Ai blatantly cheat on Prince difficulty?????

[Horizons]

Yeah pretty much; I'm not a 'hardcore gamer' like all the other spotty-faced geeks around here ... I play Civ to relax and have fun (sorry about that, all you hardcore little gaming geeky boys) ... and at Prince difficulty you don't have enough money to play the game in a 'fun' way ... it's all down to learning the right 'tactics' ... i.e. the whole experience becomes just as shallow, predictable, 'hardcore' and just downright thoroughly 'unfun' EXACTLY like Civ 4, which I stopped playing for these reasons ....

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Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Charky]

I have just played a game on prince, marathon and huge world (with 6 players), and I think I can see where he is coming from.

I expanded as fast as possible, gobbled up every available luxury, and built as many happiness structures as I could, and I saw one ai civ continually grow cities, and settle new ones, and produce a massive army, with almost no trading posts. HE was pulling in over 200 gold a turn.

At prince the playing field should be level, but I am sure there are extra bonuses against unhappiness. and cash boosts (or free units).

By turn 207, Askia had 18 cities to my 9 (and about double my population). Thats with both of us having about 7 luxuries. I pretty much researched straight toward getting collesseums, so I reckon I had a starter on some added happiness there.

Either way, I dont see that the happiness and cash add up to what I can see on the map

 

[gunter]

Nope, you can have money enough of each of your 8/9 cities builds markets, banks etc

 

[gunter]

I usually play on small maps with 6 civs, this way the AI , usually, can't have 30 or 40 cities like it seems to frequently happen on bigger maps

 

[SomethingWitty]

HE was pulling in over 200 gold a turn.

By turn 207, Askia

Ah, Songhai. UA and UB offer huge benefits to gold and culture. He was probably outplaying you in his social policies and gold producing buildings.

I've had no problems keeping a good economy on Prince.

 

[Charky]

Ah, Songhai. UA and UB offer huge benefits to gold and culture. He was probably outplaying you in his social policies and gold producing buildings.

I've had no problems keeping a good economy on Prince.

My economy was fine, thanks. I had a decent army, and was expanding as much as my happiness would allow

At that level, only a market place is available. Adding 25% to the potetial gold he could get leaves him well short of that sort of the amount he is accumulating. Factor in the huge army, and the amount of buildings he must have to keep his population under control...

Is there any way to see how unhappy an ai is?

 

[Earthling]

And also you're probably not a very good player. Prince? C'mon.

People making comments like this should be ashamed of themselves, because you didn't read the thread and you don't know what you're talking about. Somewhere along the way one of you invented the strawman argument that the OP wasn't good at the game and that's not at all what discussion should be about here.

If the OP is right, as it seems he is, that the AI is permitted to go into negative gpt without penalties, that's the problem here, and the OP is correct to suggest it should be fixed. The AI shouldn't be able to go into hundreds of negative gpt with no consequences, especially when the human clearly cannot.

 

[gunter]

The AI also can make research agreements with f.i 141 Gold. Human must reach at least 250

Maybe even less, who know ?

 

[Horizons]

Seems like the people who visit Civfanatics use Civ as a measure of how successful somebody is in life ... as if being a 'good' civ player is equivalent to having a good career, happy family, or something ...

 

[ainwood]

The AI also can make research agreements with f.i 141 Gold. Human must reach at least 250

Maybe even less, who know ?

As far as I know, they can't (although note that costs scale). Got a save to show that?

 

[Fetus4188]

I believe RAs increase by 50 gold/age.

 

[Ambivalent_]

Tons of examples and some of you still in denial.

Stop being such blind fanboys with your arrogant "lower-your-difficulty-level" tips, 'couse that's not the case here, it's the pure matter of does AI cheats or not.

Yes, AI cheats on Prince.

 

[gunter]

Do you wanna know why the units killed log feature has been removed ?

You could have done math that way and realize that the AI uses a dynamic cheat method that of course, and by definition I would say, it triggers itself under certain circumstances, not always of course.

 

[gunter]

As far as I know, they can't (although note that costs scale). Got a save to show that?

I have to check but it is easy to monitor.

