2 Bugs: The computer DOES 'cheat' and Screenshot woes

[Kolyana]

Okay, in my last game I was out and about searching all of the unknown areas when I chanced across an AI Scout ... we exchange pleasantries and are about to move on when a barbarian warrior appears; we're all in the jungle.

I prepare to go into a fortified stance, when the AI *SCOUT* attacks and kills the Barbarian ... no, the barbarian didn't attack him, the Scout did the impossible and attacked the barbarian ... I saw this with my own eyes.

Scouts are not allowed to attack, so I'd like to know why the computer's can.

Second bug? When I took screenshots of this entire episode they both turned out completely BLACK ... this isn't the first time my screenshots have done this ... 1 in 10 will just be BLACK, despite what is on the screen.

 

[Adam7Eight]

Second bug? When I took screenshots of this entire episode they both turned out completely BLACK ... this isn't the first time my screenshots have done this ... 1 in 10 will just be BLACK, despite what is on the screen.

Same exact thing here. I've also had instances taking a screenshot and nothing appears in the screenshot folder.

 

[Ranos]

As far as the scout attacking goes, I have had units get attacked by an enemy, barb or otherwise, and instead of the enemy coming to them, they go to the enemy. I don't know if it is a bug with them running out or just a feature. Try letting other units get attacked by regular barbs and see what happens.

Can't help you with the black screenshot.

 

[MrCynical]

I'd put a fair bet the barbarian unit was an archer, which would explain this. When the archer attacks it stay's put and the defending unit moves to the fight. Scouts cannot attack, and once again this is the kind of cheating which simply won't be in the game. It is blatant and would have to be deliberately programmed in.

I'm afraid I can't help with the screenshot problem. I've had no problem with any of mine, but I've only taken a few.

 

[Kolyana]

No, it was early game and the unit was a warrior ... it was a warrior graphic. All three of us - AI, Warrior Barbarian and my unit were all standing in JUNGLES, so we're all moving 1 square a turn.

The barbarian warrior had just moved into sight and his turn was over.

I was preparing for my move (I was going to fortify), and it was cycling through the AI and the Scout moved ONTO and remained ON the ex-warriors position.

I checked and he had lost strength and gained experience.

He did not have any jungle movement bonuses (just 2x strength), and he had used his 1 movement point ... clearly on the offensive.

This is, without a doubt, an AI scout attacking ... without a doubt; 100% sure.

I have also noticed that I can't move a ship through AI terriroty if i don't have open borders (of course!), but when I had them next to the borders and picked "scout freely", it (my ship under automation), immediately moved INTO the closed border territory.

I am 100% sure that the AI units do *NOT* respect their capabilities and restrictions.

 

[Ranos]

No, it was early game and the unit was a warrior ... it was a warrior graphic. All three of us - AI, Warrior Barbarian and my unit were all standing in JUNGLES, so we're all moving 1 square a turn.

The barbarian warrior had just moved into sight and his turn was over.

I was preparing for my move (I was going to fortify), and it was cycling through the AI and the Scout moved ONTO and remained ON the ex-warriors position.

I checked and he had lost strength and gained experience.

He did not have any jungle movement bonuses (just 2x strength), and he had used his 1 movement point ... clearly on the offensive.

This is, without a doubt, an AI scout attacking ... without a doubt; 100% sure.

Unless you have "Animate Friendly Moves" checked in the options, there is no way of being "sure" of what happened. There are other ways the scout could have been in that spot with damage and experience.

1) The Barb Warrior disappeared. I have seen this happen. I don't know if it is a bug or a feature.
2) The Barb Warrior moved into a different tile. I have seen barbs completely ignore my unit and move somewhere else. It could have possibly attacked a unit that had moved onto the other side of it.

Both of these would result in the Warrior leaving the spot. The AI Scout could then have moved onto the square and then been attacked by another unit.

