Why is the AI so bad???

Alisia · January 1, 2001, 15:12

Sorry to say this, but I think the game is quite a challenge.

Have to admit, I am used to AC, and that AI is soooooo wimpy... I win as the Gaians, doing nothing else then terraforming the planet. The enemies declare war, but dont attack

No, this AI is better. With me anyway. They keep landing on my shores, build up units before attacking etc. etc. That is good in my opinion. Right now, I have finally a game running where I can keep my tech high enough (in AC it wasnt that hard, here, you easily fall behind...). And am at war with the Romans. And they got me pretty angry. They are currently employing submarines to pirate my trade routes 'random' locations, keep trying to destroy water improvements. And they keep trying to get spies through my defense.

The effect? I had to build a large fleet to defend my trade routes and improvements. Had to build quite a team of spies to discover enemy spies. I try to play peacefull, so I dont have an army to drive the Romans off the face of the world. But I do have superior defenses.

Effect? Right now, we got a stealth war. They are trying to steal and sneak their way into victory, and I am currently trying to take their production away with that nice corporate team... I find this surprising. Civ2 or AC never allowed such strategies. Sorry, with AC it is just building several rovers or gravships and smash them through the country. Same for Civ2 actually... Nah, this is way better!!!

Sorry for the long post, but I think CtP2 is great. I think I should mention something... I never played CtP1. Went from Civ2 to AC to CtP2. And got to say, they keep getting better this way...

ACOLKitty · January 1, 2001, 16:35

The problem is in CTP2 the computer won't attack.

I describe a situation
http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum44/HTML/000279.html

where I simply disbanded all my units and still was never attacked.

In AC, the computer could at least mount an offense it sucked at everything else but it culd attack.

Cyrius · January 1, 2001, 16:53

quote:

They are currently employing submarines to pirate my trade routes 'random' locations, keep trying to destroy water improvements.

?! I can't get the AI to field any significant naval power at all. I built 2 (2!!!) SOL's and I'm tromping all over him. All he does is sail a bunch of longships right past my SOLs which are sleeping within his city radius. Then I bombard the longships to the bottom of the sea. Its pathetic! Whats more is he doesn't appear to put any units on the longships! This is frustrating. And if what I've heard about the AI being unable to use planes, cargo helicopters, and aircraft carriers succesfully is true, I'm afriad I'm going to be very upset when I reach the modern era...

What difficulty were you playing on? I was playing medium. I think after reading all these posts about sappy AI, I'm going to try a harder diffuculty and hope to goodness the AI can field a significant navy so I can have some damn naval warfare.

quote:

Effect? Right now, we got a stealth war. They are trying to steal and sneak their way into victory, and I am currently trying to take their production away with that nice corporate team... I find this surprising.

Well, I'm glad you are discovering the strenghts of the CTP model of CIV: unconventional warfare. You can fight for domination of the planet in many different ways in this game, and I think thats why people are playing it, despite all the crappy junk Activision has left behind for us. I hope you continue to enjoy it and don't run into any of this crap anytime soon.

Simpleton · January 1, 2001, 17:14

quote:

Originally posted by Cyrius on 01-01-2001 03:53 PM
What difficulty were you playing on? I was playing medium. I think after reading all these posts about sappy AI, I'm going to try a harder diffuculty and hope to goodness the AI can field a significant navy so I can have some damn naval warfare.)

I think your out of luck Cyrius. I played a game with a lot of islands and ocean on hard and the AI was pathetic with ships. Occasionally, it would destroy a couple of ocean improvements, but that's about it. I remember the English, whom I was at war with, had a battleship in the vicinity of a couple of transports of mine. I happily transported my units across the ocean onto English territory while the Battleship stood by and picked it's nose. It stayed there until 6 turns later I was able to move two of my own battleships near and blow it out of the sea! Comon...this is good AI? You can say what you want about SMAC or CIV2 AI but rarely would the computer let you get away with something like this in those games.
Out of all the disappointments of CTP2 the AI is probably the biggest. Sure it's hard to build a competitive AI but surely Activision could have done better than this. It's ok to make the lower AI levels easy for new players but I think they should have markedly stepped up the computer aggression in the higher levels.

Siberian Hamster · January 2, 2001, 05:15

I have to say that I agree that the AI is perhaps the most disappointing feature of the game.

I have yet to see the computer put any units on either troop ships or aircraft carriers which makes defending islands a cakewalk. When it declares war on you, the worst that happens is it pillages a couple of squares.

