Stupid AI behaviour

[Aries666]

Why would England during the HYW think, "you know what lads, lets go and invade Venice". Don't get me wrong it's good England wants to actually ship troops but invading me whilst losing ground to France is just stupid. Don't even get me started on the fact that the AI is totally abusing it's no naval attrition too (they don't have FBR with anyone). This is completely reproducible behaviour too play Venice ally France day 1, they call you into HYW a month or too later then England invades.

I also noticed this behaviour in my last Kongo game, I was allied again with France and whenever I was at war with Portugal, Spain, GB or Netherlands rather than defend themselves against France they would launch naval invasions against me whilst their country burned.

 

[Tyber109]

Would you throw your troops into a battle they would lose? I think that's what England is doing.

The Kongo game though, that is just stupid.

 

[in heaven]

Would you throw your troops into a battle they would lose? I think that's what England is doing.

The Kongo game though, that is just stupid.

So you're justifying the fact that instead of defending their homeland which is beign invaded, they should attack some minor country leaving their whole country to burn?

 

[yerm]

This is the core of the game's AI.

When they go to war, they go balls to the wall, no exceptions. You can absolutely crush their invading army, you know it'll be back, manpower or not. It doesn't matter how completely useless the war is to their personal needs or goals, if they're at war with a player, they're going to deplete any and every available means to continue this war to the fullest until peace is made, no ifs and or buts about it! This lack of any ability to just not give a crap is probably the single most crippling facet of the game's AI. It's worse because they clearly know to not care when fighting in certain engagements, especially ones requiring naval resources to continue (HYW once driven off, many ai venice vs ai whoever wars, the ai will just sit back and lose rather than land troops, even after patch), but they refuse to exercise this judgment and sit back if a human is involved. It becomes trivial to just obliterate the manpower and possibly navy of an ai, ally or enemy, by abusing the fact that they never give up never surrender!

Exacerbating this is that the ai, in these ai vs ai wars like the HYW where they clearly appear resigned to take the loss... they still won't surrender quickly. They use that very basic strength, warscore, and length of war formula even though it's clear they know their butt is kicked and they won't join any new wars because of the situation.

Solution: The AI needs to use some formula to determine if it should actually contribute meaningfully or not during a war, rather than only deciding when asked to join. It should not ALWAYS attack the player, and more importantly, it should not always attack FOR the player, when it is not really in its own best interest. AI should not do dumb viking style raids vs humans that it would not do vs another ai. They should definitely stop going on the offensive when manpower is low - if they wouldn't join an offensive call to arms because of low manpower, war exhaustion, or debt, don't have them go helping in a current war simply because they're in it; stay home.

 

[Pugman]

The good news is they will launch naval invasions now. The bad news is they aren't prioritizing well.

 

[Tyber109]

So you're justifying the fact that instead of defending their homeland which is beign invaded, they should attack some minor country leaving their whole country to burn?

Acceptable losses, would you as a player throw your armies against the French troops in your French provinces? If England did that we would be calling them stupid for committing suicide.

In the Kongo game, it is odd that countries would let their capital burn. I think the AI needs a preference on defending their capital, but in England's case willing to ignore provinces it can't save.

 

[in heaven]

Acceptable losses, would you as a player throw your armies against the French troops in your French provinces? If England did that we would be calling them stupid for committing suicide.

In the Kongo game, it is odd that countries would let their capital burn. I think the AI needs a preference on defending their capital, but in England's case willing to ignore provinces it can't save.

I wouldnt throw stacks against French, but i wouldnt throw stacks into venice because my mainland would be in risk while im still landing in venice..

 

[Aries666]

Acceptable losses, would you as a player throw your armies against the French troops in your French provinces? If England did that we would be calling them stupid for committing suicide.

In the Kongo game, it is odd that countries would let their capital burn. I think the AI needs a preference on defending their capital, but in England's case willing to ignore provinces it can't save.

But if you are effectively conceding the war, why waste resources invading Venice. Update over the last 3 year England has sent pretty much all their troops to venice, all of whom have died.

 

[Beagá]

The good news is they will launch naval invasions now. The bad news is they aren't prioritizing well.

They already did in previous versions, and they were just as stupid. England was always a joke in any continental war. Hell, they don´t even BLOCKADE correctly. And they still often don´t put leaders in their main naval stack.

