What the stupidest thing you ever saw the AI do?

In my current game as the Dominion of Korx the AI players keep trying to invade and bully me because my military is weak and my economy is strong and they think I'm easy pickings. They keep forgetting that I am allied with the Drengin, whose military is strongest. The Drengin love me. I provide a large portion of their income through trade and economic treaties. My research labs are superior to their own, and every weapon tech I research goes straight to them. Finally, the reason my military is so weak is because I'm selling my highly advanced warships to the green monkeys. They are the Luca Brasi to my Don Corleone.

So far, my Sicilain enforcers have taught the Iconians the error of their ways, and the Krynn are next. The Arceans are starting to gear up to attack me, so once the Krynn war winds down, I think I'll thumb my nose at those big scaly neanderthals by trade embargoing their 12-foot-tall asses.

Well... maybe it isn't so stupid as the two before... But in my current game (my first challenging) I was at war with the Drath, and they were at war with other two or three races, MUCH stronger than them. Well, they were producing ships with an attack of 40 (beam) and more and they sent all of them aganist the Humans and the Yor, which were half-a-map away, only to be vaporized by them. While the AI was so efficiently destroying his military, I sent one (1) of my ships behind the front lines toward their core system. The glorious SCv Kor (medium hull, attack 0/19/0, defence 0/0/13) took off four economy starbases, three frigates, three asteroid mining bases, and two troop transports before my spore ships arrived in-system to conquer their two worlds (the Drath have a powerful frigate near the asteroid belt, but they sent it to fight the Yor). When the Drath saw the two spore ships, they decided to surrender to the Arceans (that were exactly at the other corner og the map, btw) than being conquered by the Shivan Empire. If I were the AI, I would have used that frigate to pulverize that irrilevant corvette, before it puverize my economy. Or not?

Stupidest thing the AI does?

They try to beat me!!! Muahahahahahaha!

Other than that foolish disconnect from reality, I have seen the AI start wars many times and do absolutely nothing for months. Even when declaring war on a minor, the AI will sometimes take more than a year to just line up a small warfleet to take out the defenders and pull in a few transports to take over the planet.

It doesn't seem to prepare for war by building up an invasion force beforehand, and it doesn't understand the principle of concentration of force at all.




Spore. When you absolutely, positively got to kill every motherfrakker in the galaxy. Accept no substitutes.

I agree with the sentiment, Brad does a great job on the AI - trying to mimic a human logic (in all and every scenario) is an impossible dream. Its amazing he achieves what he does.

My wierdest?

Seeing a farm built on a 700% Research resource, not seen it often, but I come across it aka 1 in 5 games kind of frequency. Its usually on a low(ish) PQ planet which is in some out of the way place and has had poor developement over the preceeding two or three game years. As their planets fall, eventually their big bonus tiles get revealed obviously, and to see that in mid to late game makes me want to weep, what a waste   

Regards
Zy

I'd have to say that the place the AIs seem weakest is in their war declarations, where they tend to be ill prepared to end the war fast or pick a fight with an opponent they can't realistically destroy.

In fact, the only AIs I've seen pull off effective military manuevers are the Yor and Arceans (though I've heard that the Korath are pretty good at following their fleets with spore ships). The Arceans concentrate their fleets well, and the Yor are the only ones I've seen pull a sneak attack. Even so, the places they excel at are often negated by what they aren't bothering with.

One of the most common things is the "sleeping giant" scenario mentioned above, where they'll attack a civ but give them months to do research and start pumping out ships that turn the war into a very one sided affair. Between quick buying necessary warships (if you're swimming in cash) or simply putting every tax dollar into building a navy, an empire can build up a defense long before the first shot is fired. Thats just poor strategy on the AI's part. If they are going to invade, they need to be taking planets QUICKLY and putting the pressure on their opponent.

The other flaw I often see is a poor choice in who they declare war on! Sometimes it's declaring war on a civ thats on the other side of the galaxy from them, where they'll never get an invasion force in time. Other times, they're biting off more than they can chew and fighting on more fronts than they should based on the fact that their military power is higher than any one opponents. The worst offense is declaring war on civilisations with powerful friends, and inadvertantly sending the galaxy into a world war 1 esque clash of alliances (which really sours things up if one of the civs you have to declare war on is a major trading partner or at the other end of a treaty).

There are also instances where the AI doesn't use war when it would benefit them. For instance, if the Drengin have the highest military power yet is fighting too many opponents to survive against, that would be an ideal time for the weaker civs to band together and maybe get a slice of the Drengin empire. Instead, though, they look at comparative military strength WITHOUT taking the fact that the Drengin are on the run into account. This also happens when a civilisations military is all focused into defenders and military starbases... sure, they'd be tough to attack, but why would you FEAR a military power that can't project itself beyond it's own borders?

