suggestions about ai strategy for firaxis

[Coracle]

Originally posted by bigvic
. . . Leave one little worker out, unguarded and too close to the enemy and he will gleefullysend out a single, valuable, often low defense troop, desperately needed elswherre, to capture the worker. Irritating. you kill the poorly defended dangling worker catcher, and usually the worker to boot. Serves no purpose in 9 out of 10 times but to deplete the defense of the ai. I've gotten to guard my workers pretty well, not so much cause i value them - hell its to my advantage to dangle a few slaves out there to bait the ai into stupidity - but rather i hate to see the stupidity!

again - i realize the ai is the reult of time, effort, and a type of genius i am incapable of, just offering up suggestions to make the next incarnation better.

I can't wait for the "next incarnation" - Civ 4. And it better be done by someone other than Firaxis.

Your point is 100% correct. What fun and challenge is it to find ways to trick and exploit a stupid predictable AI that INSISTS on doing dumb things? It is not fun all all.

[Rasbelin]

Oh, no! Coracle is back.

Well, Firaxis certainly will be doing other things too than selling merchandise, so I would say your whining is pointless.

[JohnM2433]

Originally posted by bigvic
ah, something new...
i don't like how the ai makes useless alliances/war

example - everybody's ganking me cuz i'm the aztecs and supposedly "sneak attacked" the limeys early (sheesh!)and after beating off the 13 to 1 ai dogpile on me, notice germany, big, healthy ai power, allys with babylon, bigger and badder, against the amerricans, who are down to 1 city (partially my fault - hehe), on the other side of the world from germany, and lanlocked, and about to go down hard (d@mn - wish i could get one of my 4 armies there in time to grab it).
now this does not bother me cause i'm missing out on a satisfying wipe out, but rather because
a) why would babylon want help from someone who cannot really help (everyone else seems to LOVE the freakin babs)?
b) why would the babs pay for help - which i assume is assumed
c) why would germany give a rat's @$$., cept why not, give me something for nothin? sure!

or the obverse, sort of - when ai's pay good $ to another that has no interest in ganking someone, and instead of ganking the obvious, a power near them that holds the potential to truly enrich and strengthen their long term position, they send a horde of troops half a world away to gobble up untenable cities. i know they don't make a real effort to build a forbidden palace there and make thedisconnected second homeland a viable entity.

Are you sure Babylon was at war with the Americans before the alliance? If not, maybe it was Germany that wanted an alliance with the Babylonians, not vice versa. That would make sense, because it would take a long time for Germany to get to America, and why not just have someone else destroy them for them?

In my games, I try to get as many allies as possible when I plan to fight a prolonged war, because a military alliance is the only way to prevent another civ from trading with your enemy. Embargos only prevent the traiding of resources and luxuries. Of course, agaist a weak, nearby power like America that would be conquered quickly (for the Babylonians) there wouldn't be much point in dragging anyone else into it, except to prevent them from allying with the Americans against you.