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 dementedwombat wrote:
I think the original XCOM comes to mind here (admittedly it was made in the 90s so it's kinda expected).

The AI wasn't so bad overall (I guess the more accurate way to say that is the aliens have so many advantages stacked on their side that the horrible ai doesn't really handicap them that much), but the path finding was the absolute worst I have ever seen in any video game ever. I can not count the number of times I have told one of my soldiers to go somewhere, only to sit dumbfounded as they either go the long way around by some ridiculously inefficient path or else just sit there staring at me because the game can't path to where I'm clicking (I'm not asking for much...I ran into that issue when the total walking distance was under 10 squares sometimes).

And don't even get me started on what happens once they get the 3D movement capable flying suits...you have to micromanage them to make sure they don't mess up getting out of THEIR OWN AIRCRAFT!

Xcom: enemy unknown has an entirely different problem. It has bugs up the *sshole. Seriously it's pretty bad how bugged it can be. It's very much playable but there's the teleport bug, the all enemies generating at first encounter bug (during UFO crashes and base assaults I think), the camera getting zoomed out or in really far esp. if you use rockets and then it goes back to normal after a while, grenades and shots supposedly connecting but don't and the attack stopping mid-animation for a while, sometimes the game stops completely during a mission and you can't skip to the next shot you make or end turn so you have to reload the game, sometimes you will clearly be in an enemy's flank but it won't register forcing you to miss a flanked shot and often getting flanked and shot dead for no reason and there's probably a couple more bugs but i'm not sure. Xcom: EU is still a great game though. It just lacks features. If anything what bothers me most is guys being trained soldiers and panicking and peeing their pants over anything in 'impossible' difficulty. I've had entire turns completely messed up and sometimes skipped completely by one dude panicking and then panicking everybody else early on in 'impossible' difficulty. Anyway xcom: EU just needs more stuff and hopefully 'Enemy Within' gives that.

Sorry for going way off topic. Skyrim is as was shown pretty terrible for friendly A.I. That video is sadly about what happened to the Lydia I had in my game of skyrim. Brain-dead friendly A.I. which won't even get out of the way when need be.

If I would have to state a problem with old rts A.I. it'd be that it was very stupid. I've played starcraft 2 mods of starcraft 1's regular campaign and the enemy A.I. is infinitely smarter and tougher. Each fight is hard to win and you get swarmed every time to where superior tactics and often stalemates till the next batch of resources are commonplace. In starcraft 1 you mostly don't have to think too hard to win in the campaign. Even if you get a decent amount of money and factories going it should be pretty easy. I've been playing starcraft: brood war again from time to time and in Kerrigan's campaign i can basically amass just hydralisks, zerglings and use fast overlords for detection and transport and in a swarm you can just roll over the enemy without strategy or anything. Basically amass grunt troops and win. If that's not boring enough the enemy barely attacks back. Funny how I used to struggle against the enemy in early rts's and now they're just chumps.

It'd be nice if enemy A.I. could learn like people or was at least tweaked. Of course enemy A.I. also has the ability to know weapon ranges to a f*cking T without telling or showing you with bits of info and making decisions in seconds that would take you longer. Of course the enemy A.I. usually has buffs like cheaper units and free resources in strategy games as well as the old I can see you so I click my radar scan exactly where you are all the way across a fog of war map or somehow target a weapon all the way across a map right over a bunch of dudes I shouldn't see. Thing is A.I. knows what you're doing and screen cheats. I suppose it makes sense since you're fighting the game against it but it's totally unfair.

I find it funny how in 'dawn of war 1' even if you were out-matched in a fight the enemy would see your force coming along and still retreat sometimes. It's like A.I. is the same under any difficulty but the computer just gets extra resources or cheaper units. I love dawn of war 1 but that's just lazy for strategy games in general to make units cheaper and more easily massed for the opponent rather than give them superior programming.

I was playing a co-op game of Conflict: Desert Storm with my dad, and one of my AI team started moonwalking through the wall. Multiple times.

That was interesting,

 Squigsquasher wrote:
I was playing a co-op game of Conflict: Desert Storm with my dad, and one of my AI team started moonwalking through the wall. Multiple times.

That was interesting,

I guess he was trying to be a Smooth Criminal.

Bad AI? Fallout, any Elder Scrolls game, every Halo game, most fps' in general.

Someone mentioned Gears of War as having bad AI and I agree, at times. After they finally made it possible for Ai controlled allies to revive you, I didn't really notice any problems.

Mass Effect sadly had some issues with team mate Ai, especially 2 when you'd have both squad members run into the center of a room with no cover and just stand there. I'm glad you both got incapacitated right before the two heavy mechs showed up.

Honorable mention: Metal Fatigue. The AI cheated, instant bases, mech contruction, vehicle contruction, unlimited resources. It was bad.

Left4Dead had some interesting AI problems...
Sometimes they would run up to you while you were down and just watch you bleed out.

The original Sims game had some pretty bad AI
*sat on couch watching TV, given command to eat food*
stand up, turn 90 degrees on spot, turn back to original facing, turn off TV by remote, turn 90 degrees, walk in straight line to fridge, turn 180 degrees, turn 90 degrees so now actually facing fridge, take out food, turn 90 degrees on spot.

Or who can forget Goldeneye for the N64, words cannot describe how stupid the AI was in that game...

Currently having a lot of bad AI experiences in CoH2.

