How To Kill a Big Army

[DogCiv]

The AI likes to attack with large stacks, and will frequently send a huge army into your territory after it starts a war. The stack will often be headed towards one of your big cities on the border, taking a route through grasslands/plains squares.

One way to take advantage of this behavior is to encircle and then kill the enemy army, rather than attack it head on.

For example, in a recent game, I was playing Egypt and in the Industrial age with Infantry/Artillery/Cavalry, with Persia having similar military size and technology.

Persia attacked, and promptly sent a single stack of about 50 infantry and cavalry into my territory.

I encircled the army by destroying improvements behind the army to slow down their retreat, and surrounding it with infantry, and stacking 8 infantry in the city they were targeting (it never fell). I placed artillery 2 squares away and blasted away at the Persian army, and finished them off with Cavalry after their units were down to 1 hp.

Well, the Persians took a beating, and tried to retreat. By the time they got back to their territory (very, very slowly), they had 2 units left. I lost 4 or 5 total. After that, we were a pushover.

[Cookie Monster]

Interesting thought.

I have a question for you though. Didn't the AI attempt to send in another stack to try to rescue the encircled stack?

Most of my gaming experience sees the AI sending in 2 or 3 smaller stacks of about 6-8 units each. I have yet to see a massive 50 unit stack in any of my games but will look out for them. Meanwhile encircling the AI stacks seems to be a good idea!

[DogCiv]

This happened with Railroads and a contiguous land border.

The AI will send multiple stacks if it doesn't have the movement points to concentrate. When it has RR's, it has the ability to focus all of its offensive effort on the path of (apparently) least resistance. You see this when it attacks into your territory, as well as when the AI counterattacks to amphibious landings

What I had done was garrison mountains and hills on either side of a grassland/plains area on the border, and left two empty squares of grasslands/plains between. Sure enough, the Persians poured into the gap. Since it was my territory, they didn't get very far.

Another interesting thing is that at that stage of the game, I captured quite a few artillery units (10 or so) which can be used on the same turn to attack the enemy.

I noticed the AI can be "lured" by the following bait:
- workers/settlers
- artillery
- empty squares.

Since the first two items are valuable, I tend to just use empty squares as bait.

[Jawa Jocky]

I like to bait the AI too. I leave a city with only one unit and I leave a hole in my border defense. You know the next part.


It's a lot easier to conquer your neighbor if you can destroy their units outside of a city.

[Theseus]

Welll... I think the AI can be a little more creative than that.

My current game, that I described elsewhere as "ultra-early" war, has turned epic.

I think part of what happened was that by being so aggressive so early, I triggered whatever flag there is to increase AI aggression. The world was been war-torn till now (early 1400s AD), and although all 12 civs are still around (I incorrectly said 16 in the other post),4 are jokers, 4 are middle-weights, and 4 (myself included) are military-oriented behemoths. And everyone hates me.

I'm up to Rifleman, Cavalry, and Cannon, while the 3 other major civs, all of whom I border, have gotten to Infantry (sh-t!!!). I was still on Electricity when the following took place:

First, the Greeks showed up from the south, through German territory so they were constrained to a single attack path, with over 50 units.

Then, France showed up from the east, with four stacks but all coming from the same general direction... with over 160 units!! Thank god, they didn't attack right away, but just started marching toward the heart of my empire.

Then, as if I didn;t have enough on my hands, the Germans join the party too, with six 20+ stacks.

Just then, the French attack, 10 tiles deep into my territory!! Over a couple of turns, as I'm defending for my life, and they re-configure stacks, I realize that one of the stacks now has over 100 units!

They have all been attacking with a primary mix of Infantry, Rifleman, and Longbowmen, with a smattering of Cavs and Knights, and ZERO cannon (thankfully).

I am fighting for my life... but I haven't lost a city yet. Just need to stay at it another couple of turns, until I have Infantry.

When I am done, I'll review all the tactics I've used to destroy three huge military threats at once.

