AI Army in the Field (REALLY)!!

Antrine · February 28, 2004, 23:58

EDIT EDIT EDIT DISCLOSURE/WARNING This thread is ONLY dealing with heavily modded games!! And is not meant to imply a 'standard' out of the box or 'vanilla' game experience. And IS NOT meant for Firaxis not to FIX the problem with timely goodly patches. END of EDIT/DISCLOSURE

Here it is it REALLY happens, An AI Army in the field having attacked previous turn is now facing off against one my Armies

[IMG]Army verses Army[/IMG]

vmxa1 · February 29, 2004, 00:18

Cool, but what is 9754BC? Some coquest maps?

Antrine · February 29, 2004, 01:41

This map is the Rise of Rome enlarged to 180 by 286 so as to include all of Scandinavia, Iceland, Russia to Mongolia and all of North Central Afrika with all Saudi Arabia and old Persia. I start it at 10,000 BC and move forward slowly in increments of 5, 4 and 3 years out to turn 200.

It is a pity to destroy such a 'rare animal' as an AI Army in the field attacking.

I do not wish to discourage the AI from doing it again! Anyway this is a highly 'modded' scenario and I have 'rigged' the AI's to use Armies by allowing one army per two cities and having everyones Palace spitting out a Army every 15 turns. The AI has used Armies before filled with defensive units for to defend their Capitols, however this is the 'first' I have encountered out in open being used more as a human player might.

Such a pity, I destroy it soon...

vmxa1 · February 29, 2004, 03:03

Dam, I thought we had prove of a real army in action from the AI.

Antrine · February 29, 2004, 04:04

I think, using an Army is so far down the AI's 'what if' routines, that you must unendate them with them so it is hard to miss using them at least 'rarely'. Better to mod or rig the AI to use units than suck on 'Vanilla' and b*t*h all the time.

Antrine · February 29, 2004, 04:49

[IMG]SecondAIArmy[/IMG]

It is becoming an epidemic!! Another, AI (an ally via paying tribute to) is moving an Army in the field south to join my campaign against the one who first fielded an army. (see first picture). Notice the Berserkers further North coming down as well. I'm glad I agreed to the tribute, not that I could not afford it.

Inverse Icarus · February 29, 2004, 04:56

hrm. this warrants some further testing.

is the AI just not using armies because they have a problem turning leaders into them? i remember hearing a story of an AI using a leader to rush a spearman.

maybe i should mod my palace to give civs armies every 15 turns or so... hrmmm...

Antrine · February 29, 2004, 05:13

Yes, I discovered that giving the AI Leaders was useless, as they always preferred to use them to 'rush' things

instead of turning them into Armies. So now I keep them to an Army only diet. Seems to be working handy.

MrWhereItsAt · February 29, 2004, 05:55

As this is a Conquest, could the AI not have started with these armies?

/me hasn't played any Conquests yet....

Antrine · February 29, 2004, 07:08

No, if I understand your question correctly. This is a Conquest editor Mod started on a modded Conquest map only. Each AI starts with 5 settlers and such, however with no Armies. They come to each AI and the human player via the Palace every 15 turns, so at time of these pictures it was around turn 56 and we each have 3 armies with another coming at turn 60.

joncha · February 29, 2004, 13:25

I encountered an AI army in a PTW game... I conquered my continent, the Germans conquered theirs, and when my invasion fleet landed (think d-day, only with more tanks) it was greeted by, among other things, and swordsman army.

I'll see if I still have a save kicking around so I can post a screenshot.

jon.

vmxa1 · February 29, 2004, 13:50

Antrine are those little fences barricades?

vmxa1 · February 29, 2004, 13:52

joncha armies are encountered in PTW. It is not so clear in C3C. I do not recall fighting any, I thought I had seen one, but not in combat.

They at least are very rare.

