UPDATED: June 5th
In hopes of giving the devs a hand im compiling all known issues with the AI that they may or may not be aware of, or that are otherwise posted in dozens of different posts/threads. I encourage everyone to add to this thread so we can keep an organized list going.
- Spends a great deal of resources making rings / blobs of units around its core cities (likely the cities responsible for producing that AI's units). Those defensive units being fully grouped up are easy targets for AoE spells and AoE attacks and thus very easily wiped out
- Outlying cities are usually fully undefended unless its a coastal city
- Obsessed with casting the Unity spell, does not cast Counterspell when another AI has started casting before it (thus guaranteeing it could NEVER win if the first AI was not interrupted)
- Blind to players defensive positions and makup, does not take into account strength of units or number defending
- Always attacks with path of least resistance therefore making it easily predictable from which spot attacks will come from
- Rarely attacks in a unified force, usually single file attacks
- Capable of building advanced units, but never escorts/protects them and just sends them off to the slaughter
- Builds masses of ships in closed off lakes with nowhere to go, also guaranteeing that one or two AoE spells will wipe out the whole fleet. It will build a shipyard just so it can build a single ship in a one hex lake.
- Ignores empty lands near its borders that have zero hostiles in them that would easily fit multiple cities, perhaps lack of proper/continual scouting. In my last game I let it run past turn 350 (yes 350) and the one AI with tons of empty land around it never colonized it (I cleared that land from neutrals about 200 turns prior). The AI seems to stop expanding after it has more than 20 cities.
- Declares war on player even if its in no position to attack or mount a defense
- Does not react to breaches in its borders, no units dispatched to intercept intruders
- Only partially clears out neutral units near its borders. Hundreds of turns into a game it can still have masses of roaming neutrals around its borders without any concentrated effort to wipe them out and claim the territory
- It does not know how to recognize multiple failed attempts as a signal to try different methods/tactics
- At times the AI fails to call for peace/truce when it is obviously losing. I conquered an AI by capturing all of its cities except the capital, and it only asked for peace when its capital was the only city left. It then proceeded to build settlers even though there was no land anywhere nearby for it to colonize.
- Because there is no delay between a peace treaty being cancelled and war/combat beginning, players can abuse the AI by declaring peace, moving in to surround their cities/units, declaring war and getting a massive first strike benefit. The AI needs to recognize when friendly units are passing through its territory and when theyre massing in it. Simple check, make sure units are moving a significant distance each turn. When theyre just parked near AI's cities have AI threaten player, and if issue not resolved, allow AI to declare war and have it get first strike
- Doesnt properly recognize that its cities have been razed. As such it doesnt ask for peace when youre razing (or just conquering for that matter), and more importantly, doesnt rebuild the cities afterwards. Its capital just spews out a large army to defend the capital without building settlers to re-colonize
- Enters units onto water tiles where they can be one shot killed from nearby opposing units or even guard towers. Doesnt recognize the vulnerability of being on water
Suggested fixes for some of these issues:
- AI needs to spend less resources protecting safer inner areas and focus a lot more on defending its borders and pushing units towards its outer borders and towards its enemies
- Attacks should be staged in multiple small groups (2-3 units) approaching in close waves and at multiple vectors to prevent AoE attacks from being too effective. The AI already knows how to AoE groups of 3 or more of the players units, but it doesnt seem to recognize its own groups being equally susceptible to the same tactics. If this kind of coding is too difficult then I would recommend nerfing AoE attacks in the game completely as right now they are way too effective at mass slaughter
- Powerful units need to be escorted with weaker/scouts in the front to soak up attacks and archers/shamans/healers flanking
- Healing in general the AI does poorly, but it is capable of doing it. I watched a heavily injured solo unit trying to take a city stop attacking for a few turns until it healed up to full before resuming attacks. So it can do it, it just needs to do it more often
- The game already knows in a nice convenient number the attack strength of each unit. Have the AI be able to see this as a strength/weight number of each tile. So if a group of tiles is equal or greater than X or Y, let the AI know what kind of matching or exceeding strength it would need to compose of before starting an attack. For example, if I have 3 units, each with 100 attack, the AI could see a group of tiles giving a value of 300. It would then know that its 5 nearby units of strengths ranging from 10 to 20 would be an unlikely match for that force
In hopes of giving the devs a hand im compiling all known issues with the AI that they may or may not be aware of, or that are otherwise posted in dozens of different posts/threads. I encourage everyone to add to this thread so we can keep an organized list going.
