AI Caught Cheating, patch 1.21

[friedmad]

Saw and verified a few AI cheats. Here's a couple of the most glaringly-obvious ones:

Wonder-Rushes:

I play with the 'AI starts a wonder' pop-up on. I timed how many turns it took a rival to build a Wonder. For a 400-shield wonder, it took the rival 18 turns to build it, averaging just over 22 shields of production per turn. This was pre-industrialization era, pre steam-engine era, and the AI couldnt built an Iron Works in that city. Lo and Behold, the maximum production that this city could have produced was only 15 shields per turn. I dont think this rival ever went to war, so the possibility of it having a leader to rush the project was near zero.



Rivals Able to See Deep Inside Your Empire:

I was playing on the Earch (Standard) map, which i modified to had only oneland tile between the Mediterranean and the Gulf of Suez. I had most of Africa except for the southern tip where the Zulu were, All of Europe, and branching out into Asia. I had a city at Suez. The zulu start sending gobs of defended settlers across Africa heading for Suez so they can get to Asia where there's inhabitable land. So, I put defenders on the land squares around Suez so the Zulu cannot pass through. As soon as their land route to Asia is blocked off, they turn around and head for home. I thought this was weird so I unblocked the passage again and what do you know, they start swarming over my border again. There was NO WAY in hell that they could have known I blocked their route, and there was NO way they could have seen that I did so. This was pre-espionage, pre-flight era, so there was no way they could have surveyed or spied that area to know what I had going on there, and it was at least 20 squares away from anything they could have used to see it.

grrrrrrrrr

any other situations where the AI was caught cheating and it was verified?

 

[Dralix]

Wonder-Rushes

What difficulty were you playing on? At higher difficulties, the AI has a cost savings on improvements and tech. I'm not sure of the numbers, but what you saw could be in line with this.

Rivals Able to See Deep Inside Your Empire

This has been long known. The AI has full knowledge of all your units at all times. Knowing this, you can turn it into an advantage for you.

 

[dog]

I just saw a new one that I had never seen before. My ship (modded game) was sitting on the coast of a neighbor early in the game when a settler went speeding by and it moved more than one space AND as it moved it left a trail of road and irrigation where there was none before! I swear I was sober!

I swear!

I REALLY hate AI cheats. For me it takes away immersion in the game because when you catch the AI cheating you realize it is just a game with rules that are not being followed. The cheat I hate the most is when I see wheeled AI units escorting settlers through mountain or jungle. I really hate that!

 

[Tweedledum]

Originally posted by dog
The cheat I hate the most is when I see wheeled AI units escorting settlers through mountain or jungle. I really hate that!

You obviously haven't seen the AI's unsinkable galleys yet. That one REALLY pisses me off

 

[simwiz2]

"settler went speeding by and it moved more than one space AND as it moved it left a trail of road and irrigation where there was none before!"

I think this may have been caused by a graphics glitch - once in awhile TI's do not show up on the map - once i had my scout able to move for 6 spaces and i had no idea why - then i scrolled the map and roads appeared. So i think in your case the roads and irrigations were there but the map just needed to be scrolled to make them show up.

 

[Switch625]

Originally posted by friedmad
Rivals Able to See Deep Inside Your Empire:

I was playing on the Earch (Standard) map, which i modified to had only oneland tile between the Mediterranean and the Gulf of Suez. I had most of Africa except for the southern tip where the Zulu were, All of Europe, and branching out into Asia. I had a city at Suez. The zulu start sending gobs of defended settlers across Africa heading for Suez so they can get to Asia where there's inhabitable land. So, I put defenders on the land squares around Suez so the Zulu cannot pass through. As soon as their land route to Asia is blocked off, they turn around and head for home. I thought this was weird so I unblocked the passage again and what do you know, they start swarming over my border again. There was NO WAY in hell that they could have known I blocked their route, and there was NO way they could have seen that I did so. This was pre-espionage, pre-flight era, so there was no way they could have surveyed or spied that area to know what I had going on there, and it was at least 20 squares away from anything they could have used to see it.

I can see this happening without a "cheat." I would imagine that the AI attempts to set all it's settlers on paths that would take them to the nearest open square every turn. When you blocked the chokepoint at Suez you broke that path, and the settler(s) had to be redirected because they could no longer trace a route to the original destination. Unblock the chokepoint, the original path becomes viable again, and off they go. Think of it as an opportunity. By blocking and unblocking the chokepoint repeatedly, you can make sure those settlers never go anywhere useful.

