The Civ4 AI does "cheat"

There was a previous thread asking this, but I couldn't find it again (I hate Google forum searching).

I know it was stated that AI players don't know where resources are before they appear, and while that may be true, I played a game yesterday on noble that proved the computer knew where a particular unit of mine was (and shouldn't have known). Maybe this is old news by now, but I wanted to state it for the record .

Again, I was playing on noble difficulty. I had a fish resource outside of my city, and this area was far away from any other civ. I had only my own state religion in the city, and the opponent (Incans) did not share the same state religion as me. This was also before either of us had reached Communism/spies.

I was at war with the Incans, and every time I rebuilt the fish net, the Incans would send their destroyers over to pillage it (from the opposite side of my territory). When I built a new workboat and moved it 1 tile outside of my city, there came the Incan destroyers into my waters to destroy it... when I moved the boat back into the city, the destroyers return to their waters. As you can probably tell, I had no other naval vessels or sea resources being harvested at this time, so I guess the AI didn't have anything better to do with their ships. It's odd to see them move around in little circles like Civ3 when I had nothing for them to attack.

This is only a minor issue in my opinion. Until now, the AI has been performing very well.

Do you know the AI was cheating? I mean, it could have set those destroyers up as acontainment force to prevent your navy from entering their territory, and whenever they saw the fishing boat go out they's normally attack it.

Not if the destroyer couldnt see the work boat due to fog of war.

Thats like "Wallhacking" with first person shooters, and also means the AI cant be ambushed by your forces if they always know where it is, wich takes away an interesting tactical aspect.

This particular workboat and city was two-three screens away from Incan territory, or any of their ships (it took my cavalry unit 4 turns to travel the same coast by road). It was a single continent map, and my city was way down in the far corner near ice.

Oh, I almost forgot-- I did have one destroyer I finally built and fortified in the same city, just for defense. The fish tile was adjacent to the city, and I should have been able to see any loitering submarines on my little scout loops.

This is totally Civ3 badness. I remember being invaded by enormous SoD during the modern ages. It would only head for my weakest city. When it got close I would move all my infantry to that city via railroads, hence it would turn away to move to a different city. All the while I bombed the SoD into oblivion. The AI cheating cost that Civ the game...

Yeah, I also exploited that design issue in Civ3 when it suited me. You could perpetually tie-up an invading army by shuffling your defensive units around... it would just head for the undefended city/settler. Kind of similar to the Civ3 "shifting wall of units" to perpetually delay a rival Civ's settler until you grabbed the square it wanted.

Egyptians built Taj Mahal 3 turns before me so
i loaded back and bought it before them. Then
they built Kremlin at the same turn. I think
that's cheating too but since loading is
cheating too I better not say anything

You can check on your F4 screen to see what resources the other nations have, and so this AI knew when you were re-obtaining your fish resource in exactly the same way you could have known. This is not cheating, but rather the AI being smart and sneaky! You should applaud the AI for its resourcefulness!

resourcefulness = cheating didnt cha know? lol. It is frustrating when an AI out foxes you...lol. Like this AI encourages me to go to war with another AI, then when I do this makes peace with my enemy, becomes friendly in 1 - 2 turns and then declares war on me for being at war with the civilization "they" asked me to attack. I love it - I used to do that in Civ 3 alot...don't like it much when it's done to me. Darn defense treaties any ways.

Well its not cheating if the AI has access to the same info as you. Of course the AI has the advantage in that it will check everything that can be checked no matter how mundane to defeat you. It is cheating if you know where everything on the map is, behind the FoW.

I still think Humans have the advantage, because we are adaptive, and will eventually beat the AI no matter what, at least on Noble. I really don't like handicapping myself.

Asterothe said:

Egyptians built Taj Mahal 3 turns before me so
i loaded back and bought it before them. Then
they built Kremlin at the same turn. I think
that's cheating too but since loading is
cheating too I better not say anything

Click to expand...

