protection of resources

[neonext]

After refining my own playing habits to secure the most valuable resources (mainly oil, coal, and rubber), and after reading some posts on similar topics, I have to ask, what does the AI do to protect such resources?

The following applies only to cases where strategic resources are only in other civs' borders....

We all know securing resources is difficult to do through trade, because the AI players almost always trade with each other before they do with you. Almost the only cases I manage to secure these resources in trading is when I give them the tech that makes the resource show up on the map, and then immediately ask to trade that resource from them if they have it. Of course there is only a small chance that the resource will pop up in their borders, but if most of the other civs don't have it, the chances are higher, and I've found that you can make pretty good guesses while getting things in return for the tech you are trading. If you give the tech away however, and end the negotiation, and then right away start a new one and ask for the resource you will always find that it is gone already (the AI players trade with each other immediately after your talks with the AI end). Also, after the 20 turns are up, if they do NOT want to continue the agreement, they will trade the resource off to other AI players before you even get a chance to re-negotiate. I find the best method for dealing with this is to offer a substantial amount of GPT in the first place, so that they never want to end it.

Still, the AI's crafty behaviour with strategic resources often leads the player to seek intervention by use of force. Usually this means using CTRL-SHIFT-M to clear the map, scouting out the best possible site to secure the resources needed most, and assembling a military force to take it. Usually the site is within an enemy civ's city's area, and that city becomes the single target. If the city is surrounded by large cultural cities, extra money is needed to rush temples, libraries, or whatever else you can put in there to put up a cultural defense. Depending on how many units you shipped over, you might want to rush city walls as well because the civ isn't going to be very happy about you taking their city. Finally, after everything is calmed down and peace is resumed, you often need to spend more cash to rush either a harbor or a temple to get the new strategic resources you secured back to your capital.

It might sound like a lot of work to a newbie, but I have found that these strikes are extremely effective, MUCH more so than any technique for trading that I've come across. Also, one of these military strikes can have even more of an affect on the outcome of the rest of the game than the creation of a GL.

The problem is this: it is simply too easy to pull this off every time. IMO the AI players do not put enough effort into protecting strategic resources. If i have one of the only sources of oil in the world, I'm going to make sure it stays that way, but the AI players? They seem to take it for granted that it lies within "their" borders and will do nothing to protect it from potential invaders.

Aside from much higher strategic resource security from the AI, I would like to see the AI players perform these kinds of strikes on their own when they need it most too.

[Killerdaffy]

The Ai will go for resources (especially strategic ones) and even start wars about them if you don't trade. The problem is that their pursuit of that strategic goal is often tactically harmful, e.g. when they send half of their attacking force to the other side of your country, to be whittled down by constant harrassing attacks.

Now, if the AI would ever learn how to do a succesful amphibious landing that would be an entirely different story...

[Theseus]

Re: protection of resources

Originally posted by neonext
... (the AI players trade with each other immediately after your talks with the AI end).

... The problem is this: it is simply too easy to pull this off every time. IMO the AI players do not put enough effort into protecting strategic resources.

... Aside from much higher strategic resource security from the AI, I would like to see the AI players perform these kinds of strikes on their own when they need it most too.

First, are you patched? I do not believe that any AI trading goes on during the player's turn anymore.

Second, couldn't agree with you more. My offensive military strategy is HIGHLY driven by resources, and the AI civs should protect accordingly.

Third, I know that I DO protect my resources, because, also I think since the latest patch, the AI has a much higher priority in messing with them (although not high enough, and not with enough force, the exception being a large AI navy and coastal resource bombardment).

Very good observations, neonext... I've often thought that a better approach to difficulty levels would be something as simple as this, the prioritization of resource security and aggression.

[Arrian]

The AI will attempt to pillage your resources, usually with bombardment. That's about the extent of it. I don't do much to protect them, unless we're talking about resources off-continent... where I could conceiveably come under heavy ground attack. Then I will put a couple of units in a fort on top of things I consider vital (like luxury supplies). Say I have 5 wines around a city overseas. I will pick one, build a fort on it, plant a forest (if it's not on a hill), and plop down 2 infantry units and 1-2 bombard units. That makes the tile pretty safe from AI attack.

You are right that the AI doesn't do a very good job of protecting its vital resources. But I'm not sure that programming the AI to divert some of its production toward resource protection would help matters. First off, you and I can take a good look at the map and decide which resources are potentially vulnerable and which aren't. One would have to teach the AI the same somehow. Perhaps something like: if the resouce is within 4 tiles of the coast or border with another civ, it must be protected by a unit in a fortress. But what about luxuries? If they have 8 wines resources, do you really want the AI spending time and shields on 8 forts and 8 spearmen (or whatever the defensive unit of the time is) to protect them all?

-Arrian

[candybo]

I had an interesting scenario this morning: Large, Regent... I had the better part of one side of a continent, with Egypt to the north. They also had a couple of squiggly mini-cities south, along my coast. It just happens that I had one secure rubber resource, so ok. They had two rubbers, one in their homeland, but just outside my border, the other in one of the mini-cities.