The military ratings (and the AI reliance on those numbers) is mostly at fault. Those numbers don't tell you much, since a swarm of tiny, weak ships (like super dominator corvettes) can usually just be plowed through by stronger ships that have armour, yet they might boost a rating HIGHER than the ships that would destroy them. The rating doesn't take transport capacity into account, or the types of weapons/defenses being used, or how much of that power can be negated simply by taking out a feew choice starbases.

I dont know if its considered "stupid" so much as it was funny, but I once played a game as the Drath, and my opponents were the Altarians, Iconians, Torians, Terrans, and the Korx.

I paid the Korx to attack the Altarians, and they agreed to my "terms"...can you guess what happened?

I knew you could, but I will tell you anyhow. Everyone, including myself after I got the prompt about similar ethically alignments, declared war on the Korx. They were exterminated about 10 turns later.

Yep, thats another area where the AI ignores alliances. Having a super organizer in the game always brings tons of chaos in. The AIs aren't very savvy with the political aspect.

I've noticed the "declaring war on people you have no intention of attacking at all" thing before, but I'm usually okay with it, since I've done it myself, usually to honor an alliance. It doesn't hurt me if the Drengin want me to declare war on the Iconians, because the Iconians would have to go through the Korath, the Arceans, and the Drath to reach me, so why not? It makes Lord Kona happy, and in the meantime, I continue my campaign against the Arceans and send the Drengin a couple of ships when they need a helping hand.

The worst thing I ever saw it do:

In the beggining of the game, the Iconians and I (Terrans) were buddies in a corner of the galaxy. They had some of the best worlds around, but I had managed to grab most of them.

They had mars, since I didn't bothered with it.

They had a massive fleet amassed near Mars (about 30 fighters), and it was obvious war would be declared soon. I was gathering my little fleet, seeing that the beautiful 15 fighters composing my fleet wasn't going to cut it against their Mars fleet and the other 30 they had at their homeworld.

I had the technological edge, however. And began the construction of the first Medium-sized combat vessel in the Galaxy. It had powerful defences against their fighters, but it was, like, 70 turns away.

Here is the stupidity:

The computer upgraded ALL their Martian fleet at the same time! 3 Turns they were sitting duck!! I sold all my techs to everybody in the galaxy, got ennough money out of it to buy 4 Corvette, and managed to wipe them all in a single turn, 2 weeks later.

Turning the whole competition into a stupid showdown of 1-hitpoints fleets VS Heavy shielded corvette..

Not sure if this is a "stupid AI" thing or just a strategy it employs that I disagree with: Sacrificing engines on a ship to add more weapons.

In my current game the Altarians noticed I was involved in a war with the Iconians and thought it would be a good time to flex their military muscle (about 2X mine) by declaring war.
I was concerned until I noticed their strong battleships all were going only 3 parsecs per turn on a HUGE map. I have had plenty of time to circle around picking off all of the ships before they could assemble into fleets. With superior soldiering I've been able to pick up a few of their planets here and there while forcing the Icons to surrender. Unfortunately, while we sit and pick on each other the giving our militaries flat lines...the Drath are amassing armies 5 times our size. It should be interesting.

But I would also agree with Marshall as well: AI shouldn't declare war without at least a little pre-war prep and moving ships into the combat arena.

Yeah, I think we're all in consensus; The AI's military strategy is simply lacking, and downright stupid sometimes. AI needs to:

A/ Rethink ship design, balancing firepower and speed/effective range

B/ Do a more complete evaluation of other civs before they go to war, including economic and manufacturing strength, soldiering and invasion capacity, as well as alliances and the possibility of multiple fronts.

C/ Send ships in advance before declaring war, being swift and decisive.

My list of stupid AI tricks come in at diplomacy and declaring war.

1. Declaring war on me and/or an ally when one of us is the strongest in the civilization. Happens far too often.

2. Inviting me to attack a civilization (the Drengin did this when attacking the Arceans) that is my ally. Naturally, they proceeded to declare war, and a few turns later were wiped out.

3. Out of boredom, I paid the Drath to declare war on an ally, which resulted in my declaring war on the Drath. The Altarians and the Iconians allied to the Thalans declared war on me. My allies, the Arceans and the Thalans, declared war on the Altarians and Iconians. And so on. No more boredom.

in DL when a planet the AI is attacking gets conquored or garrisoned, transports that were in transit to that planet get stuck in space and wait to be destroyed.

Does that still happen in DA?

Hi!
Old DL beta game, maso AI. Class 11 planet with 9 bonus tiles: 2 production, 2 influence, 3 research, 1 food, 1 morale. Only one production bonus tile covered by factory, rest of them ALL morale buildings.

BR, Iztok

In my current game, the Drath have about 10 planets. All their starports have 9 miners and 1 troop transport. They're up to something.

I'd say it's more a strategy that you don't agree with. It's something I'll pull when engine sizes are significant enough to REALLY cost me in weapons and defenses... the additional firepower makes a difference. In the situation you mention, though, it IS an obvious handicap, and the AI should have moved those ships into position BEFORE declaring war if they wanted slow ships to be effective.

Slow ships are fine, since they become much more powerful, but they need to be utilized with care if your opponent is fielding faster ships.

