AI brought tears to me eyes

Bereta_Eder · January 30, 2001, 18:16

Almost.

I finally found ONE thing that justifies a line that Brian Reynolds has written in the end of CIV 2 manual: that the team of civ 2 «had taught» the AI some tricks that experienced players of civ 1 used.

Well, what happened was this: the japanese were trying desperetly to conquer something of my civ.

They came up with one of my favorite strategies!!!
They amased a fleet of 12 ships (battleships, cruisers, destroyers, AEGIS cruisers, transports filled with marines) and relentlesly attacked IN ONE TURN one of my coastal cities!!!!

Great job from the part of the programers I must say.

The only thing was that, well, their attentions became too apparent. When I saw that must fire power next to my city I immedieatly shifted 15 mech. infantries there(coastal fortress was already in place).

A failed but still admirable attempt.

---
For Markos, Ming and the others at Apolyton:
I am making a pitiful Civ site just for fun. If you find anything useful (I seriously doubt it) it goes without saying that you can get it. I've already sent the lists of wonders and improvements to Apolyton (I am propably the 100th to do so but still).

rixxe · January 31, 2001, 05:15

WOW, i have never seen the AI attacking the same city with more than 10 units or so,..., could you give more details ??

This is exactly one of the major problem in civII, the AI don't attack correctly,...

January 31, 2001, 05:38

So true, I either haven't seen AI attack in multitudes (only barbs can do that!!). You have witnessed a very rare occasion, Paiktis!

You didn't tell if AI conquered your first coastal city, Paiktis.. (I assume AI did) I'm quite sure he didn't succeeded with that 15 mech inf city

And it's quite unnecessary to ask whether you took that first city back from AI next turn

East Street Trader · January 31, 2001, 07:26

Agree that this is unusual in both the level of military concentration achieved and that the attack had sensible land units supported by (some) sensible naval units.

But disagree that the AI never manages to concentrate its forces at all. If I have an A1 city on one of my fronts which is a bit isolated it will boringly keep building one offensive unit and sending that solitary unit out to fling itself upon a defensive unit sat in a fortress built on defensive terrain against whom it has no earthly chance of success. But if there are a number of A1 cities joined by roads I often find that they send out a wave of attackers which all head for one target. Maybe the cities have just built the units and it is coincidental that they all reach the stage where they are ready to attack on the same turn - but in fact I suspect not and that there is a bit of programming in place which tells the A1 that concentrating its forces is the right way to go.

Rufus T. Firefly · January 31, 2001, 09:09

Of course, this same tendency can lead to those "stupid AI tricks" we all know and love. For example, in a recent game the AI assaulted and took one of my weaker coastal cities. The next turn, I sent in a spy and bought it back. Sitting next to the city -- so that I got them, but they didn't add to the cost of bribing the AI -- were 17 (count 'em!) ships, including 4 vet battleships, an AEGIS cruiser, and a transport with several vet spies aboard! This was, as far as I can tell, the nearly whole damned Zulu navy; I never saw them float anything but destroyers and the odd caravel(!) after that. So there's AI strategy, and then there's AI strategy, I guess.

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Dig trenches, with our men being killed off like flies? There isn't time to dig trenches. We'll have to buy them ready made. Here, run out and get some trenches.
-- Rufus T. Firefly, the original rush-builder

Bereta_Eder · January 31, 2001, 16:21

Yes, I think there was a bit of programming there too.

The japanese had an enormous fleet but there were oceans to cross. They came with a purpose.

Also, the marines were there to occupy. After some time I actually lost count of the attacks because the transports (besides the ships) were propably filled with marines!!!

They didn't capture the city because it was too obvious they were going to attack. It was like playing against myself

Actually 11 of my mech. infantries survived and that would put the number of battleships they had in their massive naval consentration to 4.

Because the strongest defensive unit took over in each new attack the city was never really in any danger.
Only their battleships managed to succeed against coastal fortress and the mech. infantries.

Another nice point was the inclusion of multiple Aegis cruisers. There was no way to destroy the fleet unless I had some battleships nearby which I didn't. Nuclear attack was also an option but I didn't use it because that would halve my 23 size city to half as well as destroying all their fleet.

Now, maybe I am asking too much but if their ships were one square away to the immideate east, (and if my airplane patrol would not have spotted them) the japanese plan would have actually worked.

