What AI habit or feature irritates you most?

[MyOlde]

It annoys me that the very first moment I meet Bismarck, he's "annoyed" with me.

But the AI habit that drives me nuts is blithely thinking they can send troops across my territory whenever they damned well feel like it. For some time I thought they were going to attack me but eventually I realised they were trying to get to another of their cities which lay beyond my territory or they were going to attack someone else way over there. Nevertheless, I find it very irritating. If I try it on their precious property, bam!, hardly has my guy taken a step when someone objects.

It may only be a game but I take it personally. (Probably why I love Civ as much as I do.)

[bobbo008]

i hate how they dont stop once you tell them to leave, they just keep trying, but the minute you enter their waters, its "woah, what do you think youre doing?"

i hate how, especially on harder difficulties, the AI seems to share maps and technologies with the other AI civs almost every turn.

oh, another is how they'll sign all of these alliances and declare war with someone on the other side of the war, and 10 turns later theyre at peace and they never even fought each other.

[Louis XXIV]

If you think about it, you can act the same

Its entirely up to you.

They step into your territory, and you tell them to leave.
You step into their territory, and they tell you to leave.
What happens afterwards depends on the actions taken

[bobbo008]

obviously, but theres still a problem.

when you do it, there is simply a penalty: worse relations. when they do it, its just if you get upset with that particular civ or not, but no exact penalty against them...

[Kaos XIII]

I hate how my cities never get bombed by A.I. planes or artillery. I want to be bombed, damn it!

[Underseer]

When workers are automated, they do a lot of unnecessary running around.

[Kuciwalker]

I am OFFENDED by its EXISTENCE, so much so as to fix this deep flaw in the game

[ALPHA WOLF 64]

i hate that ai actions are so rigidly scripted especially when they are doing something totally stupid like:

ai has reached it city limit and hospitals are many centuries in the future, yet the workers are irrigating;

modded settlers to cost 3 pop, yet ai cities will build a settler even tho it'll take 20 turns to build but 40 turns to get to the necessary population;

ai has massed enough troops to take many of my cities yet all i have to do is get a military alliance with a weaker country and the AI will turn around to march half way across the map to attack them even tho i was virtually defenseless;

ai builds the cheapest unit during times of peace so that they never have many if any, of the more powerful units. this strategy is ok for times of war, but peace is when you want few but stronger units;

ai never seems to save any money for upgrading even tho i modded govs to max out between 70-90% science;

workers working tiles that are not part of any city;

thats all for now

[Azeem]

The AI seems to seldom use bombardment and isn't very capable in naval warfare. They also repeatedly move their units into my territory no matter how many times I demand them to leave. The AI also seems to attack through the SAME point all the time so dealing with their invasions is either irritating or too easy.

[dexters]

I have a lot of respect for the thought and intricacies of the AI.

But I think it is a set of instructions and not a thinking AI, and after a while, most players can predict ahead of time how to deal with an AI opponent.

It would be interesting if there was some sort of learning mechanism that would allow the AI to at least adjust some of its more fundamental strategies on the fly. But even that is subject to manipulation if players find out the inputs the AI uses to learn.

The quest for the perfect Civilization AI continues, but I have to say that I have a great deal of respect for Soren. the AI has continually learned from humans because of his continued patronage to this forum.

I really hope the AI gets a nice bump for the Conquests XP. There are people like me who will plunk down $30 for that. One of the biggest reasons I got PTW, aside from the new units and new civs was the improved AI. When I found out it was improved, I just had to have it.

[David Murray]

Want to be more challenged by the AI? That's what difficulty levels are for. What I like is overall improvements to the AI that make sense. What I don't like is when people pressurize Firaxis to make it simply more difficult for everyone on all difficulty levels.

Maybe I'm just lucky but I usually see lots of AI ships and I frequently get attacked by bombers and artillery. The artillery even have escorts.

[bongo]

The AI doesn't have the slightest clue on how to use any form of artillery effectively. A possible exception is naval bombardment, it's not good at it, not really, but better than decent, sort of...

Imagine a learning AI that not only learns from it's mistakes but connects to the internet to exchange strategies with other AI's. They may even get their own forum here at apolyton

[dexters]

In a debug game, I've seen Carthage, who had about 16 ironclads, concentrate half its fleet on a Japanese city, bombard the hell out of it and reduced its poplation from 12 to 1.

It also used lone artillery to fire. They also moved the arty out with an infantry escort.

All it needs now is to concentrate its artys like it does its ironclads.

One thing I find, the AI build artys for defense more than offense. It usually have about 1 to 5 arty in their capitals to weaken an attack.

[David Murray]

Originally posted by bongo
The AI doesn't have the slightest clue on how to use any form of artillery effectively. A possible exception is naval bombardment, it's not good at it, not really, but better than decent, sort of...

You're overstating. In my last game it used artillery to destroy improvements around my bordering cities. Okay, it could do better but to say it doesn't have the slightest clue is being a bit harsh.

[dexters]

Impressive display of Naval power

Cathage in this debug game is an economic giant, despie having a modest territory. It is also very advanced.

What is really interesting is just the sheer amount of naval activity going on. Each Civ have their ships arrayed in defensive formation. But Carthage here has its fleets all over the coasts of rival Civs.

The game btw is 11 Ai civs, regent and big map. 130X130.

Carthage = Brown
Orange = Persia
Pink = China
Aqua blue = Celts