AI keen to waste it's units?

sorberec · January 26, 2003, 09:11

Has anyone noticed how in certain situations the AI seems determined to throw it's best units away like there's no tomorrow?

Here's the situation. Early 20th Century. Playing the Celts I'm on a large continent (using the largest map size and about 9 civ's in total) with the Spanish and Germans. Despite having run at second place in the scores for the first 1500 years I've sunk back quite badly, and now the Spanish are quite a bit ahead in tech, with the Germans also ahead, although not by as much.

My best units were Infantry & Cavalry. The Germans declared war on me, so I obliged and wiped out two of their cities and replaced with my own to give me smaller borders to defend, plus access to a third oil that had been within their borders.

Anyhow, skip forward 30 years and the Germans have now got motorised transport and are cranking out the Panzers. I'm still trying to get motorised transport, but i do have over 300 infantry covering 19 cities and my coasts and borders (compared to the German's less than 100 infantry and marines).

Now the Germans seem keen to get at me. As per my standard operation practice, I've destroyed all their roads and rail that I can that are within reach of my artillery, so any Panzer reaching my lines is only going to get one attack in.

So what do they do? Do they stockpile Panzers for a series of lightning raids on my cities where they'd stand a chance of capturing them if they attack in numbers?

No. Instead the Germans send their panzers in groups of four and five against fortifed positions with around 5 infantry and 2 or 3 artillery in them.

Result?

At worst i lose a couple of easily replaceable Infantry, while I can pound any surviving Panzers with artillery and polish them off with my cavalry.

At best they don't even break through the piles of elite infatry they're creating for me, and I'm able to nurse my units to avoid losses.

Subsequently the Germans struggle to have double figures of Panzers and by the time i get motorised transport I'm able to stockpile around 50 units before launching an attack to cut off the German's mainland supplies of rubber.

Albert · January 26, 2003, 09:38

It`s like WWI. Trying the same idiotic tactics again and again thinking:
"I`m sure it will work this time"

epics · January 26, 2003, 10:05

Yes it is very stupi, but what can I say, be happy, you are The Man

What difficulty level are you playing?

Datajack Franit · January 26, 2003, 13:43

If you're not happy about the game strategy why don't you try Deity then

sorberec · January 26, 2003, 15:40

Quote:

Originally posted by Datajack Franit
If you're not happy about the game strategy why don't you try Deity then

'cos i can't even win consistently at regent level yet (i thin kthat's what i'm playing at.... regent's two up from starting level?). And besides, as i understand it, the AI doesn't get any smarter as the difficulty goes up, it just gets more bonuses in its favour (roll on Civ4 when we will hopefully see some decent AI opponents)

Rebel67 · January 26, 2003, 18:33

I have noticed this, in one instance the AI did have about 200 mech infantry, did they use them sensibly to make sure their territory and cities were well defended? NO, they sent them at one city, until that was captured and them piled them around this city (The surrounding are they had reduced to roads with bombardment so that city was as far as they could get). Since the city wasn't even important, I nuked it, twice and killed most of their Mech Inf. After that it was a simple matter of rolling through the pikemen they had defending most of their cities.

This is the oppisate of what you experienced, the AI sent all it's units in one massed attack against a weak point, unfortunately for them I had nukes, and I'm not afraid to use them!

Tattila the Hun · January 27, 2003, 03:28

Polish panzers of with cavalry, that's a great historical sentence. Had the poles had artillery in 1939, they'd have been able to do that too.

Sorry, just popped to my mind.

MoonWolf · January 27, 2003, 05:23

Quote:

Originally posted by Albert
It`s like WWI. Trying the same idiotic tactics again and again thinking:
"I`m sure it will work this time"

It's true how the AI is handling this. I think it's because it can't really think ahead. How often have you e.g. seen a real invasion force heading for your continent? Or how many times are the AI using carriers (none in my games....)?

AIL · January 27, 2003, 09:14

In Industrial-Age one usually get's a large advantage over the AI when it comes to massing units. The AI hardly builds factories and so has no chance to compete in production means. That's why I modded the Factories and all comparable buildings out of the game (in my Mod they are Space-Ship-components-Factories/Labs that of course require higher Tech). This took the production advantage I always got in the industrial age away and made the AI more competative due to me having less units.

