What's the MOST annoying AI behavior?

[HellboundHeathcliff]

@ TruePurple: If you have MA with other civs and make peace before the 20 turns are up, you have broken the MA deal. Also, when not involved in a mutual war, the AI takes into consideration your behavior during the war... razing, pillaging, etc.

@ Fried Egg: No, the AI doesn't understand a luxury not traded is worthless. It places a value on it by how much good it will do you and sticks to that.

 

[Fried Egg]

I noticed a change to the AI from CivIII to Conquests...in that sometimes you can add something to your offer (of a different type) and the AI attitude can consider it a worse deal than before...something strange going on there! Also, in Conquests, the AI seems a lot less inclined to offer gold per turn as part of it's deal...

 

[TruePurple]

If you have MA with other civs and make peace before the 20 turns are up, you have broken the MA deal.

Well it breaks MA deals all the time.. sometimes only a few turns after they are made, even when you payed them to join. I kept my MA deal for quite awhile and I payed the AI for the MA. No deal was listed in the active trade listing. If the MA was still going, the interface doesn't let you know. Civ 3 needed so much more work before release, especially with AI stuff

 

[smeggo]

Don't know if this happens at all levels but noticed it when I started playing Emporer.
My warrior was next to a goody hut with another civ's scout on the other side.
The scout goes into the goody hut and moves on, must have got a tech or gold.
That must be a fluke thinks I as every time I pop a goody hut out rush the barbarians.
In the interests of science the auto save gets re-loaded and re-loaded about 10 times, not a single instance of barbarians.
About 8 times the scout went happily on his way with a tech or gold and the other couple of times a warrior joined his civ.

 

[yinduasan]

I think it is reasonable because any civ with expansion feature will enjoy more friendly barbarian and receive gold or tech from then. Next time try Arabic maybe...

Don't know if this happens at all levels but noticed it when I started playing Emporer.
My warrior was next to a goody hut with another civ's scout on the other side.
The scout goes into the goody hut and moves on, must have got a tech or gold.
That must be a fluke thinks I as every time I pop a goody hut out rush the barbarians.
In the interests of science the auto save gets re-loaded and re-loaded about 10 times, not a single instance of barbarians.
About 8 times the scout went happily on his way with a tech or gold and the other couple of times a warrior joined his civ.

 

[Gyathaar]

Don't know if this happens at all levels but noticed it when I started playing Emporer.
My warrior was next to a goody hut with another civ's scout on the other side.
The scout goes into the goody hut and moves on, must have got a tech or gold.
That must be a fluke thinks I as every time I pop a goody hut out rush the barbarians.
In the interests of science the auto save gets re-loaded and re-loaded about 10 times, not a single instance of barbarians.
About 8 times the scout went happily on his way with a tech or gold and the other couple of times a warrior joined his civ.

Expansionist civs will never get angry barbarians from huts

 

[smeggo]

Expansionist civs will never get angry barbarians from huts

What????????
Shows how much I know about the game doesn't it.

 

[FinnMcCool]

I can't remember ever seeing the AI use its amphibious units amphibiously

And I'm not entirely certain that the AI knows the whole map. I suspect the AI knows the entire continent, but not foreign continents. I've been playing a European-centered mod for a looonnggg time now, and I've NEVER seen the AI reach The New World (either North or South America) before me, even though they have the tech to cross ocean long before I do...

Heh! Hooduhthunk?

 

[Stormfalcon1970]

If you add the line "NoAIPatrol=0" into your Conquests.INI file (or remove "NoAIPatrol=1" from PTW/Civ3.ini) then they probably will leave when peace breaks out.

Sounds interesting. What does this do in game? I'm curious because I've seen this mentioned in several threads.

 

[SJ Frank]

And I'm not entirely certain that the AI knows the whole map. I suspect the AI knows the entire continent, but not foreign continents. I've been playing a European-centered mod for a looonnggg time now, and I've NEVER seen the AI reach The New World (either North or South America) before me, even though they have the tech to cross ocean long before I do...

Heh! Hooduhthunk?

Oh, I'm sure the AI "knows" the other continent.

In a random map game where I have my own island, the first boat that I saw out of an AI (so they haven't scouted my coast before) dropped a pair of archers next to my undefended Silk city

So, that means they can see the Silk (I had many other closer, undefended cities that they bypassed), they can see my troops (or the lack there of ), and they can see that there is water route to my Silk city.

 

[HellboundHeathcliff]

Sounds interesting. What does this do in game? I'm curious because I've seen this mentioned in several threads.

