AI behavior

[Arrian]

Let me make something clear right off the bat: I think the AI is pretty good, all things considered. What follows is not criticism, it is born of curiousity - I want to know why the AI did something that I don't understand.

The situation:

I, Japan, am the world leader in... everything. For once, I played warmonger from the start, and I annihilated my two neighbors, securing my own continent (Normal world, Continents, 8civs, Monarch). Shortly thereafter, I discovered everyone else and noted that the French were rather weak. They were still trying to lock up their borders and were have a devil of a time connecting their incense to their road net. Maybe it was that sneaky Japanese horseman who kept cutting the road Anyway, I attacked France, and for a pittance Herr Bismarck joined my righteous crusade. We carved up France, each taking about half of it. I gained 2 incense and 1 wine. Bismarck gained 1 incense.

That was during the early middle ages. Now, fast forward into the Industrial Age. I have managed a large tech lead (my first ever with 1.17), such that I have Tanks before any of the remaining AI's have infantry. In fact, I had about 50 Tanks built up and was preparing to attack England, because they had all three luxuries I didn't, and would not, under any circumstances, make a trade that I considered "fair." Essentially, Elizabeth laughted at me when I offered a 4 for 1 trade, plus 25 gpt. I had a right of passage with the Germans, and also with Persia. So, I took a large stack of Tanks (12 or so) from my former French lands and sent them, via the "j" command to the English border.

After the first turn of movement, my stack of Tanks was in the middle of Germany. I got a message popup: "The Germans have declared war on us!"

*boggle*

I have no idea why. NONE. I outnumbered them ("compared to them, we have a strong army"), I out-teched them (Tanks/Infantry/Bombers vs. Rifles/Cavalry) and I was a trading partner, former ally, and had an active RoP. It took me 8 turns to destroy Germany.

There is only one thing that directly involved Germany that I can think of which may have effected relations: I had acquired 2 cities from Germany by culture flipping since our alliance with France. One of those cities had an iron... nothing else IIRC. Germany had iron elsewhere. Germany's diplomatic stance toward me remained "polite."

The turn prior to the German attack, I had tried and failed to plant a spy in England. It is possible that I took a small reputation hit and that was a factor, but even England was still "polite" afterward.

Could it be that such a large stack of Tanks moving through Germany caused them to attack me, despite the RoP?

Anyone have any ideas?

-Arrian

[dac]

Had you sold anything to Herr Bismark that he was paying for via the installment plan (gpt?) If he ran out of money, he would have to attack. Did you have an ROP to move your tanks through?

Welshing on a debt almost always explains the goofy AI declarations of war (last time the English tried to get out of their payments to me it only cost them 8 cities )

Can't think of anything else.

[Arrian]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I was selling Bismarck some luxuries for gold/turn. The RoP had been active since our alliance against France back in the Middle Ages. No charge, either way. So, if he ran out of money to pay me for my luxuries, he had to commit suicide..err.. I mean attack?

Hmmm. I will reload the oldest autosave... if it's pre-war (doubtful), I can check on the trade deal.

Oh well, I should have known that friendly, peaceful relations with Bismarck were not gonna last.

-Arrian

[lockstep]

Maybe the AI 'suspected' you were going to sneak-attack it, and it would be better off by striking preventively?

[lawren8]

Originally posted by Arrian
Yeah, I'm pretty sure I was selling Bismarck some luxuries for gold/turn. The RoP had been active since our alliance against France back in the Middle Ages. No charge, either way. So, if he ran out of money to pay me for my luxuries, he had to commit suicide..err.. I mean attack?

Try a reload and giving him some gold per turn

[Txurce]

I played a game a while back (1.16) where I was in a similarly dominant position and three different countries attacked me with seemingly no provocation. Not all three together, mind you, but one at a time, effectively committing suicide. The only explanation I could come up with is that something had to be done about my runaway lead, even if it was too little, too late, and therefore all too foolish.

[Arrian]

Ah, I love reviving old threads. Well, not really, but anyway...

