Why does the AI do this?

[D4everman]

I always get annoyed when they do this....

The AI factions build bases so close to my border as to steal resources from squares I've terraformed. I wish there was an option to say to them "DO NOT FOUND THAT BASE THERE OR I'LL SQUASH YOU LIKE A BUG!"

I've only had SMAX for a short while so I'm still getting used to the new factions. In my last game I was the cyborgs and I was fortunate to start off next to the monsoon jungle on one side and Pholus ridge on the other. I began my expansion and found the Cult on a tiny patch of land connected to the jungle. Too bad for them. By the time I saw them I had occupied most of the land leading out from their land leaving no room for them to expand. . On the far side of Pholus ridge were the believers. (no aliens in this game. I purposely left them out. Its too easy to nerve gas them into oblivion.) There was a on tile space in the jungle outside of my border. What does Cha Dawn do? He offers a treaty then founds a base there, effectively eating into several of my terraformed farm squares. NO WAY! I told him to give me the base but he wanted 600 credits for it. Pretty bold considering he had 2 bases, almost no tech and I was the big number one faction. So I probed it away from him, he declares vendetta and then surrenders almost immediately when he sees my rovers heading towards him. Meanwhile Miriam predictably declares vendetta just because shes a psycho. Miriam was harder to beat. I knew she'd never surrender easily, but after I took two bases she surrendered. What does she do? She builds a sea base right off of the cost of the jungle. Admittedly the patch of land she snatched with that base was outside of my base radius...but I had dug a few boreholes there and was sending crawlers there to reap the benefits. She wouldn't give me the base either. I wanted to make her declare vendetta so I could just conquer it (and disband it) but then sunspots occurred. I used probes and infected her bases. As long as there were sunspots she couldn't declare vendetta and I couldn't break our pact. I successfully turned her four remaining land bases to size one. (At the same time Yang was smashing Diedre and Domai and also declared vendetta on me. Too bad for him. We were seperated by only two ocean tiles...so I took two bases from him and started cranking out troops to attack him soon.) Yang's bases had drone riots so I nerve stapled them. These actions of course made it impossible for Yang or Miriam to think about peace with me when the sunspots ended. Long story short, I wiped out Miriam and went after Yang. (Which was great! Some of the bases Yang had taken from Dee had SP's in them...I took them first. The other bases that were formerly Gaian I returned to Dee...the same with Domai.) Yang went down easily after that. Then Morgan declared vendetta mainly because he's a moron. Using fungal payloads I covered his measely five or six bases with fungus, towers and mindworms. They ate him for lunch then I used drop troops and empath choppers to take his bases. I was going to give them to Domai but he declared Vendetta. It was within 2 or three turns before the Ascendance so I PB'd Domai. (What did it matter? The mindworms were tearing up my carefully placed bases by this point.)

Sorry for the rambling, but back to my original point....why does the AI build bases so in places so close like that? I could understand it if either Cha or Miriam were strong enough to put up a fight, but as this game played out they stood virtually no chance against me. Cha at least had the good sense to surrender before the first shot was fired. Miriam is just f***ing crazy. If her AI was programmed to use any common sense she'd have realized the only reason she was allowed to live was because I let her. Opposing me (when I demanded that sea base) was suicide!

Has anyone else had something like this happen? Any comments, ideas?

D4

[Skanderbeg]

I think things like this happen because the AI is unable to make up a long term strategy. Remember, the AI is only a computer that does some sort of math.
It can calculate a single fight, or the results of building a base somewhere (grabbing away your nice borehole), but it will not have the 12 rovers and 15 needlejets in that strong base 20 tiles away in its calculations.
I have had a fight that shows that inability to thing strategically very good.
Once, Miriam landed on my continent with 3 infantry units to try to conquer one of my bases, with two SP's
(citizens defense and one I can't remember). The bases had one interceptor and two AAA units as defenders.
Then, around 30! (impossible to count) of Miriams needlejets appeared at this base, killing my crawlers and formers, but none of this needlejets attacked the base itself. If Miriam had sacrified five or six of her airforce, my base would have been easy prey for her infantry. But she did not. Next turn, I brought troops from other bases, and killed her infantry and some of her needlejets.
I think the reason for this stupid behaviour is this:
The AI calculates only the single fight, not the whole battle. It calculates, for the first needlejet, that it has no chance to win against the AAA garrison. Same for the second, the third, and so on.
Founding bases near your territory (which the AI likes very much) is similar. The AI sees the one turn advantage (getting terraformed squares), but not the conclusions.

