AI leaving cities empty

[KGB]

The new AI (normal) has a habit of leaving it's cities empty. And I don't just mean during the first couple of turns either.

In a game that's on turn 18, I have twice now encountered AI cities that were empty. Once this turn (18 and once a few turns ago 14). In both cases the AI had plenty of armies on the map. He just chose to move them all out to make sure they remained grouped together.

Checkout Darklords 151 (55744) to see what I am talking about and notice my battle history this past turn and turn 14 against White.

KGB

[SnotlinG]

Hello,

I checked your game.
Turn 14 looks like the AI got a bit surprised (troops move faster on water, so it was considering that city as safe)

Turn18, definitely some issue with the code here. I´ll look into this.

Btw, do you feel the Normal AI is a better opponent than the Easy AI?

Thanks for reporting!

[KGB]

I've only played a couple of games so far so I don't have a really good feel yet.

But the AI *seems* much more aggressive than it was. This makes it more fun in 1v1 human games where you add 2-6 more AI opponents depending on the map size so that there is the added danger from the AI's expanding more rapidly.

On the downside the AI still seems to love to collect useless buildings (esp lookout towers which it should not bother with) so that you can keep an AI stack occupied with a building instead of a city. The AI also doesn't seem to every pillage out useless units. I realize that's hard to do in a general case but the AI might be better served by pillaging out stuff it won't be using (crows, eagles and a few other units should pretty much always be pillaged).

The biggest thing I wish the AI would do is at least search L1 ruins. There are often so many of those nearby on so many maps and it would give the AI some more gold and other things it could use.

KGB

[SnotlinG]

Yea I really wanted to add ruinsearching to the AI, but unfortunately there wasnt enough time for the 1.01 release. Hopefully I´ll get some time to look at that in the future

Thanks for feedback about lookout-towers and pillage, will add it to my list and see if/how/when it can be added

[Tim]

I just make a game with 7 AI Players-normal and im confused that they build many weak Units. So i spotted 10 Crows in a City where you can built Giants... same in other Cities with for example 14 Scouts! The AI is not really a Danger now... could be more. Ruin Searching for Example would be great.

I can not say that the AI leaves Cities empty. My Problem is that the AI could conquer a near city but gather many Troops in a City...8+