26-05-2005 05:36									#1
	I knew the AI took liberties, but ... Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

Okay, take a look at the screenshot. Legend:

• Blue corduroy is ocean or uncharted terrain.
  
• Gold is land shown from the German point of view.
  
• Ships are airbases.
  
• Beige diamonds are impassable terrain units (air, mf=0), belonging to a civ allied to the Germans (sorry about the mess of unit keys, but this is an alpha test ).
  
• The German plane is a air missile unit, not a paratrooper or fighter.
  
• The red diamond is an unspotted square containing an enemy city.
  

On the AI's turn, the plane passes through the impassable terrain units to attack the undiscovered enemy city. That's a new one for me! I knew the AI took some liberties with cruise missiles, but...

Take away the missile flag, and the German plane stays on the airbases.

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	26-05-2005 05:55									#2
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Try it with another ring of impassable terrain. The AI might be able to move once out of the airbase and then once again to get to passable terrain. The properties of the airbase probably have soemthing to do with it.

	26-05-2005 06:30									#3
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Air units do not respect impassible terrain. And 'unexplored' only applies to the human player. Nothing new there.

(edit) Impassible UNITS. That is news.

	26-05-2005 07:34									#4
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Oops! I'm not so clear on the nomenclature. The civ name is 'Impassable'. The unit is called 'Terrain'. Looks like the outline of a square, but it's a unit.

quote: Impassible UNITS. That is news.

Certainly was news to me!

My solution is to use a nonmissile fighter unit in this position.

The whole idea is to have a fighter more or less permanently in position to intercept airport-airport transfers. It's a means to simulate U-Boat interdiction of sea-lanes (airport = port of transit). Ideally, the human should never see the air unit. Instead, @ENEMYFIGHTERS & @SHOTDOWN show the U-Boat icon, but it's the fighter that actually does the dirty deed.

Interestingly, the missile fighter always attacks the red diamond square from the NE. From what angle do paras capture a city?

Can't really afford to have a cordon two units thick in this case.

quote: And 'unexplored' only applies to the human player.

I just keep learning new things with this game.

	26-05-2005 10:08									#5
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quote: Originally posted by techumseh Impassible UNITS. That is news.

You may want to check out Harry Tuttle's highly original Gold Gulch. Impassable units (mountains), wandering gold nuggets, rustlers who can try to make a living by rustling cattle, snakes, bears, shady characters galore not to mention scalp hungry Indians. There are also some very active ladies of the night.

	26-05-2005 12:11									#6
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Misunderstanding, AGRICOLA. Impassible units have around since Harlan's Mongols. It's the AI passing units through other units that is surprising.

	26-05-2005 13:59									#7
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I remember encountering this in the Microprose WW79 scenario - I established a shield of units between London and Paris to avoid getting them nuked, only to be extremely surprised when a nuke popped up in the English channel!

	26-05-2005 16:41									#8
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quote: Originally posted by our_man I remember encountering this in the Microprose WW79 scenario - I established a shield of units between London and Paris to avoid getting them nuked, only to be extremely surprised when a nuke popped up in the English channel!

nukes do not have to travel to attack. As long as any target city is within range of any city (or subs?) belong to the attacker irrespective of where the nuke is, the AI can do a nuclear strike.

	26-05-2005 18:47									#9
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Maybe this applies for all air missile units?

	26-05-2005 20:25									#10
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I can confirm that nukes do not have to be physically present at a launch site to strike. For example, if the AI civ has a submarine within 16 squares of it's target city, and the actual nuke is in another city farther away, the AI will use it.

	27-05-2005 00:03									#11
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In my experience AI missile units will teleport to location if it's in range, this is true for cruise missilies as well as nukes.

	27-05-2005 03:22									#12
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I can't think of how right now, but that could probably be taken advantage of in various ways. Does it check to see if the attack is executable before teleporting? I.e., is the AI dumb-smart enough to get through blockades with zero-attack missiles, only to realize, "crap, maybe not"? That doesn't sound likely, but you never know with that wacky civ2 AI.

	27-05-2005 07:37									#13
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My experience agrees with Henrik. The AI can throw missles and nukes anywhere. I don't think range is an issue. It simply chooses a target and the attack occurs.

