Why does the AI build Native Units Sometimes?

[smacksim]

I've been trying to figure out why the AI builds a whole batch or two of native units sometimes. They seem to do this in the mid-game, or sometimes around Perihelion, when native life is acting up. Anyone have a more solid theory?

• Native-Life threat percieved (Perihelion, etc.)
• AI thinks MWs are better than choppers
• Global Warming?
• Ecodamage-non Global Warming
• Other?

[redazncommieDXP]

Because worms are very nasty and very powerful sometimes. Especially when you're down technologically.

[johndmuller]

I don't know how deep the AI programming goes in this area, but there are uses assigned to each unit (offense, defense, transport, etc) and it seemingly knows what the best levels of weapons and armor are at the moment and how its own stack up to that gold standard, so . . . if it were thinking about all that stuff, it could make an intelligent decision as to whether it was better off fighting with morale or with regular weapons and armor - it could even have access to the specs on the specific units that are out there and even the combat tables.

OTOH, that sounds like too much to expect, so I suppose it is a simpler reason. Perhaps it uses cost as a proxy for effectiveness and so considers the most expensive stuff to be the best and builds it if it can afford to. That could explain the mid game timing, as at that point, things like MWs and IoDs could be the most expensive.