Does the AI cheat-buying units indefinetly ?

[Taurt]

When I try to capture AI capital it keeps spam-buying unints every single turn. It's impossible for him to have that much gold on turn 20-25 to continuously buy units for 15-20 turns...
Every single 'hit' on a capital triggers new wave of units...
(emperror dif.)

[Kyl]

Initially posted an opinion as fact but was corrected below. Thanks guys.

[SamBC]

Originally posted by MadManCam:

AI doesn't produce or buy units in the same way humans do. It's more like the AI manager spawns buildings or units for them on a semi-regular basis and regulates their gold.

The AI does "cheat" in this sense, but that's required on higher difficulties as you can't have human level AI processing in modern games. Even for higher level AI play, it would probably take much more computing time and lead to longer turn times.

The example you described would be an extreme case IMO, if one city for the AI is spawning a unit every turn for 15-20 turns.

[citation required]

[Martin]

Think it really depends on which civ you're facing against, some like aztec will try to keep spamming units at you others like spain just sit and stare at you. Maybe the more military ones have more aggressive setups. It's annoying that if you build a large swordsman army.. your counterparts build large archer armies.. or lots of horsemen.. if you build spearmen they seem to get confused.. If you bring pikemen to the frontline first, they'll usually send out knights..

That said I kinda like the ai as it is, just wish they'd build bigger armies with more varience.

I sent 8 swordsmen against rome, all died before they even reached his cities.. hehe. He had around 12 archers.. and he could find the hills.. an issue I always seem to have.

[FearSunn]

Originally posted by MadManCam:

AI doesn't produce or buy units in the same way humans do. It's more like the AI manager spawns buildings or units for them on a semi-regular basis and regulates their gold.

The AI does "cheat" in this sense, but that's required on higher difficulties as you can't have human level AI processing in modern games. Even for higher level AI play, it would probably take much more computing time and lead to longer turn times.

The example you described would be an extreme case IMO, if one city for the AI is spawning a unit every turn for 15-20 turns.

This is not true. AI does not spawn buildings or units - it actually builds them. It gets production and other yields bonuses on higher difficulties and extra starting units. But thats all. AI builds and buis its units. Just check AI logs and you will see this. Also decison making process (with points and values).

[Demystificator]

According to wiki. On Emperor, AI have +40% bonus to production and gold.


You can have a guess on how much gold they hold by trading with them and enter random high numbers on gold. It should change to the max they can afford.


And actually, as a human player, I usually end spare my gold as long as possible and when I'm attacked, I produce/buy military units with the closer city, resulting into get one soldier per turn for 5 or 6 turns.
As AI gets bonus to gold, it shouldn't be hard for them to do it. Depending on unit type and their gold income.

[Exemplar]

No clue which game speed this is, but with appropriate policies, city state bonus, and good production tiles I can have a decent city creating units relatively quickly. I play emperor to just have a relaxing game knowing I will 98% win. I do it a lot, starting a new emp game at least once a week, between higher difficulty games. I do not witness unreasonable growth or production.

I honestly do not believe AI builds on a separate style of code. I specifically know that's not how it works because there are not these phantom lines of code.

There are explanations. With certain options, units can be bought with faith. There may be some rollover production points going on, perhaps from a failed wonder. I'm sure with a nice roll of combined circumstances, I could appear to churn out 2 units in 2 turns, then buy one with gold, then buy one with faith, then make a diplomatic trade deal for cash to buy one with gold and buy a subsequent one with faith, THEN having been 5 or 6 turns later produce one from the city's production queue. Now I've created 7 units over 7 or 8 turns. That's realistic, I can do that without the AI's gold, faith and production bonus of being emp or higher difficulty.

Early game, even without all that, agoge, plus AI difficulty bonus, plus 2 military city state production bonus, plus very good production tiles as plains hill with mine, will net very fast warriors and archers.

[Sarisin]

A similar question along these lines....why do the AI controlled city-states simply stop producing military units, especially in the later game? I have noticed this a lot lately particularly when I am hoping for a little military support against civs I am at war with, but no military units show up. It is bad enough they often field units like crossbowmen and pikemen while the rest of the world is putting out tanks, rocket artillery and the like, but why do they just stop producing any military units?

[Exemplar]

Because they're building other things.

City states can get behind, particularly if their land is resource or other tile income poor. For awhile they might look strong then lack the resource to upgrade. This can persist more than half of instances. Generally speaking, however, they're going to be a rough average of the surrounding civs. Maybe "you" have tanks, but if the rest of the closeby civs have muskets, knights and catapults, they're going to have muskets (if they have niter), knights (if they have iron) and catapults.

[Kyl]

Originally posted by FearSunn:

Originally posted by MadManCam:

AI doesn't produce or buy units in the same way humans do

This is not true ... Just check AI logs and you will see this. Also decison making process (with points and values).

Oh okay. Thanks FearSunn. Fan of your work btw.

[joszman]

If they have airstrip and lots of cities they can produce a lot of units per turn and drop em in there.

[AugEve]

AI totally cheats . . .King level attacking St Petersburg, Russia has no armies left and suddenly produces two archers and a scout by the city. A purchased archer should be unable to shoot on its first turn but does. Kills my nearest warrior who is injured and takes half the HP from my hero. Pretty much enough to make me stop playing the game.