Not cunning but poor CAI

[Santeri]

This thread exist because Humble Warrior, ♘Top Hat Zebra and LestaT provoked me to do it
So don't insult me for whining

I will now teach you all how to successfully exploit S2, RofS and FotS CAI and maybe CA will prevent us doing it in future. Actually this "tactic" has been usable in TW games since Rome and it has now developed worst of its kind

So the "tactic" is very, very simple: just block the way

We aren't just ordinary blocking AIs moment but the key is to ensure that AI can get around your blocks. To block the way you don't need an army just one unit is enough. Place the unit on road or tight location and AI will not attack it but it will find a new way. I can't emphasize too much that you need to make sure the AI can get around you or otherwise it will attack. AI also have to see your units so don't hide them. This will work best on your own lands because if you are in enemy territory the AI will defend itself by destroying your units. Also if AI is just raiding your farms and others it might also attack your units but blocking might work as well.

So lets just go practice and I will show you how exactly do this:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Typical situation, AI is going to invade my settlement. I would have enough men to defend it but lets have some fun and make the AI suffer from attrition


I will send my men to block the road, and we will see what happens


It vanished


Just kidding, it was hiding in woods Lets just send scout there and we will see. But we will not let the AI get us yet


It's already spring so AI is not suffering attrition but we will have our fun


Now there is too many enemies around to continue but notify how long road AI took and how many turns it wasted

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

This is longer story but I will show how you can exploit CAI most effectively

I had already exploited CAI before taking shots so don't mind weird locations or situation.
AI had sent naval invasion and it's now targeting my settlement KII


Next turn it went in woods but I had scout there. Notify that my unit is hiding and AI will not try to get around it


Let's just move our scout and AI has clear way


AI is advancing


AND BAM


This happens if you don't exploit


Now lets just reload and make some preparations


AI vanished again


And here it will emerge


And continue its way ignoring low garrisoned Kawachi


Things get spiced when other invasion army appears, both targeting Kii


But we just make some blocks to ensure our safety


Se how that army just turns away in front of my mighty militias


Southeastern army is closing in so lets block its way. I was trying to send both AI armies to southern passage but I accidentally left little footpath


But no worries I had enough time to fill it. Two turns after


And CAI has been fooled again

Everybody remembers how you could block the enemies way in RTW on water crossings. Just one fleet there and AI will turn around, wait few turns, remove the fleet and AI is again heading that way. You could do this unlimitedly and AI would never reach you.

But in Rome it was just those water crossings, in S2 you can do it everywhere! And if you don't want to exploit you can't use proper guerilla tactics. When I found about this I was actually trying to buy time by placing cheap units near roads so AI would have to either attack them or get around them but both resulting the AI going off roads.

So maybe CA you could please fix this
And until then lets block

[♔The Black Knight♔]

A creative exploit, will try it in a campaign.

I thought the ai would just attack your units if I did that but I guess not.

[NSFW]

Good post Santeri. Very familiar with this problem from Rome/M2, but didn't realise it had made it through into the new engine. *sigh*

A creative exploit, will try it in a campaign.

I thought the ai would just attack your units if I did that but I guess not.

I think the problem is that once the AI has decided on a target (maybe cities only?) it re-calculates its pathfinding to the target each turn, but initially only looks for unblocked paths to the target; if it finds an unblocked path it always seems to follow it, without considering, whether quicker blocked paths exist, or, whether its army is strong enough to defeat any such blocking force and still capture its objective.
i.e. the AI appears to always choose an unblocked path to its destination in preference to a blocked one, without weighing the extra travel time involved in going the unblocked way vs the likelyhood of beating the force blocking the shorter route.

[Alkaline Earth]

Another tactic you can use is if you know the CAI is going for your settlement send your entire garrison into the closest wooded/forest area and wait in ambush spot.

When the CAI comes in just autoresolve their immenent victory. Wait 2 or 3 turns then they leave, conquer, and run back into the woods. They run back capture the province again.

You can mess with them plenty and this prevents them from taking your other neighboring provinces . Great for protecting your unprotected sides if your in the middle of Japan and are waging wars on 2+ sides.

[AngryTitusPullo]

Good. If more people present stuff like this the better.

[BullGod]

Very good post, although I already regret reading it
I'll be tempted to use this "tactic". I prefer to idealize AI and be ignorant of it's flaws

[lamefellow]

Just 1 qn? Is this exploit difficulty based? Nvr came across this myself

[Santeri]

Very good post, although I already regret reading it
I'll be tempted to use this "tactic". I prefer to idealize AI and be ignorant of it's flaws

Trust me I know your pain

Just 1 qn? Is this exploit difficulty based? Nvr came across this myself

Since the AI will not get smarter with different difficulties I would say no. In any case that campaign was played with h or vh but I can't remember which it was because I just reloaded something random.

[Humble Warrior]

Glad you took the advice. Follow by example.

However, I would`ve changed the title to more appeal to CA rather than sound like you`re trying to come off against another thread title. That would get CA`s attention more.

[CTD_or_Bust]

Just a single unit right? I'm trying to understand why I've never come across this. I've certainly left stacks outside of a city before in a wide, overlapping position like you did but the AI attacked them instead of pathing around them.