From the point that I knew what was going to happen the answer was to shift half of my defensive forces to that city. They could have made this attack a distraction and simultaneously attack the other end of my civ where each city had 1 mech infantry less - one remaining and 2 tanks. But again I am asking too much.

I regret not having kept a save game of the turn before the attack because their massive assault was a spectacle to behold

Lefty Scaevola · January 31, 2001, 16:48

I just got swamped by a rush of 15 armors in an OCC game. He had been boming one or two at a time for over 500 years, then boom with the hoard.

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Gaius Mucius Scaevola Sinistra
Pontificator Pendanticus
older richer & wiser than you
Did I mention that I like spellcheckers?

Edward · February 1, 2001, 18:30

I agree with rixxe. The AI just doesn't have the sense to build up an assault team before attacking. If the AI were currently programmed to sometimes use this strategy, I'm sure only a little testing by the game designers would show that bumping up the frequency with which assault teams are built (i.e. more often than once every 10 games) would make for a much more effective AI.

I think the occasional AI massive attacks are caused by either

1) East Street Trader's idea of many AI cities just happening to get their units to the target on the same turn.

or

2) the AI cheating up a big assault team because the game is almost over (you've launched or are near launching your spaceship).

paiktis22 and Lefty Scaevola,
Were these massive attacks launched near when you launched your spaceships?

Wiglaf · February 1, 2001, 18:56

Coordinated assaults are rare...?

That's all the AI does for me. I have a coastal city and I get about 5 battleships (with sub support) every turn or so. When my base finally gave in, a landing party of no less than 9 (maybe 10) tanks poured in to take it from me.

And on land, the Mongols sent well over 20 archers at me in one game, at one time, very early on, which ended up eliminating me.

Maybe I'm lucky?

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The fault lies not in our SMAC, but in our stars.
~ Vanguard, February 2, 2000.

Ming · February 1, 2001, 19:29

Just chalk it up to pure luck on the part of the AI.
The AI has no programing for putting together a well coordinated and strong task force.

The AI's strategy is simple... build lots of units, and send them at targets. The fact that they all appeared at the same time and same place is just pure dumb luck. Heck, if the AI actually could plan an attack like that, maybe it would be more fun to play against the AI

Cyclotron · February 1, 2001, 19:50

I dunno... recently I have experienced several unexplained AI phenomenon.

Case 1: You all know the idea of stacking an artillery unit with a strong defensive one. Well, one time in the early part of my game, the Mongols come marching up with three groups of one legion and one catapult each, moving together! They were nearly more than I could handle, but I drove them off. Ironically, I was so weakened by the attack that NINE barbarian crusaders swept down immediatly afterwards and captured two of my cities. Oh well...

Case 2: I have seen the AI using distraction tactics! I had one battleship guarding a small island city I was just developing. Then... a transport comes up! Loaded! Enemy! It dashes right up to my battleship, and then flees. I catch up to it and destroy it, but another AI ship dashes past me, landing 3 marines in the city. This had a bit more happy ending, as I sunk their transport, bombarded the crap out of all their marines, and paratrooped in to take it back.

Moral: Give the AI some credit, guys!

East Street Trader · February 1, 2001, 20:10

Cyclotron

Have to say your post gets me thinking maybe I'd better be glad the A1 isn't ordinarily too hot.

I get by with minimal military. This sort of thing would wipe me out. I'd have to totally re-think my play.

I've been sort of doing that getting ready to play MP (when I finally get it together to do so) but meanwhile I guess I'll stop moaning about a weak A1.

Bereta_Eder · February 1, 2001, 20:55

The spaceship race was still some time off, Apolo wasn't built.
The particular attack seemed (no) WAS coordinated (programmed or lucky). I admit I have played civ countless times and that may have been pure coinsidence but:

1. All ships ended there turn on the SAME sea square next to my city (I think it was the only sea square for my city). No ship attacked before meaning that either all 12 ships had ended all their movement points in EXACTLY that particular square which can happen but it's very odd.

2. NO ship wondered off afterwards they all attacked on the same turn plus the marines were there to capture the city if it had fallen.

On the other hand, in one of the other coastal cities I had like 5 or 6 wonders and THAT city was guarded by four aegis cruisers and 1 battleship. It was not very near but still...

Instead the attack was executed in a no-wonder city although with large population.

Thjere have been times of coordinated attacks by tanks in the way EST described but never yet a naval coordinated assault.