The NoAIPatrol flag controls whether or not the AI randomly patrols with it's units. This can use up a lot of time of the AIs turn. It turns out that it affects barbarian behavior as well. It defaults to 1 in C3C and 0 in PTW/VC3.

 

[SaepesGenistae]

I think the most annoying AI behaviour is when they send out various settlers protected by spearmen through your territory, and no matter how many times you say "remove your forces from our territory or declare war", they still will try to pass through - you might as well just ignore them and let them pass! But if you so much as send one worker into their territory to complete a trade route, they will almost automatically declare war after a few turns (well, on higher difficulty levels anyway)! Another annoying thing is if you build a colony and protect it with a military unit, you can be almost certain the AI will settle beside it and become annoyed at your presence in "their" territory!

There is also some quite frankly stupid AI behaviour, even on Sid; e.g. they often ignore goody huts right beside their territory; they also seem to leave building trade routes to resources until the last minute; they make far away cities with a lot of corruption build great wonders (as you can see from investigating them); and sometimes they even ignore barbarians right inside their territory (of course, because of the AI-biased rules, barbarians NEVER seem to destroy AI workers/settlers - only the player's!).

 

[dariusII]

This falls under the "lamest" AI behaviour I guess:

When an AI Civ comes calling to do a tech trade, it will offer a tech that you are about to finish researching the very next turn!

Yeah, right! Take a hike Spike!

 

[Turner]

Actually, I've been known to take such trades. If it gets my research done that much quicker, and I'm behind to begin with, then I'll do it in an attempt to catch up. Not every time, mind you, but when I feel it's okay to do.

But I've also laughed at them plenty of times for such an offer as well.

 

[dariusII]

Actually, I've been known to take such trades. If it gets my research done that much quicker, and I'm behind to begin with, then I'll do it in an attempt to catch up. Not every time, mind you, but when I feel it's okay to do.

But I've also laughed at them plenty of times for such an offer as well.

Yeah, I've accepted the trade too from time to time, if it helps me leap frog up the tech tree. But the fact that the AI Civs seems to wait until the last possible turn before offering it makes it so lame IMHO.

 

[Eyeoftiger]

@Renata:

2) Yes, the AI gets a regent bonus "only". But as said, that is the one disadvantage I hate on the higher levels - the Barbarians won't do anything to the AI, while being a real threat for you. In RAR, that's fine - the Barbs are so strong, the AI Civs ahave a hard time with them as well .

The most frustrating thing I ever saw was on an Emperor game I was playing, and a barb camp spawned some 30 horses (maybe it spawned twice). It was in an area that I wanted to build a city. I took three pikes with my settler to defend it. Nope, didn't work, I didn't even win one battle. So I just sat and waited for some stronger units. Then out of nowhere, an AI civ plopped a city down there. I thought, WTH? Then I was like, "oh well, they will continually get raped for gold from the horsemen." Nope, I went up there some 50 turns later, and the horses will still there, and there was ANOTHER AI settler moving undefended next to the barbs, and they DIDN'T ATTACk.

I was so pissed off that they took my city place that I shut down the game, modded a game to make barbs weak, and placed the offending CIV (Inca I think) on a 1 tile desert start island with Ocean surrounding it...man that pissed me off.

 

[Luthor_Saxburg]

One of the most annoying cheats of the AI is the non-invisibility of your invisible units!!!

Playing the Pacific WWII against the AI is annoying as there is no purpose in trying to hide your ships, visible or invisible! Despite this, the AI sucks in that scenario!

 

[TruePurple]

This falls under the "lamest" AI behaviour I guess:

When an AI Civ comes calling to do a tech trade, it will offer a tech that you are about to finish researching the very next turn!

Yeah, right! Take a hike Spike!

Those can be good deals, rather like rushing the last turn of a production to save over shield production. Last turn tech purchases can save over research.

The AI always knows how much is left to research your tech and will charge you accordingly, so a last turn tech is bound to be pretty cheap, especially if you missed getting the tech last turn by much less then a turns research production. Feel out the AI for best price (in gold of course, not tech trade) and go for it. Well unless maybe if your paying extra for only one nation having the tech.

 

[Gargantutron]

most annoying behaviour as i see it, is when an AI demands insane things in trade.
1 luxury for 4 luxuries, saltpeter, iron, AND a tech! i mean comeon. i understand that the AI wants a good deal, but sometimes (well often) an AI will demand so much that not even OTHER AI's will trade, and those luxuries are just WASTED. idiotic.

 

[sabo]

My most annoying (3 of them) is that the AI doesn't know how to properly use artillery, or armies, and they declare war on you when they run into your subs. Not only that if you play long enough you know exactly how the AI thinks and stratigizes (if that's what you want to call it )