AI cheating to beat me on same turn to wonder

Its possible they have a spy in your city so know what turn its going to be finished. Thus they commit resources to finishing it the turn before you.

To me, wonders just aren't worth trying to build, especially at higher difficulty levels. I guess the balance is that the AI will always build wonders, and if you want them, you can take the cities that have them. But then you are a warmonger...

rschissler said:

To me, wonders just aren't worth trying to build, especially at higher difficulty levels. I guess the balance is that the AI will always build wonders, and if you want them, you can take the cities that have them. But then you are a warmonger...

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Generally speaking I think wonders are much better built than captured. Not only do most of them give a 1 time benefit to the builder (such as a free GP/social policy/tech etc) but you get the benefit of them for longer - plus you get the accumulated GP points for longer. The hammer cost of building them is worth it compared to the unhappiness/gold cost of capturing a city and either puppeting it (thus losing the ability to control production/troop recruitment and population management including specialists so the wonder might not be really even useful!) or annexing it with the associated unhappiness and cost of building a courthouse.

IslandBlue said:

You can put in the 'old' character if you like, i.e. to attempt to make fun of my post. However anyone who's accomplished anything of difficulty will agree with me. I refrained from saying that getting wonders on Emperor for me is kind of easy, only because I know that I've gotten better as a result of the advice on these forums. At one time it probably was hard. But you don't just quit and then complain about a 'cheating AI.' I suggest less sarcastic icons as replies and a little more thought. I've beaten deity, recently, have you?

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It was a joke actually. I agree with you. And yes i have beaten deity.

joncnunn said:

Also losing out on a wonder race by one turn and then starting another wonder who's tech you've had for a while is a great way to chain-lose a wonder race.

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Amen to that.

joncnunn said:

Also losing out on a wonder race by one turn and then starting another wonder who's tech you've had for a while is a great way to chain-lose a wonder race.

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LOL, I keep trying to break myself of this bad habit! Mostly I only get wonders when I burn a GE. But sometimes there are several available and I can’t resist trying (again, and again). Other lessons I have learned more quickly...

Artifex1 said:

I am now playing on emperor and it happens so much i quit every game last 6-7 games I get beat same turn almost every time it is insane...

It has to be a cheat it happens like literally 80-90 percent with me...it happens ALL THE TIME...same turn..

crazy crazy crazy....

Has to be a cheat no way is it legit..am i right?

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I recently experimented with reloading, shaving a turn each time the further I went back in the wonder build queue. I lost the wonder on the last turn three times! I can only conclude that the AIs are programmed to use spys and tune their own behavior to be no more competitive than the minimum required. It’s the sort of micromanagement an AI would be good at. But it leads to very frustrating experience for players. Losing a wonder is much more painful, and memorable, than losing a wonder by 4-6 turns. It is bad game design because it’s more spiteful than competitive.

Is bad game design or a good job on coding the AI? After all if the AI knows that it can get someone rage quit by building a wounder one turn early then the player and get a quick win, then why shouldn't pursue it and employ the tactic until either the player stops rage quitting or finds a way to beat there build to the wounder?

Personally I find the AI in this game quite amazing, never have I seen one developed counter military tactics as fast as I did for this one with the exception of the one in C&C Generals. Also I rather have a AI that have a high learning curve that challenges me as oppose to AI that never learns and employs the same tactics over and over again.

Inspiring players to rage quit is widely regarded as bad game design. I understand the term of art is “Negative Play Experience”.

Yet how many players actually quite due to being by beat in Wounder Race by the AI. I think it would be a relatively short percentage, so once again I can't fault the AI for exploiting a few players choices.

Yes, the number of people who actually quit Civ5 over this particular issues is probably small. The frustrations add up though. I would be more forgiving if I believed that the developers quite deliberately coded this AI behavior.

AIs and other players sometimes have more priority over wonders when they're built on the same turn.

