History ArtificialStupidity / StrategyGames

* Units in ''VideoGame/BattalionWars'' 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 [[spoiler:the Mining Spider]] before starting to attack it. According to a friend, it turns out the Battlestation [[spoiler:attacks the guns that fire the weak lasers--something that the Heavy Tanks can fortunately take care of to save time -- but [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard 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.

* In ''VideoGame/WarcraftII'', the AI tends to get stuck in whatever blocks their path.
** Be it trees, rocks, buildings, the AI is a complete idiot

** When you send a Spy on an aggressive mission, there's a small chance they'll be captured by the enemy civ. If so, you'll have to bargain for their release, with the other civ putting a steep price on letting them go. Although it's probably to prevent player frustration, it never occurs to the computer to just not release your Spy, since captured Spies are basically dead weight and you ''just proved'' you're will to attack them with said Spies. Nor will they hold out on it out inconvenience you - if you cough up the funds, you can get your Spy back the turn on it was caught. The game only seems to have a limited understanding of how much advantage a captured Spy really is.

** It's possible to convince the AI to trade you some gold for a resource, then trade you said exact same resource for less gold than what they gave you. You can continue to sell their own stuff back to them until they run out of money. Let's Player [[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRHXUZ0BxbkU2MYZgsuFgkQ The Spiffing Brit]] weaponizes this technique [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aPwkXaw5z0 here]].

* ''VideoGame/CivilizationBeyondEarth'' carried over all the issues of ''Civilization V'', but sometimes tried to fix them by making them worse in the opposite side. Particularly annoying when a faction would trade a tiny, useless resources only if you give them half of all your precious assets, and nothing else. Or when they avoid confrontation if you are militarily superior, but when in war they utterly refuse to make peace even if you pay gifts.
** The expansion ''Rising Tide'' overhauled the diplomacy system with more advanced interactions and introduced a new almost game breaking bug: everybody is forced to follow their allies in their war, against anybody, no matter the situation. Normally, when one of your allies goes to war, you should be immediately asked if you want to join them or dishonor the alliance (best would be that only afterwards your ally might or might not contact you asking to honor the alliance, depending on what's needed). However, per se, simply being forced to follow your ally in war, without a word in the matter or asking your consensus, might not seem a particular issue. It could be an understandable design choice... if at least your ally would make careful decisions and not sudden nonsensical moves against much more powerful factions, even ruining your complex web of treaties and commercial routes. But things become completely absurd if two of your allies wage war on each other: you are forced to honor BOTH alliances, so you end up at war against BOTH of them. If they have other allies on their own, the resulting cascading alliances might easily turn the game in an ALL vs ALL perpetual state of war. You are not even asked which side to support, ending just one alliance, which would have been the most logical consequence. This forces you to renounce at all to alliances (and thus a big side of the new overhauled diplomatic system) to avoid this situation. Guess why all of a sudden other leaders criticize you for breaking treaties, your trustworthy and friendful ally now for some reason hates you and is at war with you... this oversight has never been fixed.

** Creating a custom map with no berry bushes condemns the AI to a major disadvantage. The AI will only build a Granary as a drop-off point for food gathered from berry bushes - which is, after all, its main function. However, the Granary is also a prerequisite building for almost all non-military buildings later of any significance. The AI will never see cause to build one, and technological stagnation is inevitable.

** Goliaths are just as stupid as Dragoons, if not more so. That's because they both use the Hydralisk's pathfinding subroutine, but are physically larger units, will engage and follow enemies as if they are air units, even thought they cant fly, and don't automatically disengage enemy units that they can no longer follow or see.

** On a more general note, specific AI empires have specific personalities that the players can predict, but some of them might act in very irrational manners. For example, an AI with an expansionist personality will have their aggressiveness increased ''tenfold'' if it cannot expand, causing it to frequently declare wars of conquest. However, it is quite often for them to decalre wars on an opponent that is far stronger to them, lose the war, and immediately start another one once the truce is over.

