Impressive AI Attack -- Where Did That Come From?

[Bird]

I was playing an OCC game tonight and was 5 years from landing. The only two civs I was at war with were still pushing knights around the board and were also the furthest from me anyway. I was on a strip of land separating two larger land masses, with my allies the Germans on one side and the Spanish on the other. I had fortified armor at choke points at both ends.

The Spanish had been good neighbors, but I couldn't get an alliance with them b/c they were at war with the Germans and kept insisting that I declare war in order to get an alliance. I traded with them whenever they asked and gave gifts often. They were enthusiastic, but all of the sudden they did the most effective thing I think I've ever seen the ai do: out of the blue, in one turn, they sent waves of dips into my city. First they stole laser, then they went nuts on my improvements, destroying factory, marketplace, library, manufacturing plant, mass transit, library, and aqueduct. Production went from high 80s to something like 32. No more one turn armor or stealth, and I was pretty low on cash.

The only reason the ai didn't take me out was b/c it waited too late for that maneuver. If it had done it right after I launched, i wouldn't have had time to build a bunch of one turn tanks and two stealth fighters. As it was, they couldn't get past the chokepoints with the tanks, they didn't have flight, and, well, you know what vet stealth fighters can do.....

Anyway, I was bug eyed as those dips just kept wreaking havoc on my peaceful little city. Quite impressive, actually.

What's the most impressive thing you've ever seen the ai do from a military perspective?

[Laertes]

In one of my first Civ games, I was at war with a civ where our nearest cities were either side of a lake. I was not strong enough to attack, but I had fortified defenders in hills either side of the lake.

So the AI build a caravel in the lake, and shipped some units though onto my beach and pow - city lost.

I have not laughed at a boat-in-a-lake since!

[dexter4dxm]

the other night i was on the road to success in a large map king game with 7 civs. i didn't have many cities, but the cities i had were huge, with tons of production and science (one city had almost 300 science). i had just finished wiping out the only other civ sharing the continent with me, which included the use of a couple of nukes. now, i understand the use of nukes increases the likelyhood of getting nuked yourself, but i wasn't expecting what happened next. another civ, which obviously didn't like me, delivered a massive large-scale nuclear attack on almost every one of my cities! i was like in one turn i had lost nearly half of my total population, and even though very few of the cities were actually taken over, i was put far enough behind everyone else that i simply gave up. i have to admit it was nice getting humbled by the ai for once

[fittstim]

Well, dexter4dxm, it kind of bites that the AI did that but I can't really agree that an all out nuke strike by the AI is an "impressive attack". In fact, it's mind bogglingly stupid and without any creativity.

After getting nuked by surprise time and time again by the AI for no other reason than that I had launched a spaceship, I now never build the Manhatten Project until I have dealt with all other competing civs. Any civ that tries to build the MP will quickly find it's civ decimated through spies (revolt) and stealth fighters.

No, I say with not a small amount of jealousy, I have never experienced an intelligent AI attack. But I can always hope...

[EOL]

Originally posted by Bird
The Spanish had been good neighbors, but I couldn't get an alliance with them b/c they were at war with the Germans and kept insisting that I declare war in order to get an alliance. I traded with them whenever they asked and gave gifts often. They were enthusiastic, but all of the sudden they did the most effective thing I think I've ever seen the ai do: out of the blue, in one turn, they sent waves of dips into my city. First they stole laser, then they went nuts on my improvements, destroying factory, marketplace, library, manufacturing plant, mass transit, library, and aqueduct. Production went from high 80s to something like 32. No more one turn armor or stealth, and I was pretty low on cash.

I've had this happen in OCC a few times, the AI builds loads of dips in order to take your techs then realises that since it can only take one from each city and you only have one city its plan was daft. It only has the option of destroying improvements. When you run out of improvements they sometimes send in 2-3 diplomats each turn to investigate your city.

[shade]

You really don't need to be playing OCC for that,in one of my resent games i occupy entire america and 1 city in africa,one time ussing the cheat mode to see if there wasn't anywhere a massive sneakattack army beeing build i saw a hole lot of dips concentrated in Iran/iraq (that airea)and they al had 1 objective come to my city(the entire army of dips!!!).lucky me there were no good roads to my city so a always saw them comming and in that way i could always whipe out those groups of 3-5 dips in one attack.Against nukes only one remedy=> first build SDI everywhere and than build Manhatten project.

Shade

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by EOL


I've had this happen in OCC a few times, the AI builds loads of dips in order to take your techs then realises that since it can only take one from each city and you only have one city its plan was daft. It only has the option of destroying improvements. When you run out of improvements they sometimes send in 2-3 diplomats each turn to investigate your city.

