Goodness! I've Found a Berserker AI: China

Gatekeeper · September 11, 2002, 20:45

Everyone:

I am playing in the modern era, Northern Hemisphere map. China and my Amazons are the only two nations left and our starships landed on Alpha Centauri long ago.

China has initiated hostilities over and over again, and their reputation nows bears that mark. But the strange thing is, I have the United Nations and it *isn't* helping hardly at all. You need at least one turn of no attacks before its powers can even bring the AI to the table (China in this case), and then the peace treaty lasts only one turn before China surprise attacks me again. Problem is, there's hardly a turn where China doesn't send frickin' 10 to 20 stealth bombers (and some ground forces) against my troops in the field or against some of the cities I've occupied. Even more vexing is the fact that I've destroyed or sacked the closest Chinese cities to my own, but there are no *rail* or *road* links into China's heart ... so, basically, my troops and engineers are gunned down before they can ever enter China's heartland.

There are no lulls between the attacks, so I can never use the UN to force peace. And when I can, the peace lasts one turn. I'm sorely tempted to build the Manhattan Project, but that'd only equip both of us with nukes (most of my cities are shielded, as are theirs). But that might be the one thing that could force peace long enough for my engineers to build key links so I can wipe China out once and for all.

This is amazing. I've found a berserker AI and have no easy rail links (or roads, for that matter) to nail it quickly. Yet waves of bombers and ground action ensure I can never use the UN against China. How aggravating, yet fascinating at the same time.

Any tips or similar encounters from anybody else?

Gatekeeper

Gatekeeper · September 11, 2002, 21:56

Hmm ... I just recorded 31 stealth bomber attacks against four of my peripheral cities, some of which were successful in knocking out defenders, despite SAM missile batteries and scrambling stealth fighters.

Gatekeeper

Gatekeeper · September 12, 2002, 00:34

HA!!! I just GUTTED the BASTARDS!!! Many, many engineers gave up their lives, but a rail line was forged and now my precious Amazons are gorging on fillets of prime Chinese heartland cities.

Er ... they still got a number of large cities, though. **hunkers down for the AI counterattack**

Gatekeeper

LDiCesare · September 12, 2002, 03:49

The problem with UN is that AIs feel they must respect the peace ony for one turn. Thus it is better to have the peace offered by them during their turn. To do that, you usually need to destroy one of their cities and move a unit near enough one of theirs. When they come near your unit, they usually talk to you, which, with UN, means they go to peace. That means you can have peace once every other turn if you are able to raze that many cities.
Making peace on your own turn serves nothing (except preventing you from fighting the opponent) in these conditions.
Also, if you can build a fort on some mountain and put a good defender there, with any luck, the AI will lose a few bombers on it.

Scouse Gits · September 12, 2002, 05:25

A tactical suggestion:

As you noted - the AI will scrag your engineers as they advance the railroad so you need a ton of engineers - a possible exploit is to use said engineers to 'shield' the railroad workers by advancing them and building airstrips - thus preventing their bombers from penetrating to the actual rail workers - you will still lose engineers, but possibly a smaller number - I readily admit that this strategy is untried and may actually cost more engineers in the long run, but it seems worth trying...

If you do please post as to just how disastrous or hopefully otherwise it proves...

Cheers, SG[1]

Campo · September 12, 2002, 08:19

I've never tried this, so take it with a grain of salt...

What if you had given a bunch of engineers to the Chinese? I wonder if they would be put to use building roads and railroads, making your invasion a lot easier.

Scouse Gits · September 12, 2002, 14:09

If you have an army of engineers you can advance by building forts. Assuming terrain is grassland/plains you need 5 to transform each square.
#1 Builds Road
#2 & 3 Build Railway
#4 & 5 Build a fort
Place a vet Mech Inf in the fort and the defence value is 18. Within the fort you can only lose units one at a time.

-------------------------

SG(2)

Gatekeeper · September 12, 2002, 18:21

Quote:

Originally posted by LDiCesare
The problem with UN is that AIs feel they must respect the peace ony for one turn. Thus it is better to have the peace offered by them during their turn. To do that, you usually need to destroy one of their cities and move a unit near enough one of theirs. When they come near your unit, they usually talk to you, which, with UN, means they go to peace. That means you can have peace once every other turn if you are able to raze that many cities.
Making peace on your own turn serves nothing (except preventing you from fighting the opponent) in these conditions.