[D4everman]

You're probably right....but the AI should be able to see long term advantages...like this...

Cha could have let his colony pod keep travelling through my territoy to the other side (where Mt. Planet was actually) and set up there. That would have effectively cut off my expansion. I probably wouldn't have attacked him right out, and he could have expanded all through the rest of that land, so by midgame he might have posed a threat.

Miriam could have used that sea colony pod to set up outside of my sphere of influence, but still on ocean tiles with resources. Then she could have claimed other ocean tiles built up a decent force and caused trouble later.

The problem with Yang...and in most games, Miriam...is that they don't consider the consequences of a multi front war. The Gaians would have been toast if Yang hadn't declared vendetta on me. He could have swallowed them whole and then declared war on me. Nope, instead, he declares war on the gaians, the drones and me and thus has to defend against all three of us at once. His charge through Dee's bases was halted because he needed his troops to fight me. (and thats why he lost those bases he took from Dee....I flanked him and attacked from both sides.) I guess its just a flaw in the AI's thinking. As a human player I waited untoil I was done with Yang to attack Morgan, using only fungal missiles to retard his growth and make sure he couldn't capitalize on my troops being away fighting Yang.One of these days I'll find a way to get a cheaper connection in Europe and play a multiplayer game. It would be fun to play against at least one wily opponent.

D4

[Skanderbeg]

quote: Originally posted by D4everman on 01-15-2001 05:10 AM You're probably right....but the AI should be able to see long term advantages...like this... The problem with Yang...and in most games, Miriam...is that they don't consider the consequences of a multi front war. D4

Right, and it's even worse with Cha Dawn.
This is because this factions are pogrammed to be pissed off by anyone who runs other than theri SE choices. For Yang anybody who doesn't run planned/police, for Miriam anybody who doesn't run fundy and for Cha anobody who doesn't run green.
But they are not programmed to calculate the consequenzes. That is what makes this factions week played by the AI.

I never care about the SE choices of the AI. Let them run what they like. I think no human play does. Or would You declare vendetta to Deirdre only because she's running Green?.
Human players plan their relations to the AI factions not for ideological reasons, but for strategical reasons (The declare vendetta to Deirdre because of the nice resources in her territory). And, If they are clever, they will not fight other factions all at one time, but one after the other, even if they hate them all.
[This message has been edited by Skanderbeg (edited January 15, 2001).]

[D4everman]

Well, one thing the AI does that gets to me is when a faction will request an advance and you ask for one in exchange and they say "I cannot trust you with that information". That always pisses me off because I hardly ever attack the AI for no reason. My rep is usually noble. Besides, who is going to give the AIsomething for nothing if the faction has no power to back up a threat?

Also whenever a faction tells me I might regret my arrogance thats like telling me to prepare to kill them all.

I understand that the AI reponds to SE choices, but even if, lets say, Morgan, hates my SE settings and wants to attack the AI should at least consider that I have three times as many bases as it does, ten times the size of his army and vastly superior technology. If Morgan was going to attack you'd think he'd do something clever, like attack a weak and far off base. (Usually Morgan does nothing but declare vendetta then just get killed...and he hardly ever surrenders...it makes me laugh when the AI pops up during a war with threats "I'll take pleausre in destroying you" etc,) and has only one or two bases left.)I guess its no suprise though. I usually get the HSA and morgan must have wasted twenty probe teams attacking me with them...especialy since the city he was attacking was closer to him than it was me and had one chaos guy in it. Morgan could have captured it if he used any kind of real force. The only one of the AI's that worries me is Yang because his bases are very hard to capture if you let him get too strong.(and destroying his enhancements is a good idea, but then you get an unimproved base in enemy territory)

D4