Annoying Tactics of Civ 2 enemys to continue in Civ 3?

musicman1019 · August 17, 2001, 00:23

Everytime I play Civ 2, there are some AI stratagies that I found to be very immature at best, with such disregard for life and the enviroment.

For example, during the modern age, when I capture the third to the last city of an emeny, every turn that enemy launches three nukes into each of the surrounding cities, usaully blowing themselves off the map and then leaving a mess to clean up.

Question, what kind of annoying stratagies do you see the enemy (or yourself) taking that needs to be improved, or included?...

and,

Question to the developers, will these kind of drastic stratagies still be in use for Civ 3 or have the opponents benifited from some of that culture (which I think is a great improvmetn) that everyone is talking about?

splangy · August 17, 2001, 02:04

i hate how the AI use to throw hoardes of troops at me randomly with no purpose, if there is 1 good defencive unit outside my city it should pillage or fortify, NOT attack.

Kenobi · August 17, 2001, 04:20

Quote:

Originally posted by musicman1019
For example, during the modern age, when I capture the third to the last city of an emeny, every turn that enemy launches three nukes into each of the surrounding cities, usaully blowing themselves off the map and then leaving a mess to clean up.

True, True - this thread is spot on. It is absolutely infuriating when the AI attempts to frustrate your attack by nuking their own cities after you've just taken them.

Another one is counter-attacking futilely rather than conserving its forces and defending in depth. How many times have you seen the AI build fortresses outside its own cities and then never use them defensively?

The AI tactic that really irritates (and it's cheating) is breaking a cease fire to attack, then suing for peace after capturing a city knowing you're a republic/democracy and that your dovish politicians will call yet another cease fire.

And lastly (though I'm far from finished), why does the AI always use its nukes on cities? I could have a carrier loaded to the gills with stealth bombers parked off the coast next to his capital, but the AI civ will rather attack one of my cities with a rifleman in it.

campmajor! · August 17, 2001, 07:11

Also a stupid action of the AI is having a large fleet group around my city and sending dozens of destroyers to attack, while saving the battleships. And they shouldn't even attack, because at first attack they should notice that I have a coastal fortress with a mech infantry in it...

One thing I also noticed several times is that their cities cause a lot of pollution points, but they don't get polluted tiles...
Is this a cheat?

campmajor! · August 17, 2001, 07:16

I have one more:

I usually send a carrier out with Aegis cruisers surrounding its neighbouring tiles

Aegis Aegis Aegis
Aegis Carrier Aegis
Aegis Aegis Aegis

So in fact, cruise missiles are useless. But the AI keeps on firing them....

The same happens with a battleship with an Aegis cruiser ecsorting him.

Grim Legacy · August 17, 2001, 07:20

Quote:

Originally posted by campmajor!
Also a stupid action of the AI is having a large fleet group around my city and sending dozens of destroyers to attack, while saving the battleships. And they shouldn't even attack, because at first attack they should notice that I have a coastal fortress with a mech infantry in it...

One thing I also noticed several times is that their cities cause a lot of pollution points, but they don't get polluted tiles...
Is this a cheat?

The destroyer thing was supposedly patched with an update to Civ2.

Re: the pollution - yes it is a cheat. One of the biggest drawbacks of Civ2 was that you could 'see' the computer cheat. Like their production that could be freely distributed over the enemy cities...so that the little 2 pop size coastal-3 shields producing city got to build the United Nations. I hope the AI will improve in Civ3, so that the AI is good enough without excessive cheating.

DrFell · August 17, 2001, 07:22

The developers probably limited the AI to nuking cities to make the end game more interesting - otherwise the AI with it's ability to see all your units coming could just nuke them all, which wouldn't make for very interesting modern warfare. Basically they realised just how bad nukes were for the fun factor, and limited them appropriately (even went so far as to include a perfect defence...).

Grim Legacy · August 17, 2001, 07:27

Quote:

Originally posted by DrFell
The developers probably limited the AI to nuking cities to make the end game more interesting - otherwise the AI with it's ability to see all your units coming could just nuke them all, which wouldn't make for very interesting modern warfare. Basically they realised just how bad nukes were for the fun factor, and limited them appropriately (even went so far as to include a perfect defence...).

Fact or wishful thinking?

DrFell · August 17, 2001, 07:28

No AI pollution was another 'fun factor' issue, remember the AI is bad at cleaning up pollution and doesn't care about global warming. And it's bad at controlling it's pollution levels too, all this pollution added together from 6 large AI nations would be a disaster, causing multiple global warmings very early on, spoiling the game. So it was better that the AI didn't suffer pollution although not exactly ideal.

DrFell · August 17, 2001, 07:32

Quote:

Originally posted by Grim Legacy

Fact or wishful thinking?

A bit of both - considering how stupid the AI is the thought of giving it free choice for nuke targets is a bit scary...

