Offensive flag speculations (since there is no official word yet)

[player1]

Why AI builds Infantry/Riflemen/Mech. Inf. so often and Tanks/Cvalry so rarely?


Some hypothesys:

1) In my test game AI used Mech. Inf. instead of Tanks (and Infantry insead of Cavalry), but it USED Cavalry insted of Riflemen (MODed to 5/6/1 cost 70). Maybe it used Cavalry since it is more expensive then Riflemen: 80 vs 70 (expensive == must be good unit). Mech. Inf is more expensive then Tanks (110 vs 100)

2) Maybe it's something totaly diffenert. Maybe AI looks how many offense untis are active. If it has too manu, it doesn't build more. And since it will always have more then enough offense units since Infatry is both defenese and offnese (and AI will usually need defense units), it won't build real offense units (cavalry & tanks).

3) Maybe evaluation includes some formula which includes both movment, attack & defense values of units. (But what formula?)

4) Maybe Offense + Defense flag is only good for units which are nomaly ofen used for offense (like Legion, Bowmen and Samurai), and not for priamry defenders (like Riflemen, Infantry and Mech. Inf.)


Soren?

[vulture]

My experience with 1.21 shows the AI being moderately sensible with unit choices. Before riflemen became available, it was using knights for offense and pikemen for defence. Once riflemen appear on the scene, it
built them almost exclusively, probably on the basis that they are as good at attack and better at defence than knights. Likewise, cavalry are built in numbers when they become available until riflemen appear (which again have the same attack but far superior defence). Tanks have just appeared in my game, and the AI is building them by the bucket load as well. I expect that production will switch to mech inf when the AI civs get to computers.

On one hand it makes a kind of sense (if looked at from the attack and defence values it is eminently sensible). And the thinking behind it may be that since knights are available before riflemen, cavalry before infantry etc, then the AI will have a large supply of fast attack units already on hand when it starts building the off/def units. That desn't really work in practice 'cos the AI gets its fast attack units killed off rather too quickly when at war.
And the rational behind building infantry in preference to cavalry seems to undervalue the strengths of the fast units. Although, given that the AI has trouble using the fast units efficiently, that might not be a bad thing.

The main weakness with the AI preferring infantry to cavalry is that the infantry stacks are just too easy to split up using artillery or bombers, so the attack is blunted before they ever reach a target. I was attacked by a stack of 35 infantry. I used my 20 artillery to bombard them, injuring about 15 of them. Those 15 head for home to regenerate, and the remaining 20 carry on. The same happened next turn. Net result, the AI has a stack of 5 healthy infantry, and 2 stacks of 15 injured ones (more or less). I can take on each stack seperately (since none of them are adjacent to each other) and wipe them all out, taking minimal casualties.

A stack of pure cavalry wouldn't have fared much better though, since I wouldn't have need to weaken them up with artillery before the massacre. A combined stack would have worked wonders though. If the artillery can hit the stack, then the cavalry can reach the artillery (except in circumstances involving jungles or mountains). And once they are within striking distance of a town (with the cavalry being healthy since the infantry have taken the defending duties) the cavalry can strike out using their 3 moves and take it. Stacking the fast and defensive units until within reach of a town should work quite nicely (and on the face of it be moderately simple to implement). The current approach of a huge stack of defensive units is very susceptible to large scale bombardment to break it into smaller stacks that can be picked off at will.

[=DrJambo=]

i am itching to know more about this, especially since i mod my civ3 game.

[player1]

I've seen that Germans use Panzer often.

And when I MODified Tanks to 120 cost, and Mod. Armor to 140, other civs started to use them more often.