I have just finished a game on hard level and one of the most frustrating things happened after I built Globesat. Most of the computer players were at war with each other so I thought I would be treated to the sight of lots of battles and cities changing hands. What did I see? Nothing of the sort. Instead the computer just seemed to build up big stacks of units and do nothing with them. Occasionally, one of the AI civs would march a boplite out of a city and then back in again. It was truly pathetic and irritating to watch.

Activision, please, please fix this in the next patch.

Dr_Witz · January 3, 2001, 17:55

I totally agree that the AI is poor. I played a game in hard difficulty, and it wasn't hard at all. Then I started another game in very hard, and I was surprised that the AI has had a much better start in the game than me (more cities...). I looked for the difficulty settings which can be found in DiffDB.txt (ctp2_data/default/gamedata/DiffDB.txt). Then I changed some values which gave the computer players an unfair advantage (start money, start public works and start advantages). Then I started again in impossible difficulty, and it was the same as in hard, except that the computer opponents are less cooperative in diplomaticy.
What I want to say: Other games make the game harder by making the computer players smarter, but CTP2 does not. It just gives them unfair advantages and makes it less cooperative. I think that's really bad. For example could you imagine a Quake bot that has more firepower and a lot of health in harder difficulty levels?

Dale · January 3, 2001, 20:00

I agree. The Artificial Stupid on harder levels starts with heaps more, but it doesn't take long to rein them in. What I like to do is if I have a couple of common borders with civs (about 3 usually) I'll conquer a couple of cities from each, make peace with them, and the hit they take to production, trade and research (as well as the hit they take for the units I've killed) is enough to wipe them out of the game. They never recouver from a pre-0AD attack.

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Rommell to a sub-commander outside Tobruk: "Those Australians are in there somewhere. But where? Let's advance and wait till they shoot, then shoot back."

Darkknight · January 3, 2001, 23:50

After editing Strategies.txt and UnitBuildList.txt I have improved the AI a small bit on the offensive and he certainly builds more offensive units.In MedMod II
WesW says he has improved the AI.Download the scenario and play a real AI.hopefully.still downloading

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" mind over body "

Alisia · January 4, 2001, 09:42

I'll just keep defending my own point of view.

The weakness in CtP2 is the military.

So do not focus on a military. Try to be a peacefull race. So dont set out do destroy the AI in 3 turns, got it? Even when you *are* at war, dont attack, or just take their capital and force them to peace.

Actually, this rant is much longer, but you should have red it already, since I posted it about three times already...

Simpleton · January 4, 2001, 15:50

quote:

Originally posted by Alisia on 01-04-2001 08:42 AM
I'll just keep defending my own point of view.

The weakness in CtP2 is the military.

So do not focus on a military. Try to be a peacefull race. So dont set out do destroy the AI in 3 turns, got it? Even when you *are* at war, dont attack, or just take their capital and force them to peace.

Actually, this rant is much longer, but you should have red it already, since I posted it about three times already...

As far as playing peaceful, I'm for it but not in CTP2. The game is just too boring then. You could do it in CIV2 and the game would still be fun because the computer would still be active on its own. It would actually make interesting diplomatic proposals, threaten to declare war, ask for tech, ...etc. You were kept on your toes just trying to keep the computer happy.
But in CTP2 the best the AI can do is ask for your map. Occasionally it will ask you to get out of its territory. But that's it. No threats, no trading of tech unless you initiate it, nothing! I went to war in my last game because I wanted to see what the end of the game was like and I still had 1000 years to go AND I was bored stiff just building my cities.
I think if the AI/diplomacy wasn't so crappy in CTP2 your way of doing things would be ok but instead the game gets too dull.

[This message has been edited by Simpleton (edited January 04, 2001).]

colorme · January 4, 2001, 15:53

If I wanted a peaceful game, I'd play Simcity, or Caesar or something - hell even they are hard to play at higher levels! No, actually I might just as well read news at yahoo.com.

Question for you Alisia - show me a way, any way, that you can make the AI WIN a game. Then we can start listening to you

Bluevoss · January 4, 2001, 16:50

I think that the game should show that wars are necessary but wasteful for any civilizaition. Most civs use war to carve out an empire, then spend decades at "peace" (i.e. rearming

). It truely ballenced game would have warmonger races burn out quick.

At least then you could decide when the "time was right".

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Bluevoss-