- Spends a great deal of resources making rings / blobs of units around its core cities (likely the cities responsible for producing that AI's units). Those defensive units being fully grouped up are easy targets for AoE spells and AoE attacks and thus very easily wiped out
- Outlying cities are usually fully undefended unless its a coastal city
- Obsessed with casting the Unity spell, does not cast Counterspell when another AI has started casting before it (thus guaranteeing it could NEVER win if the first AI was not interrupted)
- Blind to players defensive positions and makup, does not take into account strength of units or number defending
- Always attacks with path of least resistance therefore making it easily predictable from which spot attacks will come from
- Rarely attacks in a unified force, usually single file attacks
- Capable of building advanced units, but never escorts/protects them and just sends them off to the slaughter
- Builds masses of ships in closed off lakes with nowhere to go, also guaranteeing that one or two AoE spells will wipe out the whole fleet. It will build a shipyard just so it can build a single ship in a one hex lake.
- Ignores empty lands near its borders that have zero hostiles in them that would easily fit multiple cities, perhaps lack of proper/continual scouting. In my last game I let it run past turn 350 (yes 350) and the one AI with tons of empty land around it never colonized it (I cleared that land from neutrals about 200 turns prior). The AI seems to stop expanding after it has more than 20 cities.
- Declares war on player even if its in no position to attack or mount a defense
- Does not react to breaches in its borders, no units dispatched to intercept intruders
- Only partially clears out neutral units near its borders. Hundreds of turns into a game it can still have masses of roaming neutrals around its borders without any concentrated effort to wipe them out and claim the territory
- It does not know how to recognize multiple failed attempts as a signal to try different methods/tactics
- At times the AI fails to call for peace/truce when it is obviously losing. I conquered an AI by capturing all of its cities except the capital, and it only asked for peace when its capital was the only city left. It then proceeded to build settlers even though there was no land anywhere nearby for it to colonize.
- Because there is no delay between a peace treaty being cancelled and war/combat beginning, players can abuse the AI by declaring peace, moving in to surround their cities/units, declaring war and getting a massive first strike benefit. The AI needs to recognize when friendly units are passing through its territory and when theyre massing in it. Simple check, make sure units are moving a significant distance each turn. When theyre just parked near AI's cities have AI threaten player, and if issue not resolved, allow AI to declare war and have it get first strike
- Doesnt properly recognize that its cities have been razed. As such it doesnt ask for peace when youre razing (or just conquering for that matter), and more importantly, doesnt rebuild the cities afterwards. Its capital just spews out a large army to defend the capital without building settlers to re-colonize
- Enters units onto water tiles where they can be one shot killed from nearby opposing units or even guard towers. Doesnt recognize the vulnerability of being on water
Suggested fixes for some of these issues:
- AI needs to spend less resources protecting safer inner areas and focus a lot more on defending its borders and pushing units towards its outer borders and towards its enemies
- Attacks should be staged in multiple small groups (2-3 units) approaching in close waves and at multiple vectors to prevent AoE attacks from being too effective. The AI already knows how to AoE groups of 3 or more of the players units, but it doesnt seem to recognize its own groups being equally susceptible to the same tactics. If this kind of coding is too difficult then I would recommend nerfing AoE attacks in the game completely as right now they are way too effective at mass slaughter
- Powerful units need to be escorted with weaker/scouts in the front to soak up attacks and archers/shamans/healers flanking
- Healing in general the AI does poorly, but it is capable of doing it. I watched a heavily injured solo unit trying to take a city stop attacking for a few turns until it healed up to full before resuming attacks. So it can do it, it just needs to do it more often
- The game already knows in a nice convenient number the attack strength of each unit. Have the AI be able to see this as a strength/weight number of each tile. So if a group of tiles is equal or greater than X or Y, let the AI know what kind of matching or exceeding strength it would need to compose of before starting an attack. For example, if I have 3 units, each with 100 attack, the AI could see a group of tiles giving a value of 300. It would then know that its 5 nearby units of strengths ranging from 10 to 20 would be an unlikely match for that force
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