Most Bone-headed AI city Contest

Sten Sture · June 9, 2000, 11:14

Okay, some of you all might be aware that the AI can be... challenged, shall we say, when trying to efficiently manage a city. I was digging into an OCC2 save to check out some stuff for my good pal from Colorado, the Honorable Mr. Clark, and I found a beauty of an AI city. Let's see if you can top this: (I am sure everyone can - the AI is limitlessly befuddled)

Rheims: Democratic French provincial city.
The French are running a 1T/5S/4L tax structure (because Lyon is in disorder from having 5 naval vessels out chasing an Aztec explorer on the south pole, but that is another story.)

Size: 8 with 5 happy and 3 content (WLTPD!!!)

Improvements: Temple & Marketplace. (perhaps an Aquaduct would be helpfull??)

Shield production: 8 with 3 fortified (nonvet) riflemen & a fighter in town, and an explorer & engineer out and about. That makes for a net of 2 shields.

City radius: 9 double irrigated squares - (6 plains and a desert included,) half have roads, and a fish special is being worked. Alas, the gold mountain is unworked. (I might recommend a supermarket if you are going to double irrigate plains)

Building: Cure for Cancer. 76 more turns to completion.

The Mad Monk · June 10, 2000, 11:37

I have GIVEN refrigeration to AI civs so they could grow larger and be more of a challenge; the result has always been that their engineers (yes, I give those away, too) start building farmaland to the exclusion of all else, while the cities make a point of ignoring supermarkets. I've also seen the AI mine two hills while ignoring the one with WINE right next to it (and natuarally, the city ignores the existance of all three)!

It appears that there are at least two separate AIs at work here, and they never communicate...

Scouse Gits · June 10, 2000, 19:28

Some time ago, (in an attempt to achieve a big score) I conquered the world except for one French (size 3) city. I gave them anything in the way of tech they demanded, just to keep them quiet. I was surprised one turn to hear "ding ding" - Poitiers builds spaceship structural! It probably looked good beside all those catapults.
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SG (2)

Adam Smith · June 10, 2000, 23:35

Just saw one for the books this evening. An AI city had a roaded and irrigated tundra square, while the adjacent grassland with shield was completely unimproved. Hard to see what kind of algorithm led to that decision.

Steve Clark · June 12, 2000, 11:15

...and some people still like to use Auto Settler (or GoTo)???

Genghis Al · June 13, 2000, 00:16

Using the auto settler that's a no no.

Alex v4.6

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See you in court.

KhanMan · June 13, 2000, 01:11

Well, if you try a few games of the Nomads Challenge (either the original version, or ColdWizard's version), you'll see an interesting trick: the ai hates seeing beseigers in the squares around it's city. Even if these units are vet legions, fortified, on hills, it will most of the time, attack, down to it's last unit, leaving you free to waltz in.

What's more, if it refuses, one attack (whether it succeeds or fails), will almost always provoke a suicide-counter-attack.

Used this strategy to capture top two Roman cities (Rome and Veii), as well as the entire British empire, in a Nomads game.

Hows that for stupid?

-KhanMan the LLSS

East Street Trader · June 13, 2000, 11:02

1. Yes, Khanman. I love it when my legion arrives at the gates of a two citizen A1 city during the opening phase and the sole defender, a warrior, promptly attacks.

But they don't always, and attacking such small cities usually ends with destruction not conquest. I wonder what makes one A1 defending warrior suicidal/mad/brave but prompts the next to sit tight?

2. I've just finished a game in which one of the cities figuring in the top five list had 8 citizens, 4 happy and 4 content. The diplomacy screen said the civ was a republic but it stayed firmly at 8 citizens for turn after turn. I started to speculate that the A1 does not celebrate. The notion that the city HAD NO AQUADUCT all that time simply did not occur to me.

And I've contrived sometimes actually to lose to the A1. How, oh how, have I done it!

East Street Trader

geofelt · June 13, 2000, 15:00

I once laid siege to an AI city with a republic government. I covered every shield producing square with a unit, depriving the city with the ability to support it's garrison, save one. One sieger was a vet alpine in a fort on a mountain. The ai surprised me, and bribed this unit. The real surprise was that supporting this new unit caused the only defender to disband, allowing me to walk in to an undefended city!

Ming · June 13, 2000, 15:20

Now that is a classic

Let's all give a round of applause to the Artificial Idiot...

Sten Sture · June 13, 2000, 15:53

Reading geofelt's post for the second time it just hit me that the reason the alpine disbanded was not because the AI bribed the unit in a representative govt - it was because it refused to work the mountain square for the shield - prefering no doubt to get three food from a double irrigated grassland square. Yikes! LoL!

But was it trying to build a pointless wonder too??

KhanMan · June 15, 2000, 07:01

Geofelt-That one takes the cake! Now I wonder if this would have happened, if you had been playing mp...

BTW-Have any of you guys noticed how the ai will often attack with it's weakest units, then the strongest? That way, it loses an easy battle, by sending in the tanks, THEN the howitzers.

