AI cheating?

[Craobh Rua]

Hello, I've been playing Civ 4 for a couple of months now and started playing Beyond the Sword more recently but in my most recent game I've been put off a lot by what seems to be to be the AI cheating.

I've been playing as the Egyptians in the "Earth" scenario with difficulty Noble and game length Epic. For most of the early game I didn't notice anything cheaty from the AI and in fact I found it a very enjoyable scenario to play but the first thing that made me suspicious was when the Mongolians attacked me with a gigantic army of maybe 40-50 units despite the fact that I'd defeated their previous attack maybe 20 turns before. It just seemed to me a bit strange that the bottom civ in the game was able to put together such a massive army in such a short space of time.

The next thing that I found strange was when I began exploring the Americas. I had traded world maps with the Germans and seen that they hadn't yet explored the Americas and thought there's a good chance no one else has either so I set about exploring them. I discovered that there were no other civs' cities there yet and so I immediately set about creating an expedition of settlers. However by the time my settlers had arrived at their destination maybe 15-20 turns later there was almost nowhere on the North/central american coast on which to settle due to there being so many other civs' cities already established. Even the Germans who I know hadn't even explored the Americas not long before had several cities there so it to me the only explanation is that the AI cheated.

The next thing that happened was even more strange and has made me completely exasperated with the game. I had just researched Radio and the two world wonders associated with it, The UN and Hollywood, were still available and so I decided to build them both. With one turn to go I was told that I could no longer work on Hollywood as someone else had built it, I checked the Wonders Page and seen that Rome had got there before me. So I thought oh well at least I'll get the UN as its just 2 turns away. But the very next turn the UN elections screen came up which was puzzling because the UN was still under construction in my city and I hadn't been told I could no longer work on it. I checked the Wonders page and seen that both my city and Rome where listed as having the UN, so I was quite confused but I thought there's no way Rome can have built 2 wonders 2 turns apart and that it must be just a glitch or something. However the next turn i was told The UN had been built somewhere else and when I checked the Wonders page I seen that it was in Rome. So the fact that Rome built these two wonders 2 turns apart and both times just one turn ahead of me just seems a little too much to take or believe.

I know there are possible explanations for these things but they just seem a bit ridiculous in terms of fair game play. Since I'm not that experienced with Civ 4 and Beyond the Sword especially I don't know everything about AI tactics so I just wanted to hear what the more experienced gamers make of my problems: Are these normal AI tactics in the more difficult settings? And is there anything you can do about it?
Thanks for reading and I appreciate any replies.

 

[mechaerik]

No, the AI does not cheat (at least not in the way you describe; ask TMIT for specifics), especially in this way on Noble. At Noble, you are more or less on par with the AI in terms of bonuses/penalties.

 

[Willem]

I had traded world maps with the Germans and seen that they hadn't yet explored the Americas and thought there's a good chance no one else has either so I set about exploring them.

You just answered your own question. The Germans didn't have to explore the area since you gave them your map showing them the land. They in turn no doubt traded their map to the other civs. The AI's always have a Settler in reserve so they sent theirs out before yours.

So the fact that Rome built these two wonders 2 turns apart and both times just one turn ahead of me just seems a little too much to take or believe.

Unless the Romans only had one city, what's so surprising about them building 2 Wonders at once? And one of the Roman leaders is Industrious and able to build Wonders 50% faster, so it shouldn't be that surprising they beat you to it. Unless of course you were playing as Rameses, who's also Industrious. I'm guessing you weren't though. At any rate a Great Engineer could let him build one of those Wonders in a fraction of the time it normally would.

 

[Craobh Rua]

You just answered your own question. The Germans didn't have to explore the area since you gave them your map showing them the land. They in turn no doubt traded their map to the other civs. The AI's always have a Settler in reserve so they sent theirs out before yours.

No I only traded maps with them before I done the exploring.

Unless the Romans only had one city, what's so surprising about them building 2 Wonders at once? And one of the Roman leaders is Industrious and able to build Wonders 50% faster, so it shouldn't be that surprising they beat you to it. Unless of course you were playing as Rameses, who's also Industrious. I'm guessing you weren't though. At any rate a Great Engineer could let him build one of those Wonders in a fraction of the time it normally would.

Yes I made a silly mistake. For some reason The Roman Empire is just called "Rome" in the Wonders page and that made me think both the wonders where built in the city of Rome. I think I was still peeved about all the other civs showing up in the Americas in super quick time and jumped to the wrong conclusion. I still can't quite get my head around how fast they filled up that empty space with cities but maybe I'll just have to be faster next time.

