AI Players' way of playing is very suspicious!!!

[ferenginar]

If you wish to regenerate the map, or reload a game then it is entirely up to you. If you do not consider it to be cheating then it is not. If you value a victory achieved from a reload then that is your choice. Only an individual can decide what constitutes cheating for them, no one else can.

There are a few posts here that are wholly unnecessary, and detract from the discussion of game mechanics.

 

[Roland Johansen]

It is not fully clear if the AI has more knowledge than the human player about unit placement and troop strength. I've had some weird things about fishing boat pillaging and The Great Apple has just confirmed that the pillage algorithm uses some information about whether there are units present on the to be pillaged tile. But that does not mean that the AI has full knowledge about troop placement. If it had, then it wouldn't have behaved as it did in the example that I gave in my first post:

This scouting information will of course not be up to date when they attack. I've noticed this once when a nation opened a surprise naval invasion at the tile next to the staging area for my own invasion. 10 turns earlier, when the nation had scouted the area, it had been a moderately defended area and the 15 unit naval invasion could have caused me serious problems. Now, it only succeeded in postponing my own naval invasion plans a few turns as my 25 unit stack needed time to recover from the damage it had taken. If the AI really knew about my city defences, then it would not have attacked my most heavily defended city.

There has been some discussion about whether regenerating the map is cheating. I would remove the word cheating from this discussion as it is often perceived rather sensitive.
If you play an emperor level game and regenerate the map until you are satisfied with your starting position (food resources, copper and horses in the neighbourhood or other things that interest you), then your emperor level game will be easier than the average emperor level game. It might even be easier than an average monarch level game. If you win the game, you can of course claim that you defeated the game at emperor level, but it won't be the same as someone who does the same regularly with average of below average game starts.
Anyone is course fully free to choose how he plays his single player games and if he wants an above average game start than he should do so. Just don't think that your game is as difficult as with an average game start.

Finally, DaviddesJ will certainly not be banned because he says that regenerating the map is cheating from the human player. It's an opinion which differs from the opinion of Lord of Civ, but I can't find anything in the forum rules that having a different opinion than Lord of Civ leads to a ban.
If DaviddesJ had presented it in a seriously offending way, then it might be wrong, but I can't find that in his posts.

To Lord of Civ: I've seen a lot of posts of DaviddesJ during my years on this forum and they are usually very helpful and nice. So just give him the benefit of the doubt. I personally have read his posts as an attempt to show you that the human player has certain advantages compared to the AI (except superior intelligence). While the player sees the AI advantages as cheating, he views his own advantages as fair game.

Lets present another human advantage: The human player can see how the AI feels about him (all the plusses and minusses in diplomacy and the attitude of the AI player) while the AI has nothing similar towards the human player. Now, the AI actions are not completely determined by the plusses and minusses in diplomacy, but they are extremely important in its actions. The human player can plot and sheme to destroy the AI player while keeping a friendly face ingame towards the AI player.
Few players would call this cheating from the human player. But imagine a theoretical situation in a multiplayer game between two human players. Both players are playing at the exact same difficulty level, but one player has a mindreader mounted on his head which shows the other player how he feels about him. Clearly, the player with the mindreader mounted on his head is at a serious disadvantage. Some might even go as far as saying that the other player is cheating.
So what is the difference? We accept certain disadvantages for the AI that we would never accept ourselves and we also accept certain advantages for ourselves that we would never accept for the AI.

Don't expect the exact same game rules for the AI as for the human player. The situation is very assymetrical in many ways and as long as the AI isn't as intelligent as the human player, you will never see a fully symmetrical game. The game developers just try to make the differences as non-intrusive as possible. Maybe there are some possibilities to improve this.

 

[DaviddesJ]

By the way, the human player can tell when the AI (or another human) builds improvements on resources, even if those resources are under the fog. Is this a bug/cheat, also? You can also tell when forest/jungle is cleared from a tile, even if you don't currently have visibility to it.

 

[Mr. Do]

I think it's a bit disingenious to call something programmed into the game that a human can activate to improve the fun of playing the game as "cheating". That'd be like saying playing on any level below Prince is cheating because the human's getting advantages over the player (And similarly saying that the AI cheating because it gets free units and bonuses). Regenerating a map is an external action that ends a game, it is not something that happens inside a game, like knowing where things you can't see are located.

But that's all off-topic. The real reason that we should disapprove of "magic eyes", is that it means that the human player can manipulate AI behaviour, for example in the fishing boats case, you might leave a caravel nearby to attack fishing boats that turn up to try and pillage your resource, thus getting essentially free exp. As much as some people might not want to say that certain AI behaviour is "cheating", it doesn't change the fact that it's not a Good Thing; however, the alternative might not necessarily be better...

