AI is too easy I think

[MasterDave]

This is one of the reasons that multiplayer civ is more satisfying in the long run. An AI will never be as unpredictable as a human in terms of tactics.

I will say that when someone attacks me with a superior force in multiplayer, my best bet is to hole up most of my forces in the city nearest the attackers and hope that the defensive bonuses even the odds. Maybe one or two of my units will wander around his territory as distractions/pillagers (something else I have see the AI do when under attack).

[Footie Mad]

Try playing on large pangea maps, you will be teamed up on and the opponent gets room to build up.

[BigWilly1974]

I find the AI to be not too bad. I do notice the "hole-up" effect when I invade, but I also only usually invade when I am sure to have an advantage either in tech, or numbers. In those instances, for the AI to come out of their cities (where they have defensive bonuses), ...now that would be bad AI.

I should try some time attacking a more powerful enemy with a smaller force and see if they defend more aggressively. If they do, I don't think there's a problem.

This is based on Prince/Monarch level games...

[Mrrlyn]

So, let me get this straight: when you launch a carefully planned, strategic surprise attack against an AI civ you find it too easy to take their cities, but when the AI does the same to you you find that it does a pretty good job.

Could it be that all you're noticing is the element of surprise? I mean, in drawn-out conflicts I find the AI has done a pretty good job of sending massive waves against me, crippling my economy by mercilessly pillaging my infrastructure and preventing me from mounting any serious retaliation. Beating an AI that's focused on crushing you with its military is a tough job (especially if the AI civ started the war).

Beating an AI that's concentrated on the tech race, and has simply garrisonned its cities to some basal level (albeit surprisingly high) is obviously much easier.

So, to sum it up: the best defense is a good offense. The key to a strong military campaign is to take the initiative, and make retaliation next to impossible by taking a few key cities and pillaging like crazy.

[asleepathewheel]

It comes and goes. In my last game, I was slammed by 3 civs in one turn. a fourth I was already at war with. It was around 1 ad, so I was quite unprepared for early battle on 3 fronts.

This was on Monarch, 18 civs, pangea, aggressive ai. I think it also had to do with the fact that my capital was massive, I think a size 13. workable capital tiles-4 corn, one cattle, 2 gems.

[vmxa1]

I have not tried any large ones, what size map was it for 18 civs? Was land for towns hard to come by?

I can say that AW with raging barbs will keep you busy and you will not be wishing they had more troops to send.

[asleepathewheel]

I had four cities on my map and had room for another in my cultural sphere.

[vmxa1]

Sounds about right, not much time to look around. Nice and cozy.

[BlueO]

The AI is very good. In my last game, the Aztec and the Romans (who formed an alliance) suprised attack me (Mali) and my ally (Russia).

Immediately, they launched an all out air attack, taking out all of our oil fields, alumium, uranium. I didn't have air cover for my resources since I didn't expect the AI to actually do anything smart. My russian ally lost two cities right away. There were at least 5 size 7+ stacks running around. Eventually I would lose a big city while my russian ally lose 2 more. I had my main city producing defensive units and airlifting them to the next potential city to be attacked. Eventually it had a garrison of 10+ mechiazed infantries with 3 city defense promotions each . And 4 jet fighters on interception missions. The jet fighters are so cruicial since the AI had like 5 carriers offshore launching nonstop bombing runs. And lots stealth bombers at border cities also running nonstop bombing runs.

Eventually the AI invasion force fizzled. They couldn't take out our fortified city. Their mistake was stopping their huge attack force early on to defend the newly conquered city until it flipped to their side. The 7 turns or so it takes to flip, I was able to produce a lot of defensive forces to fortify the frontier cities. If the AI had contiuned to attack and not wait for the city flip, they would have steamrolled through a dozen more cities.

After the AI invasion fizzled, and I and my russian ally begin our counter attack. I have to admit, my Russian AI ally did a much better job. I launched a 10 unit attack with a mix of modern armor and mech infantry. I failed to provide air cover and my stacks were all damaged to half health. I had to call a retreat to heal while I scramble a couple jets to provide cover. While I was running my debacle, my Russian ally took out 1 Roman border city and pillaged the tiles around the next Roman city.

Actually, that's where I ended the game. I was very disappointed there's no way to take out enemy jet fighters on defense. Wish I can use my own jet fighters on escort missions or something. I lost a dozen stealth bombers to the same jet fighter.. On the other hand, if the AI could take out my defensive jet fighters, the invaders would have gained full air superiority and I would have lost the game completely.

Also, I was so prepared for a nuclear war. As it turns out, there's no 'nukes' in the game. I launched over 15 nukes, only 2 landed in Roman lands. Others all got blown up by SDI. The computer never once launch a single nuke. And by watching my Russian ally build, its apparent the AI do not build nukes at all. To test a theory, I loaded worldbuilder and gave the ai nukes. The game froze when I hit end turn..

