War AI Needs Help

[budweiser]

I'm not trying to brag, just reporting what happened. Emperor game.

Elizabeth was big dog on my continent. I was France. She DoW'd me when I was 7 turns away from Rifles. She already had Inf/Arty. All I had was musketeers and cannons. I'm sure she had about a 7 tech lead as well.

I was able to survive and get my Foreign Legions and Artillery to begin a long slow push back into her lands. It was a long costly WWI style war that would have been decided if one side had gotten Flight, but I was too far away. In the end, three wars later, I took all of her original cities and the ones she stole from Hiawatha. I gave those back to him.

Looking back, it was a poorly fought war by Liz. Muskets and cannons holding off Inf/Arty.

 

[Babri]

These stories are getting old now.

 

[Strategist83]

What, AI has problems? NO WAI!

 

[dexters]

The AI have their problems, but it's not like you couldn't beat their SOD back in Civ4 either.

Also Muskets v. Rifles is nothing, when I assume you have massive bombard units at play.

I was able to hold off an agressive China with their UU by using the terrain and switching to a cavarly heavy strat for hit and run on their offensive units. Basically using my archers and city bombard to weaken their pikes to prevent them from taking my city then using my mounter units to kill their archers.

 

[headcase]

Sometimes it's a complicated game and they just couldn't nail the AI.

Sometimes, the AI is just profoundly stupid.

I'm fighting Russia, they have a better army, they have an arc 2-3 units thick advancing on my city, but they move them in 2 units at a time, wait for those units to die, then move in another two. Just blindly charging in like Leeroy Jenkins would be a better strategy!

 

[Becomedeath]

The AI is getting better, but a few points.

1. The AI has still no handle on how to properly manage it's units across the 1upt concept. It's better than it was, but still has some ground to make up. It tends to prefer brute force to intelligence and unfortunately that doesn't always wash.

2. The AI really does depend on technological superiority for it to fight effectively. If you're evenly matched, you're never going to encounter a major issue.

3. You, should always be beating the AI. If any game is smarter than you are, you have issues.

4. Shouldn't there be a seperate forum for these threads by now?

 

[headcase]

3. You, should always be beating the AI. If any game is smarter than you are, you have issues.

Not true for all games, e.g. Chess. Civ has more variables so making a good AI for it would be harder, but one of these days an AI that can challenge middle-tier players without cheating should be possible (not in Civ5's lifecycle).

 

[Becomedeath]

Not true for all games, e.g. Chess. Civ has more variables so making a good AI for it would be harder, but one of these days an AI that can challenge middle-tier players without cheating should be possible (not in Civ5's lifecycle).

I tend to disagree with the the Chess argument on the basis that a human can be creative. Even the most sophisticated chess programs simply asign numbers against known variables, it can't use that system to it's own advantage. You should always be able to reach a stalemate against a computer and avoid defeat.

But that's my real point here, the machine will never be able to think creatively. So it's strategies will ultimately, when you get down to the nuts and bolts, follow a formula which when cracked, you can sail through time and again.

Until you're actually playing against something that truely cares if it wins and more importantly wants you to lose, the human player should always be able to win.

Although I will be very happy to play against the game that can really think about what it's doing.

 

[aziantuntija]

Elizabeth was big dog on my continent. I was France. She DoW'd me when I was 7 turns away from Rifles. She already had Inf/Arty. All I had was musketeers and cannons. I'm sure she had about a 7 tech lead as well.

I was able to survive and get my Foreign Legions and Artillery to begin a long slow push back into her lands. It was a long costly WWI style war that would have been decided if one side had gotten Flight, but I was too far away. In the end, three wars later, I took all of her original cities and the ones she stole from Hiawatha. I gave those back to him.

Looking back, it was a poorly fought war by Liz. Muskets and cannons holding off Inf/Arty.

And this is exactly why civ5 is too easy: You can ALWAYS win with war.

It pretty much waters down everything else in the game because you can just always start a war and win. You dont even have to conquer everybody, for example just conquer enough cities to get the point lead and press next turn to the end. Its just so damn easy that it feels like cheating.

 

[chazzycat]

Yes you can generally win wars being slightly behind in tech with even numbers. But I would recommend playing a few games on immortal/deity before saying "you always win the war". When they have the numbers lead AND the tech lead, it's another story.

 

[Adjuvant]

To give credit to devs, it's much better now than it has been in the past.

 

[aziantuntija]

Yes you can generally win wars being slightly behind in tech with even numbers. But I would recommend playing a few games on immortal/deity before saying "you always win the war". When they have the numbers lead AND the tech lead, it's another story.

Just so that you know, im playing on immortal and beating the combat AI's numbers easily. Also, it is kind of stupid that you must make the whole game harder (give the AI massive benefits in every category) just to make the combat AI look less bad.

 

[Gort]

The game does make things hard on itself in some ways on the higher difficulties. Due to the 1 unit-per-tile design, and the way most units can't move after attacking, only a limited number of units can get involved in a given battle, so that somewhat nullifies the AI numbers advantage.