 

[MrCynical]

I am doubtful for all claims of this type, because they'd have to be programmed in blatantly and deliberately. As of yet every accusation of this type has been the result of a misunderstanding of the game rules, so until I see a save game of this I will remain sceptical. I have seen no evidence of anything of this kind in my own games. I place no value on what the graphics appeared to do during the fight given how sluggish the game is and the fact both units often appear to move off their tiles for the actual fight. The only piece of information we have is that the scout moved a tile during it's turn, and I'd put a fair bet there is a sensible explanation. The barb moved and disappeared in the same interturn I take it? I'd still put more credit on a disappearing barbarian bug than the AI cheating.

As for the ship issue, a brief test in game shows this does not work. Were you by any chance using a caravel? They can enter the territory of civs with closed borders at any time.

 

[BeefontheBone]

As for the barbarian combat thing, what difficulty were you on? The AI does get certain advantages including a combat modifier against barbarians at most difficulties. The ship thing was probably a caravel.

 

[Ranos]

The level and combat modifiers don't matter. Scouts cannot attack. The other fact of the matter is that even if the scout did attack, it has strength 1 while the warrior has a strength 2 and is defending in jungle giving it strangth 3. If the scout did attack, it would lose and only deal minimal damage, if any, to the warrior.

 

[Kolyana]

It was noble, for those that are interested, and I understand COMPLETELY why some would be skeptical, but - believe me - I'm not some meth addict just out for attention: I'm an older woman, a programmer by trade, intelligent and - I believe - somewhat rationale. I don't jump to conclusions unless my own eyes see something they should be seeing.

CASE IN POINT 1:
I move - manually - 2 caravels half way around the world to complete the cirumnavigation 'challenge'. Once complete I really don't have any use for the two Caravels that are now staring at eachother, so I put them on "auto scout".

One of them immediately moved into territory belong to the Japanese that I had NO OPEN BORDERS WITH. By all accounts, such a human movement would be illegal, correct? (and I may be wrong here), but with no open border agreement, that ship cannot end it's turn in the AI sea space ... and it DID, I watched it with my own eyes. (And this is post 1.09 patch).

CASE IN POINT 2:
The instance of the attacking scout. I know this is hard to picture in your minds eye, but the sequence of events and who-moves-when actually makes it IMPOSSIBLE for the warrior to have done the attack.

It's Jungle everywhere, the three units in question are only moving 1 square a turn, the entire sequence of events takes place only over two turns.

AI: Scout appears in Jungle.
My Turn: Ends with Warrior in Jungle close to Scout.
Barbarian WARRIOR appears (it's not a Archer graphic, okay?!).
The Barbarian ihas moved adjacent to the Scout and myself.

Now the barbarian's turn is OVER ... he has moved his 1 square.

AI Moves: Scout is now in the old square where the BArabarian was, barbarian is gone, Scout is injuried and has gained experience.

The important part is the barbarian had 1 movement available to him and ended his move next to us ... so he could not attack as well; his movement was spent ... the move sequence had moved on to the AI players.

Without a doubt, 100%, this Scout attacked the warrior and won. Without a doubt.

 

[Kolyana]

Oh, and the Scout had STRENGTH TWO as buffs.

 

[oldStatesman]

It was noble, for those that are interested, and I understand COMPLETELY why some would be skeptical, but - believe me - I'm not some meth addict just out for attention: I'm an older woman, a programmer by trade, intelligent and - I believe - somewhat rationale. I don't jump to conclusions unless my own eyes see something they should be seeing.

CASE IN POINT 1:
I move - manually - 2 caravels half way around the world to complete the cirumnavigation 'challenge'. Once complete I really don't have any use for the two Caravels that are now staring at eachother, so I put them on "auto scout".

One of them immediately moved into territory belong to the Japanese that I had NO OPEN BORDERS WITH. By all accounts, such a human movement would be illegal, correct? (and I may be wrong here), but with no open border agreement, that ship cannot end it's turn in the AI sea space ... and it DID, I watched it with my own eyes. (And this is post 1.09 patch).