 

[xTopesx]

Sounds like bad luck to me.

 

[Protozoan]

Yeah it's most definitely bad luck.

On noble, if you're teching correctly (with enough cottaged cities) you should be able to get to the modern age while everyone is still with longbows or muskets. All the late game wonders are guaranteed to be yours.

 

[Willem]

I still can't quite get my head around how fast they filled up that empty space with cities but maybe I'll just have to be faster next time.

As I mentioned, the AI is programmed to always have a Settler in reserve. So if you have to take the time to build one then they're going to be one step ahead of you.

 

[dirtyparrot]

The AI does cheat. They know the whole map and where your units are located. So, if your transport is within range of an enemy destroyer, the AI will always find your transport no matter which direction that you move it. A similar thing happens for the AI's knowledge of the map and where there is somewhere that can be settled. As for getting beaten on wonder races, I'm afraid that is just on you. I should point out that if you're 1 turn from completing your wonder and nobody has built it yet, then you will always build it. This is because units, buildings, and tech are built/researched at the end of your turn (i.e. When you press enter).

 

[Willem]

They know the whole map and where your units are located.

This is absolutely not true, it's been proven many times.

So, if your transport is within range of an enemy destroyer, the AI will always find your transport no matter which direction that you move it.

That's only because the AI has a field of vision equal to it's movement rate. That's to offset the fact that it doesn't have a memory. If your Transport moves, it won't be able to remember which direction it was headed in, so it's compensated by having a wider field of vision than the human. This has also been proven many times.

A similar thing happens for the AI's knowledge of the map and where there is somewhere that can be settled.

Also not true. It operates under the same rules as the human. Use the blue circles to locate your cities and you will be doing it exactly the same way as the AI does.

As for getting beaten on wonder races, I'm afraid that is just on you. I should point out that if you're 1 turn from completing your wonder and nobody has built it yet, then you will always build it.

This is also not true. In the case of a tie, the civ with the greatest Hammer overrun after the Wonder is complete gets it.

 

[Kullervo]

I once opened Vorldbuilder on the first turn, and accidentally sav that the AI had 5 turns to go before building their first Varrior. This is the first turn of the game, and they already have the varrior more than half complete. Hov can this be?

 

[phungus420]

This is also not true. In the case of a tie, the civ with the greatest Hammer overrun after the Wonder is complete gets it.

Actually in single player games the human always gets it. As the player with the the lowest player id number (the human always being number 0, and thus the lowest number) gets the Wonder. In network games the playerID number is randomized each turn, so that basically who gets the wonder in a tie is more of a function of a roll of the dice. I am not sure whether or not hotseat follows network or SP game rules; there are coding and implementation reasons it could go either way and I'm not sure what the devs ended up going with; I suppose someone could test this and see.

Also not true. It operates under the same rules as the human. Use the blue circles to locate your cities and you will be doing it exactly the same way as the AI does.

For the purposes of this discussion and as a rebuttal this is fine. Though it is not fully accurate. Blue circles do not indicate where an AI would settle; the founding logic of the AI is slightly more involved, as it takes into account it's own city's location, and the location of other player's borders and such, so that the AI will generally found it's cities on or 1 tile off of where a blue circle is. A blue circle's calculation on the other hand only involves raw output of the surrounding tiles and ignores the other strategic inputs.

The AI can see the whole map...

No it can't...

Sort of. The thing is the AI is not smart, it does not think, it simply follows certain algorithms to select "correct" actions to follow. More importantly, as Willem states it has no memory. Now we could get into a philosophical debate about what determines thinking and thought and what not, but what the AI in civ4 does is no where close to this, it's not even at the cognitive level of an insect, and I do not mean this figuratively, I mean that quite literally. So you must keep this in mind.

Now there are certain functions where the AI has advanced "knowledge" of the map. City founding is decidedly not one of them, the AI follows the same gamerules as the player to calculate tile worth and run it's city founding logic to find the best founding location on the map, ie the tile must be visible for it to enter the input. Also for the most part the AI "see" with it's units exactly how Willem describes it. But there are some functions, such as unit pathfinding, and Attack Stack targeting where the function takes input values from tiles not visible to the AI player; this is pretty much necessary though for the AI to function.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

I once opened Vorldbuilder on the first turn, and accidentally sav that the AI had 5 turns to go before building their first Varrior. This is the first turn of the game, and they already have the varrior more than half complete. Hov can this be?