Bereta_Eder · February 1, 2001, 21:06

Of course from the point that Ming is certain it's luck I bow before his civ wisdom which is greater than mine

But I am still wondering what are those «tricks» that Reynolds has written about? Diplo attacks for one?

Ming · February 1, 2001, 21:13

quote:

Originally posted by paiktis22 on 02-01-2001 08:06 PM
Of course from the point that Ming is certain it's luck I bow before his civ wisdom which is greater than mine

While I do know a lot about the game (addicts know their addiction), I've been proven wrong before... and will be proven wrong again in the future.

But... I've played thousands and thousands of games against the AI, and I have NEVER seen anything that looked like real strategy. Even a totally passed out drunk General Grant could out think the AI.

I ask one question... If the AI had the ability to plan an attack, why does it keep sending a single unit every three turns to attack that fortified unit in a fortress on mountain... over and over and over and over and over again... for hundreds of years.... dying every time... It's because it is just plain stupid! It doesn't know any better. Any look of a planned attack is luck. The only reason why people think barbs are tough is because they start out in the same place, and there are A LOT OF THEM. Makes it easier to get lucky...

Bereta_Eder · February 1, 2001, 21:40

A spooky thought just crossed my mind. But I dismissed it. I thought for one second that if the AI could simulate coordinated attacks players would get exasberated and civ as a game would be destroyed. Virtually every wonder packed 30 size city would be easy target...

But this is rubbish. Civ would only get better with these attacks. Multiplayer proves it. Better attacks bring better defences.

Even though the name «General Grant» sounds only very vaguely familiar (american civil war? or maybe I just ridiculed myself

) I can't help but thinking what is so hard about programming attacks on one round. Or no-attacks on mountain fortresses.

Then again when a unit is in a higly defensive terrain square the AI usually bribes it, if it can. If not then it attacks suicidally. I think the ideas were there but they were not fully developped?

Maybe the lack of emphasis on AI combat is due to the intention of the programmers to set as a goal the «building of a civ» as a whole?

Cyclotron · February 2, 2001, 01:16

Yes, General Grant from the American Civil War. Became one of our presidents, too.

Case 3: (this was brought to mind after you described bribing units on mountain squares) You guys must all know the WWII scenario that comes with CivII, right? You must also remember that the Alps (switzerland) is inhabited by two alpine troops in fortressess, on mountains. Talk about defense! Anyway, usually waht happens is France ends up bribing them and spiriting them away to their other cities, leaving Hitler a good mountain fortress to use. When I was the French, however, I let the Germans get to them first. They bribed the alpine troops too, but then moved a howitzer into one of the squares that overlooked a newly built road of mine. Remarkably, they kept the howitzer there, stopping my engineers trying to build a railroad and totally destroying my chances of a sucessful land invasion of Italy. I had to settle for Berlin.

Ming, your point is valid. Of course the AI is not the smartest one on the block, and certainly it does not share in even a sliver of your mental prowess. I do think, however, that the AI does have some ability that you don't give it credit for. After my intitial thrill of CivII and playing many games, I was dissapointed by this same AI and devoted my games afterwards to trying to see how the AI reacted to various tacics and how it worked in various unusual circumstances. Although most of these field studies of mine bore no fruit and reeked of stupidity, I dare say there are a few diamonds in the rough that you may be overlooking.

Ming · February 2, 2001, 10:16

I fail to see the gems

Simple AI programming:
A unit next to a city will attack the city, no matter what else is around it. (nice to know when you want a barb king... just move a unit out of the city next to the barb unit if it has a king with it. It makes it easier to hunt it down after the attacking unit losses)

AI units are in love with fortresses. They love to camp out in them and attack anything that comes along.
While the traditional programming tells a unit to keep moving toward some destination, target, or searching... they will camp forever in a fortress.

The AI has no clue that it has NO chance to win a combat. A human will know what it's chances are of winning an attack. But the AI was not programmed to look at the attack realistically. What a simple task that would have been to add to the programming. Gee, do a simple look up... a warrior can not beat a phalanx fortified on a mountain square... DUH! Granted, an AI unit can get lucky... like a non vet horse taking a fortified phalanx off a mountain... but when the odds are closer to impossible, the AI shouldn't HAVE TO ATTACK!

There are tons of examples of just how limited the AI combat programming is.

So again... a seemingly well thought out attack by the AI... just dumb luck!

