Your A.I. of choice

**SpencerH** · 02-04-2005, 15:12

I've never been happy with any AI, including CIV3's (see sig).

I have to agree that the best battlefield AI was SM's Gettysburg (I remember some very complex battles with both sides wheeling to flank the other and the difference being my better use of cannon). RoN had the best overall AI (although I havent played it to death as I have with every civ variant).

**Slyspy** · 02-04-2005, 15:30

For diplomatic AI: Europa Universalis 2.

For tactical AI: Combat Mission 1/2/3 (speciafically the tank combat, its infantry tactics are rather poor).

For strategic AI: Probably GalCiv though I felt I was being beaten more by the complexity than by the AI, but I lent my copy out so cannot try in again right now.

As a side note the AI in RTW carries over flaws from MTW and STW while adding some more! I shall try the new patch though.

**Uesugi Kenshin** · 02-05-2005, 04:51

The one thing I hate about civ3 is the oversimplified battles, I had a musketman lose to a roman legionarry... Messed up, oh well the Romans are gone now and I rule my continent, off to pester the Chinese!

**Fragony** · 02-07-2005, 12:12

The best AI has to be Halo, killing the covenant never gets old. As for strategy games, Sacrifice has pretty good AI, really puts up a fight.

**Uesugi Kenshin** · 02-08-2005, 04:34

I love Halo and Halo 2, but I do not think the AI matches up to that in OpFlash, the Ruskies are clever and can even find you by your muzzle flash in the dark! (with silenced weapon, I am not that dumb....usually.)

**fret** · 02-08-2005, 13:45

Id disagree strongly with all the comments about the Civ 3 AI being good.

It has many flaws, especially when deciding whether to attack units of a certain type and strength, it cannot mount a seabound invasion which is critical, the unit upgrade behavior, whic is more critical in a game such as Civ 3 where you have constantly changing unit-dynamic, id terrible, in that you can be in the middle of the Modern Era with tanks-a-plenty and the AI, who is perfectly capable of producing such units, instead decided to leave its Riflemen as Riflemen when it should be upgrading everything to Mech Infantry. Diplomacy is often predictable, enemy units can in some respects be made to systemtically act in a certain manner allowing you to control their movement and elimate accordingly, such as SiPlebs Funnel of Doom manouver. There are many issues / exploits such as this.

As usual, the Civ 3 AI only uses production weighting to increase in difficulty, playing SId is exacly the same as playing Cheiftan, exept what it takes the player 10 turns to build, the Cheiftan AI will take 20 turns to build, the Sid AI will take 4 turns to build

There is nothing special about the Civ 3 AI.

**fret** · 02-08-2005, 13:58

Originally Posted by Akka

Partially untrue.
The AI does, in fact, get allowances, but NOT BEFORE KING'S LEVEL !

There is no 'King' Level in Civ 3, theres no 'Prince' level either

The levels are as follows in increasing difficulty (pre-conquests)...

Chieftan
Warlord
Regent (level playing field)
Monarch
Emporer
Diety

The AI bonus' / penalties are as follows...

Where it takes the human player 100% to build something, it will take the AI....

Chieftan - 200% (estimate(i havent played this level for a while)
Warlord - 160% (estimate again)
Regent - 100% (level playing field)
Monarch - 90%
Emporer - 80%
Diety - 60%

With the release of the Conquests expantion pack, the values of the Diety difficulty level were ameded slightly, and two new more diffiult levels were introduced.

Aside from production bonus, the AI also makes it more difficult as the base cost of technologies is increased as the difficulty level increases, therfore making tech-beating and tech-buying more diffucult.

**Sasaki Kojiro** · 03-20-2005, 20:30

Gettysburg did have the best AI I think. Though it did get a bonus on the high levels.

Shoguns AI held up fairly well considering how much I played that game. It was only ranged units that it was terrible at.

I thought the thief AI was pretty good...guards scared the heck out of me on more than one occasion.

**Red Harvest** · 03-21-2005, 02:21

Civil War Bull Run has good AI. It is aggressive about flanking the player. It has a few tricks up its sleaves. Let's just say that I'm not winning the scenarios on normal difficulty on the first pass most of the time.

**Satyr** · 03-30-2005, 00:13

Kohan II, while not coming with great AIs out of the box has gotten a few great ones written by the community. When playing on the hardest level it is very hard to win against some of them. Even on the "Hard" setting they can offer a game that is as tough as most people offer in multi. And the game actually requires some tactics as well as a good stragegy to do well. I am finding it is a good substitute to fill in for the lack of a viable Total War game. I will have to try Axis and Allies from the same company to try the engine in a non fantasy setting too.