AI burning your cities

Vlado · April 7, 2003, 12:48

I'm wondering whether someone has checked when and why the AI burn your cities rather then taking them over. I did a small experiment, monarch, huge map, all random, to see when it does. The setup was so that germany had several troops on both sides of my territory because of a war with an other civ. His empire was on my left, direct contact with his troops on both the left and right side. I declared war and moved defenders aside.

The first city he took, he burned. Understandable enough, far away, in the right side of my empire. I have tons of more culture and the city is fairly old with most culture producing wonders being there for quite some time. The second city he keeps! Ok, it's a new city that flipped to me quite recently, low on culture from me etc but still, the major part of it's area are covered with my color because of several culture powerhouses around it. Then comes what really suprised me. He takes a city thats on his border and burns it! Yes, semi old, several culture wonders in it etc but its on his border! Most of the squares around it would have been german and he had plenty of troops to defend?

Can somebody please explain?

badams52 · April 7, 2003, 14:20

I think the biggest factor is how close the AI is to that magic OCN (optimal city number). Once he's over it, most cities are razed unless the city he's capturing has wonders, luxuries he doesn't have, or resources (whether the pop up now or will in the future).

pedrojedi · April 7, 2003, 15:16

That's odd, in my games it's a rarity seeing the AI razing wonder cities. It only razes cities that are size 1 or almost that.

Wazell · April 7, 2003, 15:29

AI razed city with wonders in it? That's odd, I knew it could do that, but that has never happened to me.

Was Germany's culture inferior to yours? If it was low enough and those destroyed wonders were only producing culture, it's somewhat understandable.

badams52 · April 7, 2003, 16:11

Ah I didn't notice you said the city had wonders. If the wonder's effects had expired, then they are only worth culture to you, then I would raze the city in case you get a chance to take it back.

Wazell · April 7, 2003, 16:32

That's reasonable. But I would still keep the wonders, if only for the sake of them being so wonderful.

pedrojedi · April 7, 2003, 19:13

badams: well, that's what you think, but I think the AI has a different point on that.

I am as well a keeper of the world's wonders, because they are so... wondrous.

ALPHA WOLF 64 · April 8, 2003, 00:27

i was wondering this too. i saw the ottomans conquer some cites, and raze others. none had wonders, and it didnt apear to be size or resource related as one razed city was size 10 + oil, while a conquered city was size 3 no resources.

Alex · April 11, 2003, 09:52

The key here is the OCN, as badams said, but I wouldn't be able to tell how the AI factors the wonders in its razing plan.

The Mad Monk · April 12, 2003, 15:58

Could the AI's calculations include nearby Player forces?

Theseus · April 13, 2003, 02:27

Don't forget future resources...

King_Henry · April 13, 2003, 13:09

Quote:

Originally posted by Theseus
Don't forget future resources...

Now I'm convinced that they know where all the resources are. They seem to capture ( in my games) when the city is on their borders, with well developed terrain, good resources and a nice population and a few wonders. But with me they rarely raze in the first pace.

twoflower · April 19, 2003, 13:23

buring my cities? no they've learned not to because I unleash a nuclear holocaust on them :P

Flanker · April 20, 2003, 02:47

Quote:

Originally posted by Alexnm
The key here is the OCN, as badams said, but I wouldn't be able to tell how the AI factors the wonders in its razing plan.

Could someone please tell me briefly what this "OCN" is? I´ve never really understood what it means...

twoflower · April 20, 2003, 10:14

Optimum City Number

Flanker · April 21, 2003, 08:12

Quote:

Optimum City Number

Yes, I know, but what does that mean? Is that only an AI-aspect? What are the advantages of having that exact number of cities? Which game-aspects does it affect?

twoflower · April 24, 2003, 15:49

if you exceed the Optimum city number you get more corruption

AeonOfTime · April 25, 2003, 04:09

In a recent game I played, the carthaginians declared war spontaneously and on the next turn landed a huge mass of troops on a small island I had two cities on.

They attacked the biggest of the two, which was 32 in size and razed it

. In my opinion, this is even a bigger atrocity than a nuke!

Shouldn't this be handled a bit differently? A civ doing this should not get away so easily with it!

...just my two cents on the subject...

AeonOfTime

crotch · April 25, 2003, 04:19

killing 10million civilian is very bad and player should get bad reptaton for doing this as this is murdinring and destroying but why is it ok for the computer to do this when murdering is illegal in places in world. who can get away with murdeing innocent people and not get bad reputation.

monkey doest agree

Demerzel · April 25, 2003, 20:11

I get annoyed when the AI takes one of my cities and will eventually get around to retaking it and some of his. If the AI burns one of my cities then generally I'll drop my other plans at the time and exterminate the b*stard ASAP

twoflower · April 26, 2003, 10:49

I unleash a nuclear rain of fire every chance I get in civ 3

Jaybe · April 26, 2003, 14:27

Quote:

Originally posted by AeonOfTime
In a recent game I played, the carthaginians declared war spontaneously and on the next turn landed a huge mass of troops on a small island I had two cities on.

They attacked the biggest of the two, which was 32 in size and razed it . In my opinion, this is even a bigger atrocity than a nuke!

Shouldn't this be handled a bit differently? A civ doing this should not get away so easily with it!

...

Did you not retaliate appropriately? Did you not take (or raze) every single city they had?

I am confident that YOU punished them for their actions!

Naiveplayer · April 27, 2003, 00:02

Quote:

Originally posted by badams52
I think the biggest factor is how close the AI is to that magic OCN (optimal city number). Once he's over it, most cities are razed unless the city he's capturing has wonders, luxuries he doesn't have, or resources (whether the pop up now or will in the future).

What?

That was completely opposite from what I observed in my Civ Fanatics' game of the month 16 game. I was Rome and the Germans were fiercely aggressive. They took over the Japanese and Americans.

They were way over their OCN, and had an odd way of razing. They razed almost all the Japanese cities and kept two or three. When they finally turned on me, they kept three cities - all of them having little value. It was emperor and I was getting really crushed.

They razed cities with resources in the cities' radius. They established colonies over the resources/luxs, instead, which made no sense at all.

AeonOfTime · April 27, 2003, 06:45

Quote:

Originally posted by Jaybe

Did you not retaliate appropriately? Did you not take (or raze) every single city they had?

I am confident that YOU punished them for their actions!

Indeed I did - that was the first and last move aginast me that they did. Even got me some extra luxuries I was coveting for quite a while, so in that sense it came in quite handy...

AeonOfTime · April 27, 2003, 06:50

Quote:

Originally posted by Naiveplayer

They razed cities with resources in the cities' radius. They established colonies over the resources/luxs, instead, which made no sense at all.

I usually decide which cities to keep depending on the defendability of the city's position, and the amount of units I can spare to defend it while still having enough to continue my conquest.

Maybe the AI does something similar?