What? I've seen the AI take 7 or 8 techs from me in one turn when I played OCC. I was sitting there watching it move, and all of a sudden there was a wave of dips moving into my city. They stole Combustion, Flight, Adv. Flight, Space Flight, The Laser, Superconductor and Plastics all during one turn. I practically had a heart attack. Version 2.42, raging hordes, Deity.

[Bird]

KrazyHorse: spies can repeat tech thefts as long as no techs were previously stolen by dips. Once a dip steals a tech, the city is "flagged" and no other techs can be stolen from it, even by spies. You probably had spies hit your city. No one had espionage in my game. I'm pretty sure EOL is right about why it happened, but I still thought it was impressive, even if by accident.

[KrazyHorse]

Crap! You're right; I think it was spies.

[Smash]

As with many other "cheats" ai dips can steal multiple times from the same city.I once had 9 techs stolen by dark blue diplomats in 1 turn.I started bribing them and ended up with 17 in my OCC city.I then let them thru and 17 were able to protect against them.

The moral:station 17 dips in each of your cities and you are safe

[dexter4dxm]

Originally posted by fittstim
Well, dexter4dxm, it kind of bites that the AI did that but I can't really agree that an all out nuke strike by the AI is an "impressive attack". In fact, it's mind bogglingly stupid and without any creativity.

After getting nuked by surprise time and time again by the AI for no other reason than that I had launched a spaceship, I now never build the Manhatten Project until I have dealt with all other competing civs. Any civ that tries to build the MP will quickly find it's civ decimated through spies (revolt) and stealth fighters.

No, I say with not a small amount of jealousy, I have never experienced an intelligent AI attack. But I can always hope...

yeah, the ai making me lose half my total population, nearly all my
military units, and at least half my science/building production all in one turn is really "stupid" of them

[fittstim]

Originally posted by dexter4dxm

yeah, the ai making me lose half my total population, nearly all my
military units, and at least half my science/building production all in one turn is really "stupid" of them

Are you kidding???

There is no "intelligence" in destroying what you set out to conquer. Image if Saddam had used nukes on Kuwait instead of sending in the tanks? Would that have been smart?

Sending wave after wave of nukes, especially if done by surprise, is NOT smart. The pollution will be enormous (and the AI never seems to clean up pollution). The populations and improvements of the soon-to-be conquered cities will be decimated. What's the point?

I stand by my conviction that the AI has not shown a speck of creativity in your example. In fact, it's the lamest of the lame.

[dexter4dxm]

you seem very confused. it looks like you never play nuke games, in which case you shouldn't even be replying to what i said. it's the type of game where nuclear warfare has already been used for one purpose: world domination, no one is setting out to conquer **** here. there is already pollution piled up everywhere, no point in cleaning it up, the game should end soon anyway. i play nuke games because it's nice to see the ai fight back for once, it's a lot more interesting than oooh! let's build the wonders first so we can build the spaceship first so we can run away from everyone.
i also just want to point out that the ai obviously had no intention of capturing the cities it nuked. it turned about 10 decked out cities, with an average size of 28, into defenceless size 14 cities. not only does this cripple the science output, it kills production by vastly reducing shield production and causing widespread re-arming, which delays production of key s.d.i. defences, which were in construction when the attack occured.
if this were a normal, explore, expand, conquer game then fine i totally agree with you, but in a post-nuclear war era i still disagree

[fittstim]

Originally posted by dexter4dxm
you seem very confused.

i also just want to point out that the ai obviously had no intention of capturing the cities it nuked.

No need to be mean, Herr dexter4dxm. I am not confused. This post's topic is "impressive AI attacks". A nuke attack by the AI is not, has never been and never will be an "impressive AI attack". Therefore, I am well within my rights to reply to what you said. Although you are correct in assuming that I don't play "nuke games" since it goes against a basic rule of the game (i.e. build civilizations).

As to the AI having "intent"!?! I think you're placing too much faith on the AI. The AI assesses the game from turn to turn with no long term strategy. The fact of the matter is that the AI sees the nuclear weapon as simply another weapon to use without any ramifications. It doesn't take into account pollution, global warming, population loss, destruction of cities. It simply builds the "best available weapon".

Now instead of nuking you, had the AI sent some spies to destroy your city walls and then defeated your riflemen with a barrage of musketeers and a canon or two in unison and captured the city - well then, THAT would be something!!!

