AI cheats on Noble?!?!

[MrCynical]

Yes, it does also get harder for the AI at the higher difficulty levels. Take a look at the health and happiness starting values. They drop for both the humans and AI as the difficulty level increases. The base research costs increase with difficulty level. Inflation increases with difficulty level. The AI is not completely exempt from the increase in difficulty level, it's just the massive bonuses it gets to production and research at the high levels make it relatively trivial.

A little gameplay will also make it blatantly obvious that unit upgrading is much cheaper for the AI than the human player at any level. Therefore the AI cannot have more expensive upgrades than the human player at lower levels as you suggest.

EDIT: Just to be certain I ran test in worldbuilder, comparing a human civ and an AI civ, each with 40 warriors. The AI was actually paying 2 gold per turn less in unit upkeep than the human player, so the human definitely does not pay 50% less as you say. I'm actually rather curious as to what is causing this 2 gpt discrepancy. I tried adding even more warriors on each side, and it still remains that the AI is paying ever so slightly less than the human even at Noble level. Give or take a couple of gold per turn though, the AI and human player pay the same in units cost at Noble.

Yet Another Edit: Discrepancy located, I forgot to allow for the spy I had in the AI city. The AI and human do pay the same unit cost at Noble

 

[Roland Johansen]

Yes, it does also get harder for the AI at the higher difficulty levels. Take a look at the health and happiness starting values. They drop for both the humans and AI as the difficulty level increases. The base research costs increase with difficulty level. Inflation increases with difficulty level. The AI is not completely exempt from the increase in difficulty level, it's just the massive bonuses it gets to production and research at the high levels make it relatively trivial.

What are you talking about? There are no difficulty related health and happiness values for the AI in the CIV4HandicapInfo.xml file. The AI uses the noble level health and happiness values at every difficulty level that you set for your leader because the AI always has the noble difficulty level setting.

This discussion is going nowhere, it's becoming a yes-no discussion. I'll just prove it. I created a game at deity level using the play now settings, used the world builder to place a spy in the opponents capital and took a look at the bonuses on health and happiness.

Here are the pictures of my city:

This shows that I get 1 health bonus from difficulty level.

This shows that I get 3 happiness bonus from difficulty level.

Here are the pictures from the city of my opponent:

This shows that he gets 3 health bonus from difficulty level (the noble level bonus).

This shows that he gets 5 happiness bonus from difficulty level (the noble level bonus).

A little gameplay will also make it blatantly obvious that unit upgrading is much cheaper for the AI than the human player at any level. Therefore the AI cannot have more expensive upgrades than the human player at lower levels as you suggest.

In my two posts here, I did not say a single word about unit upgrading costs, so I don't know where I suggested such a thing.

 

[MrCynical]

This discussion is going nowhere, it's becoming a yes-no discussion. I'll just prove it. I created a game at deity level using the play now settings, used the world builder to place a spy in the opponents capital and took a look at the bonuses on health and happiness.

Fair point, I got mixed up there as the health and happiness bonuses don't change for the AI. However, if you run the most obvious test of unit costs, you'll see that the AI and human players pay the same amount at Noble level. I've done it, and is true, as I edited into my last post:





See, at Noble, both human and AI, pay the same.

In my two posts here, I did not say a single word about unit upgrading costs, so I don't know where I suggested such a thing.

You're saying that the numbers listed as, for example "unit cost percent" are human values, and the ones with AI tagged on the front (AI unit cost percent) are completely seperate values for the AI. As I have shown with the unit cost percent, this is not the case. The unit cost percent is a base, to which the AI value is applied as a modifier. I merely picked the upgrade cost as the most blatant example of where the XML couldn't work like this.

Whether it makes any sense for it to get harder for the AI up the difficulty levels is another matter, but it does, because the XML does work as I've been saying. The AI has NO penalties at Noble.

 

[Roland Johansen]

I see that I've made a mistake. The percentages don't work as I said.

