AI Improvements: The Poly Peanut Gallery Speaks!

[JimMac]

Thanks Carch. The similar sounding names to the difficulty levels got me confused, I guess.

[Mahdimael]

Two things:

1. I second the comp-using-cruise missiles idea. Maybe there should be some hidden counter of how irritated the comp has to be before it uses nukes

2. Ships. The AI creates a few too many ships, I think- the seas are clogged with them.

[RKJanus]

Originally posted by Demerzel
yeah even a single ungarrisoned fortress on the edge of your territory nearest to the enemy is often enough to stop the enemy invading until they have a large invasion force backed by siege weapons. Which gives plenty of time to build a force to repel them for the by the loss of a mere fort in the worst case scenario.

It would be annoying but very funky if the enemy could just bypass strongholds and move on the undefended cities just past the defences.

how does the computer know the fortress is ungarrissoned?

[RKJanus]

If you give the AI the intelligence to hit the civillians, then you need to give allow humans to by double clicking on a certain enemy unit make all selected units attack that type of enemy unit in range.

Also you have to balance this off against ignoring the civvies and hitting the city directly because sometimes it can be better to take an enemy city for a while during a raid, to deny it's use to the enemy.

i totally agree with the capital defense. Sometimes giving up a secondary city is more important to attain capital victory.

From the PC's point of view too, it could do capital defense better on some maps. For example, on the Australian outback map, the PC seems to handle the land battles ok, but completely igornes the ocean because it's on the edge of the map. (and the computer seems to focus exclusively on the map center). On several games, some AI's have left their capitals open to attack from a massive bombing raid or nuke to reduce the city followed by a lightning sea invasion by infantry to capture the capital. Of course I've done this against humans as well.

[yin26]

Please have AI make better use of aerial assaults/defense: In every game I've played so far, the AI uses his planes to attack a wonder deep in my territory ... this despite the fact that I've got half a dozen SAMs put up in short order. Still they come like moths to a flame. Never mind it takes about 1,000 years to strafe a wonder to death. Had those same planes been used against my ground troops or resource-gathering villies, there might have been a positive result for the AI.

Also, the AI allows my planes to wreck his ground troops without so much as a SAM being put in defense. This means that if I get an air force first (the normal situation), I can easily turn the tide of any close war in my favor. Shift + I then R on top of his troops. All airfields now report to that location and bomb the AI into the stone age.

This is on Tough.

Having said all this, it's still a whole lot of fun to use aerial assults in RoN! You guys designed this to be very easy and fun to use. Watching planes dive-bomb a target is just so satisfying. Now, if the AI can be made to use those forces more effectively, I'd be thrilled.