CASE IN POINT 2:
The instance of the attacking scout. I know this is hard to picture in your minds eye, but the sequence of events and who-moves-when actually makes it IMPOSSIBLE for the warrior to have done the attack.

It's Jungle everywhere, the three units in question are only moving 1 square a turn, the entire sequence of events takes place only over two turns.

AI: Scout appears in Jungle.
My Turn: Ends with Warrior in Jungle close to Scout.
Barbarian WARRIOR appears (it's not a Archer graphic, okay?!).
The Barbarian is adjacent to the Scout and myself, so I issue fortify orders even though my turn has ended (I'm not sure what bonus it gives done this way, but I always try it).

Now the barbarian's turn is OVER ... he has moved his 1 square.

AI Moves: Scout is now in the old square where the BArabarian was, barbarian is gone, Scout is injuried and has gained experience.

The important part is the barbarian had 1 movement available to him and ended his move next to us ... so he could not attack as well; his movement was spent ... the move sequence had moved on to the AI players.

Without a doubt, 100%, this Scout attacked the warrior and won. Without a doubt.

As far as Caravels, I believe they are allowed to cross any borders, open or not. It is one of their unit traits. Check the civlopedia. Other ships cannot.

The scout issue I have no comment on - I have seen other such wierd behavior - units disappearing, units appearing out of nowhere, etc. Something in the graphics routine is buggy.

 

[Kolyana]

As far as Caravels, I believe they are allowed to cross any borders, open or not. It is one of their unit traits. Check the civlopedia. Other ships cannot.

The scout issue I have no comment on - I have seen other such wierd behavior - units disappearing, units appearing out of nowhere, etc. Something in the graphics routine is buggy.

Thanks for the heads up on the Caravels! I was pretty sure that I had manually tried to move it through the AI's territory and been refused, only to watch the same ship under AI control immediately perform the same "illegal" move, but I may have my games mixed up

Regarding the Scout ... I *hope* it's a graphical glitch, because I don't like to think that the AI isn't subject to the same restrictions on their units as we are

 

[Ranos]

It was noble, for those that are interested, and I understand COMPLETELY why some would be skeptical, but - believe me - I'm not some meth addict just out for attention: I'm an older woman, a programmer by trade, intelligent and - I believe - somewhat rationale. I don't jump to conclusions unless my own eyes see something they should be seeing.

CASE IN POINT 1:
I move - manually - 2 caravels half way around the world to complete the cirumnavigation 'challenge'. Once complete I really don't have any use for the two Caravels that are now staring at eachother, so I put them on "auto scout".

One of them immediately moved into territory belong to the Japanese that I had NO OPEN BORDERS WITH. By all accounts, such a human movement would be illegal, correct? (and I may be wrong here), but with no open border agreement, that ship cannot end it's turn in the AI sea space ... and it DID, I watched it with my own eyes. (And this is post 1.09 patch).

Caravels, and only Caravels, are allowed to move into another civs territory even if you don't have open borders. Problem one solved.

CASE IN POINT 2:
The instance of the attacking scout. I know this is hard to picture in your minds eye, but the sequence of events and who-moves-when actually makes it IMPOSSIBLE for the warrior to have done the attack.

It's Jungle everywhere, the three units in question are only moving 1 square a turn, the entire sequence of events takes place only over two turns.

AI: Scout appears in Jungle.
My Turn: Ends with Warrior in Jungle close to Scout.
Barbarian WARRIOR appears (it's not a Archer graphic, okay?!).
The Barbarian ihas moved adjacent to the Scout and myself.

Now the barbarian's turn is OVER ... he has moved his 1 square.

AI Moves: Scout is now in the old square where the BArabarian was, barbarian is gone, Scout is injuried and has gained experience.

The important part is the barbarian had 1 movement available to him and ended his move next to us ... so he could not attack as well; his movement was spent ... the move sequence had moved on to the AI players.

