarch.

Spoiler :

Wait, why does he have a fort on that jungle rice? Let's look at the trade screen.

Spoiler :

It's 775 AD and he doesn't even have iron working! He's researching it, but on these settings, the best case scenario is that his tech rate is ~15 bpt. Let's take a gander at his land to see what the heck is happening over there.

Spoiler :

That war with Kublai really messed with SB. His top priority is building chicken pizza!

I've never seen an AI do this poorly before. The weird thing is that everyone except Kublai (and me) likes SB. He even got help from everyone but me during the wars. There's no way he self-teched CoL for the pizza, so he must have traded for it rather than iron working.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

The Mongols couldn't take Sitting Bull's settlements, he couldn't keep them from roaming his territory looting. With no terrain improvements his commerce is squelched. Because the AI is dim he built a steady stream of workers since his terrain was completely unimproved, and that ran his production pretty much down the drain. And despite everyone else being "on his side" if no one actively invaded them the Mongols never had any reason to stop doing what they were doing. So, yeah, that's the result. It is a pretty extreme example though, for sure.

 

[Lexicus]

I've seen worse. Monty is usually about this backward in my games and I play on Emperor.

 

[rah]

Yeah, that's normal for monty in my games unless he absorbs someone early.
There was one game I was playing though where I was shocked to get the message that he had completed the Pyramids. Definitely twilight zone material.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I'm curious as to the state of the Mongols here. The mention of Monty being a trigger that brought that up.

Monty is usually in such a state because he is on the opposite side of a war much like this one. He gets in a war he can't gain anything from, against someone who can't give him any decisive reason to quit, and next thing you know he is still trying to get past those pesky archers while the rest of the world is building cavalry.

 

[Windsor]

Yes, this example really highlights a few problems with the AI.

First problem is that the AI is extremely bad at being decisive in war. A human controlling the mongol hordes would probably have gotten a few cities and be done with it.

Second problem is that the AI is both willing and capable of staying in a war forever. Humans would never choke someone for that long. If our war comes to a stalemate we accept peace since staying in the war is just a losing game for both sides. In addition we get hit much harder than the AI with unit supply costs and war weariness.

Of course, AIs doesn't have the luxury of just quitting the game if an early rush fails, but it should be possible to teach them when to quit.

 

[georgjorge]

That's a very nice showing of the ways the AI can screw itself!

Monty is...a bit broken, it seems. Not only the unit-spamming but also his stack composition. Once every few tries he gets it right (different combat units AND siege in one stack) but he's the AI with the most ridiculous stacks. Six Horse Archers and five Catapults in the Medieval era (can only move one tile but is also vulnerable to about anything in that period) or throwing units against a city with ten units in it in twos and threes for a long time. He can be scary for the player, but only if you assume from the start he isn't going to attack you (always a mistake).

Back to the topic, the most pitiful thing is an AI starting on a small island. That's harsh for anyone, even a human player, but I don't even want to know how long it takes the AI in that situation to finally build a Galley. I have found AIs with that start having 3 cities in 1000AD (on Noble) despite a lot of land available on the mainland, and their cities guarded by Warriors.

 

[Windsor]

Monty gets really screwed by his UU. We've had plenty of discussions here on CFC if the Jaguar is a crappy UU or not, but there's no doubt that it's a really terrible UU for Monty. He would be a much scarier AI if he had a city-raiding UU.

 

[rah]

Six Horse Archers and five Catapults in the Medieval era

Actually in Vanilla when siege could still kill this wouldn't be that bad. Good attack.
Horses defend vs axe/archer and cats defend vs spear.

And Yeah, a CR UU would have been much better. Instead a few axes fortified in a hill city decimates his attacking stack.

 

[georgjorge]

Actually in Vanilla when siege could still kill this wouldn't be that bad. Good attack.
Horses defend vs axe/archer and cats defend vs spear.

That's true if it wasn't the Medieval era, with everyone (including Monty) able to make Macemen and Pikes already

 

[rah]

Good point, I was thinking a tad earlier.