AI Army in the Field (REALLY)!!

[Antrine]

Hi, vmxa1

The little fences are my artwork, . They are for domesticated animals, cattle, sheep etc. In detail there is a animal and shadow helping to depict same. My maps are resource rich. It goes with my mod philosophy, give the AI no excuse not to do well. Higher returns for tiles and resources with all 'main roadways' in place across the world. Which I call 'the grid' since the game uses capitol to capitol connections for trade to work and the luxuries to have any impact on cities.

So one of your first tasks is to 'hook cities' to the grid or build on it straight out. To bad the AI's are so handicaped, especially in early game play, which is my favorite 'time period'. All these 'work arounds' instead ACCESS TO THE AI ROUTINES with Event triggers or at least give me fine tune control over Goody Huts and I will make do with them for now.

For instance I employed the idea of 25% of the Goody Huts being 'invisible' to the human anyway and then place them on obscure road links etc. so 'surprises' happen. For the game lacks variance (I think).

Excuse, my digresion, Let the Army march!

[joncha]

Originally posted by vmxa1
joncha armies are encountered in PTW. It is not so clear in C3C. I do not recall fighting any, I thought I had seen one, but not in combat.

They at least are very rare.

I see... thanks vmxa (and fatwreck).

jon.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Anakha
In my monarch-level Rise of Rome conquest, I encountered Hannibal with an army of elephants, out in the field making attacks. Didn't need to do any modding to get that to happen, but, having not played the Carthaginians in that conquest yet, I don't know if maybe the Carthaginians start off with Hannibal in an army instead of just as a leader...

I suspect that things were done in some of Conquest to help trigger armies showing up, but they are like hens teeth in epic games for C3C.

[dexters]

I really think that this is a matter of choice. If you're playing realtively peaceful Builder type games, you can go through several games playing like that never needing an army. I used to play like that and used my MGLs to rush wonders (preC3C) and now, I use them to rush other large non wonder projects.

What the AI is doing isn't neccessarily wrong. I understand the desire to see them use armies more, and in fact, I think they used to use armies more often pre C3C. What needs to be fixed here is for the AI to align its priorities with its builds. What may have screwed up the AI is the fact that MGLs can no longer rush wonders, and it is likely the code handling MGL decisions hasn't been changed approrpriately to reflect this, leading the AI to rush non wonder buildings, or even units with their MGLs instead of building an army.

If the AI has a lot of enemies (ie: been in a lot of wars) perhaps it can be more predisposed to go for an army. Where as a relatively isolated peaceful AI will prefer to use their MGL to rush a building project. Or to go an even simpler route, just do an RNG dice roll to decide what do to with the leader.

Ideally, each AI leader needs to have additional variables dictating their current foreign policy stance. And long term strategy (ie: I plan to go to war soon -- so i need an superunit army) but I don't think Soren programmed the leader AI to work like that and he probably didn't make allowances for variables relating to long term planning. What the AI is probably doing is to evaluate more in the short term of, here's my current situation, what do it do NOW and in the next turn. And it will do it agian next turn and the next and the next. A sort decision making based on past and current decisions rather than the future.

It really would be nice to simulate an AI that can plan ahead 10, 20 or 30 turns. It may not be smart, in the sense of human creative planning, but smart enough to be able to pick objectives and plan their builds, strategy and research around that. I think its possible. I hope they do it in Civ4, or maybe we'll be surprised and Soren throws it a modified leader AI in the next patch to do something similar to that.

I'm rambling now, but read my post title AI loses initiative = Another Win for Me. to see why I'm so bitter the AI lost a game it should have won fair and square.

[Antrine]

[IMG]Third Army[/IMG]

This one is Berserker!!

Some notes on AI Army behaviour.

Allied AI Army moving through your terrain is a pain. They have a humor to move, destroy improvements (roads) and move again. Otherwise they behave nicely attacking and retreating when wounded. It even piggy-backed a defensive unit and had it tag along. Good move, kept the Army fresh for attacks.

The AI's seem to bogart the first two Armies in their Capitols and stuff them with defensive/offensive units mixed. Then the third one comes out offensive only and is not shy.

MORE ARMIES!! It is decidedly more fun playing with other Armies in the field besides my own!

Army against Army battles are more interesting, period. As well other strategies emerge with AI Armies in the field.

I think Firaxis missed the boat with this one completely, Armies should be plentiful and center stage in all major campaigns.

For those in denial that this is a war game, great, mayhap we are not playing the same game. Anyway peace and to each their own.

[vmxa1]

Antrine you are playing a modded game to force more armies are not?

[Donegeal]

He said yes already. The palace produces 1 army every 15 turns and the city support requirement has been reduced to 2 cities per army.

[smellymummy]

if an empty army was rewarded instead of a leader in the event of an elite unit victory, that could help the computer to at least have more armies. if its only because the AI is not able to correctly weight the values of rushing (unit/impr./minor wonder) vs creating army, then we could mod/fix it ourselves. a major drawback is that an empty army doesnt have much mobility like a leader does (1 movement vs 3), and the AI leaders are already so easy to kill as it is.

[alexman]

Another drawback is that an existing army would make it impossible for another army to appear from combat.

[Antrine]

Donegeal is correct. The reasons for having the Palace as the starting point as well is that I believe the AI is saddled with bringing them back there anyway. And as I have seen, holds on to at least 'two Armies' in the Capitol in apparent 'reserve'. Then loads them with many 'defensive' units. It is not until the third and fourth one that I am seeing the AI field an offensive Army.

However here, I note that Allies and ememies alike are doing it.

What else can be done? Firaxis!! GIVE us more access to Army use routines. (Sorry guys, this is my broken record, happy gaming).

[bongo]

I remember a 'frightening' AI-army in vanilla civ3...1 archer and two warriors Ok, so I had just beaten him down several sizes, but hey, at least he filled it up

[Brundlefly]

Antrine do you have a .biq file to share with us?

[Antrine]

Sure, do you want original at start with other supporting files, I tweaked both the resourse and goody hut files? However the goody hut is not critical.

Or do you want the game file somewhere along the way? I have many saves.

[joncnunn]

I encountered a Japanese Army a few turns into the WW II Conquest playing China.

Unforunately, the AI only had 1 unit in that army

So I killed it then easily

I decided that the CIA was a better use for the first MGL so I could plant a spy in Japan.

The second one I used as an army.

Originally posted by vmxa1
joncha armies are encountered in PTW. It is not so clear in C3C. I do not recall fighting any, I thought I had seen one, but not in combat.

They at least are very rare.

[joncnunn]

I think you mean MGL in both cases.

Originally posted by alexman
Another drawback is that an existing army would make it impossible for another army to appear from combat.