I thought your W key was fixed?

AI begins with a certain number of hammers for free in newly settled cities. Not sure if this is affected by difficulty level.

 

[PieceOfMind]

A clarifcation for something said in the OP. When you went to the wonders page and saw that the UN existed in two cities at the same time, look more closely and you'll see that in at least one of those cities it only says "Under construction". IMO it's weird that "under construction" wonders get listed there but that's just how it is.

And yes, the message that you can no longer continue building a wonder can come up a turn later than you'd want it to. I'm not sure why that happens but if you watch the event messages each turn you will always get the on time message that the wonder was built. In fact if you go and attempt to change the build order in that city you'll no longer be able to switch back to the wonder. It's weird and sort of buggy but it is at least avoidable. Just pay attention to wonder completion messages when you're in a wonder race (I think the messages are always in grey, to help spot them).

EDIT... Actually I reckon I could have a stab at guessing the reason why wonder build order changes come up a turn too late. Hammers always get applied to whatever you're building in your cities at the end of your turn, basically as you pressed the End turn button or press Enter. Let's suppose that at the end of turn 1 you put hammers towards the Pyramids. Also on turn 1 let's suppose an AI finishes that wonder. When turn 2 starts, the city you had building the Pyramids has not been checked for whether it can continue building because that check was performed at the end of turn 1 when it was still possible. Now you hit end turn to end turn 2 and as that city attempts to process the build order for the Pyramids, it can't and so it removes it from the build queue, turns the hammers into gold and you don't learn about it til the start of turn 3.
I hope I explained that well enough. In MP the situation is quite different of course.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

I sometimes carry on building the wonder the next turn to get more failure gold.

 

[andersw]

The AI do get a few other cheats.
AI tech trade favors other AI's (trade one tech and in a round or two pretty much every other civ will have it).
Unit upgrade discount, this cheat is so annoying since you know as soon as the AI get feudalism, all his archers "magically" upgrades to longbowmen.... well they do pay but not nearly as much as you would.

Another one wich maybe is more a bug/feature is when playing on Epic or Marathon the tech trade values are not scaled (anyone got a mod for this please?) wich makes your trades very biased against you.
Ie on epic tech cost is 150% but trade value is for 100% cost.
I'm not sure but I guess this is only for the human and that the AI gets correct trade value.

 

[huh?]

The AI do get a few other cheats.

I still don't get why people call them cheats. Opening up the world builder and deleting/adding units is a cheat. Operating under a set of fixed criteria that never changes is the parameters, not cheating.

Yes, does the AI have certain advantages that the players does not get? Yes, but that is not cheating. It is game design.

 

[andersw]

I still don't get why people call them cheats. Opening up the world builder and deleting/adding units is a cheat. Operating under a set of fixed criteria that never changes is the parameters, not cheating.

Yes, does the AI have certain advantages that the players does not get? Yes, but that is not cheating. It is game design.

Probably because some of us began playing with the pretention that AI and human are playing a game with the same set of rules.

Of course it's game design but does it need to be hidden?
All "game design" AI benefits could easily fit in the manual/help files.

Maybe the a correct thread name should be:
"Hidden AI benefits" but I think most got the idea anyway

 

[huh?]

I understand where you are coming from. I just see cheating as opening up the game code and altering it to one's benefit.

Yes, I agree that a list or description of the AI benefits/disandvantages for each level would be helpful without having to dig into the code and/or open up world builder.

 

[Junuxx]

Now we could get into a philosophical debate about what determines thinking and thought and what not, but what the AI in civ4 does is no where close to this, it's not even at the cognitive level of an insect, and I do not mean this figuratively, I mean that quite literally. So you must keep this in mind.

Actually, we studied the hardwired movement behavior in cockroaches once in robotics class, and it's quite similar to the flexibility and general behavior of Civ's AI

I still don't get why people call them cheats. Opening up the world builder and deleting/adding units is a cheat. Operating under a set of fixed criteria that never changes is the parameters, not cheating.

Yes, does the AI have certain advantages that the players does not get? Yes, but that is not cheating. It is game design.

How is worldbuilder not part of 'game design'?

 

[huh?]

How is worldbuilder not part of 'game design'?

Fair enough statement based on how I worded my previous response. I'll answer by using questions...

Is using a code to enter "god-mode" in various first person shooters cheating? It is in the game by design.

Is using world builder to delete all of the AI units cheating?

Is using world builder to provide yourself with the ideal, perfect starting location and modern armor in 4000 BC cheating?