However, I'm happy to report that it doesn't get harder for the AI as the levels go up. After some testing, I found out that the iAIUnitCostPercent is taken as a percentage of the noble difficulty level costs. So, for instance at immortal level, the AI pays 80% of the unit upkeep cost of what a human with a similar empire and number of units would pay at noble level.
I did only a few tests for AI unit costs and not for any other xml entries starting with iAI. Just too much work for something that probably works in the same way.

In hindsight, there is some logic in it that if they are percentages of the human costs that they are percentages of the human costs at noble level as the AI is always playing at noble level.

 

[Fetch]

this is cut from the xml, does this mean that on noble, the AI pays only 30 percent upgrade cost?

Yes. On settler, he only pays 45% too! See my post on upgradign units.

 

[IkimashoZ]

So, say for example someone wants to make Noble truly even. I have been playing Noble for sometime, always frustrated that I seem to have more of a problem with animals and barbarians than the ai, the ai seems to be able to get cities out faster, etc. I know some people like digging themselves out of a hole, but I don't. Warlord is too easy and I want to play a truly even game.

I've been looking through HandicapInfo.xml, but I don't see a way to remove the aforementioned 10 Hammers that the computer gets at the start of the game. I have evened out all the computer percents, based on what Mr. Cynical said to do. The end of my file now looks like this:

<iAIDeclareWarProb>100</iAIDeclareWarProb>
<iAIWorkRateModifier>0</iAIWorkRateModifier>
<iAIGrowthPercent>100</iAIGrowthPercent>
<iAITrainPercent>100</iAITrainPercent>
<iAIWorldTrainPercent>100</iAIWorldTrainPercent>
<iAIConstructPercent>100</iAIConstructPercent>
<iAIWorldConstructPercent>100</iAIWorldConstructPercent>
<iAICreatePercent>100</iAICreatePercent>
<iAIWorldCreatePercent>100</iAIWorldCreatePercent>
<iAICivicUpkeepPercent>100</iAICivicUpkeepPercent>
<iAIUnitCostPercent>100</iAIUnitCostPercent>
<iAIUnitSupplyPercent>100</iAIUnitSupplyPercent>
<iAIUnitUpgradePercent>100</iAIUnitUpgradePercent>
<iAIInflationPercent>100</iAIInflationPercent>
<iAIWarWearinessPercent>100</iAIWarWearinessPercent>
<iAIPerEraModifier>0</iAIPerEraModifier>

What is the difference between "create percent" and "world create percent"? Does "unit supply" mean "unit upkeep"?

Are there any other bonuses that the human or AI gets that haven't been mentioned in this thread?

 

[MrCynical]

What is the difference between "create percent" and "world create percent"? Does "unit supply" mean "unit upkeep"?

I'm not entirely sure what the create percent and world create percent do. Unit supply and unit upkeep are two separate things. Units cost a base upkeep all thetime, and also have an extra unit supply cost when they are outside your territory (though this is a fairly trivial amount).

Are there any other bonuses that the human or AI gets that haven't been mentioned in this thread?

As far as I can tell the full list of bonuses the AI gets at Noble is as follows:

1)The AI starts the game with 10 free hammers in its capital

2)Both humans and AI get a bonus against barbarians, but the AI gets a 30% larger bonus.

3)The AI gets a 30% reduction in inflation costs

4)The AI gets a 30% reduction in war weariness

5)The AI receives a 65% reduction in unit supply costs (not basic unit upkeep).

6)AI unit upgrade costs are 70% lower

7)All AI start with a hidden -1 to relations with the human player

I think that's the full list. The AI has no penalties relative to the human player at Noble, as has been explained above. To complete your balancing mod you therefore need to change:

"AIAnimalBonus" to -40 (this is the bonus the human gets at Noble)

"AIBarbarianBonus" to -10

"Attitudechange" to 0

You can also remove the free 10 hammers the AI gets, but you need to alter a different XML file. In the "GlobalDefines" XML file, change "Initial_AI_City_Production" to 0 instead of 10.

 

[Roland Johansen]

The AI does have one big disadvantage: it has a thinking level below most animals (most animals can learn, the AI cannot, it has preprogrammed algorithms to play the game in a fixed way). Humans are considered to be the smartest of the animals.

