Crappy AI? :(

[Superduper]

I do not know if this has been posted or not (I haven’t read through everything, not enough time to do so), but what is up with this CIV3 A.I?

1. No mater what I do, the AI usually ends up exploring the entire continent/map before the Middle Ages. I can usually stop this from happening by creating a map with lots of small to medium sized islands, but I get tired of loading up galleys to invade an enemy that is 10 turns away by sea.

2. The AI expands like crazy, even on the easiest level. They would fill up an entire continent before anyone even develops literature. This kind of makes the use of colonies and explorers pointless on maps with large continents.

3. The AI seems to trade technology freely among other Civilizations. No matter how advanced the CIV is, they will always be equal or near equal. As for trading technology with one CIV, it’s kind of pointless when the AI decides to give out freely among the whole entire world, only to find out that my enemy develops gun powder when they were far from it, sigh. I hardly had this happened to me in CTP2 or SMAC.

4. The AI will NOT GO TO WAR unless I start it. What is up with this? I went through a game all the way up to the modern age without one war! When I started the war, the entire world declared war on me and I had thousands of enemy units pouring into my cities. The only way I can get them to declare war without it destroying me is to start one early on by military alliances and mutual protections, but this eventually always seem to lead to a TOTAL world war in the Stone Age (Completely unrealistic, and if you disagree, you must be insane).

5. The CIV’s always wants more from me. They are never friendly, they never help, they just plain suck compared to SMAC. Give me your map, some of your tech, and 100 gold for my map, but don’t you dare ask for anything in return! It really makes diplomacy useless, unless it’s to start a war between another Civ. If you think trade is useful, it’s as pointless as everything else. Why should I trade if all I have to do is sit down and develop my culture and the world will be at peace?

6. I could name a lot of other numerous problems with the AI and units, but I see some of that has been posted already. All in all, the game is fun if I shape it right how I want it to be, but I would prefer if the world shaped itself.

All this seems to happen in all difficulty levels, but I haven’t tested it in Deity difficulty or maps smaller than standard. I hope either Firaxis fixes this in a patch or someone develops a mod to fix all this stupid crap, as I find this game really great, but really annoying too!

[duxup]

"The AI will NOT GO TO WAR unless I start it. "

I've had the AI declare war on me several times, without any aggression on my part.

[Auslander]

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4. The AI will NOT GO TO WAR unless I start it. What is up with this?
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I see the AI going to war all the time. I have constant world wars. I never started anything, hell I was never involved.

[Superduper]

Well, not for me

Every time I play, I end up being singled out to 100% world peace, unless I get involved.

[Grandpa Troll]

Originally posted by Superduper
Well, not for me

Every time I play, I end up being singled out to 100% world peace, unless I get involved.

Consider yourself VERY FORTUNATE my friend..because I hve been attacked for several reason:

1] tresspassing

2]failure to accept trade offers

3]failure to attack someone thats an enemy of ai demanding war..

4]being a neighbor

5]because they could

It happens for all sorts of reason, all resulting the same way..VERY POWERFUL,RELENTLESS ATTACKS!!..

Yours In Civin

Troll

[duxup]

5]because they could

I've grown to love these attacks! I attack for the same reason, the AI may as well too. Nothing is quite so fun as an attack out of the blue.

[Beau]

If you are to weak the AI will demand tech from you. If you are to strong the AI will ally with others and declare war on you.

I don't know how you got through an entire game without a war.

If the computer isn't declaring war on me, theres usually a reason, like the game I'm currently playing where greece decided they would build a city inbetween my huge empire where the culture didn't quites completely close and it just happened to be over my iron strategic resource and I'm Rome. Needless to say He had about 40 legioneers and catapults to deal with. We battle a war that lasted most of the bc and early ad erra. I was a mear 2 cities away from greeces captial when my damn citizens started getting pissy over the whole war thing under republic.

Not anymore though now I'm communism and all those whiners from before have just been drafted There going to war and greece is going to pay for the hastle they caused me, no one else trusted me in the world they all think I'm a back stabber, I guess I'll just have to live up to my name

[Mnus]

Well, first and foremost I'm gonna have to blurb out that I'm happy to have found this site.......been searching for some good civ3 forums for a while now............

(it's 3:30 am now, I've been playing this game all night, and I need to get some sleep. forgive me if my spelling/grammar gets sloppy. )

1.) I don't think they "explore" it, they "trade" it. While the AI typically shafts you on the trading side (asking outrageous demands for technology, etc.) I think they are a little more realistic when trading with each other. It would be nice if the AI treated the player/rival AI civs the same, but things like this are usually made to make up for shortcomings that the comp has when facing the human mind. You, too can get a nice world map pretty easily, but your going to have to pay the price for it.

2.) I expand like crazy, too! . It's just good strategic wise. That's not a crappy AI, it's a good one. It might make explorers/colonies useless, but no one is making you use them, anyway.

3.) See what I wrote in 1.). I DO think you have a good point here, but this is just part of the way the AI is programmed to make up for it's own weaknesses.

