The complete cheat guide

A pretty ambitious subject title, and it says more about what I want this post to be after input, than what it already is. But I think its time we have a complete list of AI cheats, so I start one and will edit it as necessary. I would really like some input from someone who knows the inside of the game (someone from Firaxis) that could be a final judge.

To shorten the post, the comments comes in post #2...


:grad: Knowledge cheats
Proven cheats
Map The AI knows the map even before exploring. This includes the position of your cities.

Unit position The AI knows the position of all units, including barbarians. By knowing this, it also knows the number of units and where there are undefended cities.

Resources The AI is knows where resources will pop up in the future and tries to settle in those areas.


Production cheats
I know no proven production related cheats, although the AI gets cheaper production on higher difficulty levels.

Free of charge
Settlers The AI does not get instant production of settlers when nearby cities are razed.

Military unit production The AI does not cheat by getting extra defensive units for free after having taken a city.

Production without resources The AI needs resources to produce units as expected by the rules.


:love2: Diplomacy cheats
Suspected cheats
Reputation The AI is suspected of taking less reputation hits from breaking treaties than the human player.

Free of charge
Border violation You can move around AI territory exactly as many turns before being forced to leave, as the AI can before you canforce it to leave.

Trade After patch 1.21 the AI-AI trade was exposed in the editor as part of the difficulty settings. On regent and above the AI gives other AI cives better deals, but this is part of the difficulty level you choose. Note that this only means that one AI may sell a tech etc. to a poor AI for a bit less than the calculated price, and the seller will thus loose some money. Also note that the human player is also free to sell to poor AI for whatever cost below calculated, so I don't consider this a cheat.


Movement cheats
No cheats here either, I have even moved the one suspected to free of charge (see next post for why).

Free of charge
Unsinkable galleys AI galleys do not end a turn where it may sink, and therefor cannot cheat in sinkable waters either.


:soldier: Combat cheats
The AI doesn't cheat in combat. Simple as that. There have been some accusations, but those has been proven to be false:

Free of charge
Skewed results The AI does not win more battles than expected by the combat odds.

Vulnerable elite units Elite units are not[/] more vulnerable than veteran units

Here are the comments:

Knowledge cheats
Map I still think some of the map information is hidden to it as the AI seems to come faster with settlers after having bought my map.

Resources All resources are laid out (but invisible) when the map is created, so knowing where resources will pop up is possible. I have tested by making a simple map, and found that the AI indeed went for future resources spots when everything else was similar.

Wonder productionSome players have told that the AI always manages to finish a wonder just before the human player. This may be explained by the AI knowing your wonder building progress, and maximizing production as necessary to beat you. I've not had any reports to support this though, so unless I get any new reports, I'll conclude that there's no AI wonder production cheats.

Production cheats
Settlers Zouave has accused the AI of instant settler production when a city is razed. Personally I have seen surplus AI settlers late in the game when I attack it, so I think Zouave’s experience can be explained without any AI cheat. Many other players have also reported about surplus AI settlers, so this is moved to free of charge.

Military unit production There are examples where the AI takes a city with one unit, and when the player attacks the following turn, there are more than one defender there. This is not a cheat, but a result of the order of the game’s phases: 1) Human player moves. 2) AI players move. 3) Human produce units. 4) AI produce units. The effect of this is that the AI can move and take your city and then produce extra units (by hurrying production) before you move.

Production without resources There have been reports of AI producing units withouth necessary resources, but this has turned out to be because any production that started when the AI had access to the resource can be finished, even 10 turns after the resource disappears. The same holds for the human player.

Diplomacy cheats
Border violation I have done some extensive testing (see this thread), which has proven that the AI follows the same rules as the human player: The number of turns a unit can stay inside enemy borders is dependant of number of units, distance to enemy city and whether the units are military or not, but the human player gets to force the AI to leave just as fast as the AI forces the human to leave if the above factors are identical.

Reputation This one is hard to check, but it is clear that the AI suffers reputation hits. The governors regularly tell about AI civs that should not be trusted becasue they have betrayed other civs, which shows that the AI civs suffer reputation hits. If this is as severe as the human player’s reputation hits is hard to tell. It seems that it is easier for the AI than the human to get new RoP deals after a RoP violation though.