 

[Tyber109]

I wouldnt throw stacks against French, but i wouldnt throw stacks into venice because my mainland would be in risk while im still landing in venice..

I've noticed that AI England generally doesn't abandon their main island (can't tell in this screenshot) and I've never seen France invade the isles successfully.

 

[Tyber109]

But if you are effectively conceding the war, why waste resources invading Venice. Update over the last 3 year England has sent pretty much all their troops to venice, all of whom have died.

This is actually an issue with the AI's ability to realize that reinforcements may come. Is Venice killing them or is France sending troops?

 

[Aries666]

This is actually an issue with the AI's ability to realize that reinforcements may come. Is Venice killing them or is France sending troops?

Im am Venice and happily killing them all it's just frustrating as I am also at war with Byz and have to be careful with my fleet as the English fleet would destroy me.

 

[Seelensturm]

AI naval invasions vs player usually go like this:
Oh let's invade this empty mountain province!
The player moved a huge stack to this province. Let's continue the invasion!
We are fighting with a -4 modifier and are outnumbered. We are AI and will never retreat before we are broken!
Better move our transport ships somewhere else, they surely won't be needed for a retreat.

Player naval invasions vs AI usually go like this:
He is invading this mountain province right next to our huge stack. Let's pretend there is nothing and will eventually go away!

 

[Beagá]

Truth be said, almost all games have brutally stupid naval AI. Civ 5 is even more hilarious.

 

[Aries666]

I know why England is going after me, its because I am the weaker ally and it wants to force me out of the war. This is fine in land only wars but if you are having to do a naval landing (and not even shipping the max troops per invasion) it would be best to think twice. Also I'm pretty sure one of the devs once said the AI wont do a naval invasion well out of their range in order to simulate the attrition they would otherwise receive.

 

[yerm]

Truth be said, almost all games have brutally stupid naval AI. Civ 5 is even more hilarious.

The difference here is the ai is actually stupider against humans than against another ai. It knows better than to try shipping troops, until the opponent is a human player, at which point it goes full retard. The only time I've ever seen ai France ship to the british mainland is when England is a human player. In fact, I am willing to bet if you started as Scotland and managed to join on England's side, France would try to sail past England to land on you!

 

[Beagá]

You bet it would In my Hungary game France tried to invade the Ottomans... by sea.

Result: 15 regiments to the bottom of the sea and one fleet less.

 

[BarrosRodrigues]

Why would England during the HYW think, "you know what lads, lets go and invade Venice". Don't get me wrong it's good England wants to actually ship troops but invading me whilst losing ground to France is just stupid. Don't even get me started on the fact that the AI is totally abusing it's no naval attrition too (they don't have FBR with anyone). This is completely reproducible behaviour too play Venice ally France day 1, they call you into HYW a month or too later then England invades.

I also noticed this behaviour in my last Kongo game, I was allied again with France and whenever I was at war with Portugal, Spain, GB or Netherlands rather than defend themselves against France they would launch naval invasions against me whilst their country burned.

I have been pointing that out for ages now, I am glad more people are seeing it too because maybe PDS will do something about it.

 

[Teije]

I've seen 2 great examples of this "let's send all our forces far away into a distant theatre and watch them die" from the AI recently.

First, was England invading Hungary (coastal province) during the HYW, so very similar to the OP.
Second, fighting against France as Ottomans, after throwing lots of armies against me sensibly in Hungary, but losing 90% of them, it then decided to send its entire rebuilt army - carried by the entire fleet (which had defeated mine conclusively) all the way around Africa to invade Hormuz (owned by vassal Persia). Thus giving my fleet time to rebuild, and my armies to finish lots of sieges. It was like Gallipoli but 10 times worse - let's ignore the armies on our doorstep and hit them from behind - sneak attack!

 

[Ryuujin95]

In my Kongo game, I attacked the Ottomans while they were at war with France and Poland. They sent their entire army to defend Egypt while France and Poland overran the Balkans. Their ally, Austria, also sent its entire army to fight in Egypt while my union partner Castille laid siege to their home provinces. I suppose they were successful in fighting me to a standstill until I moved the rest of my army to the area, and got Austria to WP out because I controlled half their provinces.

It does seem like the AI tends to fixate more on a human combatant that the AI ones.