Ai blatantly cheat on Prince difficulty?????

[russelcoight]

Well im getting a little annoyed with civs 5. Im CONSTANTLY bound by my economy. So basically im stuck with a fairly small army as a result.

Despite this it seems the Ai in all my games can completely ignore this gigantic restraint. As i wrote im playing on Prince level (lvl 4) where its supposed to be "Normal" difficulty. Unfortunately though , the Ai is cheating in a way that far surpasses any level of difficulty. What are they doing??? they all have MASSIVE -gpt , the kind of -gpt that makes America's debt look like China's bank account. y

In my current game Egypt is the dominant force in the game. He has 213942934923 wonders , over 100 happiness , the highest population and most social policies. We all have every tech available but he was first to the finish line. Now im coming second in terms of most major demographs. That is second in everything BUT military. I am dead last and by a mile. Because Egypt has a -4445 gpt economy and is obviously sitting at ZERO gold. Siam is at a cool -680 gpt and the Iroquois nation is relaxing at a nice -350 gpt. Now none of their armies are disappearing..... i am sitting at +26 gpt and the second it ever dips below -5 gpt and i have no gold in my treasury , BANG units start going left right and center.




Now What am i missing? do the AI simply cheat that hard that you MUST play aggressive early game? I admit they are not the brightest tools in the shed when it comes to army building. But really if i wanted to play a zerg game id log on to my battlenet account and play sc2.

 

[Fistalis]

Yes.. in case you didn't know its a long standing Civ AI trick to give the AI cheat mode on higher difficulties. Makes AI civs have less penalties and the player civ have more. This is nothing new. To what extent is this applied in Civ V? Idk im too lazy to break out the XML files and dive into it. Maybe someone else will.

 

[synapsis]

1) Nobody has ever beaten Prince.

2) If your opponent has 213942934923 wonders, they are likely in the lead. You need to start spamming settlers - the kind of settlers that makes America's manifest destiny look like China's lucky cat. y

3) Secondly, the whole 'bound by your economy' thing is obviously a bug. Surely your economy shouldn't be a bottleneck. That's both unrealistic and totally unfun. The only bottleneck should be your 'will to experience life to its fullest'. Obviously the programmers weren't good enough to express that.

 

[HULKsmash]

1) Nobody has ever beaten Prince.

I am pretty sure several members here have beaten Civ 5 on higher difficulty levels

 

[dannythefool]

wooosh

 

[Sock Bramson]

I am pretty sure several members here occasionally use sarcasm to make fun of people.

 

[HULKsmash]

Sorry guess my sarcasm meter was down

 

[kaltorak]

russelcoight, the AI cheats at higher levels. afaik in prince it doesn't. But still, you may not be as good as you think yet. There are lower difficult settings to learn the game. For first comers its a difficult game. Yes, not as complex as civ4, but its still not a shooter,rpg or rts. There are many aspects you need to master. Doing it worse than the AI doesn't mean it's cheating

 

[Sock Bramson]

S'ok Hulk, my knee-jerk douche-nozzle settings were on high.

edit: that was me being self-deprecating, btw; I turned the k-n d-n settings down for this post.

 

[Hangly Man]

3) Secondly, the whole 'bound by your economy' thing is obviously a bug. Surely your economy shouldn't be a bottleneck. That's both unrealistic and totally unfun. The only bottleneck should be your 'will to experience life to its fullest'. Obviously the programmers weren't good enough to express that.

I like you.

 

[KAuss]

What size is your map? If price AI and yourself has already hit the end tech, unless you were shooting for science win, you should of bust a cap in his rear side... Long time ago...

 

[russelcoight]

Yeah not one of you got the point.

YES i can probably win if i play aggressive early game. I know that , its not the point.

Secondly , I know the ai CHEATS on higher difficulties , on prince? wasnt aware it did but some cheating is fine. But can you honestly act like the ability to run up a 4000 + negative gold per turn isn't game breakingly cheating?

So if you are some leetist scum or fan boi , dont bother. You wont see the point in my post. If you are a troll and can detect my "mad" come give us all a lol.

 

[Fistalis]

Yeah not one of you got the point.