[Humble Warrior]

hmmm I`ve not had a chance to test this yet, but I noticed he said you have to make sure there`s no other route for the AI. He never mentioned that when he gatecrashed my thread. This is probably why the AI has attacked me at times.

Now most logical people wouldn`t block a bridge with 1 small unit against a larger force (I never have) so it`s actually a very unlikely thing any one would do unless the enemy had a similar number and then it would make sense anyway.

Also, it`s not that bad since the AI will attack (according to the OP) if it has no other route. Basically, the AI does not appear to want to be lose any forces whatsoever in needless battles that may affect it taking its main objective.

I have yet to test this, but I actually do not see this as the major bad AI that was originally accused.

[CptAustus]

So the AI will avoid unnecessary battles? Thats good AI. The way will avoid them to the point where you can manipulate it to never attack. Thats exploiting a good AI.

[Humble Warrior]

Thats exploiting a good AI.

I think that`s basically what it is. A Human finding ways to trick an AI that`s trying to use the correct principles then calling the AI dumb because it fell for it. Which is hardly a surprise considering the Human brain is the most complex organism (we know of) in the universe against home cpus working on AI routines.

Of course, the AI could be programmed to go through this smaller force and, always needs improvements regardless, but under the present circumstances (if the OP`s words are true), that hardly makes it a bad AI.

The fact that it tries to avoid any casualties until it reaches its objectives could indeed be loosely called `cunning` AI.

[BullGod]

I think that`s basically what it is. A Human finding ways to trick an AI that`s trying to use the correct principles then calling the AI dumb because it fell for it. Which is hardly a surprise considering the Human brain is the most complex organism (we know of) in the universe against home cpus working on AI routines.

Of course, the AI could be programmed to go through this smaller force and, always needs improvements regardless, but under the present circumstances (if the OP`s words are true), that hardly makes it a bad AI.

The fact that it tries to avoid any casualties until it reaches its objectives could indeed be loosely called `cunning` AI.

The best way to improve AI routines is to show how it can be exploited if this never occured to programmers. This is a good example, showing that AI doesn't make too many calculations. In fact it seems that it does no situation assesment at all, because what we see here is only simple pathfinding.

And too bad that Mongols weren't that "cunning", because in that case The Great Wall could have been only a meter high.

[Santeri]

AI isn't good if it avoids unnecessary battles like these. In both of my "stories" I bet it lost much more men because of attrition than it would have lost fighting against few militias. In fact in autoresolve with these odds it probably would not have lost any men or maybe 1-10.

And like I showed enemy would have taken Kii easily with those forces. It doesn't even matter if you have empty castle and one spear unit and enemy has plenty stacks.

I agree it's exploiting if you use it way like I showed. But what about when I found this? I think forcing AI to off roads with querillas is valid tactic. But in this game if I don't want to exploit I have to make sure that I won't send my troops "wrong locations" and it's just stupid. It's like if BAI would ignore all troops which are far from main army.

Edit: P.S Humble Warrior you have to now agree that this exploit is exactly what happened in you campaign AI didn't avoid that bridge battle because you had cannons and fire support but because it just saw "the only road" to Totomi

[Humble Warrior]

Edit: P.S Humble Warrior you have to now agree that this exploit is exactly what happened in you campaign AI didn't avoid that bridge battle because you had cannons and fire support but because it just saw "the only road" to Totomi

What part of what I wrote did you fail to read? I haven`t tested yet, but read on...

Like I said before. I believe the CAI wants to avoid all possible loss of units until its met its objective. You`ll recall that it even avoided my 2 fleets of 6 ships (12 in all) radia when approaching the bridge. Perhaps the combo of my troops and the ships put it off.

So, no, I don`t agree. Further, I would say that the logic of the AI attempting to avoid all losses until it gets to its objective does make sense. It could be improved but it`s not bad at all.

[Santeri]

I don't think CAI is coded to avoid battle but it is just targeting the castle. If CAI would be a player it would simply just click on his army and then click enemy town. It doesn't observe what is on road but just ignores everything. But if that player can't click the town then it will look what is a head of it and clears the path.

You can just try it yourself. Grab an army and just keep clicking enemy town and you will see the CAI acts exactly like that.

I think it's just absurd to say CAI would think how strong enemy army is and not even talking about how good position and what support it has. Why would then AI be constantly attacking the player with lesser forces, in winter and when it has to conquer citadel with fire support?

[Humble Warrior]

I don't think CAI is coded to avoid battle but it is just targeting the castle. If CAI would be a player it would simply just click on his army and then click enemy town. It doesn't observe what is on road but just ignores everything. But if that player can't click the town then it will look what is a head of it and clears the path.

If the CAI wasn`t programmed to avoid battle and just ignored everything then it would just plough through everything, even enemy armies and be forced to ultimately fight, wouldn`t it? So it most obviously is programmed to avoid battle to get to its intended target.

Not convinced, try again.

[Santeri]

You can just try it yourself. Grab an army and just keep clicking enemy town and you will see the CAI acts exactly like that.

[Lord of Lost Socks]

I lost a city in Hokkaido for a year because the enemy landed armies completely unexpectedly there, and I had not left any proper defensive forced. Was pretty cunning.