Stupidest AI moves

Hooha · July 7, 2000, 13:12

Continuing in the vein of another recent thread, what are some of the absolute stupidest things you've ever seen the AI do.

Yesterday, I was shocked when in my current game, some time in the mid to late 1700s, the announcement flashed on my screen, "Carthaginians have changed government to Despotism." Now, we've all seen the AI do some pretty stupid things, but changing back into despotism? Is there any conceivable reason why this would ever be beneficial? Does the AI just switch governments at random? Has anyone else seen the AI switch to Despotism?

I should probably just put the Carthaginians out of there misery, they've been stuck at 2 cities since I first encountered them sometime in bc. It's a good thing the AI cheats, otherwise, there'd be no point in even playing SP.

Scouse Gits · July 7, 2000, 16:20

Emperor Hannibal has been reading the Apolyton site - he simply fancied his chances doing the Despotism Challenge.

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SG (2)

cavebear · July 7, 2000, 17:05

Well, I have a walled city on a hill (mined, too). It is defended by an Archer and a Pikesman. Every 4 turns, the AI throws a Catapault (sometimes a Chariot) or 2 at it. My city exists there only for that purpose (but contributes good trade production and a caravan every 5 turns).

I figure that I have neutralized 1 or 2 AI cities' entire production capacity that way.

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Sten Sture · July 7, 2000, 18:21

LoL! Despotism - there is an advantageous government form! I have never seen that. BRILLIANT

I can recall a little while back while playing the nomads game, getting killed but not having the game realize I was gone. It kept going, so I opened the map through the cheat menu and watched - I have rarely laughed so hard. One of the civs kept trying to attack a civ in the south by going up and over the north pole. It must have had a fleet of 30 ships pushing the artic icecap around.

One of my favorite things to do recently is get the AI to switch to Republic before they can handle it. It is great to watch a size two city with a fortified archer in it and a settler irrigating the known universe but no net shield production for the entire game - stuck in the middle of building another unit.

Ken Hinds · July 7, 2000, 19:02

I've seen the despotism thing quite often in MGE, but not as much since I was able to install the patch.

Ken

Gatekeeper · July 8, 2000, 02:05

Hooha, et al.:

I've seen the switch back to despotism on a few occasions — it's rare, but does happen. As for the dumbest AI move I've ever seen, it was stacking 45 ships on top of each other. I then goaded the AI into declaring war and hit that stack with 4 cruise missiles. Bye-bye, AI navy (most of it, at any rate).

I just LMAO for an hour about that dumb strategic move. If that's the AI's version of a coordinated and supported ampbibious assault, it needs to practice "force dispersion."

That said, has anyone ever seen the AI actually carry out an amphibious assault with marines attacking directly from a transport or galleon? I haven't.

CYBERAmazon

Scouse Gits · July 8, 2000, 07:25

No, guys, you're missing the point - the AI just wanted to declare war without interference from the Senate!!

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Scouse Git[1]

"CARTAGO DELENDA EST" - Cato the Censor

poppawoppa · July 9, 2000, 01:51

Is it possible that the AI had more than 3 units homed to their cities? If I recall, in despotism, you get free shieldless support for your troops which number no more than the number of citizens in your city. So if the city size is 6, they could support 6 troops at no shield cost, while in Monarchy it would cost 3 shields, and in Rep or Demo, it would cost 6 support shields. Maybe the AI couldnt build any more troops in the Government mode they were in,...so they went to Despotism.??

Sabrecat · July 9, 2000, 09:10

Then they should have went into fundamentalism. (my favorite gov

)

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--The man who dies with the most toys is still nonetheless... dead.

SCG · July 10, 2000, 07:08

quote:

Originally posted by poppawoppa on 07-09-2000 01:51 AM
Maybe the AI couldnt build any more troops in the Government mode they were in,...so they went to Despotism.??

I've seen the Greeks do that in several different games. And that was my general thought as well. They had quite a few cities, with even more military units, all on a single, midsized island (all off-continent colonies had been conquered, mostly by the zulus). They also were rather primitive compared to the rest of the world and didn't have the fundy advance. not sure anyone did actually, and i tend to build the SoL to keep it away from the AI's. A steady govt is a much better trading partner

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Ming · July 18, 2000, 13:07

Yeah... now there is a chuckle... The AI and aircraft carriers. I always wondered why the AI never really built or used them... So one day, I gave an aircraft carrier fully loaded with stealth bombers and fighters to another civ I allied with for just this purpose.

On the very next turn, the fully loaded AI carrier cruised right up to another AI's city on the coast, and proceeded to attack... it of course lost and sunk, never having launched a single aircraft

CivIII better have a smarter AI!

jpk · July 18, 2000, 13:36

Ming:

That's the way the AI uses every cargo ship. Practically every game I play some AI civilization uses a loaded trieme or caraval to attack one of my ships.

inca911 · July 18, 2000, 13:43

In my early days, I saw the AI defeat all defenders in my city, but wouldn't walk in and take it. It would have fortified a unit outside the city instead. Now that's dumb! I guess the AI can't remember what the lack of a flag means.
Nowadays, the AI is lucky if he ever sees a single city of mine with any unit except a caravan! Defense is so much easier when the war isn't being fought on your own home soil.

debeest · July 18, 2000, 23:30

CYBERamazon, I've been attacked amphibiously by marines several times, and I've come to suspect that they get to ignore both city walls AND coastal fortresses; they certainly seem to succeed too often. Has anyone else had that experience?

