Why AI never captures ally's villages?

[lipk]

I'm not familiar with the game's source code, so I don't know whether I am right or not, but for me it seems that the AI is simply banned to steal a village from an ally under whatever circumstances. It doesn't do when it is in bigger need of income than the other, it doesn't do when it is the only shelter near and far, and it doesn't do even when that would be the only way to heal its leader from poison.

Am I wrong, or this is really a hardcoded behavior? That would be quite strange, since the AI doesn't follow so strict rules by any other means.

[Boucman]

yes, that's the case... I personally think that it's the only way to have the AI not bother players... A rule like "the AI can only grab allied vilages to heal its leader" or "implement some orders through talk for the AI to grab player's village"

the case AI allied with AI is also different from the AI allied with player case...

It needs some more thinking...

[lipk]

It would be nice to be able to tell the AI that I don't mind if it takes over my villages. Robot-allies maneuvering among friendly villages (while, of course, the enemy doesn't mind grabbing the safe spots) can be pretty annoying.
There could be a willingness_to_capture_ally_villages=[double] key inside the [ai] tag (with a bit shorter name, maybe). It could default to zero so it wouldn't have any effect on the base behavior, but you could still enable it if needed.

[tr0ll]

In some scenarios you can instruct the allied AI leader to move somewhere by right-clicking. Have you tried getting them to move onto one of your villages? I only ever needed that feature once and there werent any villages to move onto so i didnt try it.

[lipk]

No, haven't tried that. But even if it worked, it would have little to do with the overall AI policy. I only came up with this thing because I think it's funny that an otherwise quite versatile and flexible AI insists on such a stupid thing. It's like a Goliath afraid of mice.