[Cookie Monster]

Originally posted by DogCiv
This happened with Railroads and a contiguous land border.

The AI will send multiple stacks if it doesn't have the movement points to concentrate. When it has RR's, it has the ability to focus all of its offensive effort on the path of (apparently) least resistance. You see this when it attacks into your territory, as well as when the AI counterattacks to amphibious landings

What I had done was garrison mountains and hills on either side of a grassland/plains area on the border, and left two empty squares of grasslands/plains between. Sure enough, the Persians poured into the gap. Since it was my territory, they didn't get very far.

Another interesting thing is that at that stage of the game, I captured quite a few artillery units (10 or so) which can be used on the same turn to attack the enemy.

I didn't know that. Interesting...........thanks for the advice. I would like to try this out in my current game.

[Theseus]

OH MY GOD... the French have BOMBERS!!

[Coracle]

Originally posted by Jawa Jocky
I like to bait the AI too. I leave a city with only one unit and I leave a hole in my border defense. You know the next part.


It's a lot easier to conquer your neighbor if you can destroy their units outside of a city.

Yea. Baiting the stupid AI military has gotten too easy. You can do it in various ways: leaving resources, workers, or bombardment units undefended; leaving unoccupied a path to one of your cities across plains - a great killijg zone for your counterattacks; and other things. What is really bad is the AI keeps repeating the same errors and doesn't learn.

That's why Soren's AI sucks.

[Tuberski]

Wow, just like civ 2, eh Coracle?

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by Coracle



Yea. Baiting the stupid AI military has gotten too easy. You can do it in various ways: leaving resources, workers, or bombardment units undefended; leaving unoccupied a path to one of your cities across plains - a great killijg zone for your counterattacks; and other things. What is really bad is the AI keeps repeating the same errors and doesn't learn.

That's why Soren's AI sucks.

I'd like to try the Coracle AI, I'm sure it is much better than Soren's and can learn and close those exploits.

[Tuberski]

Hey, asleepathewheel, don't you feel like you are beating your head against the wall with Coracle? I sure do.

He never backs up his statements. Just whines and leaves.

Why do we bother?

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by Tuberski
Hey, asleepathewheel, don't you feel like you are beating your head against the wall with Coracle? I sure do.

He never backs up his statements. Just whines and leaves.

Why do we bother?

I don't know why. He just flames and runs. What a pus. I don't I've ever seen him respond to a critisism of his criticisms. Probably because he can't. I would like to see his AI though, since Soren's sucks so much. (face it, he's probably 13 in his parent's basement. seems to have poorly developed social skills)


On topic.

I have faced a large army or two in my time. once, army of immortals moving towards me. I countered against his cities in the North. I also moved warriors near the stack at different squares, so when the immortals attacked, the stack would be fragmented, easier to take on. rinse repeat. MW's save the day (again

[Theseus]

Given, the Soren and Coracle AIs are incapable of learning.

However, let's not assume that the AI now has one battle strategy (big stacks, mostly of footsloggers).

In the epic wars taking place against the proud Egyptian people, the Greeks asked for peace, and got it (@$$@#@#@!). Now the goddamned sons-of-*****es have re-entered the scene... but with a new twist. They came in from the northwest, through France. This time, they are wandering around my territory, without declaring war, in hunter-killer packs of 2-3 Cav. They are VERY conveniently always within 3 moves of one of my cities. This while I chip away at the now 100s of French.

It's actually been a big problem, as I have been leaving many cities empty while dealing with the French scoundrels. Now I ahve to balance out my defense, to make sure that no empty city is too tempting for the French [edit: sorry, the Greeks] to declare war.

I'm exhausted.

[Gen.Dragolen]

Theseus,

Any idea how the AI's in your campaign are doing economically ?

