AI cheating (not bonuses) confirmed?

carm3

Chieftain
Joined
Sep 25, 2010
Messages
57
Location
Cambridge, UK
[I searched for this topic and couldn't find anything, but please delete/move if I missed something]

I'm playing a game on Emperor as France, and have been going on a bit of a wonder kick in the modern age – I'm building the Eiffel Tower in Paris, Statue of Liberty in Marseille, and Broadway in Dijon (yeah, I know, I should be building this in Paris, but I can't resist building the Eiffel Tower in Paris). With about 6 turns left in my Eiffel Tower, I get a note from my diplomat in Siam that Ramkhamhaeng is also building the Eiffel Tower, but after checking up on it see that he is a couple of turns behind me. So I complete it, and then next turn go and check what Ramkhamhaeng is building instead only to find that he's now building Broadway, and has only one turn left until it's done; sure enough, one turn after that he's built it. No great engineers were in the city, nor have any arrived (I can see because I have a diplomat there), and in any case a great engineer isn't enough to complete Broadway.

Given that I'm going for a cultural victory, I'm feeling a bit annoyed at this. I feel like this is the AI blatantly cheating; can anyone else think of another explanation?
 
Of course he used a great engineer. He was could have been derping around like the AI is prone to doing with great people, or could have been born and consumed on the same turn. What makes you think a GE couldn't rush Broadway? Their power depends on the city population, and since it is Siam, it was probably huge.
 
Sorry, should have specified – city population is 19. I can't be positive, but I'm pretty sure I've tried to use a great engineer to rush Broadway in a city of similar size and it only got me about 3/4 of the way there.

Of course he used a great engineer. He was could have been derping around like the AI is prone to doing with great people, or could have been born and consumed on the same turn. What makes you think a GE couldn't rush Broadway? Their power depends on the city population, and since it is Siam, it was probably huge.
 
He probably spawned a great engineer and used it, or was gifted one by his CS allies. And as noted, GE power depends on city size, so if the city is big enough, he could absolutely use it to complete broadway.

Anyway, if broadway won't make or break your CV victory - more important is to get to national tourist center and internet ASAP and start musician bombing.

And next time you get in this situation, try bribing everyone possible to DoW him, so he has other things to build ))
 
You can buy Ge with faith when you complete the Tradition tree. Rammy was prolly was spying on you and used 2 GE. Or he started building Broadway but changed his mind, I've seen the AI stop building a wonder for something else. Previous production is only lost if you leave it 10 turn or more before continuing on.
 
Sorry, should have specified – city population is 19. I can't be positive, but I'm pretty sure I've tried to use a great engineer to rush Broadway in a city of similar size and it only got me about 3/4 of the way there.

The AI gets like a 75-80% build rate on emperor (i.e. what takes you 100 hammers only takes him 75) - so what gets you 3/4s of the way there will finish it for him.
 
Oh, of course, stupid me – completely forgot to take into account that the AI would get bonuses for specialists like it does for everything else. That probably solves the mystery (though it robs me of my righteous outrage). Thanks in any case for clearing it up!

And yeah, it's not going to torpedo the game or anything, just an annoyance. Oh well!
 
It's worth keeping in mind too that the AI doesn't cheat, almost by definition. 'Cheating' implies some nefarious underhanded tactic that ignores the rules. However, the AI is governed by rules. It functions according to rules and doesn't have a mind of its own outside of them. There can be bugs, however, but 'cheating' would instead have to be about the developers slipping in some undocumented random mega-bonuses, which isn't the case. The frustration from what appears to be the AI getting an unfair advantage is understandable, but I usually take it out on them via warfare, rather than assuming it's turning into HAL. ;)
 
Also possible he was working on Broadway, switched to the one you beat him to, then switched back.
 
It's worth keeping in mind too that the AI doesn't cheat, almost by definition. 'Cheating' implies some nefarious underhanded tactic that ignores the rules. However, the AI is governed by rules. It functions according to rules and doesn't have a mind of its own outside of them. There can be bugs, however, but 'cheating' would instead have to be about the developers slipping in some undocumented random mega-bonuses, which isn't the case. The frustration from what appears to be the AI getting an unfair advantage is understandable, but I usually take it out on them via warfare, rather than assuming it's turning into HAL. ;)

It's not what's happening here, but the AI really does break the rules of the game. AI Shaka can use the Impi's ranged attack without immediately following up with the melee attack (allowing him to focus fire with the ranged attacks like his Impi are crossbows) and AI missionaries can move after converting. I'm sure there are other things I'm forgetting.
 
I have a severe problem with the AI deleting a captured worker (That you did not steal) the same turn they captured it. That needs to be fixed.
 
the hordes of missionaries and Great prophets you sometimes see by the AI, can these also be explained?
 
It's worth keeping in mind too that the AI doesn't cheat, almost by definition. 'Cheating' implies some nefarious underhanded tactic that ignores the rules. However, the AI is governed by rules. It functions according to rules and doesn't have a mind of its own outside of them. There can be bugs, however, but 'cheating' would instead have to be about the developers slipping in some undocumented random mega-bonuses, which isn't the case. The frustration from what appears to be the AI getting an unfair advantage is understandable, but I usually take it out on them via warfare, rather than assuming it's turning into HAL. ;)

It's just the opposite. The AI cheats by definition. Standard bonuses from selected difficulty levels are not cheats.

However, there are numerous ways in which the AI accesses information a human can't or is literally able to do things in game that a human can't do (IE it uses different rules than those defined by the game for a player).

A player in a game that uses different rules from advertised and/or ignores advertised rules and gains an advantage is pretty tough to sell as "not cheating". You can argue the AI needs it, and in some cases that's reasonable (scouting algorithm and "memory" would be a big problem to code). In others, it isn't (such as the notorious troops on border nonsense implementation).

Of course, standard AI bonuses making things less expensive to it is the likely culprit in something being built "too fast" in this case.
 
It's like asking if "the AI selects build order and plot allocation in puppet cities".

It neither does nor doesn't. It runs on rails.
 
even with messiah, 5 great prophets out + enhanced religion in the renaissance era seems to be unreasonable.

A couple could be captured prophets, wandering aimlessly as the AI has no intent to convert with them, but they're amazing scouts as they cross borders with no attrition.
 
I know this is off topic, but can someone either post or direct me to a list of all the bonuses the AI gets at each difficulty?

I have know idea if they just start out with extra units/techs, or if their research costs cheaper, etc?
 
Top Bottom