Exercising The Horses?

[wilbill]

Surely we've all seen this little AI quirk...

AI has an isolated city with only the 9 square radius - cut off from the rest of it's country or on a small island. On every turn, one or more of the units based in the city come out and run around the city's perimeter and some or all of them end up back in the city.

In my current game, the Babs had a 9 square city with my civ on 3 sides and no connection to the rest of Babylon. There were at least 8 horsemen in there and every turn for about 100 years they all came out every turn, ran around (roads on all squares) and then went back into the city. Sometimes one or two stayed outside.

Any thoughts as to why the AI likes to do this? It's funny for a while, but after about twenty turns I was considering going to war just to put a stop to this seemingly pointless - and time consuming - activity. BTW, I have turned off the animation for the other civs' units.

[vmxa1]

I complained about this day 1, now you can turn off the enemy or even friends animation and moves, but it does seem like a waste of time and an additional check should have been made to not move when there is no place to go.

[aaglo]

The AI tends to keep their units in fit. Funny detail though (which I have noticed also...)

[fittstim]

In CivII, they did this way more often. I thought it was in order to show you how strong their forces are - i.e. Don't mess with me, I have 20 cav waiting to bite your a$$.

Maybe it's a carry over from CivII programming???

[Jaybe]

Since the player can see everything within his borders and 1 tile beyond, it is needless to go around on patrol. The AI actually sees the whole map so they don't NEED to do it.

It is my belief that it is done for one (or both) of two reasons.
1: The AI actually IS "exercising the horses" in that they are designated as being "active/moving" units, and they have not been (yet) designated to "settle down;"
2: To keep players on their toes. If the only time that AI units were moving was when they are about to mount an attack, it would be toooo easy. In the Gulf War, prior to Desert Storm, coalition aircraft massed up for an attack, and turned away just before crossing the border. They did this for weeks, day in and day out. The Iraqi forces got used to it and stopped sending out the alarm each time ... and then the attack started for real!

[Minmaster]

i think the AI does that so it doesnt lose all of its units inside the city when (if ever) the city flips. i notice this a lot when the AI city has its borders surrounded in by another civ and the city is in threat of flipping.

[WarpStorm]

I asked Soren about this in one of the chats. He said that when he has excess units stationed in a city, he has roughly one third of them patrolling around at any given time. While the AI doesn't actually need to check for visibility, he said he made them go through the motions.

BTW, fittsim, I've heard that except for some little utility libraries there is no carry over from previous games.

[Gunter]

Yes, the solution is:

AI would like to dimonstrate its strenghts ? A good chance to dimonstrate your streght,kill them all,raze the city and leave there 2 good defending unit fortified inside a fortress.If is a good site take the city.

This is your demonstration of strenght.

1-1 ball at the center .

gunter