Just keep, each turn , on watching the diplomacy screen with all your opponents real time gold and gold per turn.

If you see an opponent doing research agreements having less then 200 golds something is definitely weird.( Too much gap IMO for last minute successfully trade agreements ) .

Of course it doesn't always happens but take care and you could spot it if they are powerful more or less like you.

If the AI is definitely weaker it doesn't happen, same speech if the AI is definitely more powerful than you. I saw only once and the AI was more or less like me.

 

[ChronoReverse]

You know what's the best thing to do here? The game autosaves every ten turns. Since the randomizer seed is saved, it's not terribly hard to whip out the appropriate save and prove them wrong.

Also, I've made research agreements with civilizations that had zero gold the previous turn and negative income. This wasn't by cheating but because there was a trade involving gold going the other way (or even simply me giving them gold). They could have also simply conquered a city and gotten gold that way. Or perhaps they had cities generating income using production. Or they pillaged during that turn.


There's so many ways to explain what might have happened before going up in arms and saying OMG the AI cheated.

 

[Zechnophobe]

So, to all the people that think the AI cheats on Prince, consider this:

1) You make exaggerated claims that players who play on higher difficulties can't substantiate. I played some relaxed easy games on prince, and then went up to emperor after I felt I 'knew' civ 5. All this talk of ridiculous advantages is something I've never experienced.
2) You assume that it the AI that is cheating instead of perhaps a hole in your skills. Why is that so completely impossible? Civ 5 while more simple than civ 4 is still a complex game with a high ceiling of learning. Can't you accept that maybe you just aren't that great at it yet? Everyone starts as a newbie.
3) You assume that 'you are doing fine' or 'are playing as well as you could be'. For instance claiming you are growing as fast as your happiness lets you, or have made as much economy as you can. But that isn't necessarily true just like point 3.

Whereas here are the facts:

1) Other people play and win on this difficulty level.
2) Other people do not experience the same outputs as you. That isn't to say they just win, but they don't see 'an AI with 40 cities by turn 200' or whatever your claim is.
3) Other people have spent a lot of time figuring strategies for this game and others, and then used this knowledge to play them better.

This is why, when you suffer defeat, or assume that your trouble is due to improper difficulty cheating, it creates such a divide. If you really want to prove something, provide a save game, and let us see what is happening in your empire and game world. We can give you advice, and if there is truly outrageous stuff going on, we'll all see that it is true!

No need to argue after that.

Until then, all you are going to get is 'l2p nub'.

 

[gunter]

You know what's the best thing to do here? The game autosaves every ten turns. Since the randomizer seed is saved, it's not terribly hard to whip out the appropriate save and prove them wrong.

Also, I've made research agreements with civilizations that had zero gold the previous turn and negative income. This wasn't by cheating but because there was a trade involving gold going the other way (or even simply me giving them gold). They could have also simply conquered a city and gotten gold that way. Or perhaps they had cities generating income using production. Or they pillaged during that turn.


There's so many ways to explain what might have happened before going up in arms and saying OMG the AI cheated.

Ok I admit you could be right on that but I can be also right.

Told that, I also sometimes can win on Prince but winning or loosing doesn't really matter here and you are keeping on reiterating that.

I get upset also when I win on Prince and the AI IMO cheats, do you get it now ?

 

[ChronoReverse]

That's the thing. The onus is on you to prove it before going to an online public forum and making a loud (in Internet terms) claim about it. Since the game developers are on record saying the AI doesn't cheat on Prince and what the AI has done here is easily explainable within the game's rules, the simplest explanation is that the AI didn't cheat and just acquired gold outside of income.

In this particular case, it's very easy to prove too with a long breadcrumb trail of save games that are automatically made. It's a case of "put up or shut up"

 

[gunter]

You know, I trust my eyes first, developer statements eventually later.

BTW as you can read I am not the only one reporting that.

Assuming to post a save, how can you show me / others what a civ leader has done to grab +100 gold in one turn only in order to make a research agreement ?

Just for the sake of curiosity

 

[ChronoReverse]

Conquer a city? That happens all the time in civilization. The AI pillages like mad too.


Seriously, post a saved game. If this happens so often it should be easily captured.