Grim Legacy · August 17, 2001, 07:35

Quote:

Originally posted by DrFell
No AI pollution was another 'fun factor' issue, remember the AI is bad at cleaning up pollution and doesn't care about global warming. And it's bad at controlling it's pollution levels too, all this pollution added together from 6 large AI nations would be a disaster, causing multiple global warmings very early on, spoiling the game. So it was better that the AI didn't suffer pollution although not exactly ideal.

I agree...though it also meant the AI never built any improvements to eliminate/lessen the mess. So upon takeover, the problem would instantaneously be huge, which was less pleasant. Add some enemy nukes and global warming was 3 turns away all of a sudden.

Grim Legacy · August 17, 2001, 07:35

Quote:

Originally posted by DrFell

A bit of both - considering how stupid the AI is the thought of giving it free choice for nuke targets is a bit scary...

Agreed.

Recurve · August 17, 2001, 07:56

The thing that really gets me is the stray caravan (you always get one) which wonders around your territory for 1,000s of years – until you KILL IT! Maybe it’s on a spying mission?!?

Campmajor, just place a couple of Aegis Cruisers on the same square as your battleship, I would hate to have to move your formation around the map.

campmajor! · August 17, 2001, 10:54

That is also possible, but it didn't work in some version of civ2. Don't remember which one though. Could be Fantastic Worlds or the original.

In that case the missile would still attack the carrier....

So therefore I use that convoy. You get used to it after a while...

Steve Clark · August 17, 2001, 11:07

Civ2 cheats have been thoroughly documented:

http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum3/HT...tml?date=23:05

Cookie Monster · August 17, 2001, 11:22

I was really annoyed by the polluting AI as well. It didn't seem fair that the human player would take great care not to pollute but the AI didn't. Then the game would get spoiled because of the environmental disasters that followed.

One thing Call to Power 2 did right was to include a pollution treaty option in the diplomacy screen. I definately enjoy playing with the pollution option enabled, just don't like it when you have no power other than to just conquer the polluting civ to get it to stop.

Falconius · August 18, 2001, 00:40

Yes, it was frustrating to watch the AI civs throw ship after ship at the same city, knowing it has a coastal fortress.

Along those same lines, how about the nukes that attack the same SDI city over and over?

Hopefully these problems will be addressed. And despite the pollution problems that would occur, I would LOVE to see the AI civs nuke non-city targets. It would definitely force you to watch your grouping strategies. Clusters of ships (like Campmajors circle of Aegis cruisers) would be prime targets.

Come to think of it, since nuking at sea causes no pollution, this would make for a great AI strategy. It always worked for me.

Inverse Icarus · August 18, 2001, 00:54

blah.

the AI had unlimited moves for fighters / missles. thats always gay.

ever see a nuke fly out of nowhere?

dont ASSUME the AI is using a sub or a carrier. save the game, cheat, and reveal the whole map.

the missle came from the enemy continent. more than 40 spaces away.

musicman1019 · August 18, 2001, 02:08

UberKruX

I have to agree with you, I have seen people's posts about problems with ships, which I know can be solved with a few AEGIS cruisers, but it is almost comical to watch the Romans throw about 50 cruise missles at a ship that won't die!

And another thing on computer cheats, I doubt that the AI has to support any of their units because 50 cruise missles under any gov would put a civ way behind in its sheilds, yet they can still build 100 riflemen, 40 tanks, and about 1000 nukes!

TechWins · August 18, 2001, 02:34

What's really sad is how the AI gets to use all these cheats yet they still suck. I think that will be quite the contrary in Civ3, though.

Yog-Sothoth · August 18, 2001, 08:06

Quote:

Originally posted by campmajor!
I have one more:

I usually send a carrier out with Aegis cruisers surrounding its neighbouring tiles

Aegis Aegis Aegis
Aegis Carrier Aegis
Aegis Aegis Aegis

So in fact, cruise missiles are useless. But the AI keeps on firing them....

The same happens with a battleship with an Aegis cruiser ecsorting him.

Once I actually lost an Aegis Cruiser to cruise missiles, although he used 22 of them

It was kind of annoying actually, as there were 3 full transports on the same tile.

Inverse Icarus · August 18, 2001, 13:13

yea, i got that once on the world map. the Egyptians threw 30+ cruise missels at an ageis/ageis/battleship/transport stack and won.

musicman1019 · August 18, 2001, 17:16

Don't you think that in Civ 3 an AEGIS cruiser should be able to protect a entire convoy in ajoining squares? That would be more like real life, because one battleship is not escorted by 8 AEGIS cruisers in real life (on top of each other)? Since we see artilery being able to attack from tiles away, maybe we can look forward to this with missle defense as well?

Laszlo · August 19, 2001, 16:20

Quote:

Originally posted by Falconius
Yes, it was frustrating to watch the AI civs throw ship after ship at the same city, knowing it has a coastal fortress.

Along those same lines, how about the nukes that attack the same SDI city over and over?

