What AI habit or feature irritates you most?

[dexters]

Originally posted by skywalker
I have an idea of where the landmasses are, so why shouldn't the comp? Just looking at my own continent/island, I can often tell where nearby islands will be.

Also, has anyone proven that the AI knows where the resources are? Couldn't it just be stupid enough to settle in bad terrain a lot, so it gets lucky a lot more often?

Watch a debug game and you will see it settles near resources. (in debug, you see all resources)

But it won't link the resource with roads until it can use it, unless of course a road just happens to go over a resources it can't use.

It may be that the leader AI sees the resources, but the worker unit AIs and the city AIs can't. So they are told to settle in a spot by the leader, without a clue why since they can't see the resources.

[Shogun Gunner]

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...

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

Now that's a great idea!!!!!

[mrboo123]

Originally posted by dexters


Watch a debug game and you will see it settles near resources. (in debug, you see all resources) (...)

What a "debug" game?

[Louis XXIV]

It may be that the leader AI sees the resources, but the worker unit AIs and the city AIs can't. So they are told to settle in a spot by the leader, without a clue why since they can't see the resources.

Maybe the AI is planning to settle in areas that are likely to have a resource. Probably not, though

What a "debug" game?

Debug mode lets you see everything. So you know what the AI is doing (I think it is PTW only)

[ALPHA WOLF 64]

Originally posted by bongo
Do you suggest that civ3 has mind-reading capabilities?

An alternative solution is that the AI, given it's excellent map-reading skills has seen that spot already and simply beats you to it? After all, you will never notice when YOU beat the AI to that nice spot.

There's no mind reading involved, once you tell a unit to go to a distant spot, the AI could easily be aware of your intentions. The AIs to me seem to expand their immediate borders unless there's a resource they want. However, I am talking more about spots that have no significant resources nor strategic locations but spots that I wanted that would satisfy some specifc need of mine, usually a distant "colony" that I wil use to populate an undeveloped area.

As far as islands go, i think the Ai knows what you know even if you dont sell your maps. Example: while testing some mod changes, i will use the same map so I can see how changes affect the game play. On the map is an island that is closer to 3 AIs than I am. In the games that I explore the area first, the Ais will always settle it. In games that I meander a settler up there, the island is always empty. If i autopath a ship/settler to the island without discovering it, its a coin flip whether the AI is already there or not. Since most of my games are similar in strategy and play, I always get there around the same time each game.

[mrboo123]

Originally posted by Louis XXIV
(...)Debug mode lets you see everything. So you know what the AI is doing (I think it is PTW only)

Cool, where is it? I have3 PtW

[RGBVideo]

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

Yep.

You can demand them to stay away, but they don't seem to like it much, and it gets annoying that you have to repeat the same mantra every turn, "leave my territory at once!"...

[Arrian]

I like AI settler teams. They're yummy.

What irritates me more than anything else, despite the fact that I understand why it works this way, is the markup the AI charges you if you're bigger than they are for luxury trades. I'm just finishing up a great game as Germany, and I wanted to trade for Carthiginian Wine. So I offered: 7 luxuries, 1 strategic resource, 1 tech. They laughed at me. So I sent my Panzers to "negotiate."

-Arrian

[vulture]

The AI doesn't have any benefit over you sending settlers across your territory. You can demand they leave just as easily as they can demand you leave their territory (leave or declare war...) You just have to be as prepared to go to war over it as the AI is. And, as Arrian says, those settler teams can either be viewed as a nice source of slaves early in the game (it'd cost you 230 gold or so to buy 2 slaves in PtW), or you can let them found a hopelessly corrupt city that has no defence, and take it when it gets to size 2.

If you aren't prepared to defend yourself violently, then the AI will walk all over you. You'd do the same to it if it was so placid.

[Egbert]

There are two things I find particularly irritating.
1. Given the crucial importance of tech trading I would love to have a pop-up to inform me when another civ has discovered a new tech to save me the tedium of constantly ringing everyone to see if they any fancy new discoveries.
2. Why is the AI agree to absurd alliances. It may be virtually defenceless and declare anyway voiding its trade agreements. (Worst case I ever saw was in a game where I found the Babs had been reduced to a settler on a boat. I got into a war with the French who had taken over all the Bab cities. Over the course of some ten turns I gave them former Bab cities 5 cities, a dozen techs, some money, gifted two luxuries and iron. The Babs joined an alliance with France. They DOWed me even though their military forces came to the grand total of one warrior, one spearman and a galley with four undefended cities which I could reach with cavalry in a single turn. There is something seriously wrong in the diplomacy AI.

[bongo]

The AI do have some built-in restrictions on it's map-knowlegde. In my current game(pangea map) I found an island some distance from the mainland but close enough to reach with galleys(coastal tiles all the way) I stopped before any land-tiles were visible which stopped the AI from sending settlers there. When I finally sent a galley all the way to the island and exchanged maps with the AI, that island were 'swarming' with settlers almost instantly.

