Artificial Stupidity/Video Games/Turn-Based Strategy

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Examples of Artificial Stupidity in Turn-Based Strategy video games include:

Fire Emblem

  • The AI in Fire Emblem games tend to have very poor decision making skills. Archers will often go straight after mages, which are often the only units that can counterattack from that distance, and they can even do this if they need to be one square from your Lord to do so. Other enemies will see a line of five soldiers and will ALL choose to swarm either the one riding the dragon who kills things in one hit or the heavily armored one who doesn't take damage. And the bosses have this weird concept that the best way to fight the heroes is to stand perfectly still in their room until you're within range, even while the heroes start filing in around them. In most cases, unless they are scripted, the AI will most of the time choose to attack any units that gets into their attack range, even when they are going to do no damage on the target (like some cavalier with wimpy weapon attacking a knight, or a mage attacking a high-res bishop).
    • The whole suicidal attack on the mages thing is actually explainable. The AI is aiming to cause any fatalities it can, no matter the cost to its own units. Keep in mind that winning a match in Fire Emblem is quite easy -- winning with everyone alive is the rub. Given a 1% chance of an instant kill, and a 100 percent chance of doing half of the max hp of the target, the AI will go for the 1% instant kill chance every time and hope it gets lucky just to spite you. While most of the time you will laugh at the foolishness of the computer, when it finally manages to get that hit in...
      • To be more precise (at least in the GBA ones), the AI first targets any units it can deliver enough damage to kill in one hit, regardless of the likelihood to hit or the damage that it will receive, and if it can't kill anyone, then it goes for the one that it can deal the most damage to, again not counting likelihood to hit. The issue is that the people with the lowest defense are generally your magic users. They also happen to have ungodly dodge most of the time (at least for Sages), and are fully capable of one-shoting most units in the game once they've been trained. The GBA games do not take into account whether they'll be counter-attacked at all, leading to sending a Sage out in front of your army and let him destroy half the units on the map' being a legitimate strategy. And because of the way probability to hit works in this game, a 30% chance to hit is really more like a 10%, and that's the sort of hit rate opponents often get.
    • The stand still thing applies mostly to bosses who are on seize points, and if they were to move then you could rush right up and seize the gate/throne.
    • In an early stage in Radiant Dawn you are forced into using only two units: the Squishy Wizard Micaiah and the Black Knight. Since the enemies are there specifically to KILL Micaiah and the Black Knight is there specifically to PROTECT her, you'd think they'd send their oddly large force at her at once. Nope, they go two or three at a time and hack at the first living thing they see.
    • Even more fun is that enemies will always, always go straight for a unit that has no weapon equipped, as they (obviously) can't counterattack (or if laguz, not very well). You can easily get Micaiah to level 20 without a problem on that map by parking the Black Knight somewhere with his sword unequipped and letting the enemies flail pointlessly at him while Micaiah whittles them down from afar.
    • This has applications beyond power-leveling. Many Fire Emblem veterans know that the best way to save a mission that's going pear-shaped is to unequip your strongest character's weapon. Picture this: the enemy has three swordmasters standing next to a mission sensitive character, who has only a few HP left. In order to win the map, the enemy need only attack with a single unit. Yet if you move an armored unit up and unequip their weapon, any enemy unit within range will immediately abandon their attack on the almost-dead Lord and attack the armored unit instead, even if they can't damage it.
    • This is nicely averted with bosses who seem to stand still on the throne. So you carelessly move your Squishy Wizard up, planning to attack next round when the boss runs right up and kills your exposed wimps. Oops.
    • Radiant Dawn emphasizes "no counterattacks!" above all else. Archers will shoot your heavily armored (but melee only) knight while ignoring the priest holding a weak light magic tome.
      • Which extends to neutral/allied units as well. Particularly noticeable in 3-10, where, for example, the leader of the Crimean Knights, Geoffrey, will move right up to a Bishop and then not attack it, but then Astrid will take a shot with her longbow. (Thankfully, the longbow is very inaccurate, as this was one of those situations described below where the enemy was being spared for thieving purposes)
    • Neutral units fall into this, especially if they're the ones you have to talk to and recruit. For instance, when Erk shows up in the second story arc of Blazing Sword, he comes out of a village and polishes off two mounted units before you get to him. If you don't get to him immediately thereafter though, he'll run off and provoke a boss with high resistance and physical attack.
      • They also have a tendency to attack enemies that you don't want attacked just yet (usually because they have an item that can be stolen), throw themselves at enemies far more powerful than they are, and always make their moves in the exact same order, which means that on the rare occasions that one of them does have some sense of self-preservation, they'll often retreat when it's really not necessary. And they always retreat when it's time to heal, even if they're using a healing item. Even if it means leaving a plot-sensitive character exposed.
    • The Radiant Dawn AI also prioritizes units who have "rescued" someone. In theory this makes sense, since if you rescue someone, the rescuer loses half Skill and Speed, making them sitting ducks who can't hit the broad side of a barn. Except tanky units don't care (at least for survival), and more importantly, they still do that if the rescuer has the skill that nullifies the stat penalties, meaning Tibarn (Who starts strong and has that skill) can easily make all enemies flock to him and kill them on counterattacks, just by grabbing someone. Who needs Provoke?
  • Then you get the units who are so outclassed by every player unit in range that it's literally impossible for them to actually do any damage (because they have a 0% chance to hit or 0 expected damage - or both) but insist on attacking anyway.