Fatwreck · February 29, 2004, 13:53

Quote:

Originally posted by joncha
I encountered an AI army in a PTW game... I conquered my continent, the Germans conquered theirs, and when my invasion fleet landed (think d-day, only with more tanks) it was greeted by, among other things, and swordsman army.

I'll see if I still have a save kicking around so I can post a screenshot.

jon.

the problem with the AI never building armies came with C3C, I saw armies in vanilla Civ3 (never owned PtW though)

Anakha · February 29, 2004, 14:39

In my monarch-level Rise of Rome conquest, I encountered Hannibal with an army of elephants, out in the field making attacks. Didn't need to do any modding to get that to happen, but, having not played the Carthaginians in that conquest yet, I don't know if maybe the Carthaginians start off with Hannibal in an army instead of just as a leader...

Antrine · February 29, 2004, 14:49

Hi, vmxa1

The little fences are my artwork,

. They are for domesticated animals, cattle, sheep etc. In detail there is a animal and shadow helping to depict same. My maps are resource rich. It goes with my mod philosophy, give the AI no excuse not to do well. Higher returns for tiles and resources with all 'main roadways' in place across the world. Which I call 'the grid' since the game uses capitol to capitol connections for trade to work and the luxuries to have any impact on cities.

So one of your first tasks is to 'hook cities' to the grid or build on it straight out. To bad the AI's are so handicaped, especially in early game play, which is my favorite 'time period'. All these 'work arounds' instead ACCESS TO THE AI ROUTINES with Event triggers or at least give me fine tune control over Goody Huts and I will make do with them for now.

For instance I employed the idea of 25% of the Goody Huts being 'invisible' to the human anyway and then place them on obscure road links etc. so 'surprises' happen. For the game lacks variance (I think).

Excuse, my digresion, Let the Army march!

joncha · February 29, 2004, 14:57

Quote:

Originally posted by vmxa1
joncha armies are encountered in PTW. It is not so clear in C3C. I do not recall fighting any, I thought I had seen one, but not in combat.

They at least are very rare.

I see... thanks vmxa (and fatwreck).

jon.

vmxa1 · February 29, 2004, 17:24

Quote:

Originally posted by Anakha
In my monarch-level Rise of Rome conquest, I encountered Hannibal with an army of elephants, out in the field making attacks. Didn't need to do any modding to get that to happen, but, having not played the Carthaginians in that conquest yet, I don't know if maybe the Carthaginians start off with Hannibal in an army instead of just as a leader...

I suspect that things were done in some of Conquest to help trigger armies showing up, but they are like hens teeth in epic games for C3C.

dexters · March 1, 2004, 04:41

I really think that this is a matter of choice. If you're playing realtively peaceful Builder type games, you can go through several games playing like that never needing an army. I used to play like that and used my MGLs to rush wonders (preC3C) and now, I use them to rush other large non wonder projects.

What the AI is doing isn't neccessarily wrong. I understand the desire to see them use armies more, and in fact, I think they used to use armies more often pre C3C. What needs to be fixed here is for the AI to align its priorities with its builds. What may have screwed up the AI is the fact that MGLs can no longer rush wonders, and it is likely the code handling MGL decisions hasn't been changed approrpriately to reflect this, leading the AI to rush non wonder buildings, or even units with their MGLs instead of building an army.

If the AI has a lot of enemies (ie: been in a lot of wars) perhaps it can be more predisposed to go for an army. Where as a relatively isolated peaceful AI will prefer to use their MGL to rush a building project. Or to go an even simpler route, just do an RNG dice roll to decide what do to with the leader.

Ideally, each AI leader needs to have additional variables dictating their current foreign policy stance. And long term strategy (ie: I plan to go to war soon -- so i need an superunit army) but I don't think Soren programmed the leader AI to work like that and he probably didn't make allowances for variables relating to long term planning. What the AI is probably doing is to evaluate more in the short term of, here's my current situation, what do it do NOW and in the next turn. And it will do it agian next turn and the next and the next. A sort decision making based on past and current decisions rather than the future.

