AI is totally lame

Smallpox vs. largepox, gen2 vs gen5, early war vs. peaceful alliances. Which is your favourite gaming style?
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milsu
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AI is totally lame

Post by milsu »

Lol, I wanted my AI ally to attack our mutual enemies, and so I built them a great city, with 70 or more units in it, mostly howitzers, so that they could use railways to attack and conquer enemy cities in the region, but all they did was sending almost all of the units outside of the city for hiking at the nearest mountain, and their city was easily conquered by the enemy in just a couple of turns. I mean, come on, I am aware that AI can't be truly smart, but this is totally insane, why wouldn't they attack enemy cities at all, and send almost all of their units nowhere to do nothing?
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Alien Valkyrie
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Re: AI is totally lame

Post by Alien Valkyrie »

What AI difficulty level was it set on?
Also, just giving an AI units won't make them attack. If they're not already attacking, they won't just drop what they're doing. Instead, they probably realized that the units are quite valuable and that mountains increased their defense, making them harder to kill. The city itself probably just wasn't as valuable to them.
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mir3x
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Re: AI is totally lame

Post by mir3x »

Hehe, ofc AI is totally lame, it's just doing some random moves, all it can do is to take empty city or with 1 unit inside. If there are 2 units inside it will almost never attack such city.
U could play freeciv 1.14, AI there was much better, but UI is for hardcore users (I played about 6 months ago and AI coordinated attack on me with 2 horses and chariot - at turn 15!).
Overall - always click cancel when u see AI dialog, just kill them. Easiest way - just put 1 warrior near every AI city, put some bigger army near 1 ( in early game 1-2 horses will be enough) of his cities. AI will empty 1 city each turn for u :D. Finish the last city. Go kill next AI.
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Alien Valkyrie
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Re: AI is totally lame

Post by Alien Valkyrie »

Well, it's not doing random moves. I mean, it is true that at some point in development basically the entire AI code had to essentially be rebuilt from scratch, since the previous AI dev left and didn't structure or comment their code, but the AI is by no means fundamentally flawed. On low difficulty settings, it does do somewhat stupid things, but it's not doing random things. Especially when doing combat stuff, it's calculating its odds of victory and everything. And I'll be honest, I might not be the best player here, but on higher difficulty settings, AI does cause me problems. From what I've heard, the best players even win against the hardest AIs, which is a bummer, but the Freeciv AI is not bad per se.
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mir3x
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Re: AI is totally lame

Post by mir3x »

it does something like this:
- send chariot somewhere - if it sees empty city take it,
chance that it will send 2 chariots and attack your city with phalanx inside, and conquer city is very small
- send ironclad, if it sees that city is defended by phalanx, or just some weak unit - kill it,
chance that it will drop musketer to take empty city, is ultra small ( it would be totally random, by sending random tranport with 1 unit )
- if u put a lot of units near ai u will see it's randomness - its often doing something like - "I have 6 phalanxes in city, i will take 5 and put it next to your catapult"
- hardest ai is same stupid as easy.
there is 0 coordnination between units, each unit plays YOLO.
- if u play against 20 allied AI it will always randomly move via your terriory, if u keep 2 phalnxes in city with walls and some chariots/catapults u can easily snipe units each turn. U just need to survive early game, with cannons u can easily start killing all ai.
- if u give very farmed civilization to ai it will go communism probably and sell buildings/disband units, starve cities or maybe even it will go anarchy and stay in anarchy to have 0 building upkeep :D
Overall - AI have no idea at all what to do, it doesn't do any single task properly.
Workers management - fail, defence - fail, attack - fail, choosing proper buildings - fail, unit movement - fail, diplomacy - fail.
bard
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Re: AI is totally lame

Post by bard »

I think AI requires some adjustments, but I do not think it is fair to call it lame.

You must take into account that AI can take control of any player at any moment, so it must be able to play on the fly, without planned movements. I guess the AI must be coded as if you were playing a game where each turn is played by a different player that has no idea what the previous player was trying to do.

Also, the AI in freeciv is pretty fast, even on old devices, so I guess it must decide based on rough estimations, and simple algorithms. For example, the AI has no time to calculate exactly how much money or production will get with each different government, or each different tax rate level. AIs use estimations that sometimes lead them to bad governments or bankruptcy.

Freeciv is also very moddable, and AIs must be able to play with all those different possible rules. I have made a custom ruleset with rules similar to civ3 and the AI plays them almost as good as the AI of the commercial civ3. In order to get a challenging game I give AIs practically the same bonuses than the hardest difficulty level that I used to play in civ3.

In latests freeciv version, I personally like how AIs expand, how they defend their cities, and overall, how they manage their empire. Something I'm still not liking is the uncapability to conquer enemy cities, and to stop wars from time to time.
In combat, I think the main limitation of the AI is that it does not attack unless the chances to win the battle are favorable. I understand this is important to prevent suicidal attacks, but I wish the AI could learn that sometimes it is necessary to sacrify the first attackers in order to conquer a city.

I wish current AI was adjusted so it stays in peace by default, and from time to time it decides to send a massive attack against certain city to try to conquer it, even if it requires battles against the odds. I still think it has potential to be a challenging AI in the future.
Last edited by bard on Tue Aug 08, 2017 2:19 am, edited 1 time in total.
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milsu
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Re: AI is totally lame

Post by milsu »

I wish if AI could be a partner in this game, but that is not likely to happen.