Bereta_Eder · February 2, 2001, 14:00

Well some of the gems that are programmed (because it happens a lot) are:

1. The diplo out of the blue tactic.

You got a small city that's far away from your capital. A trireme (or something) appears. A diplo comes out and your city is bribed. Just like that. Answer is to have an ironclad (or something) patroling the waters (courthouse blah blah) but that doesn't guarantee it won't happen.

2. The spy with a smile fortress tactic

You got highly defensive units stationed in higly defensive terrain. The first thing the AI does is to try to bribe the. THEN it attacks suicidally.

Agreed these are not enough for a challenging game. Maybe in civ 3 there will be more? (I KNOW there will be

)

drake · February 2, 2001, 14:20

I had an experience similar to leftys in one of the first civ games that i played. (and this was only at prince level!)

The Japanese coast was just across the ocean and they made my civ look like a pimple on thier ass. I was at peace with them, but I soon grew impatient and sent over a small fleet to try and take a few cities. This I suceeded in doing, but it made them very angry. Within two rounds their massive armies liberated both cities i had claimed. Three or four more rounds from that, two ai transports chock full of armors arrived at my shore, pouring out 15 or 16 units on my coast. Within another 3 turns this batallion had taken my capital and surrounding cities, for I didnt have the technology to do anything. Needless to say it was a hopeless cause from that point and I called it quits.

However, I've not experienced such a rush in a long time, because my opponents never get as far ahead as they did this time.

Blaupanzer · February 2, 2001, 14:32

Ming, just because much of the combat programming is primitive, doesn't mean it all is. I, too, have seen naval assaults that looked coordinated. Not often, but once every four or five games. It is also at sea, as I noted earlier that I saw the AI use nukes against one of my fleets, something it never seems to do against land units. Seems to me the programmer for naval warfare routines may have been a little more together, or had a lower number of branching options, or some such. The AI can be (should have been) programmed better than it has been, but not every single case is idiotic.

Ming · February 2, 2001, 15:44

Blaupanzer... again, I'm not an expert, and I didn't write the code, or am I qualified enough to look at it and determine the capabilities of the AI...

However, I would still chalk up any seemingly coordinated attack as dumb luck. The AI floods an area with units, and they attack. That's seems to be the limit of their strategic thought process. Early in the game, when it doesn't have enough units on the board, the idiotic sucidial attacks are laughable at best.
Later, AND ONLY because they have built enough units, does it appear like they actually know what it's doing.

The programming seems simple enough to me. Build units and attack. When they are lucky enough to many units in the same area...

Maybe that's the best they could do with the programming. If I designed it, and knew that it would be limited in what strategy you could give the ai, I would probably do it the same way. Just keep building units and hope you can overwelm the opposition. I have seen nothing in my many games to think otherwise.

But, I have been wrong in the past

I would really love to hear from an expert who can take a look at the code and tell us just what "strategy" the AI uses... Until then, I'll continue to subscribe to the dumb luck answer

Wiglaf · February 2, 2001, 20:22

quote:

However, I would still chalk up any seemingly coordinated attack as dumb luck.

I don't see why. You mentioned the AI doesn't take in to account hit points in its attacks, but I fail to see how this would affect its ability to wage coordinated warfare.

Six battleships bombarding two riflemen that would otherwise block the path of four tanks that would pillage a railroad is beyond the AI, but this does not rule out a simple coordinated assault. A few ships, a few marines, and the AI can take a base - while not much, that is more than a computer that randomly tosses units around, as you seemed to imply. And if it's luck, it happens a whole lot, and at the perfect time.

Do you believe the AI does use some strategies players used from civ1 or would potentially use in civ2, as the manual suggests?
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The fault lies not in our SMAC, but in our stars.
~ Vanguard, February 2, 2000.
[This message has been edited by SMACed (edited February 02, 2001).]

Ming · February 2, 2001, 21:12

I'm not saying that the computer doesn't know how to load some marines on to transports and attack a city.
I'm just saying that there is no overall game plan except for to randomly send out units on hunt and destroy missions.

Let's get real... they didn't even program the AI to know how to use a carrier. If you want a good chuckle, just gift a carrier, fully loaded with planes, to an AI... and watch how it uses it. I will bet you the first act will be to attack some costal city, and go down in flames before a plane ever leaves it deck

Now that's strategy

Bereta_Eder · February 2, 2001, 21:49

I really wished somebody would give unlimited money to Sid and Co. at Firaxis so they could never ever leave anything unexploited because of financial and time difficulties.

The carrier example is a disgrace. Don't tell me they couldn't program it, they propably didn't have enough time or money.