I just finished a Regent level campaign that saw the might Egyptian Culture produce the Spaceship by Y2000 and never fought a war:

When I finally did get my spies in place, I was astounded to see how many units the AI had: from about 16 cities, the Indians had 162 Mech Infantry, 5 tanks, 1 Bomber, and 3 ICBM's at the top of the list. The rest were legacy units and always at least one unit that starts their GA. The other 2 major civ's, the Babylonians, and Japanese had similar totals. Only the lowly Greeks who were down to 6 cities had about 55 Mech Infantry and a fistful of Subs.

All the civ's were Democracies, and the unit costs were over 300 per turn. I was having problems keeping enough units (50 Mech Infantry, 25 Modern Armour, 50 Artillery) to maintain their respect (thank god for us having at least 2 Artillery, 2 Mech Infantry, and 2 Modern Armour per city and the Frontier Guard's Mech Infantry and 2 Artillery unit firebases) and not go bankrupt while building the spacehip.

The logistics appear to be unmanagable since trade will only get you so much. And I made sure the Egyptians were getting most of what the others had for spare cash (about 100 gold/turn on average) I know the research was me versus the world most of the time, so that explains how they kept up in technology, but how the heck did they pay for all those units ?

[planetfall]

Theseus,
Don't forget to give us a review of the game's progress and tactics that help. This seems like a real nightmare and all too common when you have a strong civ.

I presume all civs are refusing alliances and probably have trade embargoes.

[dexters]

Coracle has an AI? where can i download it?

[Txurce]

Theseus, your game has been certified as officially Wild.

Two questions: how do you know how many bad guys are in each stack?

And how do you feel about ultra-early war, given your present standing? What did it get you?

[Alkis]

Another thing you can do is create a new city for the AI to attack. This way you don't risk anything. I was attacked in one game by the French (I was playing Germans) who brought an army of infantry/cavalry/longbowmen of no less than 141 units.

So, I found a new city and placed 11 veteran infantries in it. However, I was proved too optimistic because they managed to destroy it. They lost 40 units in doing so. Then I made another city. I always have settlers ready, sometimes just sitting there for ages of time. I put 14 infantries this time, literally bringing alomst every spare infantry I had. This time they didn't manage to get the city and they started retreating. Meanwhile, my own cavalry was getting one city after the other. They where lightly defended and most of them didn't even had infantry defending them. All that was on Emperor.

Btw, (I don't want to offend anyone but) I don't find the AI especially strong. Come on, we live in an age where a computer program has beaten the World champion in chess, they could surely make an AI better than that.

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Alkis
Btw, (I don't want to offend anyone but) I don't find the AI especially strong. Come on, we live in an age where a computer program has beaten the World champion in chess, they could surely make an AI better than that.

Sorry to go off topic, but this just cries for a response. Without a comment on this games AI (which I find relatively well done), comparing it to Deep Blue is a big joke. You see, in the world of AI, Deep Blue is notorious for killing an otherwise nice benchmark, and Kasparov was very right in his critisisms. Deep Blue was a marvel of computer architecture, not of clever programming. In fact, it's programming was less clever than what you'll find in the Chessmaster x000 series.

They just used raw power to calculate every possible move, 23 turns deep IIRC. No human can do this, as they prune the possible solutions. Kasparov is famous for being able to 'see' 17 turns deep. But human players take shortcuts, use rules of thumbs, see patterns in a play, Deep Blue just did all. It was the dumbest chess program ever made.

It killed the AI benchmark, by 'cheating'... so the next game benchmarks are based on Go (which has far more possible moves at each turn), where Deep Blue could only go 10 turns deep, where good human players see 15 or more.