Without a doubt, 100%, this Scout attacked the warrior and won. Without a doubt.

As you post more about this problem and I think more about it, it makes less and less sense.

If you moved and ended your turn, then the barbarian warrior moved in next to your unit and the AI, then the barbs turn would be over and it would be the either the AI's turn or your turn depending on how Civ 4 works in regards to player turns. You would have been able to move away from the barb before it could attack and there would have been no need to fortify.

If the Barb was already there and you moved next to the barb and the AI scout, then you could have fortified before your turn was over and the barb could have moved away.

Lets just say though that the barb moved in next to you and the AI.

I have, in many of my games, ended my turn. A barb unit moves into line of sight of one of my units. Now it is my turn. I get to the unit that had a barb near it and the barb is now gone. It is probably a bug of it's own which for some reason, deletes the barb unit.

Picture this:

The turn ends with you, the AI and the barb right next to eachother. It is now the AIs turn but because of the disappearing barb bug, the warrior is gone. The AI moves into the spot that the barb occupied and is then attacked by a different AI civ. That is how the scout could be in the spot that the warrior occupied without attacking.

Based on everything you say and the way you say the events occurred, I think you are mistaken on the whole thing. As I noted above, the order of events that you list could not happen. If you could fortify, then you could move and the barb would have been able to move after you.

Anyway, the reason everyone is so sceptical is because you seem to be the ONLY person who has seen this and there are explainations for what happened.

Oh, and you don't have to be a stupid meth addict to make a mistake or misunderstand what happened, even smart people make mistakes.

 

[Jazz_Newton]

Without a doubt, 100%, this Scout attacked the warrior and won. Without a doubt.

Ok... just to possibly provide SOME doubt... What if the warrior had Woodsman 2 - allowing two moves per turn through jungle?

 

[Kolyana]

Can barbarians have buffs and experience? (That's just an aside question, out of curiosity).

Let's assume that he *did*, the order of events was that he moved ... stopped ... and the AI attacked him, so Woodsman or not, moves left or not, it wasn't the barbarians move when the Scout took out the Warrior.

Yes, I may be incorrect in the order of events regarding where my warrior came into this, but as a 'bystander' my presence really only gave me a Line of Sight and I didn't actually participate ... on this aspect of things I'm almost certainly WRONG.

I'm going to chalk this one up to a highly suspicious occurrence, because I'm pretty damn sure ... I'd put money on it ... that the Scout attacked and beat the Warrior; the warrior had finished his move, it was the AI's turn, the Scout moved onto the Warriors position, lost strength, gained experience and the Warrior disappeared.

I'm going to try and duplicate this somehw, perhaps in the world builder and watching friendly fights ... I really do think that the Scout attacked.

 

[MrCynical]

I'm fairly sure barbarians can get experience (there really isn't as much difference between them and a civ as you might think). The crucial bit of info is the scout moving on to the barb's square, so the only explanation that fits that (and the XP gain and damage) is that the warrior made a second move out of your sight. A second barb unit that is concealed by fog of war then attacks the scout and loses (unlikely but possible). AI then moves scout onto the first warrior's square. Something else destroys the first warrior out of sight of you at some point before you encounter it again. Bear in mind that the graphics often lag well behind the actual events. On some occasions I've seen unit battles progress well into my own turn, nevermind the AI's. That's the best explanation I can offer.

While this is a rather suspicious event, it just seems such a strange bonus to give the AI, which I regard as the main problem against it being a scout attacking. I suppose there is an outside chance it was put in to give the AI a boost at exploring. It just seems it would require some pointless tampering on the part of the programmers, since I can't see how it could be accidental. The only accidental AI 'cheat' so far noticed was the AI being able to attack from within open borders instead of being teleported away, which was fixed in 1.09. This was due to the turn order, and so did in effect give the AI a 'cheat'.

I'll keep an eye out for anything like this, but I haven't seen any scouts attacking in any of mine.