Soren, can you work on the pathetic AI?

[Zachriel]

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[Coracle]

The AI marching into those "killing fields" is especially dumb and boring.

Worse, the AI DOES NOT LEARN. The Romans kept marching stacks (about five to six) of legionaries directly across a desert towards a city of mine. For some reason, they chose that route instead of one across hills and forests to another city of mine. I assume it figured the terrain would not be as easily defended in the desert. But it made them vulnerable to counterattack.

Unfortunately for them, I, as the Iroquois, just sat there waiting for them to come on with Mounted Warriors and swordsmen. The Romans came on - and I attacked destroying every invasion force while only losing several unts of my own. Three times the Roman tried this. After their third defeat I had so weakened him I attacked across that other defensible terrain taking and razing Veii. It was the beginning of the end for Rome.

Also, the AI is stupid in sending settler-foot soldier pairs right into my territory towards the spot of a razed city (as they did with Veii) even though I will destroy it with my military.

Yes, the AI can be figured out pretty easily.

[Ãœber KruX]

any AI today will be figured out.

i told you this 6 months ago when i was "whining" as many of you said about no multiplayer. i told you within a month of playing you would know exactly what the AI wanted to do. now you can make settlers dance and crush any chance of invasion before they have a chance to plan it.

the only time i ever met a formidible AI opponent was my first game on diety, the Germans actually took over 2 islands from me on an archipeligo. but i never let it happen again for 5 months now.

[Dienstag]

Sweet! Uber KruX is already using the best quote from last night's Simpsons for his sig! I like your style, buddy.

About the AI: I think Munroe has an excellent point. If the AI would just show a little more strategic consideration, many of its tactical blunders would be easier to forgive. I can rationalize things like AI stacks walking into traps as poor leadership, but some of the AI's strategic decisions can only be described as inhumanly foolish.

We know that the AI's strategic decisions are influenced by an Aggressiveness factor, as well as a "Perceived Power" variable, which may be as simple as just the number of units. Does anyone know what other factors are considered when declaring war? I haven't noticed goverment playing any significant role, have you? In all fairness, I really respect Soren's efforts, I'd still love to be able to do some tweakin' myself.

[Fidel]

Originally posted by Pius Popprasch
I think that the Civ3-AI has more strategical than tactical flaws. Huge AIs selfdestruct in senseless wars. In my last game the Greeks were really powerful around 900AD and more or less uncontrolable. Then they declared war to every other civ and got eliminated in the industrial age. The A.I. should not sign MPP easily and preferably attack neighbors.

sometimes it is just scary and this new culture rule makes a huge empire disappear in 3 turns - it is incredible to watch that unfold on the world map....
in the last game, though, AIs realisticaly ganged with me on aztecs, who were as big as all three of us combined. we could not win, but we bled them until their offensive power was crushed. still, AI managed war pretty well even in the modern era, even in communism, but only provided that it had two times more units than me . true, it helped that the configuration of the battlefield was such that it was me who picked where we are going to fight.


bismarck: upping aggression would not be very productive. bismarck and shaka are so ridiculously aggresive that i saw them make it into the modern age only couple of times.

[Pius Popprasch]

Originally posted by LaRusso ... in the last game, though, AIs realisticaly ganged with me on aztecs, who were as big as all three of us combined. we could not win ...

But that makes sense. In my game the Greeks started all the wars and I was really distant from them. They attacked me and my neighbors. Then they signed MPPs like mad.

bismarck: upping aggression would not be very productive. bismarck and shaka are so ridiculously aggresive that i saw them make it into the modern age only couple of times.

Militaristic A.I. is very weak/broken. Quite often militaristic Civs build huge amounts of Settlers neglegting everything else. But they have more flaws(I made a poll about that).

[Deathwalker]

Though I agree that the AI could do with some improvment, especially in it's battle tactics. I don't think it's that bad

[DrFell]

The AI is awful IMO, but I can't blame anyone for that, a truly challenging AI would take a long time to code and modern PC couldn't run it. That's why I'm waiting for MP... assuming it's any good I can't wait to start ripping up some of you newbies

[Saurus]

Originally posted by Arrian


Saurus,

Um... the AI does use brute force. That's all it knows. And I see large stacks of AI troops all the time. It does this better with footsloggers than with mobile troops. Still, I once had to whittle down a stack of 20+ Samurai that showed up next to a border town. It took every Cavalry I had to stop them.

-Arrian

Yes, something similar happened to me also - once, that is.
What usually happens though (at least during the late middleage/industrial age) is that the A.I keeps on drafting (yes, drafting) riflemen...then sending them individually into my territory to be killed.
Then the next turn they draft another riflemen and
again send it inside my borders to die - there is no sence of
stacked attacks here. I actually have no clue of what the A.I
consider himself doing. I have noticed some stacked attacks occasionally and that is good news but this is in violent contrast to this "draft citizens and then KILL them in suicide runs" and this "tactic" often, if not mostly, consumes the A.I compleatly IMHO. This has led me to believe that the stacks I have encountered are nothing more than a bunch of units who coincidentally happens to occupy the same space at the same time. After all, many of the units you will encounter in stacks
are hopelessly outdated and that could explain why there are so many of them that they incidentaly stack-up.


However...
As you proved, Arian, The A.I IS cabable of making stack-attacks
(20+ samurais is definetly NOT coincidence) - hooray! - but why is the A.I so very rarely doing this if it is able to? Why, why, whyyy?

-Saurus

[Aeson]

I think the reason for these lone invaders could be the way the AI see's the map. They see an undefended city somewhere in your territory (or worker/settler) and think one unit is enough to take it? I know I keep my interior cities undefended through most of the game. Most of the time I see these lone invaders, they are beelining for something in the interior of my empire. It's very rare that they attack my defended perimeter cities.

[Arrian]

I have seen the conscript riflemen infestation. I think they're trying to pillage and capture workers. I always have a 1 unit garrison in my cities, so they aren't beelining for an open city.

-Arrian

[Brinoch]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Arrian
I have seen the conscript riflemen infestation. I think they're trying to pillage and capture workers. I always have a 1 unit garrison in my cities, so they aren't beelining for an open city.

I've noticed the AI doing this a lot. So, one game I didn't pick off those lonely invading troops and let it resolve its offensive. It was beelining for workers within the interior of my empire. A couple of other times, the AI dedicated a lot of effort to killing off wounded troops.

Actually, you can lure the AI pretty easily with workers and outdated wounded units.

Brinoch

[Barchan]

Originally posted by Pius Popprasch

Militaristic A.I. is very weak/broken. Quite often militaristic Civs build huge amounts of Settlers neglegting everything else. But they have more flaws(I made a poll about that).

Hm. One of Hitler's main goals for the Third Reich was to secure sufficient Lebensraum (living space) for the German people. Meanwhile, he stressed the three K's (I believe they were Kirche, Kuche and Kinder, or church, kitchen and children) to German girls and women to encourage them to get married and have large, healthy families to popluate all this newly-acquired territory.

I guess there's no need to go into detail about what plans he had for the previous occupants of said territory, though, so let's just say it involved pop-rushing and razing and leave it at that.