Heh. Until I had that rail line in place, I never had a chance to be in a position to threaten, occupy or raze their heartland cities (all the Chinese cities near my own cities were occupied or razed almost immediately ... although I had to build rail lines to get at some of those rinky-dink walled cities). But once the track was in place and my units began flooding their territory, China made a peace treaty that lasted *three* turns instead of the usual *one* turn. Of course, once they broke that treaty, I gutted 'em, including their precious capital of Beijing ('though the government escaped).

Did you know that the AI can somehow acquire a vendetta against you? I've been aware of this for some time now, and it seems if an AI has a vendetta against you, it genuinely goes into warpath berserker mode, treaty or no treaty. What irriates me is that China broke all the peace treaties, not me. Yet they have a vendetta against me? How odd. The only thing I can imagine that caused the vendetta was that I pillaged some of China's farmland and mines when sieging their outlying cities.

Quote:

Also, if you can build a fort on some mountain and put a good defender there, with any luck, the AI will lose a few bombers on it.

Oh, yeah! I just did that on a mountain and have put 10 or so veteran mechanized infantry units. I expect to see lots of dead stealth bombers if China goes up against that bulwark.

Gatekeeper

Gatekeeper · September 12, 2002, 18:24

Quote:

Originally posted by Scouse Gits
A tactical suggestion:

As you noted - the AI will scrag your engineers as they advance the railroad so you need a ton of engineers - a possible exploit is to use said engineers to 'shield' the railroad workers by advancing them and building airstrips - thus preventing their bombers from penetrating to the actual rail workers - you will still lose engineers, but possibly a smaller number - I readily admit that this strategy is untried and may actually cost more engineers in the long run, but it seems worth trying...

If you do please post as to just how disastrous or hopefully otherwise it proves...

Cheers, SG[1]

I guess I try to avoid "exploits" like that because it wouldn't happen IRL (after all, IRL, the bombers would simply fly over the airports and kill the engineers behind the fields). I also know that bombers sitting on rail lines shouldn't be able to stop land units from moving through, but they do.

Gatekeeper

Gatekeeper · September 12, 2002, 18:26

Quote:

Originally posted by Campo
I've never tried this, so take it with a grain of salt...

What if you had given a bunch of engineers to the Chinese? I wonder if they would be put to use building roads and railroads, making your invasion a lot easier.

Heh. Knowing the AI, it'd simply use the engineers to establish new cities deep w/i the radii of existing cities (particularly if all the "good" land has been taken up on a continent). For some reason, that practice just aggravates me ... probably because it looks "unnatural" most of the time.

Gatekeeper

Gatekeeper · September 12, 2002, 18:29

Quote:

Originally posted by Scouse Gits
If you have an army of engineers you can advance by building forts. Assuming terrain is grassland/plains you need 5 to transform each square.
#1 Builds Road
#2 & 3 Build Railway
#4 & 5 Build a fort
Place a vet Mech Inf in the fort and the defence value is 18. Within the fort you can only lose units one at a time.

-------------------------

SG(2)

Bingo! That's what I've been doing ... well, at least steps 1 through 3. Just started doing 4 and 5 after seeing my engineers get slaughtered over and over again.

The best cities to draw engineers from are high productivity ones that have filled all their terrain with workers and have lots of "Elvises" and still have leftover food.

Gatekeeper

La Fayette · September 12, 2002, 18:47

If the starships landed long ago, I guess you are now fighting for the fun of it.
Fun #1: attrition war
A stealth bomber is a costly weapon and a stealth fighter can kill several in a row. Build 'bait' cities with only spies and riflemen inside, and let the chinese lose a stealth bomber for any 30-40 shield unit they destroy. You can bet they will get tired after a while.
Fun #2: moving fortress
This one has just been described by SG(2). You don't need that many engineers if you use 'preworked' engineers and build a road instead of a RR.

Gatekeeper · September 12, 2002, 21:16

La Fayette:

One thing I've discovered about attacking stealth bombers is that the SOBs are hard to destroy when they're over hills, mountains or over fortresses in such terrain. Logically, terrain shouldn't factor into the battles, but it does. I'm sometimes tempted to reduce the defense factor from 5 to 4 for stealth bombers, but haven't so far.

Gatekeeper

(And, yep, I'm fighting for the fun of it. I've pretty much gutted all of China now, but it's infuriating when stealth bombers block my paths to remaining cities and I don't have fighters nearby to shoot 'em down.)