Wow, so many responses.

I played so more, and yes the A.I. does a bad bad job about declaring wars. I was playing as the Thalans and the Earth decided that I looked too weak, and for once I was tempted to agree.

A few Battleships gave me that impression while I was still muddling with Frigates.

But here's the stupid part (apart for the no blitz action). The Corruption mega-event had stroke a few weeks earlier (didn't came off during the rest of the game). For those who don't know what that do, it lower tax returns by 25% and give a bonus to trade cash flow.

So I was a little shaken already since I usually don't invest too much into trade, another reason why I feared the Terrans.

Thing is, when the Terran decleared war, their whole economy came crashing down, hard. Their whole production and research rating went down to zero flat and they were broke.

I simply walked over them while, avoiding those few battleships, and was well on the way to crush them when jagged knife hit the fan and went off with 11 of my worlds.

Asked and got peace then.

Didn't look at their sources of income before deciding to attack it seem.

Minor races are routinely stupid, except in their tech trade stinginess.
I actually learned that from the AI.
Dumbest minor race activity is to lead the techs in weapons, but fill their orbit up with redundant, weaponless crap, and only build a single low-tech defender. Minors need some serious air-space tweaking, though obviously they have an inferiority complex, and a idiot-savant for a defense advisor (the guy who's scared Photon Torpodoes will drive you insanely power mad if they trade it to you, but can't recommend building a fleet to protect his only PQ 16 planet).


Dumbest Major race blunder is depleting a planet pop for transports, to a level so low that my tweaked up soldiers can easily win (maybe they didn't know I had Tirquan, and maxed out the invasion tech tree, but c'mon that's unlikely). As stupid is building a continuous convoy of the transports well past the point that a human would realize they're: 1. being intercepted again and again and again, 2. his fleet is so inferior that not even an escort will help. Might as well build a fleet of defenders at that point.

Arguably the first point is actually desparate, and I think exists to keep the game from being over too quick. Figure that they see you winning, don't like you, and figure it's now or never, knock me out.

Number 3 is just begging for scripting yet another sarcastic post to the AI. Like "Human, you must think me an idiot AI in a computer game to fall for such a simple trick. I have my eyes on you now...."

In a recent game, my opponent declared war on me, and in a few turns, (i was on a Duel map.) thier ships are everywhere, but almost no transports. I send a fleet of frigates to scout thier homeworld for asn invasion, and i find that there are NO SHIPS gurading it. I invade the planet and soon discover that it was thier economic, manufacturing, AND cultural hub, so they ask for peace, and I accept. A few clicks later, I win a cultural victory.

In short, they left thier homeworld unguarded.

Sometimes I think this kind of thing is the game mechanics trying to move things along a little. On a good number of occasions I get the feeling that some events / wars are taking place merely to "mark time" waiting for me to get on with it - because in those instances I look back and realise I could have attacked them earlier with less pain. ie the war forced on me was one I should have had earlier had I spotted the opportunity.

Cant really adequately describe it - but if you look at many events / instances from the point of view of game balance and keeping the game moving, its surprising what you turn up. Now, when I see what seems to be a silly event I tend to immediately think "ok, what did I miss"; sure enough, its sitting there staring me in the face.

Another example - the pop up most have seen - minor civ has nicked all techs from (whoever) and will trade for a star system. Tried trading? not a chance, you could offer multiple star systems, - no go. However, get in there and take the minor civ, the techs along with it. Lets not disect that one too much, the point is I believe many instances are game mechanics, and often help you along/point out what you should have spotted earlier.

There's a danger of falling into a trap of "conspiracy theory gone mad" of course, and its certainly not true in all cases, but enough to make me suspicious and thoughtfull from a different direction/mindset when a daft event/action/instance occurs.

Regards
Zy

I tend to get the "secret agreement between civilizations where they decide you must be stopped" event a lot. I think it's basically the game's way of saying, "You just spent three years building up trade routes and negotiating with your neighboring civilizations in a peaceful and reasonable manner. BOOOOOOOOOOOORING!!!"

Another example of the behaviour I described in reply 21. Its very possible its the game mechanics waiting / hinting you should be doing something. Whether or not thats correct thinking I dont know, but I found when I looked at that kind of thing with a different mindset (aka post 21), I realised I had missed many opportunities in the past, and my game improved immeasurably because of it.

Regards
Zy

AI waging wars is most of the time pretty pathetic sight. - Not enough agression , starting too slow. Let me intercept their transports at impunity .have their insanely powerfull fleets sitting in space doing nothing .

Oh, I've got a new one:

Frittering away a substantial technological advantage by placing that cheap, bulky armour onto your ships. A drengin frigate with photon torpedoes and that generation 0 armour is comical.

In general, when given technologies from different weapon types that they want to switch to, the AIs will make exceedingly bad choices as to which components to put on. I'm sorry, but even if your opponents are fielding zero point armour, replacing a couple of your black hole guns with particles beams is an exceedingly bad idea...