Nintendo Wars

  • The Nintendo Wars games are usually pretty reliable, but the first Advance Wars game overestimated the importance of supplies in the game (they're only essential in 100-turn epics where there's a high rate of attrition, air units or artillery at choke points). The AI would attack APCs almost exclusively, ignoring nearby units that would ream them in retaliation, or even the infantry capturing their HQ that will win the game next turn.
  • AI characters in the game were programmed to use their CO powers essentially as soon as they got access to them. Olaf's power mimicked the 'snow' weather effect, which lasted exactly one set of turns - it started on a CO's turn and stopped at the start of their next turn. An AI Olaf would use it even if it was already snowing and, yes, if it had only started snowing on Olaf's turn.
  • On particularly dodgy maps where an AI Colin is essentially handed an I Win button, he's been known to use his basic power, which gives him a 50% money boost... when his money is already at maximum. Black Hole Rising can only handle cash up to 999999.
  • The AI in the first game also tended to beeline its infantry towards your HQ, generally ignoring your units. They'll only rarely ever attack with their infantry and mechs.
  • Usually the computer will have a few units that will stay in one place and not move unless you send something into their range. In the earlier games they would immediately go charging after your unit and attack it, completely ignoring any other units nearby, making it possible to lure a strong unit into position with an infantry, then pound it with several other units that were lying in wait. They have gotten better in later games though - now if you have too many units lying in wait, the AI will actually realize it would be a bad idea to attack and stay away.
  • Units in Battalion Wars and its sequel aren't that smart -- of course, this may be to make sure manual control is more efficient. A glaring case, however, is the Battlestation in the final mission of Battalion Wars 2, as if it's AI controlled, it seems to have to be like two meters away from the Mining Spider before starting to attack it. According to a friend, it turns out the Battlestation attacks the guns that fire the weak lasers--something that the Heavy Tanks can fortunately take care of to save time -- but you can't lock onto the guns yourself. Best part? You also get Fighters, which are far harder to control than the Battlestation which shouldn't require so much intelligence to use at all, but under player control, the Fighters can total the enemy air force that threatens anything else.