** When the 2.0 update, which overhauled the galaxy map and multiple core game mechanics, came out, almost all AI empires became extremely incompetent as they simply cannot cope with the massive changes of the update. It wasn't rare for one to come across a woefully small and underdeveloped AI empire due to it being unable to balance it's budget. It was also common for an AI empire to erupt in rebellions and fragment into many small and powerless nations due to the AI being unable to handle a sudden hit in its economy. While most of the glaring issues have been fixed in subsequent patches, some problems still persists till this day.
** The 2.2 update that overhauled economy and planetary management caused a similar wave of broken AIs as they once again cannot figure out the new system. A notable example was that the AI would spam the whole planet with crime-reducing buildings as the first sign of crime, causing mass unemployments, more crime and more rebellions.
** In the 2.3 update, AI empires learned to expand past other empires' territory, in order to counter players blocking hyperlane chockpoints to stop AIs' expansion. However, the AI can't tell the difference between a valueable blocked off system that is worth taking and a system with basically no resources deep inside another empire's territory, thus causing loads of unnecessary border frictions. A patch was later made to remedy this by reducing the distance AIs are willing to expand past another empire from 5 to 2 hyperland jumps.

** In ''XCOM 2'', weapons fire can destroy cover and even the upper floors of buildings. Normally, this isn't an example of Artificial Stupidity... but it probably counts when the destroyed objects is one which is both important to the unit and important to it. Usually, this is the unit's own cover [[CaptainObvious (which it should generally shoot around, rather than through)]], but occasionally you'll have a soldier shoot through ''[[https://youtu.be/egwJkInmeRw?t=43s the floor they are standing on]]''.

** ''VideoGame/RomeTotalWar:

* In ''VideoGame/{{Nectaris}}'', the AI's infantry units, given the chance, will be all too happy to capture one your factories, even if your factory happens to be empty and one of your own infantry units is positioned within range of retaking it the very next turn, which wins the enemy unit outright.

** ''Civ VI'' is notorious for BreakingTheFourthWall by having [=AI=] opponents declare war on you for no reason other than because you are too close to winning the game, even if they were complimenting or even tributing you a few turns before. Even Gilgamesh or Tomyris, who are supposed to like long-term alliances and avoid backstabbing you, will happily go war with you if you're winning. Any kind of diplomacy has to allow, not just for the other leaders' own intelligence, but for the game's overall agenda; and any victory other than military becomes exceptionally difficult, because no matter how nice you have been, every country will try to wipe you out if it will stop you reaching a victory condition.

*** 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.

** ''Civ VI'' is notorious for BreakingTheFourthWall by having [=AI=] opponents declare war on you for no reason other than because you are too close to winning the game, even if they were complimenting or even tributing you a few turns before. Even Gilgamesh or Tomyris, who are supposed to like long-term alliances and avoid backstabbing you, will happily go war to you if you're winning. Any kind of diplomacy has to allow, not just for the other leaders' own intelligence, but for the game's overall agenda; and any victory other than military becomes exceptionally difficult, because no matter how nice you have been, every country will try to wipe you out if it will stop you reaching a victory condition.

** ''Civ VI'' is notorious for BreakingTheFourthWall by having [=AI=] opponents declare war on you for no reason other than because you are too close to winning the game, even if they were complimenting or even tributing you a few turns before. Even Gilgamesh or Tomyris, who are supposed to like long-term alliances and avoid backstabbing you, will happily go war you if you're winning. Any kind of diplomacy has to allow, not just for the other leaders' own intelligence, but for the game's overall agenda; and any victory other than military becomes exceptionally difficult, because no matter how nice you have been, every country will try to wipe you out if it will stop you reaching a victory condition.

* ''VideoGame/CivilizationBeyondEarth'' carried over all the issues of ''Civilization V'', but sometimes tried to fix them by making them worse in the opposite side. Particularly annoying when a faction would trade a tiny, useless resources only if you give them half of all your precious assets, and nothing else. Or when they avoid confrontation if you are militarly superior, but when in war they utterly refuse to make peace even if you pay gifts.
** The expansion ''Rising Tide'' overhauled the diplomacy system with more advanced interactions and introduced a new almost gamebreaking bug: everybody is forced to follow their allies in their war, against anybody, no matter the situation. Normally, when one of your allies goes to war, you should be immediately asked if you want to join them or dishonor the alliance (best would be that only afterwards your ally might or might not contact you asking to honor the alliance, depending on what's needed). However, per se, simply being forced to folow your ally in war, without a word in the matter or asking your consensus, might not seem a particular issue. It could be an understandable design choice... if at least your ally would make careful decisions and not sudden non-sensical moves against much more powerful factions, even ruining your complex web of treaties and commercial routes. But things become completely absurd if two of your allies wage war on each other: you are forced to honor BOTH alliances, so you end up at war against BOTH of them. If they have other allies on their own, the resulting cascading alliances might easily turn the game in an ALL vs ALL perpetual state of war. You are not even asked which side to support, ending just one alliance, which would have been the most logical conseguence. This forces you to renounce at all to alliances (and thus a big side of the new overhauled diplomatic system) to avoid this situation. Guess why all of a sudden other leaders criticize you for breaking treaties, your trusthworthy and friendful ally now for some reason hates you and is at war with you... this oversight has never been fixed.
** The affinity system should in theory feed alliances with factions following the same affinity and prevent the contrary, adding ideological and political flavour to the game. Yet most of the times you still get alliances with factions that have completely different affinities, which only give a minor malus in relations among tons of other influencing factors. This is particularly evident when you ally someone in the early game and the two of you later develop opposite affinities, as the AI will be reluctant to even consider that your nearby civilization is doing everything your citizens despise. An allied faction pursuing only the xeno-friendly harmony affinity will only send a few text complaints if your purity or supremacy game is terraforming everything, killing wildlife and polishing miasma, if you (easy to do) still manage to ged good relations overall.

