AI is too easy I think

[Killazer]

especially when it comes to military conflict. Either I havent seen any capable AI yet or I have been attacking them too early for them to have any serious military. This is on monarch difficulty - not high but now low either.

So far Ive been able to build sizeable military force and defeat AI after AI with ease militarily - I have never been counter attacked by any significant force or harassed by AI units entering my territory - a good tactic if you cannot take someones main force dirrectly u can send in units to harass/pillage the infastructure forcing him to send more units to the rear.

All the AI does is garrison some troops in its cities and it just sits there. I just need a few cats and take city after city. I dont know seems too easy to me. I have done this many times. Maybe I just havent run into a 'good' AI yet ;-) The hard part is keeping up in tech with everyone else and not going bankrupts while you take city after city lol.. so I still end up falling behind but I own half the planet.

[Jaybe]

If you will look at the scoring system, it is based more on techs than on real estate now. Mouse-over your score above the minimap.

Not that the scoring system is what you should base YOUR values on!

[Dis]

I agree it's real easy when you are on the offensive. They just "hole up" and don't do much of anything.

The only time the AI took any of my cities was when I was going for a cultural victory. I let my army slide, and they made me pay for it. I had 2 very forward cities I took in the early land grab. I knew they would be hard to defend, and I failed to defend them properly. Despite my effortst, the AI took those cities with ease. And I didn't have the resources or technology lead to take them back (in a reasonable amount of time). As much as I hated to, I let them have those 2 cities. And I eventually got my cultural victory.

[Proteus_MST]

Hm, sometimes they can mount good offensives.

Once I had the Romans as eastern neighbor and lived in relative peace (although it was obvious that there would be war soon, as I gained one of the romans cities by culture flip and at some times the romans started to consistently demand tribute (which was always rejected by me ))
Therefore I wasn´t absolutely unprepared when finally Caesar declared war upon my nation.
He was able to send wave after wave of troops (first Knights, Macemen and crossbowmen, later musketmen and much later even grenadiers and riflemen).
At the beginning I had maybe 4-5 units defending the former roman city (and 2 units defending another city which could also be reached by the roman forces).
Caesar threw wave after wave against his former city (and also sent some forces against the second city he could reach, and once also against a third city he could reach by sea).
I started to send reinforcements, so that, after a while, my defending forces in the former roman city consisted of 10 units and more. And it was necessary due to Caesars massive attacks (I was lucky to have a slight technological advantage and could field grenadiers and later riflemen when he still attacked with knights, macemen and catapults).
(everything changed though, after I got tanks and gunships )

But at other times the AI seems to make strange decisions, declaring war and landing its initial invasion force as it is war sacross the ocean (which is promptly destroyed by me) andf then, after a while, sending a lone galleon into my cultural vorders, filled with 2 longbowmen and a settler, obviously with the intention to found a city somewhere neear my territory

[Mirkwood]

alot depends on your opponents and your tactics early on

In 2 of my games Montezuma has appeared with a massive stack and come knocking...in the end i lost he attacked on no less than 5 occasions thru the ages the last occasion he was armed with SAM,Marines and artillary and i was behind on tech only just arming up marines

My current game i have got better at Diplomacy and have decided my friends at an early stage i will not open borders or trade or even listen to the Russians and Japs[ they both attacked me for no reason early on] and now have a power block of us [the mongols ], the yanks and the chinese against these 2..!

[Saurus]

Originally posted by Dis
I agree it's real easy when you are on the offensive. They just "hole up" and don't do much of anything.

Ouch! ...I have heard so much good been spoken about the A.I in this game ... however, the way you put it sounded more like the horrible A.I from CTP II where the A.I during wartime in fact did NOTHING more than garrisoned their cities.

[Blake]

It is unfortunate the AI sucks so. And I've also noticed the holing up behaivour, maybe, maybe they'll slip a few units past to pillage, or MAYBE even try and take a city (but probably just pillage), but mostly they cower in their cities.

