Using A.I cheats against A.I.

[Yaniv]

As we all know, the A.I. cheats. One the the more famous cheats, is when the A.I. knows all your troop positions, and sends his units to less defended cities.

I have found a way to use this against the A.I. One time, I was at war with the A.I. in the ancient age. My border city (which will be reffered as X) was defended with 2 spearmen. An inner city (reffered as Y), which was about 6 squares deeper in my territory than the border city was undefended. The A.I. sent a really big horde of troops past the X straight towards the Y. When I noticed this, I started sending the spearmen from X to city Y (taking my built road, of course, so I would reach it before the enemy). After I abandoned the X (but not yet reaching Y), the A.I. horde made a U-turn and started making it's ways back to Y. Therefore, so did I. The A.I. made another U-turn back to X when I reached Y. I kept doing this trick until I built lots of spearmen to defend all of my cities from the zigzag of the A.I. horde.

Anyone know of any other tricks against the cheating A.I., or anything about how the A.I. cheats?

 

[Sgt.Hellfish]

y not just build a load of OFF units and destroy the army where it stands

 

[Nightfang]

What you desribe is called the "puppet strings" tactic. You lead them on a merry chase through your lands, without them ever getting to their destination. Really nasty when you have railed your entire empire and can shift from one side of the empire to the other instantly. Using this method, you could lead them carefully through your empire into an ambush location, then eat them alive.

I do not use this tactic, I feel it is TOO exploitive of the AI. I may do it unintentionally, sometimes, but never on purpose.

 

[morkaphi]

Some people call that "AI ping-pong". In addition to military units, workers/settlers are also frequently used to direct the AI troop to wherever you want them to be.

Yes, I agree with Nightfang that this is pretty much an exploit.

 

[TheNiceOne]

I agree with Nighfang that this is too much of an exploit to use intentionally. Especially when combined with bombardment units.

You lead the AI units to a spot from where you can safely use your bombardment units to take down the HPs. The wounded units will then start moving back to their borders, and can therefore be easily piecked off alone. Continue for a few turns, and a 70+ SoD will easily have been reduced to nothing while you had almost no losses.

 

[Rabid Pop Tart]

Of course, if your road network is bad at the time, just stack your border - then it'll take them many turns for them to go around.

Also, I mentioned in another post how the AI knows where your privateers are, regardless of whether or not it's in the AI's sight. Well if you build a stack of them and send them off in one direction, the AI will send their whold freagin navy after them. Annoying, but this opens up a lot of room if you plan to invade another continent and want some room for your ships.

~ Brendan

 

[sabo]

Yes, my normal tactic (after cannon and arty) would be to have X loaded with cannon and or artillery, then when AI goes for Y, I redline all his troops with my artillery then it's easy to finish him off. I guess when Firaxis programmed Civ III they didn't realize that human beings have cognitive thinking (well most of us anyway ) and that a human being not only will find a way "around" the AI cheat but actually use it to our advantage..
(come on Soren, did you really think we were that dumb??)

 

[Warman]

good

 

[Karlisna]

I love using this tactic, perhaps it is an exploit, but the AI deserves it. ^_O