YES i can probably win if i play aggressive early game. I know that , its not the point.

Secondly , I know the ai CHEATS on higher difficulties , on prince? wasnt aware it did but some cheating is fine. But can you honestly act like the ability to run up a 4000 + negative gold per turn isn't game breakingly cheating?

So if you are some leetist scum or fan boi , dont bother. You wont see the point in my post. If you are a troll and can detect my "mad" come give us all a lol.

Naw nothing Civ V does suprises me.. thats why its uninstalled and sitting on my shelf

 

[SerialK]

No it doesn't cheat in prince according to the xml files. AI can be in the negative income, though. The amount of money displayed in the diplomacy screen is what they would offer for trade, not necessarily what they have in stock (at least it was the case in Civ4 and i'm pretty sure it still is).

Yes it's possible to win on prince without even going into any major war granted you're not surrounded by expansive civilizations. Been there done that, I won a cultural and a space race victory on King. There's plenty of posts in the strategy board that will help you out, you should read those

 

[KAuss]

Yeah not one of you got the point.

YES i can probably win if i play aggressive early game. I know that , its not the point.

Secondly , I know the ai CHEATS on higher difficulties , on prince? wasnt aware it did but some cheating is fine. But can you honestly act like the ability to run up a 4000 + negative gold per turn isn't game breakingly cheating?

So if you are some leetist scum or fan boi , dont bother. You wont see the point in my post. If you are a troll and can detect my "mad" come give us all a lol.

I get it, but I don't get it...

Because this cheat obviously does not help the AI win... So are they cheating to lose?

 

[Traks]

I get it, but I don't get it...

Because this cheat obviously does not help the AI win... So are they cheating to lose?

Not really. AI will lose in long run, but human would lose all his army in 10 turns, and AI would easily conquer player. AI does not have to disband armies with negative income, so it can attack or defend more easily. No risk of waking up and having no units.

In long run, maybe their science also goes bad. If it has some penalties, but not completely 0, then AI has big advantage there.

 

[kaltorak]

You are the only one trolling.
I have played lots of game at king and I hardly noticed any cheat. I started with a couple of prince games too, and its nothing like you say.

 

[KAuss]

Not really. AI will lose in long run, but human would lose all his army in 10 turns, and AI would easily conquer player. AI does not have to disband armies with negative income, so it can attack or defend more easily. No risk of waking up and having no units.

In long run, maybe their science also goes bad. If it has some penalties, but not completely 0, then AI has big advantage there.

Yeah but my point is that this cheat does not help them win, so how is it a cheat? They are handicapped so bad in warfare that any amount of money will do them no good... I'm not saying you have to dominate win every game, but if the player feels that the cpu is aided to victory, they can ALWAYS rectify it by crushing a few cities and gifting them away to other civs...

The cheat does not help them win, it just prevents them from losing automatically...

If the advantage they get (which I have never seen, but my computer civs never get past cannons) does not help them win, then how does it help them? That's what I don't get...

If you played someone basketball, and they cheat by double dribbling, but they can't shoot a lick... Is it still a problem?

 

[HjortRobin]

The difficulty bonuses for the AI is probably not the only way it "cheats".

Check out this presentation by Soren Johnson where he talks about how there are different ways the AI "cheats" in Civ 4:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJcuQQ1eWWI&t=25m10s

Although this is Civ 4 and not 5, it's likely that the AI "cheats" in the same way in Civ 5, so even if you're playing on Prince, the rules aren't exactly the same for you as for an AI. Personally, I feel that's fine and makes it a better game.

 

[Fistalis]

The difficulty bonuses for the AI is probably not the only way it "cheats".

Check out this presentation by Soren Johnson where he talks about how there are different ways the AI "cheats" in Civ 4:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJcuQQ1eWWI&t=25m10s

Although this is Civ 4 and not 5, it's likely that the AI "cheats" in the same way in Civ 5, so even if you're playing on Prince, the rules aren't exactly the same for you as for an AI. Personally, I feel that's fine and makes it a better game.

Ya all those cheats were in the XML files of 4 though so unless they hardcoded some cheats you should be able to see what cheats it does get simply by looking at the XMLs.