The AI should be able to judge (not perfectly

) its chances of victory in a battle. Once I built a city on a mountain at a chike point with city walls and everything else. One civ spent 60 or so of the same unit against those walls over the game, plus many others.

Once it sees the ineffectiveness of its attack, it should never attack with the same or lower-powered units again unless it thought that only the last defender remained and was damaged enough to be defeated.

And it should make accomodations for time, knowing that units will heal after a few turns or that there may be new units or defenses. We really must put a stop to this Artificial Idiocy.

Plus, there should be a way to see the coastal fortress! Air defenses could be hidden, but a fortress should be visible from the outside just like city walls.

Laszlo

Grim Legacy · August 20, 2001, 08:13

Quote:

Originally posted by UberKruX
blah.

the AI had unlimited moves for fighters / missles. thats always gay.

ever see a nuke fly out of nowhere?

dont ASSUME the AI is using a sub or a carrier. save the game, cheat, and reveal the whole map.

the missle came from the enemy continent. more than 40 spaces away.

No. Revealing the map is not a valid check. You have to watch the computer moves. What you will see is that there is indeed a sub/carrier/city in range at the time the missile actually hits (even though maybe not on the turn before). The cheat however is that any AI missile can be 'magically placed' at any parking spot and can thus fire from a sub that was carrying nothing at all. Also, the distance is linearly calculated...blocking units have no effect -the rocket just drops out of thin air on its target square.

Grim Legacy · August 20, 2001, 08:15

Quote:

Originally posted by Laszlo

The AI should be able to judge (not perfectly

) its chances of victory in a battle. Once I built a city on a mountain at a chike point with city walls and everything else. One civ spent 60 or so of the same unit against those walls over the game, plus many others.

Once it sees the ineffectiveness of its attack, it should never attack with the same or lower-powered units again unless it thought that only the last defender remained and was damaged enough to be defeated.

And it should make accomodations for time, knowing that units will heal after a few turns or that there may be new units or defenses. We really must put a stop to this Artificial Idiocy.

Plus, there should be a way to see the coastal fortress! Air defenses could be hidden, but a fortress should be visible from the outside just like city walls.

Laszlo

Yeah I largely agree, but I do hope this will not be accomplished by giving the AI all advantages of an all-seeing eye. I just hated to see the AI cheat by being able to seek out my weak units/cities, while it was obvious a human player could never have had the garrison/strength and location information the computer used.

Laszlo · August 21, 2001, 03:26

Quote:

Originally posted by Grim Legacy

Yeah I largely agree, but I do hope this will not be accomplished by giving the AI all advantages of an all-seeing eye. I just hated to see the AI cheat by being able to seek out my weak units/cities, while it was obvious a human player could never have had the garrison/strength and location information the computer used.

This would do nothing of the sort. It would merely give the AI a memory and a general base for making assumptions. The different levels (Warlord, Deity,...) could be constructed by the accuracy of those assumptions and memory without unfair handicaps.

This would make the AI much more human-like (which I assume is what Firaxis wants) and could potentially start beating some human players at their highest accuracy, and on a level playing field.

Laszlo
PS - What does 'Quisque sibi proximus.' mean?

Grim Legacy · August 21, 2001, 06:41

Quote:

Originally posted by Laszlo

This would do nothing of the sort. It would merely give the AI a memory and a general base for making assumptions. The different levels (Warlord, Deity,...) could be constructed by the accuracy of those assumptions and memory without unfair handicaps.

This would make the AI much more human-like (which I assume is what Firaxis wants) and could potentially start beating some human players at their highest accuracy, and on a level playing field.

Laszlo
PS - What does 'Quisque sibi proximus.' mean?

I'm aware that you do not support a cheating AI, of course. I meant to say I hope Firaxis does not accomplish the implementation of this small piece of 'intelligence' by relying on cheats like previously done.

Your suggestions for proper implementation seem feasible enough and would certainly enhance gameplay.

Quisque sibi proximus is Latin which translates in English very crudely (I'm not a native speaker) as: Each/everyone is closest (in this case in the sense of caring about) to him/herself.

M. le Comte · August 21, 2001, 07:17

In my last game, I placed a destroyer just in front of a small strip of grassland at the frontier of the Russian Empire.

I wanted to intercept every unit that would be enough mad to get on this small path of ground.

Have you ever seen a XIIth century canon droven as it was a panzer ?

These Russian are really stronger than me... My own canons go from one square to one another in one turn. Theirs are a four times faster than mine.

Nevertheless, be sure that a punitive expedition has been planned to have these evil acts stopped.

red_jon · August 21, 2001, 07:34

I've seen an AI use a nuke - but not on a city!

I was playing on the big Earth map and some barbarians appeared in Canada (there were loads of 'em). Anyway, the AI decided that clearly the best way to clear the annoyance would be to nuke them stupid.
Several nukes and a global warming later, the I was ready to kill the AI.