 

[cabert]

The AI does have one big disadvantage: it has a thinking level below most animals (most animals can learn, the AI cannot, it has preprogrammed algorithms to play the game in a fixed way). Humans are considered to be the smartest of the animals.

let's change that !
make AIthinkingBonus to 100

 

[naterator]

Humans are considered to be the smartest of the animals.

if i remember correctly, the list is actually:
1. mice
2. dolphins
3. humans

 

[IkimashoZ]

The AI does have one big disadvantage: it has a thinking level below most animals (most animals can learn, the AI cannot, it has preprogrammed algorithms to play the game in a fixed way). Humans are considered to be the smartest of the animals.

with regard to play difficulty: to each his own. To me, once you beat the AI on completely even footing, it's time to program a new AI, not give the existing one arbitrary bonuses.

Thanks for the info, Mr. Cynical! That helped a lot.

 

[naterator]

To me, once you beat the AI on completely even footing, it's time to program a new AI, not give the existing one arbitrary bonuses.

not exactly time or cost effective, i'm afraid. if it were that simple we really would reach the sci-fi end of the robots no longer needing us. for now, all we can do is add more calculations. Unfortunatly, "arbitrary bonuses", is the best compromise available for adding difficulty without sacrificing performance. considering the broad spectrum of often custom machines they have to be compatible with is a big issue to the amount of "thinking" the AI can do. imagine if your whole game started to slow down when you played on high difficulty levels. i'm not saying that we don't have the technology, but i, for one, don't have the technology. they've got to keep the minimum specs to a point where people will buy it.

 

[Roland Johansen]

if i remember correctly, the list is actually:
1. mice
2. dolphins
3. humans

not exactly time or cost effective, i'm afraid. if it were that simple we really would reach the sci-fi end of the robots no longer needing us. for now, all we can do is add more calculations. Unfortunatly, "arbitrary bonuses", is the best compromise available for adding difficulty without sacrificing performance. considering the broad spectrum of often custom machines they have to be compatible with is a big issue to the amount of "thinking" the AI can do. imagine if your whole game started to slow down when you played on high difficulty levels. i'm not saying that we don't have the technology, but i, for one, don't have the technology. they've got to keep the minimum specs to a point where people will buy it.

I agree. I probably shouldn't have made that remark because it inevitably leads to a discussion why the AI couldn't have been made better. They can do it in chess, bladeblabla, etc.

No, the technology to write a good thinking AI for a game as complex as civ (much more complex as chess and even as go) is not available and probably will not be available for a long time. They could make a slightly better AI probably (the preprogrammed moves of an AI can follow a more complicated decision tree) but not a huge step foreward.

 

[cabert]

if i remember correctly, the list is actually:
1. mice
2. dolphins
3. humans

mice?
you watch too much tom & jerry, don't you

 

[diablodelmar]

Does anyone else find this frustrating?

lol

 

[dimaliok]

Noble is the fair level. It's only that in threads like these, people always seem to find the bonuses that the AI has and never the penalties it has at noble difficulty.

So, to be fair to the game and the AI, I'll add two of the penalties the AI gets at noble difficulty:
-The human gets a discount of 50% on unit upkeep. The AI doesn't get any discount.
-The human pays 80% on civic upkeep, the AI 100%.

make a level between warlord and noble

 

[RemoWilliams]

mice?
you watch too much tom & jerry, don't you

It was a shameless Douglas Adams reference. I'm embarrassed that I immediately knew what naterator was talking about, so please don't be embarrassed that you didn't.

Seeing as I'm already thus shamed, my reply to naterator is.... "Sorry for the inconvenience."

 

[naterator]

don't be embarrased, remo, it's better than picking up on an "americal idol" reference or something like that. any trilogy that has 5 books can't be all bad

 

[cabert]

don't be embarrased, remo, it's better than picking up on an "americal idol" reference or something like that. any trilogy that has 5 books can't be all bad

no need to be embarrased by any reference (other than "my Kampf") in my opinion.
I'm embarrassed i didn't know such a worldwide known reference

i must say, i didn't read the 5 book trilogy. Only small, translated fragments.
Funny, but gets boring after a while.