What Abilities Does the AI Have in Civ II?

[Gatekeeper]

Everyone:

I've always been curious as to what the AI can do at differing difficulty levels in Civ II. For example, I know the AI will bribe cities at the Emperor level, but not below that. What else can the AI do on the Emperor and, especially, the Deity levels that it isn't allowed to do below those levels?

Gatekeeper

[Scouse Gits]

Lord knows - we can give you a fair list of what the Artificial Stupidity can do at Deity, but what it can do below that is anyone's guess

The SGs in their third bottle

[TCO]

Combat is affected (in favor of the player) at Chieftan.

[Gatekeeper]

SG[x]:

Any of you guys up for a cold shower so you can relate to me what the AI can do on Deity?

GP:

Huh. One more reason to never play Chieftain level again.

Gatekeeper

[Scouse Gits]

Good Morning

I do remember the following:

At Chieftain more information about AI civs is available. Automatic embassies on meeting another civ and the Foreign Advisor displayed the number of units they had. Playing the lower levels Alliances are offered more readily by the AI. There are no research penalties at Chieftain and there is always an open tech tree.

Combat becomes harder with each level but is still in favour of the human up to Prince. At King it's even. Playing Emperor/Deity progressively in favour of the AI. At the higher levels the AI food/shield boxes are smaller for their cities.

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SG(2)

[shade]

also something I just noticed(on Deity) is the fact that the AI can use his gold/shields however it wants:
eg: it has 10 shields and 80G = 90somethings
--> it can then use for example 30 of those somethings as shields an the rest as gold .

Shade

[TCO]

SG, I had the impression that the actual compbat was the same at all levels other than Cheiftan.

One other thing I've noticed about the AI. I thinik it doesn't really lose shields towards a wonder in the way that you would do so. (when you build before them.)

[Vlad Antlerkov]

--Collective building of wonders.

If you've played the World War 1979 scenario that came with Conflicts, then you'll have noticed that the AI builds wonders in several cities simultaneously. It was noticed by someone (I think it was SG) that only one city is actually building it; the other cities working on it are sending their shields over to that city. So if the AI has Cities A, B, and C, each producing 15 shields/turn, building Wonder W, City A would be producing W at 45 shields/turn.

--Being able to irrigate without a source of water nearby. (If you let the AI control your settlers, they do the same thing )

[Scouse Gits]

At Deity all AI units can 'at times' act as Dips in as much as they can ignore ZoC and bribe Units - I have never seen a non-dip bribe a city.
The AI does not use Wonder caravans, but does seem to have the ability to transport fractional Wonders from all over their empire so as to produce the WoW on demand -- this leads to the point remarked upon above - as they only have a number of fractional WoWs forcing them to abandon one does not hurt them as much as us - who hasn't had a 298 shield settler ;(

SG[1]

[TCO]

They also get to see the whole map. They also never have triremes sink. Also, magic cruise missiles.

[War4ever]

also for the human player, you can shift production from wonder/unit/building with impunity.....

was this on topic enough for you Scouse

War4ever, tired and cranky~

[Gatekeeper]

GP, et al.:

That "seeing the whole map" thing is slightly aggravating, especially when you establish a new city and, voila!, enemy units make a beeline for said city (w/o you "knowing" about it) in an attempt to take it before the city grows strong.

I've had that happen more than once. Afterwards, I sometimes change the view to that of the civilization that attacked. Invariably (especially on oceans), you will see a "beeline" across tiles that are completely unexplored by the AI otherwise.

As for cruise missiles, they may have fixed that in the Macintosh edition, which is what I use. Every time I think there was a "magic" missile attack, I can trace it back to an AI city that's near enough to my convoys to launch missile strikes. But I still think the AI gets an advantage in this regard that human players do not: namely, the AI only needs to have a city within firing range of your convoy(s) in order to use its cruise missiles against you, no matter where they're located in the AI's empire. IOW, if City B is close enough to your assets, it can launch cruise missiles that might be in City D and City E elsewhere in the AI empire.

Anyway, I altered the cruise missile to make it a bit cheaper. So now the AI uses them against my spies, armored divisions and my shock troops in addition to convoys. It also attacks cities with cruise missiles now, particularly if you have a ship being repaired there or something. It makes my life a bit more miserable, but it's among the best dang improvements I've made to the AI's playing style.

