Dumb AI

[Rook]

In my current game, I live all by myself on a rather large continent (Montezuma met with an unfortunate accident early in the game.) I am the largest civ and about 1000 in points ahead of the rest. I'm playing as a pacifist (well except for that early mishap there with Monty. )

My problem is, I am not finding much of a challenge with this predicament. It's almost a sure thing I will win. I have the hated spaceship turned off. I have been attacked repeatedly and the AI constantly makes the same lame attacks. He will dump a stack of whatever he has to the closest city. This stack is quickly destroyed by my tanks and now I have a fleet of ships waiting in his path, so he can't even get to the shore.

If I were playing against a human, the human would "see" that his strategy isn't working and maybe try a different approach. I really haven't done much to protect myself. My heavy troops are stationed in the city the AI seems to be interested in. An attack on the other side of the continent, could possibly give him a beach head, but I'm really not expecting this.

Is the AI always this predictable?

Another stoopid thing I notice the AI doing in my last game. I had an army of grenadiers rampaging through his country pillaging everything. His cities were falling too as I piled on more and more attacks. finally, I get down to his last 2 or 3 cities and I find hes got literally dozens of cannons just piled up inside. He made no attempt to use them on me, they were just there for defense I guess and well the city would have been easy pickens, but I felt sorry for him and let him off now that he was no longer a threat. Somebody else wiped him out a few turns later.

It just seems like after 4 incarnations of the game as well as many years of advances in game programming, we could have a little more challenging AI.

Don't get me wrong. I still love Civ 4 and play it everyday. Am I expecting too much from the AI though?

[xxFlukexx]

Sounds like you need to bump the difficulty up. More bonuses and troops can mask the faults of easy AI and make the game quite challenging.

And yes you are asking too much of the AI, I have seen the AI flank and do a backdoor attack with some troops, dunno if it is an accident or smart AI though. Civ 4 AI is miles beyond the AI in such games as Warcraft III so some of your expectations are too much.

[Urban Ranger]

Right now AI's in games are little more than rule-based expert systems. Some aren't even those (I am talking to you, Blizzard). So the "smart-ness" of an AI is entirely dependent upon how much of an expert in the game is the programmer.

As it stands, most of them aren't exactly good in these games. For one thing, the developer can't afford to sit around while the programmer plays the game day in and day out. Though they should be able to patch the AI after the game has been out for a while and got thoroughly analyzed by hardcore players. Gaming forums such as Poly are great sources of advanced strategies that can be programmed into the game.

I am not a fan for giving computer players grotesque bonuses to keep the game "challenging." YMMV.

[CreepyD]

Is it only prince and above that he will attack from within a city?

I recently went up from noble to prince, and maybe it's just coincidence, but whenever I sit next to an enemy city, they will often hit me with catapults/cannons etc.
It didnt do this on noble.

Like said earlier, put the difficulty up or try playing without islands - the sea is too nice a barrier to have if u ask me. 1 land mass is much more fun.

[Tattila the Hun]

I wonder, if this is an example of a good tactic... I have a SOD advancing towards Capac's city, they are on a hill by the city, I can see he as three riflemen and a cannon on the city. He can't win, no way. Next turn, the city is empty, bar the cannon, which attacked. An evacuation took place, to fight another day. / ?

[Solver]

Right now AI's in games are little more than rule-based expert systems. Some aren't even those (I am talking to you, Blizzard).

Blizzard AIs are like Aeson. Compared to Ensemble AIs.

The AI is much stronger at all-land maps, though, that lets them fight much better than naval maps.

[Saurus]

You did not mention what difficulty level you play so it is really difficult to say how to solve your problem really.

At Emperor I regulary run into situations were I cannot win a war so nerfing up difficulty could help.

A.I is somewhat predictable. Some A.I:s (like montezuma) sooner or later always go into mindless wars.
You could always use the "random personalities"-setting. Then you will not know how a given A.I will react towards you from game to game.

[johnmcd]

Sometimes you sew a game up before the actual win condition is triggered. I normally start again at that point - a whole generation of techs ahead and in a wholly defensible position, sounds like you did well and it's time to begin again.

[Rook]

Good responses all. I thought about it some more and I guess the situation I am in is very much like the United States is. It would be very difficult in this modern day for another country to launch an assault on American soil (Other than Canda or Mexico). I can't imagine a country like China would get far across the Pacific with enough troops to actually threaten the US. So I guess you are right in that I am expecting too much from the AI.

I like the continent maps more than the one giant land mass. To me its more realistic, but I guess I can't complain then if the AI has trouble launching se attacks on me. With that said, I hope the AI will be improved somewhat with patching.

By the way, I am 23 turns from the end of the game and Isabella and Mansa Munsa both went to war with me. I'm getting hit from two sides and having fun knocking them off.

[Urban Ranger]

I knocked off Isabella in my current game. She annoys me all the time.

[EternalSpark]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Gaming forums such as Poly are great sources of advanced strategies that can be programmed into the game.

This is a pretty serious mistake in computer gaming, an increasingly mainstream and increasingly casual market. If you put a diehard Civ fan's strategies into the AI, you doom the game to be too hard to the standard gamer.

If developers listen too closely to their die-hard fanbase and demographic, we wind up with games like Planescape: Torment, System Shock, and Fallout. All overly complex games praised by overly complex players, never remembered outside of gaming forums.

EDIT: That said, though, I did take out Toku in my current game, cuz of all the other times he was annoying as hell for me. Although his legacy remains; I offed him hundreds of years ago and my new bordermates will remember me declaring war on "their friend".

[Hauptman]

Originally posted by EternalSpark


This is a pretty serious mistake in computer gaming, an increasingly mainstream and increasingly casual market. If you put a diehard Civ fan's strategies into the AI, you doom the game to be too hard to the standard gamer.

If developers listen too closely to their die-hard fanbase and demographic, we wind up with games like Planescape: Torment, System Shock, and Fallout. All overly complex games praised by overly complex players, never remembered outside of gaming forums.

Bah their loss not mine!~

[EternalSpark]

Originally posted by Hauptman Bah their loss not mine!~

That's a very shortsighted comment. Will you say the same thing when a developer's attention to you means they will go out of business? It happened to PS:T's, SS's, and Fallout's.

[Hauptman]

Originally posted by EternalSpark


You'll definately 'lose' when game developers you like, like the developers of the three games I mentioned, begin to go out of business paying over-attention to the wrong kind of gamer.

**cough** ssi! **cough**

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by EternalSpark
This is a pretty serious mistake in computer gaming, an increasingly mainstream and increasingly casual market. If you put a diehard Civ fan's strategies into the AI, you doom the game to be too hard to the standard gamer.

Who is this mythical standard gamer?

At any rate, my contention is the AI doesn't need to cheat (as much) at the higher levels, it just needs to play smarter. As such, there is no reason why the computer players can't have kid's gloves on at lower levels.