They could do with some threat assessment (doesn't need to be fancy, just count the # of hostile units in the area), and move most of their units to threatened areas, only having 1-2 garrisons in safe areas. This would not only improve their game by causing them to spend less on 10 garrisons for every base, but also make conquest more enjoyable, as after you "break" their initial resistence it's all just mop up, much like with killing a human player - who throw 90% of their forces at the invasion in the hope of crushing it decisively.

It would also be useful for the AI to do threat assessment and understand when a situation is entirely hopeless and retreat, such as how a human player will pull his 4 90% dead defenders out of the besieged city, that they may recover and fight again (promoted too!) rather than losing them with the city.

In a simialler vien it should do a simple check to avoid "suicide pillaging", that is, moving a lonely unit next to a city when the city contains the perfect counter-unit. Very, very brain dead.

[Artuero]

In my experience, the AI is pretty good in fighting on the offensive and not so good at defense, at least when they are losing.

[Cort Haus]

Trouble is, every time someone says the AI is too weak, Firaxis will probably add some more undocumented bonus elements - free units, upgrades, promotions, whatever, to make it 'stronger'. This makes it more interesting to attack, perhaps, but not necessarily a good thing for builders who are already feeling overwhelmed by the zillions of units the AI seems able to support.

[Sir Og]

Killazer it is not quite clear from your OP if you are wining these games where you dominate the AI early.

[Dis]

Originally posted by Saurus



Ouch! ...I have heard so much good been spoken about the A.I in this game ... however, the way you put it sounded more like the horrible A.I from CTP II where the A.I during wartime in fact did NOTHING more than garrisoned their cities.

well like I said, that's when the human player is on the offensive. IE- I started the war with the intent on taking 1 or more of their cities. And I already mentioned my last game where I was attacked by the persians. They sent in sufficient forces I had no hope of defending my 2 outlying cities. So it's a little different when the ai launches a surprise attack on you. though I could have still kept those 2 cities if I had around 10 premium troops in the area. All I had was a couple of defenders in each city. And my horse archers were not strong enough to take out their axeman. I had to use 2 of my units to take one of theirs.

[Kidinnu]

Even on Noble, I've had the AI launch decent counterattacks - apparently realizing he couldn't defend his capital well enough, Caesar sent a galleon full of troops into my backfield and several units of knights and riflemen to take an exposed city on a flank. I had to divert all my reinforcements to dealing with those two threats, so although his capital fell it was about ten turns before I was able to turn my attention back to his interior.

[Sir Og]

In my first civ4 game (noble) I was close to the Americans and I declared war on them. I had a tech lead but not very signifficant. I attaked with less units then they had in their two border cities combined. And they had four other cities that had full garrisons. They could have easily driven me back if they took all those units out of the cities and threw them at my stack at once. They never did this however and i won the war. At that time i thought that this is not a very smart thing to do but now i am thinking that maybe they played like that because they feared being attacked from some other civ if they expose themselves. Of course if this was the case there was no winning option for them.
Having that in mind it is normal to beat up civs that are weak (militarily, diplomaticaly and technologicaly). This is not bad AI IMO. Bad AI would be if the AI would treat you (or the threat that from your civ) differently from the other civs.

[Dis]

my recent game I just had Isabella move 3 transports full of units accross an ocean for an invasion. It wouldn't have been enough, but that's the most I've seen in any civ game to date (including smac). My battleships and destroyers made short work of them. Though one got through. As their transports were escorted by 2 destroyers. I softened them up with jet fighters, but I just didn't have enough ships to get all of them. My carrier even sunk a transport. .

One got ashore. 2 artillery, a sam infantry and a gunship. the gunship took out my worker 3 squares away. when my turn came I took them all out.

Earlier in the game the romans attacked me twice. They just wanted my territory (the indians on the other side had less room- but they didn't attack me). They managed to get one of my cities in the snow. But I took it back. Later I conquered 3 roman cities in an attempt to get some coal (turns out I didn't need it- it was underneath one of my cities). The city the Romans took from me was taken by amphibious attack.

I must say I am more impressed with the ability of the AI to transport troops. this is the best I've seen in any civ game. still not perfect, but they are making progress.

[Broken Hawk]

The garrisoning effect seems to occur when I have superior tech and I am on the offensive.