I encountered another AI suicide last night. This time it was the Egyptians. I, the mighty Aztecs, had destroyed the following civs: English, Iroquois, Americans, Russians, Babylonians. The first four were neighbors, the last was an island civ. After this long running bloodbath, only Rome and Egypt remained. They shared an island, and were blissfully unaware of my rampaging (I had a full era tech lead... hell, when I whacked the Babs they were still in ANCIENT times... fighting off my Cavalry).

I figured I wanted a foothold "over there" on the Roman/Egyptian continent. But I didn't want to invade. My democracy needed some time at peace (read: reset war weariness) and I didn't want to win yet. So, instead of invading, I decided to sign a RoP with Rome and then dump my spare offensive units on Roman land, next to the Egyptian border, and just leave 'em there.

I signed the RoP and dropped off my troops on the Roman coast (turn 1). I moved these troops inland (turn 2). I got most of them up to the Rome/Egypt border (turn 3), at which point I received notice that "the Egyptians have declared war on us!"

I snickered. Five turns later, their empire lay in ruins. 2 cities taken (including Thebes, where I rushed ToE) and 4 others razed. The world's supply of gems is now in my hands. Egypt, now down to 3 cities, accepted peace and coughed up one of the cities (which I gifted to my kind Roman friends).

This was pure suicide. I had no trade deals with Egypt - so it was not a question of money. They had no knowledge of my past warmongering. The only factors were my wealth, knowledge and power, and their lack thereof (they didn't even have horses, for chrissakes! I massacred pikemen and swordsmen).

So, can anyone think of an explanation other than "the Aztecs are gonna win if we don't do something... CHARGE!!!!"

-Arrian

[Anaximander]

Please forgive my ignorance, but what is ToE??? I've seen that particular abreviation before but for the life of me, I can't think of what it could stand for.

[MyOlde]

Theory of Evolution. It gives you 2 free techs.

[Arrian]

Whatever happened to the apolyton abbreviations thread? We use a lot of abbreviations here, and it's easy to get confused.

EDIT: heh, it's topped in this very forum.

-Arrian

[Theseus]

If I only had Swordsmen against encroaching Cavs, I'd go for it too (but do it better).

In AU 107, I used superior numbers of Legions to invade against Musketmen, Knights, and Cavs.

[vmxa1]

I think it is the fatalism factor. They see the end coming and take their best shot. I do not see this at Emp/Deity, but have seen it rarely at Monarch and more often below that. I guess because it is easier to get the strangle hold at those levels. Anyway the AI will toss itself on the fire when they see no other way. The last time I saw it was a Monarch game where I was doing conquest only and had just a few turns to go to get to 2050 and was just ending the turn when a civ declared on me with next to nothing to attack with.

[Arrian]

Theseus,

Well, first of all, you would have killed the Romans early on, and made every attempt to get navigation and go whack the Babs (isolated, south of the Egyptian/Roman continent). But the AI is not you. And about you doing better in this situation... well, even you would have had no chance. The Egyptians faced a 3-Knight army, a 3-Cavalry army, several elite knights, maybe 10-15 Cavalry, some elite, 1 elite longbowman, and a couple of musketmen. Egypt had 10 cities, 3 of which were off-shore. It took me 5 turns to crush them... perhaps it would have taken me 10 to crush you in command of their forces. It just wasn't a remotely fair fight.

My forces were not encroaching on Egypt. Not at all. They were in Roman territory, most of them in motion. Several were fortified on the Roman side of the border. What amuses me is that I really had no intention of attacking. At least not until Tanks, which are a long way off.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

vmxa1,

Yeah, that's what I figure this was. It was a Monarch game, as you have surmised.

-Arrian

[Theseus]

That would take, hmmm, 40- 50 Swordsmen.

Well, Cleo committed suicide in RL too, so at least there's precedent.

[vondrack]

Originally posted by Theseus
That would take, hmmm, 40- 50 Swordsmen.

Well, Cleo committed suicide in RL too, so at least there's precedent.

