Some observations on the AI (1.17)

[Ribannah]

Playing my first game of Civ3 (the Tournament game 1 = regent level), this is what I see:

- the AI tribes hardly build any city improvements, certainly no temples and libraries since their cultural range doesn't expand
- they keep spending all their money which makes it impossible to get something for my tech (it looks like they have to build wealth in all their cities just to maintain all their units, and/or just keep producing new units, abandoning the old ones when they can't pay for them anymore, two major AI weaknesses in Civ2)
- they often don't road more than one of a resource, thereby foregoing trade opportunities
- despite the above, and while they have way less citizens, they still easily manage to keep up in research, and their tiny and backward towns don't defect even when surrounded by several cultural powerhouses with borders reaching and even bypassing their city square

So far (150 BC, score 600, over 50% of all culture) the game has progressed peacefully, so I can't comment on the AI's war techniques.

[DrFell]

Sometimes it seems completely random weather they road a resource or not. I've seen them leave good resources like Iron or horses alone for a very long time, and this is on deity level. Remember you are playing on regent, don't expect the AI to perform (read:cheat) to it's full potential. As for the building thing, the AI in this game is a bit enthusiastic building settlers. Watch them cover every free space on the board with a city, including completely unproductive tundra. It keeps up in research because of the tech cap (nothing like crippling the human) and because they enthusiatically trade techs and get cheaper techs as you pull ahead.

The AI sucks at war by the way, deity is made much easier using the early war tactic.

[Pius Popprasch]

The A.I. also likes to wait very long to repair the damages of war. And supposing that the A.I. uses the infamous governors it will waste a lot of food and produce less than possible. Most likely the A.I. players admire each other and trade more favorably, though. If they produce artillery the units will stay at home without any active use. The A.I. doesn't use U.U. effectively(sometimes not at all) and doesn't like Barracks or upgrading. It doesn't matter much wether you play Regent or Emperor. At Emperor they have bonus units and discounts(20% off) but that's all.

[sachmo71]

Well, I have only played (actually still playing) one game post patch, and on the second easiest level, the AI is making ample use of UUs (Zulu). Also, while it hasn't repaired war damage, neither have I and I suspect that it is for the same reason...
the battle damage is very close to the front line.
Maybe the AI finds it as annoying as I do to have a worker innocently rebuilding a road when all of the sudden an enemy horseman appears from nowhere, goes around my forces, and captures the hapless worker. This theory is reinforced by the fact that the battle damage which I caused deep in their empire with a raiding force (see suicide squads) was repaired right away. I might try some different things with my autosave regarding this, but the AI does seem to love capturing workers...

[Spec]

Re: Some observations on the AI (1.17)

Originally posted by Ribannah
Playing my first game of Civ3 (the Tournament game 1 = regent level), this is what I see:

- the AI tribes hardly build any city improvements, certainly no temples and libraries since their cultural range doesn't expand
- they keep spending all their money which makes it impossible to get something for my tech (it looks like they have to build wealth in all their cities just to maintain all their units, and/or just keep producing new units, abandoning the old ones when they can't pay for them anymore, two major AI weaknesses in Civ2)
- they often don't road more than one of a resource, thereby foregoing trade opportunities
- despite the above, and while they have way less citizens, they still easily manage to keep up in research, and their tiny and backward towns don't defect even when surrounded by several cultural powerhouses with borders reaching and even bypassing their city square

So far (150 BC, score 600, over 50% of all culture) the game has progressed peacefully, so I can't comment on the AI's war techniques.

Wow. Only one game and already whinning.....
Did you like something in the game?


...........................

Spec.

[Harovan]

Re: Some observations on the AI (1.17)

Originally posted by Ribannah
- the AI tribes hardly build any city improvements, certainly no temples and libraries since their cultural range doesn't expand

The cultural improvements are not very high in the AI's schedule, but it will build them when it's necessary (i.e. when the AI fears the city might be absorbed culturally)

- they keep spending all their money which makes it impossible to get something for my tech (it looks like they have to build wealth in all their cities just to maintain all their units, and/or just keep producing new units, abandoning the old ones when they can't pay for them anymore, two major AI weaknesses in Civ2)

If you investigate AI cities (after building embassies) you can see, that the AI puts very much money in research. Yes, the AI seldom has money to spare, but it will trade tech for gold per turn, if it can efford it.

- they often don't road more than one of a resource, thereby foregoing trade opportunities

If you need the resource and want it to be traded, send your own worker and build the road yourself. If the AI complains, agree for Right of Passage for 20 turns.

- despite the above, and while they have way less citizens, they still easily manage to keep up in research, and their tiny and backward towns don't defect even when surrounded by several cultural powerhouses with borders reaching and even bypassing their city square

They aggressively trade technologies. You should do the same. The small cities will defect later, it's a random thing. They might have built a lot of military in, that lowers the odds of defecting.

Spectator: Did you see anyone "whine"? Sorry, but I must have missed that!

[DrFell]

Re: Re: Some observations on the AI (1.17)

'The cultural improvements are not very high in the AI's schedule, but it will build them when it's necessary (i.e. when the AI fears the city might be absorbed culturally)'

I think it usually builds them pretty much randomly. Most probably due to excessive settler building.