4.) Yeah, they do. I've had war declared on me at least on 4 separate occasions. (ughhh. I'm gonna have to right a friggin PARAGRAPH on War and Peace in this game. Some of the stuff has just amazed me. I'll finish answering this point in a later post, after i get some sleep.

5.) Well, no ones forcing you to trade.....This item kinda goes along with #1 and #3. Seriously, a good strategic thinking player can utilize things like the world map far better than the Comp can, so in a sense I think it's worth the uneven trade. But Play around a little. Experiment. I've gotten some amazingly great trades after tweaking around the bargaining table a little.

6.) Errr. not much else to say.....too tired. Seriously though, I've been pretty impressed with the AI on this game, most of it I'll explain when I come back to point #4. All in All, the Comp has given me a serious challenge on even the lower difficulty settings, and I'm pretty impressed with it.

[Lord Maxwell]

There is actually a good way to trade with the AI. Just offer him gold. Nothing else. Never ever give him anything but gold. And gold only in lump sums, not in payments per turn. It's especially effective in the early days, as you know the AI won't make much use of the gold you give him. (Actually it never will, as it builds too many troops and too few city improvements.)

So trading with the AI isn't all that bad.

(On Deity you can't keep up your gold income with his tech income. So you need two AI contacts, and trade tech for tech with both of them. It seems the only way to stop them from pulling ahead of you by an entire era.)

[rah]

One feature that makes the AI look tougher is the auto occupy a square attacked. It makes it look like you're being baited out of your cities. The AI still attacks in waves so if you get baited out, another unit will finish him off.

Another feature that makes the AI look tougher is the lack of zoc. If you have a good defensive position, the AI goes around you. (better target selection by the AI, which is a def improvement No more wasting 50 units against an unassailable position)

If you sufficiently defend a city, the AI will target another city.

Other than that, it seems the same. It outproduces you through it's cheat and then overwhelms you, if you let it. They trade freely among themselves to keep an edge.

The only other improvement is that they expand better. Encroachment is better.

But except for the slightly better targeting and more priority on expansion, they AI still is lacking, but can take advantage of other changes in the game play.

RAH

And yes LM, I too have given 2 gold every few turns to keep a stronger AI happy. But eventually they still demand stuff if they get that far ahead of you.

[Superduper]

Well, at the least they could make the AI expand less during the stone age, and perhaps make it begin expanding more during the discovery of magnetism, navigation, and astronomy?

I seem to prefer playing more on broken small islands than continent sized maps, just to keep the AI from taking over the world before the stone age ends. Again, making colonies rather useless, but this usually stops them from expanding to largely until they discover a way to cross the ocean. If you have other solutions, I'd like to hear them

As for war, it seems like they all hate you the most out of everyone else, even if they are "Polite" or "Graceful".

But just for once, I would like to see the AI give me gold for technology, maps and at least help me out when my CIV is falling behind

[Roulette]

The biggest gripe I have is the 5th one. I don't understand what dynamics make the demands of the AI. I can have bigger civ, with more production power, better tech, a far superior military and culture out the butt. But none of that matters because in order to trade them for incense, they want horses, iron, money, tech, map and anything else they can dream up. Worse part about it is that one of them only has 3 cities left because he initiated a war that cost him 90% of his empire to ME!

[Spacecow]

Roulette, something you mentioned in your post gave me an mental image...
I'm picturing trying to buy a car from a used car salesman whom I've just punched in the gut. Assuming I can't beat the salesman to death, he's not gonna give me a good deal on a car.
My point is this: Has anyone tried to suck up to the AI to try to make "friends" with them? Maybe if you give X amount of money or some units to the AI just to be nice, it'll pay itself off in the long run because the AI will be willing to make good trades with you. Has anyone tried this yet?

-Spacecow

[Leonid]

In my current Regent game as Egypt I went to war with Rome since we are on same continent and he was expanding like crazy and trying to overtake our entire continent. I churn out vet war chariots like there is no tomorrow. I sacked Rome had about 10 chariots 5 or so Elite on the Mix took it over and got the orcale too hehe.

Then He has 2 cities left I get him in diplomacy and offer him peace for 3 of his techs, one of his cities, and all his gold, I also demand a right of passage aggreement for my troops. He accepted haha. So don't say you can't get anything from them. Ya just goota kick em in the *** then they will come around.

[Superduper]

Well, I have to agree with Roulette on this one. My last game I took over the German Empire and he had only 1 city left, and still wouldn’t accept peace unless I gave him Gunpowder, 100 gold, and my World map. Not only that, he said he was about to "Destroy my empire". This is rather ridiculous, don’t you think? I was #1 in power and technology, and almost every civilization demanded something from me or go to war (I think it should be the other way around, but it just doesn't work that way it seems).

Oh, and I did play the game as a peace loving Civilization, only to end up being smashed in a coalition of forces in the industrial age because somehow the AI went from "Gracious" to "Furious" in few turns, after already giving him a 1000 gold gift. Some other CIV declared war on me, and he joined in a military alliance with that CIV. I myself have a very difficult time trying to get a military alliance against another friendly CIV, less alone a trade embargo, no matter what I give (Cities, all my money, and technology, won't accept), seems like the AI has no problems doing that.