I am saying this just after I won my first Deity game and was a little bit dissaponited because I discovered that as soon as you have dealt with the unhappiness problem (that terrified me at my first two deity games that I abandoned - God Bless HG on my last one

) everything else is the same.

Still, I dont think you have to go to multiplayer to find challenge. A horribly disadvantaged start coupled with vikings and mongols next to you is challenge enough.

---Paiktis22 wonders off mambling something about damn expensive greek ISPs---
[This message has been edited by paiktis22 (edited February 02, 2001).]

Theben · February 2, 2001, 23:44

I agree with Ming. The number of incidents involving what seems to be a coordinated assault by the AI pales compared to the number of stupid, pointless, &/or suicidal attacks.

It's like the infinite # of monkeys syndrome. Given enough time eventually they'll write Sheakespeare. Given thousands upon thousands of attacks by the AI vs. hundreds of civ players, you'll get a couple dozen example of what seems to be coordination on the part of the AI. You're just rationalizing random outcomes.

Simpson II · February 9, 2001, 09:01

quote:

It's like the infinite # of monkeys syndrome. Given enough time eventually they'll write Sheakespeare. Given thousands upon thousands of attacks by the AI vs. hundreds of civ players, you'll get a couple dozen example of what seems to be coordination on the part of the AI. You're just rationalizing random outcomes.

Doubtful. The AI would be unlikely to have more than about 20 ships, so these attacks presumably encompass it's entire navy. Say there are 20 targets it could attack with any given ship from a group of 20. The odds of them all going for the same target are ~1 in 20^19=1 in 5242880000000000000000000. That's ignoring the fact they may not arrive at the same time - even if there's only a 3-turn possible window for some strange reason, the odds go to something like 1 in 60^19 = 1 in 6093597400104960000000000000000000. I have played somewhat less than 6093597400104960000000000000000000 games of Civ,

but I've seen this happen once. The AI turned up with 42 (!) ships. Shame they didn't have any AEGIS cruisers, though it still took 3 cruise missiles to get a kill...

The probable reason that many people haven't seen this is that they play a more effective game than others. I mean, Ming, how often can you remember seeing the AI build a battleship?

Let alone 20 of them. You have to have a slow tech-rate so that the AI has time to build all those units (probably at random) and yet not be attacking them to avoid triggering off the infinite-riflemen code.

Btw, the Smac AI is perfectly capable of this sort of coordinated assault. The best I ever saw was a feint of one front with ~10 units which withdrew, quickly followed by another 20 at another point. It doesn't change much defence-wise, because it's still messed up in other areas.

Ribannah · February 9, 2001, 09:21

The AI doesn't play totally randomly. Defensive units are always put in a city or a fortress. In wartime, all attacking units get a target assigned to them. This is partly based on the available information, and partly random.

As a consequence, if the AI only knows the location of one city of your empire, or the route to only one of your cities, it will send lots of units to that city. They simply start out from where they are, so normally you can expect them to arrive one at a time.

However, in some cases they will all arrive together, for instance when the AI had just broken an alliance that made all its units return to the capital. This may look impressive, but it's merely a co-incidence.

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If you have no feet, don't walk on fire

Roman · February 9, 2001, 11:41

I have to agree with Ribannah and Ming. The AI does not create taskforces "intentionally".

BTW: Simpson 2, your math is not correct on this matter. You cannot simply do 20^19 to get the number of places where 20 ships to appear.

rah · February 9, 2001, 15:28

quote:

Originally posted by Ribannah on 02-09-2001 08:21 AM

As a consequence, if the AI only knows the location of one city of your empire, or the route to only one of your cities, it will send lots of units to that city. They simply start out from where they are, so normally you can expect them to arrive one at a time.

While I agree that the AI is just luckly if it looks coordinated. (will appear more often if their empire is linked by railroad allowing the units to arive at the same time....

The AI knows where your cites are even if it hasn't discovered them yet. When I was testing the AI, I would often go into cheat mode and look at their goto commands on units. They can target cities that if you check out the map from their view, they can't see.
In fact for one test, I checked goto commands, went back a turn and created a new city without defenders and checked the cheat menu and "low and behold" most of the units had been retargeted to the new city. Considering that there were no units within 10 squares of the new city, They must have found out about it by magic

So feel free to trade your map to the AI, get something for something they already have.

RAH
If anyone else has any other explanation for this type of behaviour, please feel free to post it so it can be tested.