Maybe they had a great engineer and were able to rush any wonder they wanted in one turn.

Except you guys are missing one thing. If you read the OP, he said the destroyers would start coming as soon as he moved a workboat out of his city. It's true they may know when you have a fish resource (though I would find it a little hard to believe the AI would see that you have one and immediately know where it is and prioritize attacking it), but how could he know that a workboat has been moved out of the city?

How about the sub that they had parked there?

I did have one destroyer I finally built and fortified in the same city, just for defense. The fish tile was adjacent to the city, and I should have been able to see any loitering submarines on my little scout loops.

Click to expand...

What submarine now?

Hehe, first post... long time lurker, since Civ2 and I do have them all Civ1 included

Well, anyway... It’s a pity what you (ported) have described (yes, the weak tactical AI of civ 3 pops to mind), but I also was suspicious of that myself.

I bet some of you have already noticed this...

With city production advice on (the advice on what you should build next), when the map starts and you build your first city, the AI will advice a warrior if you are alone in a continent/Island, if not, it advices a scout... so, without exploring, you know right away if you are alone or not

It can be said in this case, that with its "help", the AI gave itself away

Not all is bad regarding the "new" AI...

1) At least they spent some time making it pretend it was not "cheating"... The AI its not a "blunt" cheater

2) So far we have no more suicide AI settlers with an obsession for that little spot on your backyard

... Saying that, and just to make myself clear, I have no doubt this is the best incarnation of SidMCiv, it just needs a few “tuicks” here and there, wish btw I'm sure we will get them as always

As for the AI, with a game of this complexity... maybe with CIV7

Did the city have a religion that gave the AI line of sight with it?

I've seen the AI move a settler/archer pair into my territory after getting open borders when there was not a single tile not covered by my borders, that pretty much proved to me the AI is playing in the dark.

A lot of you guys aren't reading his post. He had no religion but his own, no subs there, no spies. So stop asking him that.

ported, it seems this is a case of AI cheating, and it's something they need to work on, but it's still a big improvement on the past games.

Maybe they installed a spy?

Maybe they had their religion installed in your city? "Religious vision" is a benefit from religion.

I regret to add my "AI Cheating" experience...

Monitoring the victory conditions, Ghandi & I in 1984 are racing...neither of us have Fusion, but we're going to get it on the same turn. (The SS Thrusters require Fusion) Ghandi has ALL the SS components except the Thrusters, which he can't START until next turn, right?

Wrong. He finished Fusion the same turn as I, and completed the SS Thrusters FOR THE WIN in 1985. I was nonplussed.

Even if he was able to "cash rush" the SS Thruster Project (emphasize Project) he didn't have the tech until the beginning of the turn, and shouldn't have gotten the Win until the NEXT turn... :angry:

Mujadaddy said:

I regret to add my "AI Cheating" experience...

Monitoring the victory conditions, Ghandi & I in 1984 are racing...neither of us have Fusion, but we're going to get it on the same turn. (The SS Thrusters require Fusion) Ghandi has ALL the SS components except the Thrusters, which he can't START until next turn, right?

Wrong. He finished Fusion the same turn as I, and completed the SS Thrusters FOR THE WIN in 1985. I was nonplussed.

Even if he was able to "cash rush" the SS Thruster Project (emphasize Project) he didn't have the tech until the beginning of the turn, and shouldn't have gotten the Win until the NEXT turn... :angry:

Click to expand...

I seem to recall it not letting me cash rush the SS parts. Though you can throw great engineers at them all you like.

So far the most blatant cheating I've seen the AI do involved a small war I started. I had cavalry out keeping my borders safe(er). Moved one in to intercept some units he has moving across my borders. From no less than 5 tiles away, through hills and forest, he attacks my cavalry with spearmen (which somehow win, I guess it's the mounted bonus, but that's still pretty lame since cavalry use rifles and cost a heck of a lot more).