Why does the AI love Rocketry?

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jdstacey

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It doesn't seem to matter which leader, they all seem to love to go after Rocketry and skip over more useful techs. Am I missing something?
 
I get that, but even the guy who's obviously going culture researches it. The warmongers too, and I doubt they're planning to go space.
 
Maybe it's a matter of "well, if a few players know Rocketry, they won't trade it to me," thinks the AI, seeing as how those other AI would simply reply with "Sorry, we'd rather win the game, thank you very much!" when the first AI asks for Rocketry in a trade deal.

However, if a couple of other players are silly/smart enough to research Fission, then one of those who knows the tech will start to trade it around... and those who already have Rocketry in their back pockets won't be completely left out of the Nuclear Arms race.


Of course, when ALL of the AIs behave in this way, then the human player can easily get the Fission monopoly and just refuse to trade it around, muahahahaha!


Then there's the whole "I can't wait to upgrade my Infantry into SAM Infantry" line of thinking from most of the AIs, which can help against a human player that beelines Flight. Of course, in the more general case, it is a silly move against a human player that is capturing Cities with mostly land-based units (and who is possibly bombarding with naval-based units instead of air-based units).

Thankfully, the game doesn't have too many bad upgrade paths, such as if we were to introduce the idea of Infantry upgrading into Anti-Tanks. On that note, though, Grenadiers upgrading into Anti-Tanks would probably actually be a reasonable upgrade path, seeing as how the low base strength of an Anti-Tank unit is still higher than that of a Grenadier, and the Grenadier's bonus against Riflemen is of no use if the game is at a point where all Riflemen have been ugpraded and are no longer buildable.
 
Something that always bugs me, how can you have SAM and anti tank when no one has discovered flight or industrialism.
 
nfw said:
Something that always bugs me, how can you have SAM and anti tank when no one has discovered flight or industrialism.
Click to expand...
The same way that you can "know in advance" which tech you would like to research and will know about all of its benefits before you Scientists even figure these things out.

The same way that you can go to the Oracle and ask her to teach you the secrets of the future... she apparently has a scroll filled with a list of possibilities and you get to pick one, along with the colour of your seat cushion and the type of tea that gets served to you while you wait.

Besides, SAM Infantry... shooting missiles into the sky... really is just an advanced form of Archery.

Think of the Anti-Tanks as you would Axemen... according to the game's tech tree, guys were wielding axes for quite some time until those "more civilized" Swordsmen came along... and then, after a few battles, the Axemen just "figured out" that they "got a big bonus" when fighting against these new-found Swordsmen, even if their own Civilization's technology did not understand what Swords were all about or how to build them/use them. It's just that the Anti-Tanks, unlike the Axemen, don't have much other usage... they're like the most terrible members of your army that, once Tanks come on the field, manage to find creative ways to hold off the tanks that no one else can duplicate... think of many Hollywood movies where the less-popular kids manage to form a group that accomplishes seemingly impossible goals... but also those goals are goals that the average person probably doesn't even need to achieve in order to get on with their lives.
 
Besides, SAM Infantry... shooting missiles into the sky... really is just an advanced form of Archery.
Click to expand...
:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol: It may be more accurate to say that rocketry is a more advanced form of fuedalism.
 
Simple reasoning is 2 fold.

1) Stop the Human from running all over the A.I. with Tanks (Industrialism)
2) Stops the Air bombardment from fighters (Flight) and Bombers (Radio)

Me personally, if I'm going for a space race win, its one of the LAST tech's I research, only because its on the path of other space tech's.
 
I think the question is why dont they go for industrialism instead. After all attacking is way better than defending.
 
Because the AI sucks at using tanks. Too many combat tanks, not enough CR tanks.

The AI love for rocketry is because the space victory is one of the two victory types it actually plans for (the other being culture).
 
I play often with only conq/dom victories enabled, and the ai still runs towards rocketry. I think they're just looking for a counter to air units, rocketry is also a super important tech since you need it for nukes. It's also unlocked by artillery which the Ai blines as well, so it's only natural that rocketry would be next.

I love seeing the deity ai spam anti tank, when I'm still using cavalry. It makes me laugh when they actually quit making rifles and start pumping weak anti tank.
 
ColossusXXIII said:
I play often with only conq/dom victories enabled, and the ai still runs towards rocketry. I think they're just looking for a counter to air units, rocketry is also a super important tech since you need it for nukes. It's also unlocked by artillery which the Ai blines as well, so it's only natural that rocketry would be next.

I love seeing the deity ai spam anti tank, when I'm still using cavalry. It makes me laugh when they actually quit making rifles and start pumping weak anti tank.
Click to expand...

A lot of this is based on the assumption of a reasonably intelligent AI. I believe that changing game conditions doesn't change AI behavior much. Run an "Always Peace" game and watch the aggressive AI's spam units.

The AI is set to appreciate the Space Ship techs. There isn't an ulterior "plan" behind it IMO. I've never seen the AI go hard for a space victory like it sometimes does for Culture. You might see only one or two cities building casings for instance.
 
Ataxerxes said:
The AI is set to appreciate the Space Ship techs. There isn't an ulterior "plan" behind it IMO. I've never seen the AI go hard for a space victory like it sometimes does for Culture. You might see only one or two cities building casings for instance.
Click to expand...

I remember reading through a topic where one guy won a deity domination by the narrowest of a string; the last AI who remained was one tech away from the final space ship part (he had already completed all the others SS's) but decided to go for Stealth instead. This gave the palyer enough time to win the damn game.
So yeah, AI clearly doesn't aim for space; its just something it finds as a rational choice while teching.
 
The AI really could benefit from a few hard-scripted "strategies" it could try and implement if the conditions were right... mostly opening strategies and end-game strategies (rushes, REXes, slingshots, and end-game beelines). The middle of the game is (usually) far too complex to reasonably hope to script "good" play, but it's like Deep Blue having a library of chess openings and end-games.
 
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