[dexter4dxm]

no need to be mean? i have every right to disagree with you, and did you really expect my to be super-nice after you call my example the "lamest of the lame". Perhaps I really am putting too much faith on the AI, but that's only because I rarely see the AI nuke FIRST, especially if I have nukes of my own and I don't think they simply treat nukes as any other weapon. And whoever said the basic rule of the game is to build peace-loving hippie nations that forbid nuclear warfare? You and me will obviously never agree on this, because we are looking at the game from completely different angles. I play the game to have FUN, not to build a beautiful nation stretching across the planet with trade coming in from every angle just so I could feel good about myself. I've played the game that way too many times, and bloodlust nuke games are fun for me (and lots of other people, believe it or not). Like you said, you don't play nuke games, so I can probably guess then that you haven't read any threads involving changes in nuclear warfare from civ2 to civ3. One of the most pointed out things was that the AI would do simple one-time random nuke strikes as if they were cruise missiles or something. I hadn't seen the AI pull together a wide-scale nuclear strike until the game i mentioned. It could very well all be just random chances that this happened in my game. Oh well who cares, like I said we'll never agree on this so let's just stop

[rah]

Catagory 1. Mindless AI attacks.

While playing around with the WWII scenario. Using the cheat to try to figure out AI empire production. Germany gets advance to build Cruise missles and has 20 cities. The turn right before I move Cruise missle bait (battleship to sea protected by 5 vet aegis cruisers) Turn starts, Germany gets advance and launches 30-33 cruise missles at the stack. They also must have traded the tech because all of their allies fire away too. So they were all able to build them the same turn they got them. So another 30-40 missles were inbound at that stack. It was hard to keep track of the number. (The stack easily survived) But more missles than cities.

Catagory 2. Mock coordinated attack.
My favorite is when you take one city on the AI's rail network and STOP there (and stack the city with many vet mech inf). Since the rail network is there, It appears that the AI makes a coordinated attack. As every AI city produces an offensive unit and they all swarm. 40-50 tanks attacking the city is not uncommon. The next turn, you don't even need howies to mop up whats left.

Catagory 3. Truely moronic attack.
My favorite is the Aircraft carrier attacking cities.


RAH
MP is the only alternative to playing mindless opponents. Of course there are exceptions.

[splangy]

the ai did somthing pretty smart in my LAST game(!!). i was playing the english on real world map when the babylonyans walk a REAL ARMY ( ) of like 6 Elephants and knocked me right outta france and germany (2 of 3 continental citys) and almost ripped denmark away! after that i just declined into obscurity, it was so bad that when in demo, at 70%sci i got a advance every 7-11 turns i soon collapsed internally and left the game. this all becouse of 5 elephants

[Smash]

You do see stuff like that sometimes but it is just the AI getting lucky.

Barbs are much "smarter" in their attacks.Thats not really saying much.

The "every city send a unit to die over RR" is typical.You'd think they'd stop after 2-3 perish and try something else.

[kittenOFchaos]

We need to put a real brain inside our computers SMASH...starting with yours...:banned:

[Smash]

I'm going to consider that a compliment

Kind of a Tron thing.I wouldn't mind running a civ from the inside.

[splangy]

Originally posted by kittenOFchaos
We need to put a real brain inside our computers SMASH...starting with yours...:banned:

thats not a bad idea!!! recreate brain waves and put them into the AI!!!

*mad scientist* "Its finished, my greatest work!! muhahaha!!! A CIV2 AI that can actually fight a war !!!"
*civ 2 AI* " yes master-all your citys are belong to me!!

*kid playing new civ AI* haha ill just take the AIs undefended citys, wait, sh!t!! hes invading my undefended eastern empire !! noooooooo, wait, hes using jets on my musketeers!! **cry**

i need to stop drinking vodka

[Gatekeeper]

Originally posted by Smash
The "every city send a unit to die over RR" is typical.You'd think they'd stop after 2-3 perish and try something else.

Smash, et al.:

It can be a pain, though, if the AI happens to possess 20 or 30 howitzer divisions. Even if they don't take the city, anyone with their entire army inside will suffer severe unit loss. Perhaps even worse if the city has no walls and is eradicated.

I usually disperse my divisions into fortresses at least one square distant from cities and stack them. A human would nuke the fortress stack, but not the AI . It hits only cities and, once in a blue moon, naval fleets. (If the city has SDI, SAM Missile Battery *and* walls, then I'll hole up in there guaranteed.)

As for nuclear war, I've seen the AI hit cities and then occupy them with paratroopers.

CYBERAmazon

[splangy]

ooooops