Does the AI get scared off?

[Angron]

Hey everyone,

Ok, scared is, of course, not the right word. What I mean is, does the AI eventually give up?

Yesterday, I played a nice turtling game on Aurora map (iirc) on the NTW mod. As befits a lazy day, I did nothing but turtle the structure you start on, not so much to fight the AI as to enjoy a nice construction effort.

For the first few hours, the AI attacked in force at various different entry points, so I steadily built the defences up until I was happy they could look after themselves. However, after a few more hours of that, the AI just petered out. They stopped attacking, and instead just milled about, driving in circles or up and down the map. Makes a turtling game a bit bland, I can assure you.

Now, for most games I would be tempted to suggest that they just ran out of power, but as WZ obviously doesn't run out of the stuff, it seems a little odd. I didn't even move across the map, so really I only controlled a small area. They still had theoretical dominance elsewhere, so I was really just the king of my own little castle.

So, it got me wondering; does the AI have a limited amount of time it can keep attacking until it just lies down and accepts defeat? The main AI enemy had a vast, vast number of tanks at its disposal, so it certainly wasn't dead yet.

It just seems strange is all. Has anyone else experienced this, or am I turtling a tad too hard?

~Ang

[themousemaster]

Hey everyone,

Ok, scared is, of course, not the right word. What I mean is, does the AI eventually give up?

Yesterday, I played a nice turtling game on Aurora map (iirc) on the NTW mod. As befits a lazy day, I did nothing but turtle the structure you start on, not so much to fight the AI as to enjoy a nice construction effort.

For the first few hours, the AI attacked in force at various different entry points, so I steadily built the defences up until I was happy they could look after themselves. However, after a few more hours of that, the AI just petered out. They stopped attacking, and instead just milled about, driving in circles or up and down the map. Makes a turtling game a bit bland, I can assure you.

Now, for most games I would be tempted to suggest that they just ran out of power, but as WZ obviously doesn't run out of the stuff, it seems a little odd. I didn't even move across the map, so really I only controlled a small area. They still had theoretical dominance elsewhere, so I was really just the king of my own little castle.

So, it got me wondering; does the AI have a limited amount of time it can keep attacking until it just lies down and accepts defeat? The main AI enemy had a vast, vast number of tanks at its disposal, so it certainly wasn't dead yet.

It just seems strange is all. Has anyone else experienced this, or am I turtling a tad too hard?

~Ang

Did you find a mass of tanks of theirs stuck in a narrow passage?

Part of the AI is to only build so many units.  It builds more as current ones are destroyed.

However, in many of the MP maps (I know that The Pit is notorious for this, what with their outside valleys and all), the AI will send it's first few waves of units, all of which get slaughtered...

But then it will send a wave of heavier units.  Although they also fail, they don't die; they get damaged and retreat.

The retreating units meet up with the new units ina  narrow valley.  Neither can get by each other, and they all just stop.

Sometimes doesn't even need valleys to have this happen in; it will build it's own structures so close together that they end up in a virtual base-based gridlock.



Trust me, the CPU never stops researching (well, I don't think they get to the Dragon/Wyvern bodies, but...).  If you want to see for yourself, go find a backlog of units, watch them for 20 minutes (giving the CPU plenty of time to research like mad), then send in a VTOL group to cut wide swaths through their force.  When they rebuild their units, they are going to be of much higher quality.  Be ready for it; nothing wrecks a 3 hour turtle worse than having your carefully crafted uberwall of Heavy Turrets, Assault Guns, flashlights, all fronted by Lancer Bunkers, obliterated in 4 seconds when 40 Vengeance Pulse Lasers show up ;p.

[Angron]

Haha, yeah I've had that nasty last wave experience.

I've seen the AI get stuck in various valleys (or poorly constructed bases) plenty of times before, but that's the odd one in this situation; they're actually just driving lines of tanks up and down the map, totally ignoring me. They can move about as much as you'd hope for, they're all of a fairly decent quality (vengeance / heavy cannon / tracks), but they're just not really assaulting me.

However, I had a thought; it was an 8mp game, but most of the AIs got beaten. However, there's a handful of bunkers or hardpoints left here and there for the beaten players. Is the AI more prone to concentrating on removing them before attacking me?

I'll try the VTOL assault on the weekend and see if getting their attention helps.

Thanks!

~Ang