	28-05-2005 15:55									#14
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Given the AI's uncanny ability to shoot missiles at only the most valuable targets, no matter where they are,* it does have a lot to teach the US military

Incidently, making the things the AI is shooting missiles at cheaper than the missiles could be another solution to this problem. I imagine that the AI wouldn't do anything with really expensive missiles.

* I'm still smarting over the time in 1997 when the AI nuked my massive counter-attack force in Munich in the Microprose WW3 scenario.

	14-06-2005 05:40									#15
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I'd read somewhere that the AI only uses cruise missiles on the highest costing sea units in the game. I can't remember *where* the link was, but the reporter found that if they changed the unit cost of either the battleship or carrier, the AI wouldn't send missiles against it. Could you manipulate this to fulfill your needs?

	22-06-2005 13:06									#16
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I've surrounded a carrier on all sides with Aegis cruisers, and the AI still hits only the carrier with it's cruise missles.

	22-06-2005 19:35									#17
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quote: Originally posted by H Tower I've surrounded a carrier on all sides with Aegis cruisers, and the AI still hits only the carrier with it's cruise missles.

that just gave me an idea, decoy vessel, really expencive and pretty much worthless, more expencive than the carrier so the ai will attack it first, (i.e. solid platinum raft)

	22-06-2005 20:23									#18
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quote: Originally posted by H Tower I've surrounded a carrier on all sides with Aegis cruisers, and the AI still hits only the carrier with it's cruise missles.

Try stacking a bomber or a 2 turn fighter with each Aegis. That has always worked for me.

	22-06-2005 22:17									#19
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quote: Originally posted by Broken_Erika that just gave me an idea, decoy vessel, really expencive and pretty much worthless, more expencive than the carrier so the ai will attack it first, (i.e. solid platinum raft)

just so long as you don't have to build it first...

	25-06-2005 21:42									#20
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Try this one for size,

I was testing upgrades for DST when one of my tanks parked outside of Port Mresby was bribed by the Americans.

Firstly, the Americans are poor as paupers

Plus Port Moresby is very very far away from the US HQ in San Dieago.

And to top it all off, there are no diplomatic units in the entire scenario - I double checked.

	25-06-2005 22:25									#21
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It sometimes happens on Emperor level, the AI cheats and bribes any unit, with any of their units.

Luckily, in ToT, you can make units unbribable.

	27-06-2005 05:35									#22
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H Tower, try to manipulate the build values of different units. What I've been planning to do (and still haven't gotten around to) is make the Aegis Cruiser take more resources to build that either the Carrier or the Battleship. Since the AI (reportedly) targets ships that take the most resources to build, it'd start lobbing Tomahawks at your Aegis Cruisers, freeing your Battleships and Carriers from attack.

Oh, and BE: I already pretty much consider the Aegis Cruiser worthless.

	27-06-2005 12:14									#23
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quote: Originally posted by kobayashi Try this one for size, I was testing upgrades for DST when one of my tanks parked outside of Port Mresby was bribed by the Americans. Firstly, the Americans are poor as paupers Plus Port Moresby is very very far away from the US HQ in San Dieago. And to top it all off, there are no diplomatic units in the entire scenario - I double checked.

T'isn't the presence of diplomatic units that allows this. Any AI unit can bribe.
If you want to disable it you'll have to disable negotiation between the two sides via event scripting.

	27-06-2005 20:22									#24
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Even that won't disable it actually...

	27-06-2005 21:48									#25
	Inflate your Upload Space

None of Kobayashi's example surprises me, except that "the Americans are poor as paupers." Bribing is still a priority for the AI under those circumstances? Why? I guess it's impossible to know how much the AI spent to do this.

	28-06-2005 08:51									#26
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quote: Originally posted by Timor_Leste I'd read somewhere that the AI only uses cruise missiles on the highest costing sea units in the game. I can't remember *where* the link was, but the reporter found that if they changed the unit cost of either the battleship or carrier, the AI wouldn't send missiles against it. Could you manipulate this to fulfill your needs?

This was Nemo's method in "Second Front" - it ensured that German Shore Batteries wouldn't launch missles at Landing craft, but they would attack naval units and the large troopcarriers. Take a look at his unit costs to see the exact threshold.