From using an a mod for editing civ (can look at any city), I determined that => sometimes <= the civ doesn't exactly cheat but this is what happens:

<< Some civ is building a wonder (by production or with a GP engineer) but is at war so it switches from making the wonder to making units. This civ somehow knows that you are also building the wonder and switches back so that it finishes just before you, as needed >>

How it a priori knows when to switch is what I have an issue with, because I have turned off spying and it still knows exactly when to switch back and finish. Even changing your production will result in the civ making changes so that it finishes before you (no idea how it does that, though typically when I see this happen it is because of a GP engineer and the wonder is just sitting, ready to be built).

Techincally, this is a great strategy, to pop out a wonder just before the player does, but it seems like cheating because of how the ai civ knows this or it is a bug (as in the civ did finish the wonder but you never received notification so the wonder is in some 'wierd state' that gets forced to completion when you are about to complete the wonder).

Whatever the reason, it is very annoying.

This is the ingame editor I used to test and check this out, I didn't do extensive testing but checked whenever it happend in a game I was playing (whenever a ai civ beat me by 1 turn to a wonder).

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=436912

Thanks Brok. I have a hard time chalking this up to &#8220;strategy&#8221; when it now seems even more like the AI cheating and deliberately frustrating the player to the maximum amount possible. It also seems less like an accident on the part of the developers!

Personally I find the AI in the game very intuitive. I personally started playing Civ 5 and didn't play any of the other titles. That stated I have played a lot of RTS games, and I would like to believe that I have someone what descent military tactics. Yet my first few games where on my sisters boyfriend game. He is more of diplomatic player, and found the AI rather stupid when it come to military tactics playing on his game. Now on mine I play on Marathon, and the Barbarians are always trying to flank me when I attack a encampment. The AI knows that my first unit is key to my victory of the game and if it takes out in the Ancient Age it has a very decisive advantage over me, and I find implying more advance tactics to do so on my game as oppose to sister boyfriend game.

Is it frustrating yes, yet I like a AI that is always improving itself, forcing me to improve my self.

its easy to build wonders on emperor, immortal and diety you have to be selective, all of the early game wonders on diety are pretty much out of the question, well the good ones atleast

Please don&#8217;t misunderstand me, I think the AI (and the game in general) gets much more right than wrong. The first time you lose a wonder by one turn its almost funny. Geeze, just one turn? What are the odds? Cute. But then, like OP, you start to notice a pattern... It&#8217;s not so funny any more...

Ever time I attack a encampment they flank me half the time they kill my unit because they don't move out of the fog until my unit is in the red. Ever game I lose at lest one my highly promoted units. Half of my games I lose my starting unit, and ever time I come up with a a solid attack it has a counter plan for me in my next game.

Now I don't rage quit because I get mad, I simply quit because it usually kills a vital unit before I even get out of Ancient Age which cripples me immensely.

So I can understand your anger. Personally I like being put into frustrating situations and coming out on top yet I rather odd and know most people actually do not enjoy it.

BrokTheFanatic said:

From using an a mod for editing civ (can look at any city), I determined that => sometimes <= the civ doesn't exactly cheat but this is what happens:

<< Some civ is building a wonder (by production or with a GP engineer) but is at war so it switches from making the wonder to making units. This civ somehow knows that you are also building the wonder and switches back so that it finishes just before you, as needed >>

How it a priori knows when to switch is what I have an issue with, because I have turned off spying and it still knows exactly when to switch back and finish. Even changing your production will result in the civ making changes so that it finishes before you (no idea how it does that, though typically when I see this happen it is because of a GP engineer and the wonder is just sitting, ready to be built).

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That's interesting, I didn't know this. Very annoying that the AI has this sort of knowledge, does give a very annoying gaming experience for the player.

The AI has no memory turn-to-turn, let alone game-to-game. That would be something though. I am pretty sure I have lost my starting unit every single game, but sometimes not until he has been upgraded to Mechanized Infantry. Half the time the warrior never survives the upgrade to swordsman. You will learn more from reloading than quitting and starting a new game. I also find challenging games to be the more enjoyable, and am playing a skill level that objectively I am not quite up for. I have adjusted my play to avoid the known traps, so, for example, I almost never try to hard build wonders. I don&#8217;t really get angry. But I think it is fair to call out the developers on their poor design choices. Losing wonders by exactly one turn happens at all play levels, and it&#8217;s just mean trick to play.