Inevitably, war broke out. I initially took the mini-cities, to get them out of the way. Now, AI Egypt ignored the mini with rubber, except for bombarding it, destroying improvements IT built. Then peace came, with me holding the mini-cities.

Later, of course, more war. I took the border city to the north, getting that other rubber. Here's the interesting part: at this point, AI Egypt the bombarded the northern rubber, but ignored the city, being well-defended. They then shipped a bunch of battleships and transports from directly north of the city I took, down to the mini-city, and took that! Totally ignoring the closer, landed city because of the garrison.


The AI may already rank resource gathering pretty high, and in this case, was clever about getting it. It also ignored MY nearby rubber resource, as it would have been hard to capture the city....

[neonext]

Re: Re: protection of resources

Originally posted by Theseus
First, are you patched? I do not believe that any AI trading goes on during the player's turn anymore.

Yes I am fully patched. I am almost positive the AI trades during the player's turn. I think they did this to counter the strategy where you research a tech first, and then sell it to every civ on the planet reaping huge rewards, which is commonplace in unpatched Civ3.

Second, couldn't agree with you more. My offensive military strategy is HIGHLY driven by resources, and the AI civs should protect accordingly.

Even a few units protecting the resource would be better than the current system, or better yet the AI should just put more emphasis on protecting the city that houses the strategic resource.

Third, I know that I DO protect my resources, because, also I think since the latest patch, the AI has a much higher priority in messing with them (although not high enough, and not with enough force, the exception being a large AI navy and coastal resource bombardment).

I'm not too sure about about the naval and airborne bombardment of strategic resource tiles, because I haven't seen any modern navies or airforces in my recent games with the new patch. This might be because of my effectiveness in securing the resources needed, i'm not sure.

Still, even if the AI is good at bombarding the strategic resource tile so that you can no longer use it until you repair, I think that is not even close to enough, ESPECIALLY IF THEY ARE LACKING THAT PARTICULAR RESOURCE. For example, when you reach the end of the industrial age and an AI player is by all means lacking oil, they should use all their bombarding to take over the city that has the oil in its boundries (and then take the city), not try to bombard the resource itself.

Very good observations, neonext... I've often thought that a better approach to difficulty levels would be something as simple as this, the prioritization of resource security and aggression.

You're right about that, although I think those days are long gone. Such a system would be great though, and could apply to many areas of the game, not just resources.

[neonext]

Originally posted by candybo
The AI may already rank resource gathering pretty high, and in this case, was clever about getting it. It also ignored MY nearby rubber resource, as it would have been hard to capture the city....

I don't know, it sounds to me like the AI is just attacking weak spots, rather than securing resources...

[candybo]

And another thing, sort of OT.... If settler diarrhea were fixed, then maybe colonies MIGHT actually be useful, huh? Imagine, having to prtect all those colonies... after all, they're just little cities, right? without culture, income, science, etc


Also colonies don't CF, unless they disappear by being incultured

[neonext]

yes i agree with you there candybo. i refrained from mentioning colonies because they are absolutely useless. if they could fix them somehow, it would make the game much more interesting (however the same could be said about many parts of the game....)

[candybo]

Originally posted by neonext


I don't know, it sounds to me like the AI is just attacking weak spots, rather than securing resources...

I'm sure that's part of it, but they still went out the way to get a city that was previously their own, instead of attacking MY rubber city, or trying to just deny me the resource...

[Arrian]

Colonies aren't totally useless - if you understand that they aren't a substitute for an actual city. I use them as temporary stop-gaps to get a particular luxury to the masses while I'm fighting. I fully intend, however, to claim the luxury by plopping down a city at my first opportunity. I have also seen instances where a resource or luxury was 3 tiles deep in the mountains, thus putting it out of range until the nearby city hit 1000 culture... that's worth 1 worker.

-Arrian

[candybo]

True, Arrian. It seems Firaxis intended colonies to be strictly temporary. On the other hand, I'd like them to have more permanance. To drag another tedious real-world example in.... not all resource rich locales deserve to be cities. It's the difference between beaver pelt trading city New AmsterYork and a group of barracks where people work on the Alaskan Pipeline. Would they be there otherwise?


Or an offshore oil derrick? I guesss i just think that there are some circumstances that call JUST for a colony, not a city...

[Jaybe]

Re: Colonies

Or make (e.g.) cities not allowed on tundra, and no building forests on tundra allowed. Living in the Las Vegas area, I don't support cities not being allowed in the desert.

Warning: Roads (i.e., commerce of greater than 0 with roads) must be allowed or you cannot build a colony.

[bongo]

Hey, I learn something every day. Next time I play I will start a resource-blitzkrieg anytime.

Colonies are great for making them lazy captured workers doing something useful. You gotta protect them of course but that only add to the fun.

[hr_oskar]

On the topic of this thread: The AI seriously sucks at guarding its important resources

Example from my game yesterday: my army is marching into American territory, razing New York which is next to their only Iron resource, on a mountain tile. The resource is still within their border, and they've got some Swordsmen running around; do they fortify them on the iron mountain? Nah, rather send them a long way to get some worker or crappy city across the continent...

So bye-bye American iron, bye-bye American swords, bye-bye America

But then you've all seen this before...