Smash · July 18, 2000, 23:54

Marines are 1 of several units I have never seen the ai use.Granted I don't let the ai get advanced enough.
Having experimented with them myself I say for sure they ignore coastal forts.Since ships ignore city walls I think they do also but I'm not sure.When I did use them it was against muskets so that doesn't tell me a heckuva lot.
A transport of marines with a military ship is deadly for coastal barraging.That way your escort doesn't lose any strength.Also pretty good at capturing those fortresses the ai loves to build.

SandMonkey · July 19, 2000, 00:00

I dunno if this counts, but i was looking through some German cities (through Cheat), and I noticed they had a city about to build SETI Program. And in every other city? One turn away from building a research lab

The next turn I checked, and sure enough, they had the SETI Program, and ONE CITY benefiting from it

This was in an empire of about 20 cities.

Chainsaw · July 19, 2000, 00:17

quote:

Originally posted by CYBERAmazon on 07-08-2000 02:05 AM
Hooha, et al.:

That said, has anyone ever seen the AI actually carry out an amphibious assault with marines attacking directly from a transport or galleon? I haven't.

CYBERAmazon

Yes, not often, but sometimes. As far as I can recall, it was the Russians once. It wasn´t part of a well-planned, big, coordinated assault, though .

Ken Hinds · July 19, 2000, 00:28

Occasionally I get the transport load of marines do an anphibious assault, but usually it is one or two transports of tanks and just trashes everything.

Ken

Gatekeeper · July 19, 2000, 00:52

Chainsaw:

Thanks for the confirmation. I sort of suspected it was a rare event in the first place — much like the AI using aircraft carriers (has that *ever* happened?) — but your observations cement my own.

CYBERAmazon

SCG · July 21, 2000, 08:32

here's one related to leo's workshop

I used darwin's to discover conscription and tactics. so now instead of vet musketeers defending my cities and vet dragoons clearing out the radius of attackers, I now have the AI choosing the vet cavalry to defend my cities, leaving me green riflemen to try and clear our the city radii!

SCG · July 21, 2000, 16:14

quote:

Originally posted by jpk on 07-21-2000 12:55 PM
I am currently playing a game where I traded Philosophy for AI technologies. The first AI civilization (Spanish) to get Literacy got it while I was researching Metallurgy. Immediately three Spanish cities started to build the Great Library. Amidst great fanfare it was finished several turns after I discovered Electricity.

Even better than a 300 shield settler.

I've got a game where the AI building the Great Library _chose_ to research electricity

they beat me there too :P not one discovery from it. (It might have helped that the GL was the only wonder available at the time)

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jpk · July 22, 2000, 00:55

I am currently playing a game where I traded Philosophy for AI technologies. The first AI civilization (Spanish) to get Literacy got it while I was researching Metallurgy. Immediately three Spanish cities started to build the Great Library. Amidst great fanfare it was finished several turns after I discovered Electricity.

Even better than a 300 shield settler.

Laertes · July 31, 2000, 04:53

quote:

Originally posted by Smash on 07-18-2000 11:54 PM
Marines are 1 of several units I have never seen the ai use.Granted I don't let the ai get advanced enough.
Having experimented with them myself I say for sure they ignore coastal forts.Since ships ignore city walls I think they do also but I'm not sure.When I did use them it was against muskets so that doesn't tell me a heckuva lot.
A transport of marines with a military ship is deadly for coastal barraging.That way your escort doesn't lose any strength.Also pretty good at capturing those fortresses the ai loves to build.

I have seen the AI use marines quite often, against other AI civs more than myself. I think Marines do ignore city walls. I have just taken 4 large, walled Zulu coastal cities, by chucking a load of Marines at them, taking the city, and then loading the boat up and moving down the coast. I have defeated vet alpine troops quite easily with the Marines, so I think the walls are ignored. Coastal fortresses do protect against marines, I think.

I have a new dumbest move (apart from the obvious deployment of cannon stacks etc in the field without any defensive units) - AI Civs that don't expand!!

Playing at deity, my current group of opponents have totally failed to expand at all. Five of them, and me, were all on one large continent. By 1850, the Zulus had reached about 15 cities, everybody else around 10. They had failed to find several large juicy continents not far from their shores, and had even let the barbarians keep a city going up to size 8 that they caputred in about 3000BC. The Greeks were stuck on a separate large island with about 17 cities, but even with Lighthouse they had made no progress.

They're not even making a game of it! They have not built a wonder since Copernicus, apart from starting suffrage two turns before i finished it. I have stopped building city defences, except for resistance to barbarians.

I have only got a couple of wins under my belt at this level, and this, he says, adding famous last words, will be by far the easiest.