Celadon Gym glitch?

[Oslo]

The recent nostalgia-heavy conversations on this board got me thinking about little nine-year-old Oslo and how he would go out of his way to avoid grinding his Pokemon to higher levels, which he found tremendously boring. There was a specific strategy for every Gym that let me to win with a severely under-levelled team (catch a Dugtrio just to face Lt. Surge, put Psychic on a Venomoth just to face Koga, etc.), even though many of these tactics were completely ridiculous and wastes of time. Oh, little Oslo! You nut!

I remember my strategy for Celadon Gym was always the same and it exploited what I think was a glitch in Red and Blue. I would face Erika with a weak Poison-type, generally a Bellsprout or Oddish, and would use it to grind away at her Victreebel and Vileplume. Whenever they were faced with a Poison-type, Victreebel and Vileplume would only use PoisonPowder and never anything else. It was clearly some kind of programming error. Those two Pokemon had access to other moves, but they would inevitably spam PoisonPowder against a fellow Poison-type. Obviously, the move wouldn't have an effect, which would allow me to wear away at them with Cut after Cut after Cut. (Read: earlier comment about time-wasting.) Her Tangela, which didn't know PoisonPowder, couldn't be taken out with this method, but Victreebel and Vileplume would fall to my level 15 Grass/Poisons without fail.

Now, years later, I'm trying to use Google to find mention of this glitch but I can't. Part of the reason is the fact that I'm getting many FR/LG and HG/SS hits, but I know these games don't have this error. I don't see anything on Bulbapedia. Was anyone else aware of this programming gaffe? Is it a really well-known glitch I'm somehow failing to find mention of or was it too insignificant for it to ever really enter our collective discourse about these games? A little help would be awesome.

Either way... thinking about the whole thing makes me nostalgic.

I'm also really curious to see if anyone else was lazy like little Oslo and if they had silly little tactics they used to weasel their way through the games.

[kurai]

Yes, the trainer AI in red/blue was very bad. I believe there were only actually two (perhaps three) tiers used in all battles - trainers, gym leaders/rival? In any case, they would always use a super effective or neutral move against the primary type of the opponent, but they did not consider the secondary typing. Since there were a lot of non-damaging moves, trainers would also spam things to no effect because of the "type" they had (based on the effectiveness).

I believe they mentioned this (among other glitches) during the speedrun from the last speed demos archive marathon. There is also a page with the decompiled AI from red/blue dumped somewhere, but I can't find it.

[Oslo]

In any case, they would always use a super effective or neutral move against the primary type of the opponent, but they did not consider the secondary typing. Since there were a lot of non-damaging moves, trainers would also spam things to no effect because of the "type" they had (based on the effectiveness).

Awesome, thanks. I am pleased to know that I didn't make this up. And it explains why I only ever remember this thing happening with Poison-types such as Bellsprout/Oddish and not, say, Ekans or Gastly.

[kurai]

I found the dump. So, it is a bit less simplified than I remembered. At like line 31000 of main.asm you will find a bunch of trainer AI functions - they are divided between a generic set, a few specialized trainers (juggler, cooltrainer), and each individual gym leader has a few unique actions. I haven't found where the battle selection method is, but it should be around. There was a better, more accessibly annotated version of this somewhere else, too.

I do recommend the speed run from that marathon if you are a fan of Pokemon glitches (though they aren't really used) or speedrun commentary. Or nerding out.