If you compare this to CivIII, with its hundreds, maybe thousands of possible moves each turn, Deep Blue could plan 3, maybe 4 turns in advance. The current AI uses a lot longer planning, and humans maybe even more (planning for a spaceship victory, or where best to put your Forbidden Palace takes maybe 100 turns in advance) So please, don't use the argument of winning a chess game to compare it with a more complex game like CivIII. If you want the same response time, you should have thousands of Deep Blue's just to play one game... but you can be sure you'd loose, even with production bonuses for you, instead for the AI

DeepO
(BTW, no offence taken, and none intended either )

[Alkis]

Deep0, as you already said, you are off topic. I could get into a detailed discussion about Deep Blue because I am a chessplayer but anyway I will leave that (because it's of topic )

On the subject of Civ3's AI they could easily program it to research only techs who lead in the contraction of the spaceship (not recycling).
Also, they could enter a command like, if enemy tanks etc can approach your cities in one turn, then put equal number of defenders. Or something like that. The result would be that instead of attacking with 100+ units it would attack with maybe 60, but have its cities a lot more defended.

Just two simple examples.

[Meldor]

Playing a game as Egypt. The Persian were next to me. Instead of a direct attack on my best deffended cities, they came around through France. They had one stack with 100+ rifles and infantry, and a second stack with 50, mostly rifles and archers. I had RoP with both, and scouts stationed to watch the moves. Once Persia got near my border (France had not completed their rail net yet) I killed the RoP with Persia forcing them to advance one square at a time. That gave me three turns to prepare. I stacked all my atry out of their range with Cav cover, and moved infantry claose to my nearest two cities. Once the stack was two squares into my lands I asked them to move, they declare war. Bombed stack with arty and moved all defnders into city they were headed for. Big stack split in two (one with injured making for the border, second for another undefended city). Bomobed them two more turns, and had main stack now down to 75+ units. Still too hot to handle. Took all the tanks I had (I had just got them) and started attacking the Persian homeland. Paid France to come in on my side. I took two Persian cities really quick. The two mega stacks, turned to try and make it back to defend the homeland. Didn't do them any good. They were both toast before they made it past the first few French squares, and since most of the Persian units were caught out of their lands, taking their cities was a lot easier. Would up with 8 good Persian cities.

There were two keys to this strat. Killing the RoP they had with the French by bringing them into the war, and attacking their homeland with enough force to make them recall the foreign guard. One interesting highlight was that I saw a stack that had about 50 units in it pass right by one of my cities that only had 10 defenders. The AI can not handle a two front war. It tries to concentrate all of its power in one spot. This works no matter what level you play on.

As they say, "the best defense is a good offensive".

[DeepO]

Even if Civ's AI could be a bit more reflective on how to use it's units instead of going for one city with all of them, it doesn't change the fact that the AI of Civ is a lot smarter then Deep Blue. Sure, an AI recipe to win a space race should have been included, now it is far too easy to win as a human.

But that's my whole point: we use recipes because we can't foresee all possibilities, so we devise a strategy once, and adapt it to the specific situation. An AI can't do this on it's own, so if it gets such recipes, such strategies coded by the programmer and if it can use them well we tend to think the AI is smart.

To take the comparison back to chess: In chess the possibilities are far less then in Civ. each turn, you have only 8-10 valid moves you can make, with which the opponent again can have 8-10 countermoves. Humans can't see all moves 20 turns deep, and have to use strategies, studied openings with known results, counter techniques and the like. Deep Blue was able to have not one single strategy included, but through raw power win anyway.

In Civ, that would not be possible, because you don't have 8 possible moves, each unit has over 8 possible moves (fortifying and upgrading can be counted as possible actions too). The complexity is so overwhelming, that you need to have a recipe/strategy like AI, raw power wouldn't cut it. Of course, once the player understands these recipes used, it becomes easy to counter them, as the AI can't adapt like we can. So you fool them... as a dog or a little child.

That's why I feel the AI is well done in Civ. Of course it will always be possible to be smarter then the AI, of course it uses some strategies at the wrong places / times, but in general it gives you a run for your money. And having such a vast army appearing at your borders surely is one of those examples where we have to plan carefully, or be destroyed. As such, it's fun and exiting even if it could always improve.

DeepO

[Sava]

Good plan! Although the AI usually keeps spitting units out. What do you do when the next wave reaches you? I guess what I would do is build two forces. One that would take care of existing units, and one that would focus on destroying their ability to make war.