A.I. Cheat, or normal?

[enchanter100]

I bombarded a city with catapults that had an 80% defense rating.. Dropped it down to 0 and then proceeded to take the city. Only ended up having one guy in the city once I took it. Next turn the AI took the city back and immediately had another 60% defense up at the city. Is this a cheat or possible?

 

[doug2134]

Nah its happened to me so i think its just a minor glitch in the game.

 

[enchanter100]

Talk about frustrating. I had used up all my catapults in the first attack.. Shouldn't have to drop the defense down again.

 

[Mylon]

Usually when a city switches hands, the defense modifier is reset. It's an annoying bug.

 

[Psychlone]

The AI cheats like crazy in other ways, but what you describe will happen for you, too. The city's defense rating is largely based on culture. If you lose a city and recapture it, you'll get most of it's culture bubble, and thus most of it's defense rating back instantly.

That's a minor nuisance compared to the amazing transforming units. I had a Russian city defended by 2 longbowmen surrounded with horse archers and catapults. The following turn when I had bombarded it to 0% and launched my attack, the defenders had miraculously morphed into a longbowman and a pikeman (not that it saved them the city). Much more annoying than just having to bombard it again.

 

[calyth]

I had a Russian city defended by 2 longbowmen surrounded with horse archers and catapults. The following turn when I had bombarded it to 0% and launched my attack, the defenders had miraculously morphed into a longbowman and a pikeman (not that it saved them the city).

I'll assume that the Russians didn't have the pyramid.
Are you sure you didn't kill one of those longbowmen? When a catapult successfully collateral damage a stack, it will kill a unit. It could be the case that you bring enough catapults and collateral enough so that one of them could kill a longbowmen off.
It could rush build a pikeman. I've seen this done by the AI.

 

[Mr. Blonde]

What you describe is a gameplay feature - the defense is also up when you take it from the AI. I guess retaking would be too easy if you didn´t include this feature.

But in my current succession game we face an invasion with cavs from an AI - he lands 2 turns before Military tradition is researched by any AI. If you add the shipping time (afaik you can only upgrade in your cultural borders) he must have upgraded them 5-6 turns before having the tech. Now that´s what I call cheating!

 

[karadoc]

The AI cheats like crazy in other ways, but what you describe will happen for you, too.

I believe you are mistaken. In what ways do you think the AI cheats?

 

[MrCynical]

There are known issues with the AI having map knowledge and knowledge of undiscovered resources that it shouldn't. I'm not sure anything other than that has been proved yet.

I don't think this can be counted as a cheat simply because it works for the human player as well. It seems a little odd that a city can rebuild it's defenses instantly when recaptured, but takes ages otherwise, but it does work both ways.

 

[BeefontheBone]

I'm pretty sure this was an unintentional feature. Hey, maybe my thread about it from a month ago in the Bug Reports section would have received more attention if it had the words "AI" and "cheat" in the title...

Regarding the AI's map knowledge, it definitely doesn't have knowledge of unexplored terrain, but there is an oversight in the yield calculator which effectively hints to it (and to the player through the recommended locations) about yet-to-be-revealed resources, which will be fixed next patch.

@Mr Blonde: You're not quite understanding the issue there. A city which is taken has its culture, and therefore defence bonus, reduced to zero (unless any fortifications survive the capture), but one which is REtaken has it miraculously restored, even if it was previously bombarded to zero. All that is needed to fix this is for the cultural defence bonus to be set to zero in ANY city which is taken, and then allowed to recover in the same way it does now if bombardment is halted.