Total War

  • In the Total War games, the computer doesn't seem to grasp that positioning its troops within range of your archers or turrets is a bad idea.
    • This was mostly fixed in one patch for Rome: Total War, although the AI still fares badly against artillery or lots of missiles. However, the Rome and Medieval AI are notoriously awful - in Rome, sticking a couple phalanxes (pike walls that are virtually invincible from the front to non-phalanx units) at the edge of a bridge will result in the AI suicide-charging them. The battle AI also doesn't see a need to protect its flanks and is usually unfazed by the player taking his cavalry around the AI's back. Before Medieval II, enemy generals also enjoyed suicide-charging ahead of their armies. The AI logic must have been something like, 'I want a strong unit to charge. The general is the strongest unit. Therefore the general must charge.' What an Idiot!.
      • In Medieval II, it is possible for heavily outnumbered enemy forces to retreat to the corner of the map...and then sit there, not moving the final few feet needed to end the battle and escape, while you pummel them to death with your ranged units.
        • That is, if you have enough ranged units to take him out. Otherwise, you are faced with a very dense enemy formation with no flanks or the read. Good luck with that.
      • The campaign map AI is similarly problematic. In the original RTW it was prone to declaring war on the player even when in a much weaker position, and completely refusing all and any offers of peace even as it was being beaten black and blue. Sometimes it even declared war by using a vastly inferior force to attack a large army of yours. The incidence of this happening was decreased by later patches, but it still happens. It is also possible for enemy factions to ask you to become trading partners and declare war you during the same turn.
      • After much play, the AI is known to simply determine its enemies based on either trade routes or adjacent provinces, with some special coded wars set to happen. Of course, this results in the AI declaring war on its closest allies even if they are vastly more powerful once they have too many close provinces. It also means that you have no chance to maintain peace, ever, because you're always the mortal enemy of somebody.
      • Another favorite 'trick' of the AI was to decide to stab you in the back and then totally throw away the advantage of surprise by just attacking a ship or two rather than going for a general assault.
  • In Empire: Total War, the campaign AI in the unpatched version was unable to transport troops by ship. In a game that includes three continents, and dozens of islands. Thus the UK is invincible to non-player enemies, for example.
    • You'll often see things like the AI, should its regiments of musketeers be flanked, opt to have them shoot from the narrow side of their formation rather than wheel around to face your unit. It will also always send its cavalry units in a very wide flanking maneuver, even if your entire back and flanks are covered by pikemen, running all the way so its cavalry ends up exhausted before even joining the fray. There's also the infamous "melee bug", a holdover from older titles, which causes the AI to favor melee over shooting matches with its hybrid units (that is, units that can both shoot and duke it out), even if a shooting match would be in its complete advantage. It wasn't that noticeable in older titles, where such units were relatively rare, but in a game where almost all units are hybrids... You'll also often see it reforming its entire line within range of your muskets, and thus getting slaughtered. Finally, its equally infamous friendly fire: musketeers behind the main line will happily shoot at you through their friends, with predictable results. Note that this is also true of your units, which is why you should turn "fire at will" off for reserve units. The AI, however, doesn't. And don't get me started on artillery behaviors (and AI telepathic responses to yours)...
    • When the AI loses a certain number of men from its musket formations it will immediately order them to form square. The square formation is a counter cavalry tactic and it quarters your firepower. Not a good tactic when you're being shot by lines of infantry and there are no cavalry on the battlefield.
    • Not to mention that the campaign AI is still as idiotic as ever. Enemy factions are still notoriously hesistant to surrender, even when you've conquered all but one of their provinces and that last province is currently under siege. Since the AI is coded to essentially declare war on all its neighbours from the get-go, this means that you will be fighting wars pretty much constantly. This being so, it also results in the AI declaring war on their neighbours despite having no soldiers on their borders.
  • The AI in the original Medieval game had a fixed strategy for attacking castles, in which they plant their army just out of range of the towers, and then send one unit at a time to attack the gate. By the time they actually break through to where your army is waiting, they've often lost half their troops. Better yet, they tend to send their general in as soon as the gates are down, and if you manage to overwhelm the general, the rest of the army will run away. And then they'll try again the next year...

Other Turn-Based Strategy games

  • In Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, the AI doesn't check whether you have units in your allies' cities and so will launch absolutely stupid surprise attacks against you, by attacking a city that you don't own but do have units in.
  • The PC version of the classic boardgame Axis & Allies routinely makes utterly brain-dead moves, especially in purchasing units. Any AI running the United Kingdom, for example, will routinely spend almost all of its resources on submarines, turn after turn, even if the Germans possess absolutely no ships to attack.
  • In Front Mission 3's AI always goes after whichever unit you put down first on the map; you can leave your first placed unit at the start point and venture out with your other three, and the AI will go crazy trying to kill your first unit. Oops.
  • The battlefield AI in Dominions 3 is not that smart, which is a problem since you can only control your units for the first 5 turns. It's very frustrating to watch your mages summon weak units one at a time on the complete opposite side of the battlefield from the fight, when a nice battle evocation would totally turn the tide. A mage, surrounded by bodyguards, may cast Fire Shield (a ring of fire surrounds you), killing his bodyguards, then die to an enemy charge. At least the AI on the computer side is equally stupid.
  • The AI in Planet M.U.L.E. has some interesting trains of thought, particularly with respect to buying and selling:
    • Land auction starting at $120? don't bother. Land auction starting at $350? MUST HAVE!
    • Crystals selling for $70? SELL EVERYTHING! (for reference, it sells for $100 on average)
    • Do I have Smithore? SELL IT!
      • The Trope is actually justified in the 1983 version on the hardest difficulty setting, as the price and availability of worker M.U.L.E.s is based on how much Smithore the Store/town owns. Also, because it's a 12-turn game when you do this, the Pirates will ALWAYS show up to steal all of the Smithore/Chrystite at least once -- you might as well sell it while you can!
    • Aw, does that player not have enough energy? is the store empty? well, tough, I'm gonna hoard my energy even though I'll lose more to spoiling than I would selling it to the player.
      • Did another player sell ONE UNIT OF ENERGY? SELL DOWN TO + 1 SURPLUS!
    • Do I have no surplus? BUY UP TO + 1 SURPLUS!
    • Compounding the issue (and inducing Fridge Logic) is that occasionally, players will gain money off of "Artificial Dumbness investments".
    • This is all particularly Egregious when the original 1983 game's computer players were quite capable.
  • Age of Wonders. You can negotiate with rival wizards and trade them spells, resources or locations - and they will trade for a watchtower in your territory right next to a stack of dragons that can retake it at a moment's notice. Even better, you can give them a magic item with a serious drawback (like The Halfling's Ring which gives invisibility (which many high-level units can see through) but increases physical damage by 50%) and the wizard will always equip it.
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