Worst AI decision(s) ever?

[Suicide Junkie]

Note: This is a simultaneous move game, so I had to reconstruct the events from the log an the turn after.

After securing all of the other Norak planets in the system, I prepared to take on the Norakian rebel's planet.
This planet was so powerful, that the rebellion not only rejected a surrender demand, but vaporized (taking no damage) my brother's large task force of baseships which were sent to secure the planet after the expected surrender!

Needless to say, I was building up a significant force for this assault.
The core of the fleet was a BattleMoon hull, designed to carry 7000 troops into battle, protected by 29,000 hitpoints worth of biocrystal armor.
Arrayed around the BattleMoon were four fleets of 45 Warships. A scattering of Cruiser and BattleShip hulls, with biocrystal armor and long-range shard cannons.
In each fleet were an additional 10 "Assimilator" class Dreadnaught-sized Troop Transports, and 5 to 8 supply tanker/generators and/or minesweeper ships.

I began the assault, attacking simultaneously with all four fleets.

The troop transports followed their "capture planet" strategy, and retreated while waiting for the warships to clear the defenses.
but one troop transport retreated towards the map corner on the far side of the planet.(That is already stupid, but just wait)

As it passed the planet, the troop transport decided to drop its troops! (That doesn't seem so bad, but hang on)

The ground combat was naturally a stalemate, and now that I had troops on the surface, my warships stopped firing at the planet!

Oh, but they didn't retreat either! They just milled around randomly while the troop transports reversed course and started dropping troops.
All of my warships, just floating around, while the planet's weapon platforms pour 13,500 damage per turn into my poor fleet!

After only one game turn, my fleet was down to a mere 23 ships, including only two troop transports, the battlemoon, and the remainder a handful of supply ships and minesweepers.
The BattleMoon was the only ship with an offensive weapon to survive the encounter.

The only good part of the whole thing was that it was not a complete loss on my part.
Almost 10,000 troops died in space, but 25,000 managed to reach the surface.
This is a huge homeworld class planet, with a significant troop presence of its own, so I expect to know the end result of my effort within 20 turns.

[oleg]

What shipset do you use ? I like it. It looks like Rage but
is different (if I'm not mistaken of course).

[geoschmo]

Typical REMF foul up in the heat of battle. The Admiral wants to soften up the landing area first, but the General sends in his troops hell bent for leather. Meanwhile the Grunts on the beach and the Swabbies (Sorry, I am a little short on affectionate terms for Naval personel. ) on the ships take it in the face and try their damndest to pull out a miricle.

Geoschmo

[dmm]

FOTFL!

This sounds like something directly from a US Civil War battle. "Coordinated attack??? What's that?" At least you got troops on the planet. During one impt battle in the Last year of the war, the Union general in charge of the main assault division was such a stupid coward that as soon as the battle started he found a bomb shelter and got "bombed." (That's drunk, for you non-Americans.) Needless to say, events at the front did not go as Gen. Grant had planned.

[wr8th]

That shipset looks like something from MOO2!

DMM,

That wasn't the battle of "The Crater" near Petersburg, VA. by any chance was it?

Also reminscent of Gen. Burnside's intrepidity at the bridge that now bears his name near Sharpsburg, VA (Antietam). Ugh... political appointees.

[ 08 May 2002: Message edited by: wr8th ]

[Suicide Junkie]

Actually it is the Rage shipset. Everything except for the BattleMoon, of course

[dmm]

wr8th,
Yes, I think it was. Certainly "The Crater" was a brilliantly planned and horribly executed fiasco. Another aspect was that there was a specially-trained "colored" brigade that was supposed to spearhead the assault. They had rehearsed it for months. Then at the Last hour, Gen. Grant put them toward the rear of the assault. No one knows why. It was political, certainly, but was it for fear that the "coloreds" would be slaughtered and he would appear to be using them as cannon fodder, or was it for fear that the "coloreds" would get the honor of dealing the CSA its death blow? Or some other, staggeringly stupid, reason that our 21st century minds can't even think of?

Or was it the AI?

[PvK]

I still remember way back before Version 1.25 even, I think, playing a game where I was letting the AI handle most of my empire, and I was trying to win the game ONLY (almost) by designing superior ships for my empire. Anyway, the AI sent a huge fleet of our ships, nearly half the fleet, it seemed, in one big armada towards the front line system where battles were raging. Great... except... it decided to take a "short cut" through this damaging warp point which er, just happened to lead through a... er... black hole system... OH NOOOOooooooo! Yep, so I get to watch dozens of our ships get shredded on the warp point, only to end up getting sucked slowly into the black hole, most of them either unable to escape, or worse, able to hold their ground until they run out of supplies, meanwhile costing maintenance...

Nonetheless, I still think one of the cooler aspects of SE4 is that, despite the AI's weaknesses, a player can take over just part of an empire, and let the AI handle the rest. In this way, the player can see how much of a difference they can make if they are only controlling a limited part of an empire, such as:

1) Just one particular fleet.
2) Just one particular system at a time (i.e., the emperor has to be present to take direct command, or the player is a regional governor).
3) Only reseach choices (mad scientist).
4) Only ship design (master ship designer).
5) Only construction.
6) Only diplomacy.
7) Only the military campaign against a particular enemy empire.
8) Only tactical combat.
9) Only intelligence operations.

Or, any combination of the above.

The other thing to recommend this mode of play is that it generally cuts the time required to play down to a small fraction of the usual time, even in a large and advanced game.

PvK

[Skulky]

I have never had quite sucha horrible experience with my AI but i did once put a whole fleet of say 115 ships under its command during a simultaneous battle against a group of 1 large planet, and 3 moons so they had lots of interference. My fleet moved around aimlessly for a while while my troop ships went in and got shot. I think it was b/c the AI didn't know what to do with the empty moons (empty of weapons colonized tho) so taht was its own thing.

Wow im rambling agian

[oleg]

"by designing superior ships for my empire. "

He,he,he. You did't do a good job then !
unstable warp point does only 200 damage.
Scatering armor + stealth armor gives a full protection for your ship internals. If you also have few repair ships in your fleet, and you MUST, fleet can fly through Black Hole system !