[Jaybe]

Arrian,
I would wager that this "fatalism" factor is what Soren devised and termed "let's try to keep this game interesting" factor.

If we didn't have surprises in this game, would we be still playing it?

--
OT: So what do people think of the dispersing of the SOD tactics in PTW? (ref: CF chat)
I am imagining a massive wall of troops, especially over similar terrain (e.g., grassland), emanating from any salient into your territory, similar to what I might use.

[Arrian]

40-50 swordsmen in your hands... yeah, that could have hurt me. It might have even killed me. Or rather my offensive forces present on the Egyptian/Roman continent at that time. I would have returned with Tanks, or paid the Romans to assist me. Hey, I even saw a 2-archer, 1-legion army (Rome & Egypt had fought a war in the past which somehow failed to result in a single city changing hands, despite Egypt's lack of horses... so a GA empowered Rome w/iron could not beat a WC-deprived Egypt!)

Jaybe,

It's no longer really surpising. Why did I want a foothold on that continent? Simple - I knew that eventually one of them would declare war on me. So I wanted my troops in position to wipe out the offender quickly. Same principle as in my Egyptian game with what Theseus called my "Sword of Damocles."

OT: what dispersing of SoD tactics... CF chat? Do tell.

-Arrian

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by Arrian
...
OT: what dispersing of SoD tactics... CF chat? Do tell.

-Arrian

From CivFanatics PTW chat Q&A

< Some_God> to Anyone, In the middle-late part of the game everything becomes so easy. Once you start a war A HUGE pack of enemy units comes at you from one square. That makes everything boring and takes away strategy ( movement of units everywhere ) That's the main reason y I stopped playing Civ3 for a while. Will you have a limit on how much units can be in one square (stack) ?
<+Soren_Johnson_Firaxis> some_god: I have worked on that to encourage the AI to spread out it's attack force... sometimes it happens naturally though if there is a terrain bottleneck
<+FXS_Speed_Bump> I can attest to the fact that the AI does split it's stacks and attack from different sides now
<+Mike_Breitkreutz_FIRAXIS> So do the barbarians
<+FXS_Speed_Bump> Yeah
<+Soren_Johnson_Firaxis> barbs are much more a pain in PTW

< VaderFLAG2> Soren: What did you change (or what changed) to make barbs so much more of a pain?
< Hygro> how are barbarians more painful?
<+FXS_Speed_Bump> They are sneakier now
<+Mike_Breitkreutz_FIRAXIS> Hygro: they got smarter

< VaderFLAG2> Smarter how?
<+Soren_Johnson_Firaxis> vader: to be honest... I don't know! it was a combination of strictly unrelated things. what AI programmers call emergent behavior
<+FXS_Speed_Bump> They don't blindly attack and they will tear up improvements like nobody's business

< VaderFLAG2> Can you give an example of the emergent behavior? The causality is interesting, but I'd rather know how it manifests itself =p
<+Soren_Johnson_Firaxis> vader: for example, in the path manager, the AI know prefers to move to empty squares - all other things being equal. thus, a stack of barb horseman will split themselves up when going for you... attacking different squares and different cities. I implemented the change because of the SoD problem, but it also helped the barb AI.

[Arrian]

Interesting. Thanks.

-Arrian
(who already hates barbarians)

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by Jaybe
...
< VaderFLAG2> Can you give an example of the emergent behavior? The causality is interesting, but I'd rather know how it manifests itself =p
<+Soren_Johnson_Firaxis> vader: for example, in the path manager, the AI know prefers to move to empty squares - all other things being equal. thus, a stack of barb horseman will split themselves up when going for you... attacking different squares and different cities. I implemented the change because of the SoD problem, but it also helped the barb AI.

Good Gad, Soren! I sure do hope that "the AI now prefers to move to empty squares" is referring to Offensive/Defensive mixes (A/D strength-wise). It would be a shame to see longbows in one stack and muskets in another without integration.

Hopefully some FAST units even would stay with the slowmovers, maybe 1/3 of the fasts would outpace the slows.