** Rather amusing one: What happens when an AI is exploring with a boat and gets blocked from where they are trying go by borders or units in the way? Why, they sell it of course! Why bother going another direction or recalling the boat for another function elsewhere, after putting those resources and turns into it? It would be much better to sell it immediately for considerable loss in the exchange rate of production/gold and those turns burned away irreversibly, right?

** ''Civ VI'' is notorious for BreakingTheFourthWall by having [=AI=] opponents declare war on you for no reason other than because you are too close to winning the game, even if they were complimenting or even tributing you a few turns before. Any kind of diplomacy has to allow, not just for the other leaders' own intelligence, but for the game's overall agenda; and any victory other than military becomes exceptionally difficult, because no matter how nice you have been, every country will try to wipe you out if it will stop you reaching a victory condition.

[[AC:VideoGame/CommandAndConquer]]

* It has its own [[ArtificialStupidity/CommandAndConquer page]].

[[AC:FireEmblem]]
* It has its own [[ArtificialStupidity/FireEmblem page]].

** In ''VI'', it's possible to convince the AI to trade you some gold for a luxury resource, then trade you a luxury resource for less gold than what they gave you. You can continue to sell their own stuff back to them until they run out of money. Let's Player [[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRHXUZ0BxbkU2MYZgsuFgkQ The Spiffing Brit]] weaponizes this technique [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aPwkXaw5z0 here]].

** In ''VI'', it's possible to convince the AI to trade you some gold for a luxury resource, then trade you a luxury resource for less gold than what they gave you. You can continue to sell their own stuff back to them until they run out of money.

** The expansion ''Rising Tide'' overhauled the diplomacy system with more advanced interactions and introduced a new almost gamebreaking bug: everybody is forced to follow their allies in their war, against anybody, no matter the situation. Normally, when one of your allies goes to war, you should be immediately asked if you want to join them or disonhor the alliance (best would be that only afterwards your ally might or might not contact you asking to honor the alliance, depending on what's needed). However, per se, simply being forced to folow your ally in war, without a word in the matter or asking your consensus, might not seem a particular issue. It could be an understandable design choice... if at least your ally would make careful decisions and not sudden non-sensical moves against much more powerful factions, even ruining your complex web of treaties and commercial routes. But things become completely absurd if two of your allies wage war on each other: you are forced to honor BOTH alliances, so you end up at war against BOTH of them. If they have other allies on their own, the resulting cascading alliances might easily turn the game in an ALL vs ALL perpetual state of war. You are not even asked which side support, ending just one alliance, which would have been the most logical conseguence. This forces you to renounce at all to alliances (and thus a big side of the new overhauled diplomatic system) to avoid this situation. Guess why all of a sudden other leaders criticize you for breaking treaties, your trusthworthy and friendful ally now for some reason hates you and is at war with you... this oversight has never been fixed.

** Another flaw in the AI was the way a travelling army behaves. While moving in formation towards its destination (often quite slow due to the siege equipment), the AI would completely ignore any attacks and/or threats, allowing the player to destroy the AI's army without taking a scratch.

** Units set to "Explore" have some of the dumbest AI in the game, running an algorithm that only accounts for terrain hidden versus terrain revealed, not silly little things like whether they'll start a war with a City-State by trespassing, or whether they're slowly circling a Barbarian Archer and getting themselves shot to pieces. Not only that, but they will also wander until they get stuck at the north or south pole and will continue to move one space towards it and one space back because they are unable to explore the ice fields. They do this despite the fact that there's other places they can go to explore. This problem is only solved when you get submarines which can explore under the ice and won't get stuck. However, if you weren't careful, this won't help you with exploring land that you missed earlier and scouts are so out-of-date by this point that they can be one shot.