However the AI's "strategy" is like this: Defend with everything you have when the enemy is on your land. If there is no enemy on your land, then attack with everything you have. Send newly produced units after the ones you already have. If their one huge attack fails they usually are toast. With 2 armies of the same size the one who defends first and counters after the incomings are destroyed will almost always win because defending is much easier thanks to mobility advantage you have on your land.

Master Zen · January 28, 2003, 01:10

I usually play at Emperor level and the AI does use carriers, although not very intelligently (hardly an escort).

I am disappointed with the AI's amphibous invasion strategy, sometimes they have like 50 armor and they still send it overseas 1 transport at a time, escorted sometimes by a measly destroyer. You can imagine who easily I can wipe these out. The AI should be much better at grouping fleets and using them well.

bongo · January 28, 2003, 05:32

The AI tactics isn't very good which BTW allows me to beat him again and again

That said it is way better than the AI in civ2 and it shows enough semi-intelligent behaviour to force me to really twist my brain sometimes to find out how to beat it. But I've won a lot of wars because the AI sends a constant stream of new units against me instead of building a real invasion force.

Zachriel · January 28, 2003, 09:57

Quote:

Originally posted by sorberec

'cos i can't even win consistently at regent level yet (i thin kthat's what i'm playing at.... regent's two up from starting level?). And besides, as i understand it, the AI doesn't get any smarter as the difficulty goes up, it just gets more bonuses in its favour (roll on Civ4 when we will hopefully see some decent AI opponents)

On higher levels, those small stacks of 4-5 units may be stacks of 10-20 or even 20-50 depending on the level.

bongo · January 28, 2003, 10:48

So it does get smarter? What level do you play? I play at monarch, will I note the difference in field tactics if I move on to emperor?

Zachriel · January 28, 2003, 11:11

Quote:

Originally posted by bongo
So it does get smarter? What level do you play? I play at monarch, will I note the difference in field tactics if I move on to emperor?

No, it doesn't get any smarter. The AI production advantages on the higher levels just means that it has more units at its disposal. "Small stack" is a relative term.

Zachriel · January 28, 2003, 20:20

Quote:

Originally posted by bongo
So it does get smarter? What level do you play? I play at monarch, will I note the difference in field tactics if I move on to emperor?

After discussions on another thread, the conjecture is that when in a dominant military position (that is, having no fear of an impending war), "fancy tactics" are not as important. Fast units and lots of them work best. But when at parity or behind, tactics can provide the necessary leverage.

So if moving up to emperor makes the game more competitive for you, then your tactics would probably be more complex by necessity.

zorbop · January 29, 2003, 21:20

Quote:

Originally posted by MoonWolf

It's true how the AI is handling this. I think it's because it can't really think ahead. How often have you e.g. seen a real invasion force heading for your continent?

in all my days in civ 3, i have seen the AI build a very good invasion force twice.

-the first time, monarch, i was Germany, huge map. I was on the massive western continent, with about 10 civs, shaped similar to north/south America. I was at the very north. by year 1000 bc i got the anouncement "The russians have been destroyed"
By 200 ad i got 2 more messages, "The rampaging American forces have destroyed the romans", same for eqypt.
soon they destroyed zulu to. Now they were at my borders, but i had knights and powerful units like that.
then they come at me with a stack of archers, pikemen, horsmen and sqordsmen. 60 OF THEM. this wories me, so i stack about 25 pikemen in on a strait they had to pass, with some catapults and attacking units too. they get past with around 35 units left (they actually used the retreat ability to their advantage). My response to this was building up more units on my southern cities... unfortunately, they droped about 6 boatloads of swordsmen and the like on my northern boarders. I LOST TO THE AI! WAHH

now, in my current game, 500 bc, i am being attacked by hords of 20 japanese archers, who are smart enough to capture me cities with recources first.

sorry that was so long... but my point is the ai will become imperialistic and use good tactics, but only when they use much weaker units (unlike your human player, who will group together more powerful units, and use more than all the ai have combined)

CiverDan · January 29, 2003, 21:44

The AI is notorious for not being able to mass units effectively. It also tends to attack you more heavily fortifies positions (though it has been getting better at this recently). I remember civ2 when the AI would attack multiple riflement fortified on a mountain with 20 elephants. Not exactly a wise use of forces....