'If you need the resource and want it to be traded, send your own worker and build the road yourself. If the AI complains, agree for Right of Passage for 20 turns.'

Personally I'd rather invade than all this diplomacy crap

'They aggressively trade technologies. You should do the same. The small cities will defect later, it's a random thing. They might have built a lot of military in, that lowers the odds of defecting.'

Not if you want a tech lead though, which is easy to do on regent. Sell off your older techs for high price. I must admit I've seen several cities defect (to me) and I've never before seen an enemy city within my culture borders, is that really possible?

[Harovan]

Re: Re: Re: Some observations on the AI (1.17)

Originally posted by DrFell
Not if you want a tech lead though, which is easy to do on regent. Sell off your older techs for high price.

That was what I meant...

Originally posted by DrFell
I must admit I've seen several cities defect (to me) and I've never before seen an enemy city within my culture borders, is that really possible?

It is, but usually not for long. A good example is, when you invade a country with an ally either in the early game (with destroying size 1 cities) or later (with razing), and your ally succeeds to plopp cities in those gaps earlier, that you could manage to settle there. If you want to keep your ally, you won't want to capture those cities, but seduce them with culture.

So it happened in our French succession game (see Stories forum), 2 German cities already defected, one Greek city still withstands.

[DrFell]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Some observations on the AI (1.17)

' That was what I meant... '

When you said 'aggressive tech trading' I though you meant trade your brand new techs. I usually try to hold them back (especially techs like gunpowder/military tradition).

As for the other point, I meant I've never seen an AI city within my culture radius. I've build super culture cities near AI cities and seen the borders go so far as to be adjacent to the actual city, but I've never seen my border envelop the enemy city (without defection to my side first).

[Harovan]

Well, in our game we (France) captured England together with our ally Germany, taking all English cities. But some of them were size 1 and thus razed automatically. Germany managed to build 2 cities in these gaps, before our current player could. They were completely encircled by our cultural borders. After quite a while they defected though, both in the same turn.

[Harovan]

About trading tech "aggressively", well, in levels up to Monarch I use to sell my top tech in the ancient era, but only for other tech or for gold per turn. This slows down the AI research. After a while, you will notice, that the AI can't efford your newest tech anymore. Thus, you made a tech lead with "aggressive trading". In the medieval era I usually have a tech lead and trade some techs only, if I built the wonder.

In Emperor and Deity I did not yet manage to get a tech lead in the first 2 eras.

[solo]

Ribannah,

In response to your observations:

1) The AI go all out in the first part of the game building settlers and using them to found cities wherever spots are left until the map is full. Once this is over, they'll start to build more city improvements.

2) They rarely have much cash, but can often afford enormous per/turn payments of gold instead. Exploiting this will lower their rate of research.

3) No roading of resources is par for the course. You can often trade one of your own copies for a lot of compensation, even though they could easily road up their own! I think that when they actually do road a resource, it's probably by accident!

However, one point about strategic reources is that they will not "run out" until they have been roaded and used, but I doubt the AI are delaying their roading because of this.

4) They research must faster than in CivII. A tech cost is also partly determined and modified by how many civs have acquired it. For example, if the cost of a tech is 100 beakers and there are 5 civs, one of which has acquired it, the cost for the others drops to something like 80. Thus, those that fall behind find it easier to catch up, and withholding new techs is seldom as effective as trading them for gold.

As for absorbing their puny cities, just be patient. You can often completely surround a small AI city with your own that are oozing with culture, and it will often hold out for a surprising amount of time. The quickest way I've found to absorb AI cities is to culture bomb them very soon after they were founded. If your own city(s) are in between the AI target and its capitol, the odds of absorption go up. If the AI city is closer to your capitol than it is to their own, it is more susceptible to a culture war, too.

By the way, good to see you around! A few of us have been fooling around with OCC on the strategy forum. Playing OCC is much more challenging in CivIII, especially on deity.

After being away for awhile this summer and fall, I finally did check out your "Final Countdown" game on the civII forum. Superb!

solo

[Pius Popprasch]

Originally posted by solo
In response to your observations:2) They rarely have much cash, but can often afford enormous per/turn payments of gold instead. Exploiting this will lower their rate of research.

From what I figured out their research rate remains stable at 40% no matter what you do.

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by solo
As for absorbing their puny cities, just be patient. You can often completely surround a small AI city with your own that are oozing with culture, and it will often hold out for a surprising amount of time

In my experiences, it probably has much more to do with their governments than anything else.

I had 2 enemy cities on my continent, with my capital near them and their capitals even further away than my capital. They stayed with their respective civs for almost the entire game, despite the fact that my cultural borders extended out very far, theirs had yet to even grow once.

However near the end of the game, the 2 civilizations that owned the respective cities went to war. After about 10 or so turns, one city turns over to me. The next turn the other does as well. My guess is that they went from Democracy to Communism, and that enabled the cities to be culturally converted.

[bahoo]

Re: Re: Some observations on the AI (1.17)

Originally posted by Spectator


Wow. Only one game and already whinning.....
Did you like something in the game?


...........................

Spec.

Piss off Fanboy!

It's an observational and discussion oriented post, there's not even a semblance of whine in it. If you wanna hijack a thread with your pathetic whining about whining, find one devoted to it, stay the hell off of constructive threads!