IMO, the endgame should be a nuclear war. As is, my last game is a stalemate, though, I'm sure I can eventually beat the AI since they seem to have trouble taking on fully fortified cities. (ie, they not using tanks with full city attack promotions)

[xxFlukexx]

No, I think the AI is pretty good. If you are playing on a low difficulty(yes noble is low, prince is almost medium) weird settings(no barbs, no tech trading, no space race) or playing on sea maps, well of course the AI is easy. It sounds like you are taking out a few AIs that are low score-wise which isn't hard to do at all. Destroying them is easy of course. If you don't end up winning the entire game though I don't think you can count that as "I win, the AI sucks".

I notice the AI does exactly what Blake says it doesn't do. The first wave of troops is insane, heavy fighting with almost the entire AI army, but after you destroy that, it's just vs the AIs production, aka mop-up. Sure you are playing on a land map? It's just that whenever I attack someone after they have been at war for 10+ turns(I call it vulturing, AI does it too, grrrr) it's very easy to grab cities that are defended by only 2-4 units.

The AI could use some improvement on anti-raiding(doesn't let me get away with much, but letting me get away with anything is not smart)
It also pillages a bit too much, vs a human player it is just devastating, but when the AI is clearly capable or winning, when it just pillages and then rebuilds, it's silly. And sending 1-2 horse archers every 10 turns is not good, either mass raiding or no raiding, Mr. AI.
AI also needs to guard resources better. One unit defends vs barbarians early on. After that you need a small force to defend if say 4 mounted units come. After that around industrial you need a spy on critical tiles like oil/aluminum and workers standing by to replace it asap. Sabotaging oil again and again for 50 turns feels like cheating sometimes.

Don't get me wrong, if it was anywhere near fair, the AI is very bad, but because of bonuses, the AI puts up a good fight with a large army. Thing is that the AI always has a large army while a human player does a super insane buildup for 40 or so turns before he wants to go to war, while the AI lacks this sort of planning and army-spike strategy.

[Blake]

I notice the AI does exactly what Blake says it doesn't do. The first wave of troops is insane, heavy fighting with almost the entire AI army, but after you destroy that, it's just vs the AIs production, aka mop-up. Sure you are playing on a land map? It's just that whenever I attack someone after they have been at war for 10+ turns(I call it vulturing, AI does it too, grrrr) it's very easy to grab cities that are defended by only 2-4 units.

I stand by my claim. Unless the AI is in an extremely dominant position it can't mount a decent offense, note that Big != Decent, it doesn't matter how big their offense is if they piss it all away. The AI still doesn't have basic tatics, like the correct order of city-siege:
1) Bombard the defenses down to 0.
2) Attack with collatoral units.
3) Attack with city raiders.
4) Mop up with leftover units.

Instead it basically does all these things in a random order, some pults will bombard will others kamikazi while the units which should be garrisoning the city kakikazi on it's defenses.

Napoleon is especially el-gimpo, when his big old stack of muskets turn up a few turns ahead of the siege and all kill themselves on +60% cultural defenses. I've seen some spectacular french military failures, with MULTIPLE "..." stacks dying. He always seems to manage to bring just enough units to almost take the city, losing all the units in the process. I mean he's got cities down to 1 almost dead defender on multiple ocasions... as if he needed just 1 more musket to attack. Maybe he's roleplaying.

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Blake
Maybe he's roleplaying.

Blake, are you talking about v109, or v152 here? The city attack AI is far from perfect, and you still might see some 'random' behaviour, however I found it to be much improved.

It remains true, though: the AI simply needs a lot more troops than a human. But in the situations where it has such an advantage I think it performs quite well, all things considering. It can always get better, but I don't think this is the last time the AI gets tweaked

DeepO

[Broken Hawk]

Where do you get v1.52? Thanks.

[Blake]

Originally posted by DeepO



Blake, are you talking about v109, or v152 here? The city attack AI is far from perfect, and you still might see some 'random' behaviour, however I found it to be much improved.

It remains true, though: the AI simply needs a lot more troops than a human. But in the situations where it has such an advantage I think it performs quite well, all things considering. It can always get better, but I don't think this is the last time the AI gets tweaked

DeepO

Well one game was 1.52 and he decided to attack across a river. I didn't know about the change in combat then so was suprised at how handily my Grendes and Longbow wiped out swathes of muskets, I put it down to the river but it was probably more the combat change. I was rushbuying a new Grenade every turn using Kremlin Powah. At the climax the only unit left alive - a lvl5 Longbow with a sliver of health. Thanks to him I built Westpoint.

Another game was 1.00 when Napoleon launched a massive naval assault on one of my small island cities, he unloaded dozens of rifles, grenades and cannons on the island. Despite being a barely-defended insignificant island city I held it thanks to bombers and an extra airlifted unit (machinegun or infantry) every turn (it was on a hill too). He spent thousands of shields and only killed 1 unit and he wasn't even attacking a valuable city. The impressive thing was the good co-ordination of the attack, with the multiple transports being escorted and such and the sheer number of units shipped across. He would have taken the city if he'd moved his escorting destroyers to the city and bombarded it down to 0.

[mfb1234]

Hey Killazer may be this strategy will help me with my current game, but bud one thing - don't call this game ez ok? Probably ppl who come to this forum have higher than avg IQ or something but me and most of my freinds got this game 3-4 days ago and are yet to win in monarch. Of course we're still learning and I just played a Noble game but I think the AI is tougher than the previous Civ games.