AI Cheatingwith sneak attacks ?

Hello

Here´s the story that happened in a SG I played with Belisar and Mr. Blonde (monarch, Incas):

We were comftably in front of our enemies, on a lonely island, the AI technological backwards and this is what happened:

First of all I see 8 Cavs 4 grenadiers and 3 catapults approaching- no war is declared from napoleon yet. I begin to trade replacable parts with other AIs to get to military tradition and to upgrade our 6 knights and what´s this ?
NOBODY HAS MILITARY TRADITION; NOT EVEN NAPOLEON!!! HOW THE HELL CAN HE HAVE CAVS ???

I give him 20 gpt and 1 lux, but he declares war one turn later

I try everything, change civics to be able to draft and to cash rush I block the coast with cavs and one Pike , but we loose

I cash rush one cannon and draft one Musket in the coastal city, I attack his SOD with all our knights - AND I CANT`S EVEN SCRATCH THEM! With 11:14 strenght I was expecting to loose, but without result?

We loose the city, the Pike and the Musket (even with upgrade against gunpowder units) are gone, he has lost NOTHING

DAMN we are only 3 turns away from railroads and machine gunners

I play two turns further, and now, what a miracle, Napoleon has Military tradition !- approximately (calculating shipping time, upgrades etc. 5 turns LATER than he could have got his cav

can anybody confirm this kind of cheat ?

here is the link to the SG
here is the save - you must trade some techs - but I can´t see how Napoleon, who is utterly backward, can have cavs ??? Does someone see some kind of error in my complaints , or is it really a cheat ?

On that trade turn, did you just trade for a pre-req to Military Tradition?

I have found that the advisor and trade screens do not update after a trade that "should" open up a new tech.

Thanks for your reply- I though of something like this before (some kind of game internal delay when trading a branch up on the tech tree) - but then I found nothing about it in the manual or in the forums here.

I did trade for music theory- but in this turn I checked, and after the attack I checked, too- it was one turn after the landing that military tradition was revealed- and not only by Napoleon, but by another AI, too.
I´m pretty sure I loaded the advisor in the preturn before his sneak attack at least 3 times with checking for tech trade options- first I traded music theory with Mansa, then I traded some more techs with Roosevelt, and each time after the trade I had to reopen the foreign advisor because the window closes after a finished trade, but I never saw military tradition.

I know of no other possibility then to reopen the advisor (which must be done anyway because of the closing window) to refresh the options.

An other thing to consider is that upgrading is afaik allowed only in your cultural borders and the AI should have additonal 3-4 turns delay because of shipping.
MT is out the turn after he landed. The turn he lands noone has MT when I checked, we tech traded the turn before he landed. 3 subsequent turns, one should assume the advisor was updated the next turn (when he landed and declared war).

I've had similar experiences. The tech trade window only seems to be *really* updated by going to the next turn. Yes, a bug, but not really AI cheating (as it has nothing to do with how they acquired the techs).

I also noticed that sometimes the following strange thing happens when trading techs: if you lack techs A & B, and A is a required tech for B, and the AI has both A & B, you can trade in one turn for A, but _not_ for B. B even does not show on the tech trade screen (after obtaining A through trading). Ending the turn and checking again the tech trade screen shows now that the AI(s) have B as well.
I saw this at least several times, and I was sure that the AI had both A & B. So this is either a bug or an "adoption turn" rule. Who knows?

Quantum7 said:

I've had similar experiences. The tech trade window only seems to be *really* updated by going to the next turn. Yes, a bug, but not really AI cheating (as it has nothing to do with how they acquired the techs).

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yes this is what I was trying to say. Sorry, my previous post did not specify what i meant. I was trying to say that "I find it does not update what the AI has until the next turn"

Marvin77 said:

I also noticed that sometimes the following strange thing happens when trading techs: if you lack techs A & B, and A is a required tech for B, and the AI has both A & B, you can trade in one turn for A, but _not_ for B. B even does not show on the tech trade screen (after obtaining A through trading). Ending the turn and checking again the tech trade screen shows now that the AI(s) have B as well.
I saw this at least several times, and I was sure that the AI had both A & B. So this is either a bug or an "adoption turn" rule. Who knows?

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It's more an adoption turn rule. Surely meant to avoid the whole tech tree is tradable in just one turn. I like it and it is no real problem to wait a turn and try again.

The only problem is that the AI by then can trade the new technology again making some of your techs not tradable.

But this, exactly, seems to be the intent of it: That everyone can make his trading in his turn and not all is brokered by one as in CivIII

You cannot trade for a technology that you just got the prerequisite(s) for through trading. I don't consider this a bug, but a gameplay feature to avoid the possibility of gaining a lot of technologies through trade in just one turn. It's a limitation on technology trading.

About your losses in combat: If your units are somewhat weaker then the enemy's units, then you have a very bad chance of victory. However, if you can suicide some catapults/cannons/artillery or can inflict some collateral damage in another way, then their units might become just a little weaker then yours and you can slaughter them. I agree that the values 11 vs 14 suggest some chance of victory, but the chances are really bad. Maybe some of the units even had some upgrades that you didn't consider?

Here is a combat calculator that might help a bit with gaining a feeling for your chances in combat.

To really understand combat results, you might want to check Arathorn's article on combat. It's pretty good, but maybe a bit technical here and there.

I agree with some of the previous posters. It is not a bug, but working as intended. It makes sense that someone cannot learn more than one level of a "path" at a time.