Movement cheats
Unsinkable galleys Players have reported AI galleys that must have crossed oceans where they should have sunk. However, Soren Johnson of Firaxis has written and told that an AI galley will never end a turn where it could sink, so there's two explanations:
1) The galley was automatically transported out of enemy territory and ended up around the world. This can also happen to a human player's galley. An example can be found in this thread.
2) The AI had the great lighthouse.

There is statement by Firaxis telling that an AI galley will never move so that it can sink. My tests show this as well, so there is clearly no cheat here.


Combat cheats
Skewed results There has been several tests that prove that after a large number of battles, the outcomes are as they should be. Any rumours about weak AI units often beating your stronger units is superstition. Granted, I have seen an Impi in open ground beat my veteran tank, but this does not happen more often than it should according to the rules. The AI normally is the weak part in battles between unbalanced units, so it is as expected that the AI wins with a weak unit now and then.
The CIV3 combat system is made so that even the weakest unit has a chance to beat the strongest. This is no cheat as it works equally for the AI and the humna player. If you don’t like it, change it in the editor.

Vulnerable elite units Some players insists that elite units regularly die faster than veteran units of the same type. If this was true it could be proved by saving a game before an attack with an elite unit, reload and then attack with a veteran unit. (This needs to be an attack against a unit that’s not slower than the attackers so that retreat is no issue.) If one such savegame existed where the veteran would survive while the elite died, this accusation would be proved. But since no such savegame exists, I conclude that there is no such cheat.

Great idea Nice One !

However, watch out for the Dark Black Knight of Flooding Criticism, a.k.a Zouave

I will add some comments :

Maps : maybe the AI knows all the map, but by selling your own, you "allow" it to use that knowledge more efficiently.

Reutation : we need to find out if the reputation hits are effective for the AI, i.e. if other civs are more reluctant to trade with it...

Thanks TheNiceOne.

A request to posters who want to dispute what TheNiceOne claims:

Please post a saved game if possible.

However, saved games are not always conclusive. For example, "the AI knew that oil was going to appear there." How do you prove or disprove that? (The AI loves to build on crappy terrain.) Also, if a spearman kills a tank, we would have to show that it happens more often then 25 times out of 1000 (for regular units where the spearman is fortified).

Yes, I expect Zouave to hit hard...

But I hope and expect Zoauve and everyone else to stay on topic. This thread is about cheats, not stupid design decisions or bugs. By cheats I mean parts of the game where the AI plays by different rules than the human player.

I think you do well by pointing out your definition of "Cheating"... and I wish Firaxis would say, "Ok, guys, here it is". After all, I think most people are mad because they did not KNEW things worked different for the AI.
For my part, I totally and completely accept that the AI has different rules (it's hard to program an AI), I just don't like not knowing these rules !

the manual says where to expect certain resources. both the human player and the AI have this information. the AI will try to build on terrain that has odds of containing certain resources.

wohmongarinf00l, that may be the case, but some players maintain that say in a large area of tundra, the AI settles exactly where the oil will later pop up, and not 5 squares away.

This is difficult to prove either way. An indication (but not really proof) of a cheat would be a savegame (or screendump) just after settling where the AI has not chosen the seemingly best spot, and another savegame some hundred years later when the city area contains a resource while the seemingly better spot didn't have any.

A counter-indication (but still not a proof) would be if resources pops up outside AI cities when the AI had the chance to settle where the resource pops up, but didn't.

The best would of course be a word from Firaxis.

I am not so sure with this map cheat.

On one hand I have recognized with 1.21 that even if I have some unsettled areas in my zone AI doesn't rush in. This starts when I start to trade maps or if other nations have explored my territory. One explanation is that AI has still other places to settle and this invasion is not triggered by trading map but by running out of space. Difficult to say.

However, later in the game when you abandon a city leaving an empty space AI starts to move to it with the typical settler/defense unit combination. How can they know? This looks very much like cheating.

I know for sure that the AI always knows the size of my map before they make a trade. For example, if I trade my map with them and stop exploring after that, they know that there isn't any new in my map and refuse to trade. On the other hand, the human player has no idea about the AI map until after they trade the map. Basically, AI can sell us a tiny map with one city for a mountain of golds and we fall for it.

AI Cheat> AI able to rush troops on your turn when you declare war (if they are in despotism). This has happen to me only once when I have overwhelming forces in the ancient age. But I have no doubt it happen, since I reload. Look at all the city sizes. Declare war. And before I could do anything else, all non-size one city drop by one pop and when I attack that very same turn, they have an additioanl spearman (I investigate city that same turn before declaring, so I know exactly how many troops they have in that city).