It really would be nice to simulate an AI that can plan ahead 10, 20 or 30 turns. It may not be smart, in the sense of human creative planning, but smart enough to be able to pick objectives and plan their builds, strategy and research around that. I think its possible. I hope they do it in Civ4, or maybe we'll be surprised and Soren throws it a modified leader AI in the next patch to do something similar to that.

I'm rambling now, but read my post title AI loses initiative = Another Win for Me. to see why I'm so bitter the AI lost a game it should have won fair and square.

Antrine · March 1, 2004, 05:33

[IMG]Third Army[/IMG]

This one is Berserker!!

Some notes on AI Army behaviour.

Allied AI Army moving through your terrain is a pain. They have a humor to move, destroy improvements (roads) and move again. Otherwise they behave nicely attacking and retreating when wounded. It even piggy-backed a defensive unit and had it tag along. Good move, kept the Army fresh for attacks.

The AI's seem to bogart the first two Armies in their Capitols and stuff them with defensive/offensive units mixed. Then the third one comes out offensive only and is not shy.

MORE ARMIES!! It is decidedly more fun playing with other Armies in the field besides my own!

Army against Army battles are more interesting, period. As well other strategies emerge with AI Armies in the field.

I think Firaxis missed the boat with this one completely, Armies should be plentiful and center stage in all major campaigns.

For those in denial that this is a war game, great, mayhap we are not playing the same game. Anyway peace and to each their own.

vmxa1 · March 1, 2004, 13:30

Antrine you are playing a modded game to force more armies are not?

Donegeal · March 1, 2004, 13:50

He said yes already. The palace produces 1 army every 15 turns and the city support requirement has been reduced to 2 cities per army.

smellymummy · March 1, 2004, 14:14

if an empty army was rewarded instead of a leader in the event of an elite unit victory, that could help the computer to at least have more armies. if its only because the AI is not able to correctly weight the values of rushing (unit/impr./minor wonder) vs creating army, then we could mod/fix it ourselves. a major drawback is that an empty army doesnt have much mobility like a leader does (1 movement vs 3), and the AI leaders are already so easy to kill as it is.

alexman · March 1, 2004, 14:16

Another drawback is that an existing army would make it impossible for another army to appear from combat.

Antrine · March 1, 2004, 15:13

Donegeal is correct. The reasons for having the Palace as the starting point as well is that I believe the AI is saddled with bringing them back there anyway. And as I have seen, holds on to at least 'two Armies' in the Capitol in apparent 'reserve'. Then loads them with many 'defensive' units. It is not until the third and fourth one that I am seeing the AI field an offensive Army.

However here, I note that Allies and ememies alike are doing it.

What else can be done? Firaxis!!

GIVE us more access to Army use routines. (Sorry guys, this is my broken record, happy gaming).

bongo · March 1, 2004, 15:24

I remember a 'frightening' AI-army in vanilla civ3...1 archer and two warriors

Ok, so I had just beaten him down several sizes, but hey, at least he filled it up

Brundlefly · March 1, 2004, 17:02

Antrine do you have a .biq file to share with us?

Antrine · March 1, 2004, 18:59

Sure, do you want original at start with other supporting files, I tweaked both the resourse and goody hut files? However the goody hut is not critical.

Or do you want the game file somewhere along the way? I have many saves.

joncnunn · March 1, 2004, 19:20

I encountered a Japanese Army a few turns into the WW II Conquest playing China.

Unforunately, the AI only had 1 unit in that army

So I killed it then easily

I decided that the CIA was a better use for the first MGL so I could plant a spy in Japan.

The second one I used as an army.

Quote:

Originally posted by vmxa1
joncha armies are encountered in PTW. It is not so clear in C3C. I do not recall fighting any, I thought I had seen one, but not in combat.

They at least are very rare.

joncnunn · March 1, 2004, 19:22

I think you mean MGL in both cases.

Quote:

Originally posted by alexman
Another drawback is that an existing army would make it impossible for another army to appear from combat.