This is also how it works between human players.

Jantis said:

I agree with some of the previous posters. It is not a bug, but working as intended. It makes sense that someone cannot learn more than one level of a "path" at a time.

This is also how it works between human players.

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It also has more to do with Turnbased Strategy: You simply cannot achieve more than you see in the beginning of your turn. As the other players don't act during your turn, they simply do not update the things they would offer to you via diplomacy.

Roland Johansen said:

You cannot trade for a technology that you just got the prerequisite(s) for through trading. I don't consider this a bug, but a gameplay feature to avoid the possibility of gaining a lot of technologies through trade in just one turn. It's a limitation on technology trading.

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What is gameplay wise the advantage of not updating the 'now available' techs after a trade has been made for a prereq? I don't see how not being able to gain alot of technologies in one trade is a gameplay advantage.

Also, some other disadvantages:
- i.e. beelining for a more advanced tech becomes slightly less interesting & interesting.
- Confusion about whether or not a certain Civ has a certain technology (like in this thread).

Finally, if it truly were a feature, they could have done it in a way that *does* show the technology, but it is red and says something like 'can't trade this tech until you've fully comprehended the consequences of the prerequisite tech (ergo, wait one turn)'. That would avoid this confusion, while still having the same 'advantage' your referring to.

Note: Reported this thread in the bugs forum, let them sort it out =)

Quantum7 said:

Finally, if it truly were a feature, they could have done it in a way that *does* show the technology, but it is red and says something like 'can't trade this tech until you've fully comprehended the consequences of the prerequisite tech (ergo, wait one turn)'. That would avoid this confusion, while still having the same 'advantage' your referring to.

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Ever traded a resource technology? Like when you get iron working traded you'll see the iron not appear the moment you trade it but the next turn. There was some specific event when I stumbled about that: It was a very long (war) turn and in the beginning I traded some technology against the tech that uncovered aluminium.
Finally, the next turn I wondered why everywhere was popping up aluminium until I figured out that some half an hour ago (last turn) I bought the technology.

The same with prerequisite technologies: You simply do not know a technology exists not knowing the prerequisite (except from the tech tree) so your diplomats cannot estimate wether an opponent has this technology or not. In the next turn when your scientists uncovered the capabilities of the new tech you will receive such information.

That is the same as in real world. One day Lise Meitner and Otto Hahn discovered Nuclear Fission. Some year later some scientists go to the U.S. president and tell him they could build some bomb based on this technology (Manhatten project) and what other things could be done with atoms in future (further research).

I know that life's much mor complex than this scenario but it explains why simply not everything can be known in one turn. There's some time that is needed to proceed. Your intelligence cannot know by the time you figure out some deal "er sir, and based on your trade we could trade this and that and the other too".

It's just the turn based perspective. A turn means: Gather information, issue commands and wait a year (or more). The game has some force limits that keep you with your feet on the ground. You also have it much more simple to trade techs. Simply go to the diplomacy screen the other turn and check it out again. In Civ3 you always had to dial up your fellows

Pvblivs:
From a realism point of view your argument makes some sense. Although it can also be argued that it's perfectly logical for Civilization A to know that Civilization B has access to some sort of technology that allows guns, even though Civilization A doesn't yet have access to Guilds yet.

From a gameplay point of view however (and that's i.m.o. primarily what we've been discussing here) it's very annoying. It's left up to the players to figure out it is working like you're describing. And even if they had done that, they could still have added a 'generic' text that says something like: "Unknown if there are any more techs available until next turn". (thereby not giving away whether or not there are more techs known)

That's how tech trading works.

I'm honestly more curious why it is that if they give me tribute I can't declare war, but if I give them tribute, they can. That's definitely a defect.

Did they wait 10 turns between asking for tribute and declaring war?

Nope. Two.

Man I tried your game, it's not comfortable at all on that continent ). Napoleon wasn't much of a challenge. He captured the west city, but I was able to retake it by 1680 AD (8 turns I think, because by the time I captured city back resistance counter was at two). This was a fun counter-attack though, involving culture-bombing a city to regain access to that horses (no horses, no upgrades to cavalry, sorry, taking those from knights won't do). And only three northern cities were involved, rest kept on with peaceful building. Though I spent away those 2000 on upgrades and rushes (yes, I switched to Universal Suffrage.
But a turn before that city was back, Tokugawa and Alexander declared war at me. I believe they just can't resist attacking civ which has so little firepower. I beleive 10-15 cavalry at hand and a rifle in every city are a must for peaceful build. They aren't really needed for counter-strike, so you just place them anywhere you want, but they scare away agressive AI.

Quantum7 said:

What is gameplay wise the advantage of not updating the 'now available' techs after a trade has been made for a prereq? I don't see how not being able to gain alot of technologies in one trade is a gameplay advantage.

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Did you ever play Civ3, where you could "turn around" techs in the way that you're missing? You could pull some pretty outrageous tech trades by trading around multiple partners. I had certainly had turns where I picked up over 10 new techs starting with a single one the AI's didn't know, and I'm sure that that's not a record. Not exactly outright broken, but it was a little over-the-top. The new system, while not perfect either realistically or gameplay-wise, still makes for more interesting trading IMO, despite its imperfections.

The most funny thing about this particular game is Napoleon and Alexander are the only ones having Military Tradition. And if you get Music on this turn and on the next turn Napoleon declaring war on you, you try to trade for Military Tradition. Alexander won't trade it, but Napoleon will :0. He refuses to talk to you though