-KhanMan the LLSS

rah · June 15, 2000, 07:36

KM, I think you see that because the AI move based on cities, the newest one moves first all the way to the oldest. For each city the oldest unit moves first then the next oldest, etc. As a result the most obsolete unit is usually the oldest and will move first. If the algorithm says attack, the result is similar to what you pointed out.

RAH

Anybody else?

June 15, 2000, 07:47

Best dum ai thing I saw was I was playing a game on an earth map and I got hold of the middle east. Turned out this civ in Africa started a war and kept sending units up through Egypt. I positioned a couple of catapults at the point where the attackers turn ended (the neck out of Egypt leading to Israel). Turn after turn they sent units to that point and my catapults destroyed. Those 2 catapults must have destroyed 30 or more units. The ai never varied its attack.

Ming · June 15, 2000, 09:41

AH... yeah, it was dumb. But that's the main form of AI attack based on the silly program. It just doesn't learn. You would think that it would be easy to program "If a unit losses over and over again... do something else"

I love when you can tie up the production of a AI city for 1000's of years as it just builds units to send out on a lost cause.

Hasdrubal · June 15, 2000, 22:53

I once played on a huge player-generated map. It had an enormous land mass with an ocean surrounding it. More or less like Australia. In the middle of it was this landlocked AI empire, which had one city next to a tiny lake. In it was Maggelan. (Or the Lighthouse, don't remember).

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Ceterum censeo Romanem esse delendam.

jpk · June 16, 2000, 00:52

One time I had a city on the peninsula of the AI's home continent. The AI lost diplomat after diplomat as it tried to us a land route to get to my city. A half dozen squares from my city the AI had a coastal city. Since I wasn't patrolling the ocean, that city could have built a boat, put a diplomat on that boat, sailed up to my city, and done what ever it wanted to do.

The AI's motto: If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.

SCG · June 16, 2000, 07:38

Actually, Hasdrubal, that doesn't sound that bad. Both of those wonders are civ-wide, so as long as it is built, all cities get the effect. And it prevents others from having use of that wonder.

As for bone-head AI, I just can reiterate the attack stratagies everone else has been bringing up. I had a city on a peninsula of a large continent completely owned by the Zulu's. I put a fortress on a chokepoint, and put a couple vet musketeers in it, with a catapult and a horsie of some sort, and every turn it came under attack with every catapult, chariot, elephant and other unit they had. There was a narrow channel between their continent and mine and plenty of coastal cities for both of us, but the attack never varied. my attack units took out the catapults and such, while everything else beat itself senseless against the fortress

Although I do have to give the designers a small bit of credit with the AI. In Civ I, the AI rated islands of 4 land squares or less as worthless. They wouldn't even look at them. So i would build cities on them never even consider building a defender. First time i tried that in Civ II, I lost my city

Ming · June 16, 2000, 08:57

Yeah Hasdrubal... I just love finding an AI city that has one land locked ocean square next to it, and finding 5 ships in it

You just have to love the AI strategy!

The Mad Monk · June 16, 2000, 09:35

The funniest event I've seen to date was in a TOT fantasy game; I'll introduce it by saying there is a unit called a 'Sorcerer', a fairly high-powered unit that has a move of six and acts as a fighter (so attacking after three squares becomes a suicide run). I was in republic, and at war with the Infidels, who were in fanaticism.

I had just captured a coastal Infidel city; It was lightly defended after capture, but I wasn't worried because the nearest Infidel city was the magic three squares away, and the AI dosen't deliberately kamakazie...

So imagine my surprise when a sorcerer comes right at me, makes a turn, and finishes its sixth move in an apparently empty square just outside my city radius. Then a second. Then a third... Six sorcerers paraded past my city this way!

I "knew" from past exploration that the square was empty, but something was clearly up. I checked my city, noticed I still had the ship my force came in on, and a skald (dip). I put the skald in the ship and sent it to the "empty" square, and found a size four city. I decided to bribe--and the price was right.

In addition to the six sorcerers, I found an additional five, several units of cavalry, a couple elephants, two settlers, and another skald. Since I was in republic, I knew most of them would be lost the next turn, so I sent most of the sorcerers on Kamakzie runs against everything within five ssquares. The Infidels lost another fifteen units that way...

I was in hysterics the whole time...

The Mad Viking · June 16, 2000, 13:10

I lost out to the English building Ike's College. (There was no warning, I had cash in case- I think they switched from another Wonder at the very last second)

When I captured the city, it was earning 2 science. There was no library. There were no trade specials, almost no roads, and it was not on the coast. 100 turns later it is still an average science city. It did help them by keeping it away from me, but puh-lease.

Smartest thing I ever saw the AI do. (I think) Attack my city with a (sacrificial) fighter first, to use-up my fighter scramble, and then follow with two bombers.

June 18, 2000, 21:15

quote:

Originally posted by geofelt on 06-13-2000 03:00 PM
I once laid siege to an AI city with a republic government. I covered every shield producing square with a unit, depriving the city with the ability to support it's garrison, save one. One sieger was a vet alpine in a fort on a mountain. The ai surprised me, and bribed this unit. The real surprise was that supporting this new unit caused the only defender to disband, allowing me to walk in to an undefended city!

LoL!