 

[dog]

Originally posted by simwiz2
I think this may have been caused by a graphics glitch - once in awhile TI's do not show up on the map - once i had my scout able to move for 6 spaces and i had no idea why - then i scrolled the map and roads appeared. So i think in your case the roads and irrigations were there but the map just needed to be scrolled to make them show up.

Well, that's better to know. I can stand a glitch more than I can a sneaky cheat. That little settler looked like a turbocharged snail leaving a trail of irrigation in his wake. It was very disturbing to say the least!

 

[saintides]

A cheating ai thread.. ok, I'll bite.

I love it when I see a warrior escorting a settler. Settler settles... next turn, the cruddy little town has a spearman (and they ask me to leave since I'm right in the faces observing).

It's kind of ridiculous sometimes. But, I just shake my head and laugh, and kill the warrior and spearman.

Another solution (doesn't work so well). Throw the keyboard, say some words that are not allowed in these forums ... go on.

 

[biggrumpy]

You obviously haven't seen the AI's unsinkable galleys yet. That one REALLY pisses me off

ugh. yes. you mean how the ai can sail galleys across the ocean and halfway around the world whereas when your galley leaves the bathtub it instantly sinks? yah that one's eye-opening

lighthouse schmitehouse

 

[D9phoenix]

AI cheating has always happened and will always happened. *shrugs*

As for the unsinkable galley's... i only see that happen after that AI civ learns navigation. If you read the civlopedia it say's that navigation allows carravels after you discover it to move accross oceans. And since that's what the galley upgrades to.. wolla.. Now i haven't ever tried this myself ( as i rarely use navy for anything, try it out.. i think you might be suprised.)

One thing i noticed when play testing a map i made. I had 11 available spots i only play with 8 civ's on Regent lvl, The map had only strategic resource's and no luxury or bonus ( i.e cattle, deer .. ) resources and no goodie huts or barb villages. I was able to stay ahead in tech and well.. most everything. Now im not a very advanced player- i can barely hold my own on generated maps on Regent lvl. I just found this quite interesting. Im going to take marla's map and do the same and try it out see what happens.

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

- the know-about-blocked-isthmus-thing stems from AI using got command. A more irritating version is what happened to me once: AI had a unit "goto" the tile my units were supposed to jump to when asked by AI to leave. Their unit was at least 10 squares away but it "blocked" the tile for my units so they jumped a longer distance - to a point where I didn`t want them.
btw: the AI also does this turn around thingy when it hasn`t even explored that part on the map. It know about stuff that`s still in the fog-of-war!

- the unsinkable Galley can be almost duplicated. Just rush a Temple (two works even better) before you send your Galley off-coast. Somehow, this decreases the chance of sinking (BUG, but a good one )

 

[FM_Freyland]

Originally posted by Killer
- the unsinkable Galley can be almost duplicated. Just rush a Temple (two works even better) before you send your Galley off-coast. Somehow, this decreases the chance of sinking (BUG, but a good one )

Sounds like u made a ritual sacrifice to the Sea God before heading out!

You must play the Greeks

Jonathan

 

[Carbon_Copy]

The road automagically appearing thing isn't even a glitch; it is there by design. The problem is that your map isn't current. When you swap maps, not only do you get to see the extra territory that they've been able to see, but you get to see any terrain improvements that have been done since you last saw that particular map. If you don't trade for the map, and you don't send a unit to explore the territory, you won't ever see any new roads, irrigation, rails, or mines that have been built in that territory. The glitch is that the updating mechanism isn't perfect and sometimes it takes a few extra seconds after the fact for the proper improvements to show up.

 

[simwiz2]

"A more irritating version is what happened to me once: AI had a unit "goto" the tile my units were supposed to jump to when asked by AI to leave. Their unit was at least 10 squares away but it "blocked" the tile for my units so they jumped a longer distance - to a point where I didn`t want them."

I wonder if the human could use goto in the same way. Thay would certainly be useful in stopping the AI settlers from jumping across your territory.

 

[Tweedledum]

I found another good one today.

I was at war (with the Babylonians again - God, I hate them ).
I succeeded in capturing several cities on turn 1, but one of them got razed coz it was only at size 1.

Immediately (and I mean on the AI's next turn) the Greeks founded a city - defended by a Hoplite - on the very spot.

Hmmm...

So, carry on, a couple of turns later the Babs are dead meat. I preserved all the cities but obviously it left a few gaps in the territorial coverage.
Suddenly, the (size 1) city that the Greeks founded (see above)
starts turning out Settlers (escorted by Hoplites). It produced three of these pairs on consecutive turns...

OK, I know the AI cheats and everyone else here knows the AI cheats, but couldn't it at least be a bit subtle about it???

And if does this on Chieftain level, what the hell happens higher up the difficulty scale?