I am speaking of the game against computer, and not multiuser, and at Normal level. I don't want to go for higher AI levels, because AI is cheating all the time, and I don't want that to be noticeable too much to piss me off. I also don't believe that AI cares about government and tax rates and production, because IA doesn't play by the same rules as human player. For example, I build irraginations all around AI city, but it still won't grow in population, or it grows too slowly. And for suicidal attacks, lol, AI attacks enemy cities with Mech. Inf. units over and over and over, although it is obvious that they can't succeed. And sometimes, there is an empty enemy city, but AI units just pass by uninterested. I wouldn't say that AI is fast at late game stages when they have hundreds of units; with me and 11 AI players on the European 200x100 scenario map, it takes all of them together about 3-5 minutes to move all their units and freights around and do nothing useful with them, and I am using Ubuntu 16 and relatively standard PC on which I can play FIFA 16 normally at lowest settings. Maybe it is so slow because I always set all players to alternate movement, in order to see what is happening on the map. At least, it would have been a huge improvement if AI would have kept its units in place when it doesn't know what to do with them, that would have saved more than 50% of time.

I mean, I don't play this game all the time, it is just that sometimes I want to feel like a lider of a nation, lol, and I reserve 2-3 days just for this game, but in the end, I always finish disappointed, and that I have just lost my time when I could have been doing something useful. (Like playing FIFA 16, ha ha. ;-) Just kidding.)
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mir3x
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Re: AI is totally lame

Post by mir3x »

with me and 11 AI players on the European 200x100 scenario map, it takes all of them together about 3-5 minutes to move all their units and freights around and do nothing useful with them, and I am using Ubuntu 16 and relatively standard PC on which I can play FIFA 16 normally at lowest settings
Set unit movement time to 0, and mapview recentering time to 0 (in local options -> graphics),
in 2.6 or never set also - show automated units to false in local options -> interface.
Btw dont let them to get rail and mechs, kill them with horses in ancient era :D
In modern era block all entrance to your territory so they wont try using your rail, and when u see diplomacy dialog cancel it asap.
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milsu
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Re: AI is totally lame

Post by milsu »

mir3x wrote:Set unit movement time to 0, and mapview recentering time to 0 (in local options -> graphics),
in 2.6 or never set also - show automated units to false in local options -> interface.
Btw dont let them to get rail and mechs, kill them with horses in ancient era :D
In modern era block all entrance to your territory so they wont try using your rail, and when u see diplomacy dialog cancel it asap.
Thank you for these technical advices, I didn't know for that. I never build rails, because rails are paradise for enemy Howitzers.

I don't want to destroy all other civilizations, it would have been too easy and not amusing. I rather like to set up some interesting scenario, and then act like it is in the real life. And it works fine for some time, until a point at which I am forced to figure out that it's all bullshit.

Today, I have made an awesome action to help my Brunhilda babe ally to get rid of our mutual enemies. First, I needed to break through northern Italy and defeat a bit two other smaller enemies and conquer few of their cities, until I reached southern France, and liberated some cities Numidians have conquered from Africa. It was so carefully organized action, I have used diplomats and spies, combat units, ships, everything, spent almost all money from the budget. Liberated northern Italy, then southern France, then created a stronghold in north Africa. I lost like 40 Marines and 30 Cruisers or so just to conquer two important cities in Africa. And finally, the rest of the survived Marines went back from Africa to southern France to liberate the one remaining city. And when everything was done, I left 3 Riflemen in each city, because I know, if I left more, the AI would just waste them anyway, and I gave all those cities to my ally. And then, in just a few dozen turns, my ally lost all cities I have liberated for them, and even more. And all my brilliant action was for nothing. They just didn't want to defend their cities. They didn't even keep those 3 Riflemen inside, they were defending a city like with one cannon or so. Leaves me wanting to nuke both my ally and the enemy. It seems Brunhilda is doomed. Anyways, I have three more allied babes. ;-) But Brunhilda was kind of my favorite. :-)

But this game is no strategy, it is just funny. Maybe I should buy the newest original version. I have had some original Civilization long time ago in 2006, but it was also stupid, in that version Paratroopers could conquer a city full of units just by paradroping into it. That was total garbage.
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mir3x
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Re: AI is totally lame

Post by mir3x »

But this game is no strategy, it is just funny. Maybe I should buy the newest original version. I have had some original Civilization long time ago in 2006, but it was also stupid, in that version Paratroopers could conquer a city full of units just by paradroping into it. That was total garbage.
Its similar problem with Fireaxis, now in civ6 AI is lame too.
Try buying civ5 for 5usd or less or wait to find some cheap deal - AI in civ5 got many fixes by now ( I bought civ5 with all addons 5 euro on steam long time ago). Overall in fireaxis game u have few cities and few units and it takes forever to move them ( but u get used to it considering u waited 5 mins in freeciv :D). AI acts the same on all diffuclties, but it has crazy bonus on higer levels ( like +200% to food, production, more settlers on start). It moves units very lame, but it has nice diplomacy eg. at some time u might get 'warmonger' mark and everyone will attack you. And everytime u meet Shaka u will say "oh no", that bastard wil always attack you sooner or later :D
Anyway it worth for 5usd :D ( extra scenarios sucks totally, so dont buy them for extra cash)
I managed to win game in 2hour on high level just by clicking end turn all the time and winning by culture ( inj freeciv it woudl take 5 mins), but average game will take about 10 hours, fireaxis tries hard to make game last forever.
On normal difficulty its easy to win game with 2 cities even :D, maybe with 1, havent tried 1...
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