How does AI unit strategies influence behavior? (Soren care to respond?)

[korn469]

Most people have probably opened up the Civ3 Editor at least once, and if you have then most likely you have noticed under the unit tab that their is a large box called AI strategies. It is divided into three categores, Land, Sea, Air and each category has a number of check boxes. Also it clearly states that giving the AI more than one strategy can cause the game to crash and is just generally bad. So what i want to know is how does each strategy check box influence AI unit behavior?

What i am specifically wondering is this...if a unit has a defense strategy selected but because of its stats it has a 42.1% chance of surviving on defense but it has a 45.6% chance of surviving if it attacks, which would it do?

also is the AI smart enough to bring strong defenders along with its attackers even if the defenders have a defensive strategy?

The more insight to the AI the better (both from a single player strategy view, and from a modders view), and Soren if you are out there I would love to see some feedback

[Soren Johnson]

The AI plans are basically there to allow modders (as well as myself) the ability to give units a "personality". In other words, units with the "Land Offensive" plan use a separate function to determine their actions than units with the "Land Defensive" plan. Sometimes functionality will overlap... for example, a rifleman might decide to attack if the odds are in his favor.

Also, the AI as a whole make decisions based on the plans of its units. For example, when deciding what units to build, a city's governor will look at how many "offensive" and "defensive" units are in the city/continent and weigh its options with a mind towards balancing the ratio between the two types.

To answer your last point, defensive units look to help defend offensive units out in the field, but of course, there are mitigating circumstances (like unit speed and how well defended the civ's cities are).

[Thoth]

I'm currently playing with riflemen, infantry and mech infantry flagged as both offense and defense. The game hasn't crashed yet, though it does seem slower than normal in the modern age.

The AI will quite happily send in the infantry if it doesn't have anything better, and doesn't build longbowmen once riflemen are available.

If this modification is stable (ie: doesn't cause crashes), I'd highly recomend it.

[korn469]

Soren,

Thanks for the responce I really appreciate that you took the time to answer it! I have two more questions for you.

1) If the AI had a technological lead and it could build infantry while its opponents could only build musketmen, but it had yet to discover tanks and it had no horses so the most powerful offensive units it could build were longbowmen, would it still build longbowmen since they are the most powerful offensive units or would it build infantry and use them on offense?

2) How does the AI determine which units to put in an army, and will it try to balance an army out with both offensive and defensive units, or will it only load offensive units in an army?

Thoth,

so does the AI still keep a strong garrison at all of its cities when you have both flags checked? does it exhibit any strange behavior because of this? If not i think i will try using it

[Arrian]

I have definitely seen the AI hit with "defensive units" under the right circumstances. Generally, this means I have left a beat up Cavalry out in the field next to one of their riflemen or somesuch unit. I've seen the AI attack with a spearman vs. a horseman that was down to 1hp. So it does do it, when presented with the right opportunity. Good work, Soren.

-Arrian

[Thoth]

Originally posted by korn469
Thoth,

so does the AI still keep a strong garrison at all of its cities when you have both flags checked? does it exhibit any strange behavior because of this? If not i think i will try using it

I haven't noticed any strange behavior, and cities seem to have normal AI sized garrisons. It does seem to take longer for the AI to make it's moves, but I don't know if the double flag is responsible. So far I've only played the one test game, and it's still in progress (w*rk is cutting into my civ time at the moment).