[Daz]

I hate it when the ai builds cities on every possible, available tile, no matter now bad the position is. I mean in the middle of tundra, no problem! City can grow max to size 2: no problem.... Its so annoying...

[Fidel]

until tanks are discovered, you have to deal with pillage attrition war of massive arty bombardment and stacks of infantry ravaging the communications. AI just sits helplessly when i maneuvre big stacks of infantry, cutting communications, then firing 5+ arty salvos and reducing their cities to rubble. then i sacrifice a couple of infantry and take the city. AI is very poor in maneuvring its defensive arty to counter such incursions...

[dexters]

Originally posted by peterfharris
There are two things I find particularly irritating.
1. Given the crucial importance of tech trading I would love to have a pop-up to inform me when another civ has discovered a new tech to save me the tedium of constantly ringing everyone to see if they any fancy new discoveries.
2. Why is the AI agree to absurd alliances. It may be virtually defenceless and declare anyway voiding its trade agreements. (Worst case I ever saw was in a game where I found the Babs had been reduced to a settler on a boat. I got into a war with the French who had taken over all the Bab cities. Over the course of some ten turns I gave them former Bab cities 5 cities, a dozen techs, some money, gifted two luxuries and iron. The Babs joined an alliance with France. They DOWed me even though their military forces came to the grand total of one warrior, one spearman and a galley with four undefended cities which I could reach with cavalry in a single turn. There is something seriously wrong in the diplomacy AI.

I think this is one of the more glaring shortcomings of the game.

Diplomacy requires the management and interpretation of a rival/friend's actions and intentions. The computer is obviously not a human and cannot interpret actions. They can only take the results and adjust their perspective based on a defined formula. As far as I know, there are really only two diplomacy related sliders. Attitude and Reputation.

I also know the AI do have some kind of threat assesment mechanism it keeps hidden from the player. The AI is also capable of measuring allied contributions in a war. All this does is affect the Attide and Reputation sliders. What is lacking is for the AI to have the capacity to distinguish between historical allies, and other types of Civs.

It is frustrating for human players to find themselves faced with an ungrateful AI despite all the help they've lent the AI. I think a third slider, the Friendship slider should be included hopefully in the new XP. Friendship sliders measure historical trade relations, gold lend during war, and hopefully, weighs actions such as returning of conquered cities in the equation.

Right now, the major downside with sliders is that it is essentially a "natural state" slider that is modified by human actions. You Do A, slider gets modified with +1. You do B, slider is modified with -2 etc. There needs to be some kind of calculation going behind the numbers to allow for quantification of more complex actions and weigh the relative goodness of actions. A human player lending substantial gold when the AI is at war should be valued highly. A human player giving away useless pop 1 cities that are far away and difficult to defend may be even valued negatively, as a kind of insult to the AI.

Additonal Notes

On a related note, one of the things that the AI appears to lack is any conception of space. Now, Soren has said that AI doesn't play with a monitor or a keyboard. It obviously doesn't see the game like a human player sees it. Their empire is probably just a list of cities and certain coded instructions will lead to certain actions. Fair enough.

But the AI also have at its disposal the mathematical power of the computer and I would think it would be capable of clustering cities. Cities within a unified border would be clustered as a single "entity" a kind of province as humans would see it. This would allow the AI to manage its civilization a little differently. The core clusters, the motherland, so to speak, would receive priority. Any outsides colonies would be managed as such. If the AI can cluster cities, it could be possible to then program it to plan for acquisitions of foreign cities, protection of its other clusters (say island colonies) against a rival civ's city on the same island.

Cluster management would therefore allow the AI some semblance of strategic planning beyond maximization of cities and power, which to me, appears to be the driving force behind the AI. While not flawed, these instructions tend to let the AI meander aimless through thr game, with no strategic goal. The AI ought to be able to recognize for example that it wants to expand Cluster B. And gear for a war against a civ in that region. It would then examine each Civ, friendly civs maybe eliminated early, powerful civs may be eliminated, and it may come to a conclusioon that at this time it can't attack. And pursue an alternate plan. Say, ask for an alliance against a third civ. Or delay attack until later, after a military build up. These strategic plans can be modified every 5, 10 turns.

What we get is a more human like AI. The AI will shift strategic focus from point to point throughout the game. I think it would make for a superb experience. Because now, it is not just about maximization of AI power, but you have to worry where its going to come from. Wehre will the AI decided to expand.

It will lead to less of that pointless war mongering when the AI is reduced to one city, and still declares war on a powerful enemy. I don't get that. I think it's a fundamental faliure in the current AI that has been ignored. My fear is that the AI is just not built to handle modifications like I hope they would do. But With the set alliance system being proposed for Conquests, the AI diplomacy needs a nice bump. If anyone at Firaxis is reading this they should take note. I hope they do it.

[~OmegaRed~]

God damn unfair diplomacy.

Fair exchange of maps? NO!
their map for my map +literature/monarchy/engineering/my first born/my left leg = maybe