[1.06] Hedgie's Strategic/Tactic Monster/Sov AI Flawlist

A lot of people complain about the AI being shoddy, or being susceptible to certain sort of attack patterns (rushing with a powerful Sov early game, hitting then running back, proper kiting, etc). But they aren't always giving concrete examples.

So I'm just going to be updating this thread with REALLY STUPID things I see the AI do when what to do was VERY obvious.

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- Monsters, Bandits and the AI itself do not attack empty cities.

I just played a game where I ran around with an attack party and would capture cities then leave them COMPLETELY empty. I wanted to see how long it would take until monsters, bandits, or an AI would take it over...

the answer is ... NEVER. I had 5 cities that were all level 3, sitting empty and I was never attacked and pillaged. Now, I did have a very overpowered Sovereign and my Might values may have been screwed up (exempting the AI players, not wanting to pick a fight they would lose for sure). However, that doesn't excuse Bandits and Monsters from attacking me.

I even did this in another game (where I was not overpowered and I was roughly equal in Might rating to the remaining AI players), where the AI had a stack of units with 200 Combat Rating sitting next to an empty city. Earlier that game, when I was actually WEAKER than most of my enemies, I once misclicked and moved my stack OUT of a city where another, large enemy stack was sitting. They ended up attacking my stack with their stack, instead of trying to capture the city and then defending it and getting the HP bonus for it.

 

- Enemy Soverigns run into Enemy territory

The AI should not send their Sov's out to attack unless they have a might higher might rating. Sovs love to suicide their sovs and lose.

 

- AI doesn't seem to try to win

I once spent about 200 turns just sitting there saving up 24,000 gold so I could have two Elite Companies of Young Dragons (: Though the AI was VERY VERY weak by this point, he could have still tried to do the Spell of Making as he had enough mana to, and shard access (I let him have a few on purpose to see what he would do). I'm pretty sure he had the research to do it because he hit 80 research a turn at one point (Educated reload bug).

 

- Enemy Sovs attacks my Sov instead of fleeing when heavily outnumbered

I didn't even know you could flee tactical battles. Once, while attacking a minor faction while their Sov was heavily damaged from a previous fight, the Sov just walked off the map. I was impressed, good AI! In general if the Sov starts at low hp, it'll retreat... the exception is if you have YOUR Sov in that combat as well. If your Sov is in the fight, he will never back up.

4,445 views 6 replies
Reply #1 Top

Yup... tip of the iceburg of the AI problems, even in ridiculous difficulty.

Considering the number of creatures on the map, having them all constantly attacking may or may not be fun, but they very rarely attack, and certainly never intelligently.

What creatures usually will attack, is much weaker stacks that are next to them... EXCEPT I've seen several cases of solo pioneer units from enemy factions walk right by monsters without ever being attacked.

So, not only is the AI crap, but it cheats by treating units controlled by the player differently than units controlled by AI-controlled factions.

Reply #2 Top

Turn 99 on ridiculous... Magnar finally starts giving me a little problem with lost of stacks of 3 guys with boar spears vs. my elite broadsword +2 heavy plate infantry (yes, his units are stronger with exactly 1 upgrade vs my 8 in warfare).

I take and can barely hold one city he took from Capitar (my ally), brigands nearly wipe my army out with a stoke of bad luck where they actually did attack a city... getting exciting...

...Magnar himself walks up this city I took ALONE (with many of his unit standing nearby), while I still have about 150 might in there still... I obviously attack: yup, two swings of one broadsword and his entire empire vanishes... fun!

What a waste of 5 hours ;(

Reply #3 Top

Well, I had some unprotected resourced destroyed by wandering monsters - including one unarmed city.

 

But yes, the AI does need quite a bit of work...

 

Ciao,

Klaus

Reply #4 Top

Is there a general "bug list" somewhere?

 

Cause in the campaign game, I just managed to accidentally buy two Bazaars in a row somehow, the turn I went to level 3, even though this took me to negative Materials.

Reply #5 Top

Here's some I noticed from my game last night (large normal map, epic pace, 9 ridiculous AIs):

-AI sends pioneers completely unguarded so that I can wipe them out with my peasant scouts.

-AI allowed me to send a peasant to burn down their mines and libraries even though their Sovereign's main stack was a few squares away. Took around 20 turns before the AI responded and killed my peasant.

-AI sovereign went and took a city last night from me for the first time with their main army (hurray!). However, I was moving my sovereign in with his army from a different direction and took their 3 cities in their lightly defended rear. Here's the kicker: the AI sovereign rushed back to defend their capital, but left the rest of her army in the city they had just captured. AI sovereign charged in alone against my full stack that had just taken their capital. AI sovereign died of course, their kingdom wiped out. Incidently it was somewhat annoying that my city that they'd recently captured got wiped out in the process, but I got 3 AI cities to compensate.

-I agree that wild creatures never attack cities or resources (sometime they seem to stumble on to them by accident, but that's it).

 

Reply #6 Top

What creatures usually will attack, is much weaker stacks that are next to them... EXCEPT I've seen several cases of solo pioneer units from enemy factions walk right by monsters without ever being attacked.
End of quote

Hell, I'm pretty sure I've seen solo pioneers walk through wandering monster stacks and carry on completely unmolested.