AI knowing resources - this can be easily proven by the fact that AI values a size one tundra city much more then a size 4 city on grassland (i.e. they would give me THREE size 4 grassland cities than to give me that size one tundra city, before the resource is discovered). This has always turn out to be that there were some recources there.

Settlers The AI is suspected of instant production of settlers when nearby cities are razed. I don't believe this is the case though.

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From my experience, the AI always has a few saved up in it's cities earlier on. One game I was inspecting a few cities for an early war and found they had about 2 or 3 settlers in about 2 or 3 cities, meaning about 8 settlers between those 3 cities. Therefore, it may seem like they get an instant one, but really, they've got them stock piled.

I am quite sure the AI knows your government transition state. This has happened more than once: I was at war and in anarchy but had plenty of units to fight the swine. When it got to 2 turns left, I tried to sue for peace so I could go to Dem instead of Commie. No dice.

On the LAST anarchy turn, the AI player opened negotiations. He KNEW production would return no matter what gov I selected.

Originally posted by Crow T Robot

On the LAST anarchy turn, the AI player opened negotiations. He KNEW production would return no matter what gov I selected.

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That could be coincidence. Not too surprising considering how long wars may last, and the period of anarchy.

Btw, we the humans can see if the computer is in anarchy by looking at the military advisor screen. So there's no advantage there for the AI.

To demonstrate this as an AI cheat, you would need to test with more than one situation that could have easily been coincidence.

If the AI has seen the map, it does in fact know if a future resource will be there or not. For example, before it explores anything, it does not know where oil is, but as he explores around and buys maps, when that part of the map is revealed to him, he knows the oil is there before getting the techs. This is why maps are so valuable for the AI.

Qitai explained pretty much the same results I have seen. When doing the 0-turn war trick, they will never give up a city that has a resource (or future resource), in it's borders (or future borders when and if they get the culture for it to expand once).

They do know exactly how many tiles that is on your map, that they haven't uncovered yet, as they seem to value the map in the same proportion to tiles unknown to them. It doesn't matter if the tiles are worthless ocean tiles, or tiles that reveal valuable resources, it is purely valued on # of tiles. Another good reason to have ships exploring the oceans (more valuable map), even if you don't find any islands.

But I am curious as to how they can find all the islands so fast.

Only anecdotal evidence, but in one game the French sent a number of settlers thru' my territory an founded a couple of cities in coastal areas of desert and mountain, despite there being an unsettled coastal area of grassland and hills closer to where the settlers came from. Both cities eventually turned out to be next to Salpeter, whereas the grassland and hills area turned out to contain no SRs. Also had numberous instances when that idiotic AI desert city on my coast turns out to have a source of Oil.

The value of the map is always proportional to the number of undiscovered tile to the buyer. This is independent of whether it is AI to AI, AI to human or human to AI. Human just do not know the exact value without testing.

But on the other hand, humans gets a "mind reading" advisor who knows exactly how much AI is willing to pay for anything(tech, luxury or whatever). Problem is, he never tells you the right amount directly. You need to test the amount and ask him if that deal is okay. Hmm........

Also, mentioned already, we do know when AI's anarchy transition state as well. No cheats there.

If you lighten the color of the fog of war PCX you can see all land but not what kind it is, I assume the AI can see this, when you trade maps they can see what type it is and possibly the resources.

Originally posted by Qitai
Also, mentioned already, we do know when AI's anarchy transition state as well. No cheats there.

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I thought about it some more and realized something else about the situation of anarchy and peace negotiations as it was described.

The human player goes first in the turn. So that means when the human player leaves anarchy, the AI will then know for the rest of the turn that human player has left anarchy and is now back in a productive government.

It is very likely that the AI is programmed to keep fighting if it knows that the player is in anarchy, that is it has a modifier to its formula on whether or not it should go to the peace table. How often do we do the same, especially if it's a war that's not going the way we like, and the only thing keeping us in it is knowing that the opponent isn't producing any additional military?

Those factors will create a coincidental effect that can make it very likely that AI will sue for peace the turn the player leaves anarchy. And not a case that the AI is trying to force a player into a particular government type through some sort of cheating.