Highlights include an SU-85 reversing towards an Elefant instead of turning on the spot like they normally do.
A second SU-85 turning on the spot to flee from said Elefant instead of reversing (I keep forgetting the reverse key exists) whilst I tried to flank the fether with the other SU.
A sniper eliminating all my infantry whilst I was pre-occupied with the Elefant, because they can't hit anything for gak and he'd go invis after every shot.

All that happened in the space of 10-15mins, and is, unfortunately, par for the course as far as my AI experiences with CoH go.

Total Annihilation.

The computer was just unwilling to build a resource system that actually allowed it to build anything other than basic units. Worse, it would just build production plants over and over again, and often so close that units would get stuck.

I remember doing a flyover of an enemy base and seeing that they had build fields of metal makers (on an all-metal map), and had grids of hovercraft production plants. Other maps, like ones with several landmasses separated by oceans, they'd build tons of ground units and have them all run to the shore where they'd stop, unable to enter the water.

Simply brain dead.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Total Annihilation.

The computer was just unwilling to build a resource system that actually allowed it to build anything other than basic units. Worse, it would just build production plants over and over again, and often so close that units would get stuck.

I remember doing a flyover of an enemy base and seeing that they had build fields of metal makers (on an all-metal map), and had grids of hovercraft production plants. Other maps, like ones with several landmasses separated by oceans, they'd build tons of ground units and have them all run to the shore where they'd stop, unable to enter the water.

Simply brain dead.

I don't remember these problems aside from the ground units on water maps.

TA AI was completely stupid. In multiplayer there was a way to limit what you could build (ie. only X amount of building Y, only A amount of building B, and so on). I wish you could have done that in skirmish as well. Would've solved a lot of problems if I could have limited the AI to 2 of any factory and 0 metal makers and no more than 4 radars and that sort of thing.

I still dont' remember it being quite as bad as you describe myself. The "groudn units on water maps" one bugged me though.

In DDO, there were a few missions with friendly AI. In one, I recall one ass-hat AI character continually drawing aggro even after you told it to stay still.

"Oh my god! L2P N00b computer!"

Halo 2. A marine came up to me along with her squad offering me a shotgun. I thought "You know, this rocket launcher is low on rounds and Id rather keep my BR55. She might get some use out of this!". So I gave it to her and not 3 minutes later she blows everyone but me up.

Another time I was fighting a flood controlled warthog. My turret gunner shot at it a couple of times and it drove straight off a cliff. How did they wipe out the forerunners again?

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Halo 2. A marine came up to me along with her squad offering me a shotgun. I thought "You know, this rocket launcher is low on rounds and Id rather keep my BR55. She might get some use out of this!". So I gave it to her and not 3 minutes later she blows everyone but me up.

Wouldn't that be terrifyingly good AI? Unless... she didn't blow up her own squad did she?

Another time I was fighting a flood controlled warthog. My turret gunner shot at it a couple of times and it drove straight off a cliff. How did they wipe out the forerunners again?

Maybe the wonderous tactic of dropping vehicles on the forerunners eventually wiped them out!

I've also had instances in Dark Crusade with big armies that could have easily wiped out that one unit that was in their way and retreat ten seconds after the fight started.

SkavenLord wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Halo 2. A marine came up to me along with her squad offering me a shotgun. I thought "You know, this rocket launcher is low on rounds and Id rather keep my BR55. She might get some use out of this!". So I gave it to her and not 3 minutes later she blows everyone but me up.

Wouldn't that be terrifyingly good AI? Unless... she didn't blow up her own squad did she?

Another time I was fighting a flood controlled warthog. My turret gunner shot at it a couple of times and it drove straight off a cliff. How did they wipe out the forerunners again?

Maybe the wonderous tactic of dropping vehicles on the forerunners eventually wiped them out!

I've also had instances in Dark Crusade with big armies that could have easily wiped out that one unit that was in their way and retreat ten seconds after the fight started.

She ran out, saw the covenant, ran behind a truck and fired a rocket. She did kill a few grunts to be fair.

The forerunners have a counter: A robot that picks up vehicles! And crushes them!

Every Total War game ever.

Factions with 1 remaining settlement declaring war on their titanic allies for no reason.

AI has superstacks clumped together in some backwater corner of their empire while their cities remain undefended, their King has already charged by himself at your main stack and died... as has his son and grandson ><

Faction from the other side of the map blockades your port for one turn because reasons.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Total Annihilation.

The computer was just unwilling to build a resource system that actually allowed it to build anything other than basic units. Worse, it would just build production plants over and over again, and often so close that units would get stuck.

I remember doing a flyover of an enemy base and seeing that they had build fields of metal makers (on an all-metal map), and had grids of hovercraft production plants. Other maps, like ones with several landmasses separated by oceans, they'd build tons of ground units and have them all run to the shore where they'd stop, unable to enter the water.

Simply brain dead.

I once read a guide explaining how the AI works and yes it's totally brain dead. It has a start up section where it builds some metal and power, but then after that, it linearly builds at random.

You mean it literally builds at random? And yeah, I can see the "build at random" being accurate. Just never saw the fields of metalmakers...

I was playing one of the metal maps. Literally fields of metal makers, didn't even have enough power to shoot any of its artillery. Even on hard mode its pitiful.

The worst one. TA: Kingdoms. You'd wipe out a fully equipped enemy because the units would trickle to you.

The ai in TA had all kinds of problems. The tick I use to pull on it was to fly over a transport and just kidnap the enemy commander.

TA:Kingdoms was horrible yeah. Good lore, bad execution.