So you'd think the AI could still get through by throwing wave after wave of guys at you until you're worn down and die, but no - you've got things like the instant-heal promotion, and the whole concept of high-experience units, which prevent this. After all, if the AI is attacking with no-XP units each time and you've got +1 range, double-attacking bombardment units on your side, you're in a very good position.

So I'd suggest this for the AI:

1. Be a lot more aggressive on the higher difficulty levels. You've got the production to back up your attacks, you can afford big losses - the human can't. Stop meandering around inside artillery range - get stuck in as fast as possible!

2. Higher difficulty levels should give AI troops free promotions based on the unit type. Infantry-type units should get rough-terrain promotions, cavalry-type units should get open-terrain promotions.

3. Remove the instant-heal promotion, or at least make it a toggle in game setup so people like me who hate it can turn it off.

 

[headcase]

4. (without doing too much number-crunching) Imagine making all your moves, now pretend you are the human and make all of their moves. Now imagine what your moves next turn will be. If they involve an army fleeing away after heavy losses, don't move in!

 

[Sir Sir]

Having a war against the AI, is more about taking care not losing a single unit than actual losing the war.

After the initial start on Immortal, where some all out war AI sure can make a dent, there is not much of a war game :/

 

[dexters]

1. Be a lot more aggressive on the higher difficulty levels. You've got the production to back up your attacks, you can afford big losses - the human can't. Stop meandering around inside artillery range - get stuck in as fast as possible!
.

They are, even at King. I played a game where China dow on my no fewer than five times , each time massing troops to try to take a city they wanted. Then suing for peace when I stop their invasion. Lesson? When an AI wants to attack you, they will do it. It's no longer the random wars of older Civ games.

In my current Emperor game, I settled near a natural wonder early and this ticked of Bismarck and he declared war as soon as he got his UU. I stopped him, he sued for peace, then he would DoW again after the treaty expires in 10 turns. After about the third time, I noticed his invasion forces were getting larger and larger, and I decided to refuse peace (he offered some great deals) and simply hunkered down, trying to outbuild then for an offensive.

It ended up being one hell of an epic fight. For a time , it was literally like fighting an army that doesn't end. I kill a unit, another one moves in.

Both of these wars started fairly early, shows a singlemindedness and ruthlessness that's refreshing.

Take home for me is, AI will use peace treaties to build up more units to attack you again, a prudent and planned offense with enough force is sometimes the best defense. 1UP makes turtling easy. Setup some bows and a catapult and you think your border town is safe forever. But the AI will show up one day with an invasion force so large and enough bombard units to take it in 2 turns. (yes it's happened to me before)

You need to move into their territory to attack in a war to throw them off and force them to move their offensive units to defend.

 

[Becomedeath]

It would be nice however, if you're playing a peaceful game and simply defending, if the AI could work out that you're quite capable of defending your little empire and they're just sending units to their graves.

If you lost 20-30 units in a row and didn't so much as dent the AI's defenses, you'd give it a rest until you had some sort of an advantage.

The AI just keeps streaming them in WWI standard.

 

[dexters]

It would be nice however, if you're playing a peaceful game and simply defending, if the AI could work out that you're quite capable of defending your little empire and they're just sending units to their graves.
.

They can, they'll ask for peace and send in a larger/better force next time.

If they pull ahead technologically which is common in higher difficulties, you're in serious danger.

Also, border wars where they keep attacking the same city can seriously slow you down and distract you, meanwhile they are growing tentacles and settling new cities, amping up their production.

I found out later that's what Germany was doing.

I only really stopped the attacks by invading Germany itself and crippling them. It was a fun war.

 

[Becomedeath]

Indeed, but this is where is becomes clear that the AI doesn't fully get 1upt.

I've had plenty of games where I've defended a city purely though it's own defenses and by having a collection of ranged units. The AI just marches right into their waiting jaws over and over and over again.

While the armies get larger, the tactics don't change so it's just rinse and repeat.

While I'm not complaining really, it just gets tiresome having to keep up the same pointless defensive move for 100 turns +

Counter invasion is, as you said, the only solution. It would just be nice if the AI figured out that it was approaching that city from entirely the wrong way.

 

[dexters]

Indeed, but this is where is becomes clear that the AI doesn't fully get 1upt.

I've had plenty of games where I've defended a city purely though it's own defenses and by having a collection of ranged units. The AI just marches right into their waiting jaws over and over and over again.

While the armies get larger, the tactics don't change so it's just rinse and repeat.

While I'm not complaining really, it just gets tiresome having to keep up the same pointless defensive move for 100 turns +

Counter invasion is, as you said, the only solution. It would just be nice if the AI figured out that it was approaching that city from entirely the wrong way.

This has been the case with AI for all Civ game, it's one sized fits all strategy, only the AI gets to play with more units the harder you go.

On higher difficulty, the AI is much harder to attack as well, becaue they can easily have 3-4 bombard units defending and they rushbuy/build these almost every turn.

The Civ5 AI also keep reserves. You can beat back an attack, mass your forces and move against the AI and you'll see a wall of troops rush in from behind the fog of war. It takes a while to completely break the AI militarily, and you can't do it turtling in your territory, because their reserves will never come into play. You have to invade and wipe out their reserves.