Gatekeeper

[War4ever]

Gatekeeper, what did you do in the rules .txt for this to happen....an aggressive ai impresses me and one that will actually use units of this nature the way they were supposed to be used sounds great to me

[Gatekeeper]

War4ever:

I believe that all I did was cut the cost of the cruise missiles by 10 shields or so from 50 to 40. Instead of storing the missiles then, the AI seems to actually use them on a range of targets that I mentioned above. The shock troops are a custom unit I made from the "extras" available in Civ.

Insofar as I can tell, howitzers still are not targeted by AI missiles, unless they're in a stack containing armor or spies (or are aboard a transport). I don't know why, but I suspect it might be because of their low defense (but then that doesn't explain why spies are targeted).

Gatekeeper

[TCO]

I only notice magic cruise missiles at sea.

[Gatekeeper]

GP:

While I don't think "magic" cruise missile attacks exist literally — as in the AI materializing a missile next to your convoy and pounding away — where else would you see such attacks if you haven't adjusted the RULES.TXT file to make the missiles cheaper? Prior to the time I made the change, the AI would store a lot of missiles in its cities — even ones far, far from coastlines — and use them exclusively against ships. Now that I've made them cheaper ... well, the AI uses them much more liberally.

Gatekeeper

[SlowThinker]

Originally posted by SG(2)
Combat becomes harder with each level but is still in favour of the human up to Prince. At King it's even. Playing Emperor/Deity progressively in favour of the AI.

How many bottles did you drink before writing this?
Barbs have the attack strength adjusted, but AI units?
My tests say no in both SP and MP.

[Scouse Gits]

OK ST...is Chieftain any different?
____________

SG(2)

[SlowThinker]

no

(when did you study Info: combat last time?)

[Scouse Gits]

I don't tend to find the slide rule approach to combat useful, as the fractional differences are well within the broader random element of most battles. I know what I need to kill something...have a look at my recent log in the Mrs Mongol Game

BTW ... when did you actually last play/finish a game? Let's see if all this information gives you the edge...we'll sign you up for the next Succession Game

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SG(2)

[Marquis de Sodaq]

GP points out a combat bonus at chieftain level. At all other levels, combat between human and AI is equal. The level difference is between humans and barbarians - progressively harder as you move up in levels.

The AI can cheat with tech theft if you have space flight - no number of veteran spies can thwart a lone diplomat from stealing your precious space techs.

[Alexander's Horse]

The AI has the ability to always choose the wrong option.

[Gatekeeper]

AH:

**evil laughter** Most definitely. I've had the pleasure of razing more than one civilization to the ground after their spy "successfully" stole something I really didn't want them to have.

Me: "Oh, so you want robotics that bad, eh? Well, here's 150 howitzers for ya, you bastards! Take it like a man, AI!!!!!!" (insert battle cry here)

Gatekeeper

[SlowThinker]

Originally posted by SG(2)
Let's see if all this information gives you the edge...we'll sign you up for the next Succession Game

I must finish the Campo game first...

Originally posted by Marquis
GP points out a combat bonus at chieftain level. At all other levels, combat between human and AI is equal.

Do you want to say you agree there is a difference at chieftain level?

Originally posted by SG[1]
At Deity all AI units can 'at times' act as Dips in as much as they can ignore ZoC and bribe Units - I have never seen a non-dip bribe a city.

I have heard this may happen also with lower difficulties: any experiences?

**********************************************
FYI: AI Shieldbox sizes: chieftain 15, warlord 13, prince 12, king 10, emperor 9, deity 8, superdeity ?

[Marquis de Sodaq]

Originally posted by SlowThinker Do you want to say you agree there is a difference at chieftain level?

GP says it is so, I've only run a superficial test (20 tries). I won un unlikely amount. So, I'd say I won't discredit the idea, but would like to test it a hundred times more to see for sure.

[SlowThinker]

Marquis, could you be more detailed about the test? Which units?

My test:
I ran 2 tries with equal units of 100 hitpoints participating in the combat: the surviving units ended almost dead.

[Marquis de Sodaq]

I believe I just used 20 horsemen to attack an equal number of phalanx. Again, it was just an informal peek to see if it would warrant a real test. I think it does, and I'll get around to running one sometime soon.