 

[chronicdog]

Basically, almost every AIs made surprise attack on my weak cities which was not fair and i was not pleased...

Fair? Fair?

Whats fair?

Fairness is a notably subjective quality.

"6 a : marked by impartiality and honesty : free from self-interest, prejudice, or favoritism <a very fair person to do business with> b (1) : conforming with the established rules : ALLOWED (2) : consonant with merit or importance : DUE <a fair share> c : open to legitimate pursuit, attack, or ridicule <fair game>
synonyms FAIR, JUST, EQUITABLE, IMPARTIAL, UNBIASED, DISPASSIONATE, OBJECTIVE mean free from favor toward either or any side. FAIR implies an elimination of one's own feelings, prejudices, and desires so as to achieve a proper balance of conflicting interests <a fair decision>. JUST implies an exact following of a standard of what is right and proper <a just settlement of territorial claims>. EQUITABLE implies a less rigorous standard than JUST and usually suggests equal treatment of all concerned <the equitable distribution of the property>. IMPARTIAL stresses an absence of favor or prejudice <an impartial third party>. UNBIASED implies even more strongly an absence of all prejudice <your unbiased opinion>. DISPASSIONATE suggests freedom from the influence of strong feeling and often implies cool or even cold judgment <a dispassionate summation of the facts>. OBJECTIVE stresses a tendency to view events or persons as apart from oneself and one's own interest or feelings <I can't be objective about my own child>."




Build a bigger miltary and defend your cities better... its not complicated and does not involve "AI Magic Eyes."

The AI is bad a waging war and defending.... so, you better learn to get better.

The you can "play fair" with the AI and become more "pleased" as a result.

 

[Iustus]

Example:- I had the Great Wall, and my cultural boundaries spread the whole distance of the continent (north to south)with a small one square width corridor between 2 cities, and since the barbs coming from the west couldn't enter my territory, this was the only way to get at the nations to my east.

Now there was still a huge amount of unoccupied land, and the barbs wiere coming non-stop along my borders, so I could see them but they couldn't touch me. Just be placing one troop in the zone I mentioned earlier shut off their route to the east. But if I moved this troop, and left the corridor open, they then knew it was open, even ones 20 tiles away. I kept moving the troop in and out of the corridor, and watched the barbs behave like yo-yos.

Even though they had no possible way to know, they did know when the corridor was open. I can't personally vouch for whether the AIs know stuff like this too, but I suspect they do.

Actually, human players have this same ability, not just the AIs.

If you duplicate a similar situation for the human player, you can see this:

In Worldbuilder: Make a map that has a 1 tile wide path to get somewhere, (shorter distance), and a longer more roundabout path. Place the human player at war with another civ. If you place an enemy unit blocking the more direct path, and then tell the human player unit to goto something on the other side, it will automatically go the other direction, to take the longer path, knowing that the path is blocked.

So this is not so much a cheat as the way the game works, for humans and AIs both. Or, a cheat that everyone humans and AIs can both use.

-Iustus

 

[Lord of Civ]

I still think that if the AI were to use the World Builder to edit the map and give itself several bonus resources around all of its cities, you would change your mind about whether this is completely acceptable and fully within the rules..

That is cheating like i previously posted. I agree and i never use the World Builder to edit any maps. But... regenerating the map is another thing....

If people were banned just for disagreeing with you, I'm not sure there would be too many left.

You can disagree that AI does not have Magic Eyes but NEVER CALL PEOPLE A HUMAN CHEATER JUST BECAUSE THEY RESTARTED THE GAME. Its very annoying and could be considered as false accusation therefore "trolling". Using the term "human cheating" or "human cheater" was a little bit too strong and could be offensive to certain people who used the "Regenerate Map" option or who restarted the game. I don't mind very much but just to tell you only...

IMO regenerating the game map is cheating.

Sir... Regenerating the map is not an act of cheating...... Trust me...
But editing the map is cheating....
These are not even my opinions but they are true philosophical statements, unbiased, non-offensive.

Lord of Civ - this thread would be a more constructive if you'd be a little less sensitive to those who disagree with you. DaviddesJ has written nothing that constitutes trolling. And you keep responding to 'calm down' for no reason. Its annoying.

This thread could not be constructive with bad counter-arguments and false accusations against other members like using the term "human cheating" or "cheating" or "cheater" against others. Yes, the first statement he made was essentially trolling because it was philosophically incorrect and with false Jump-to-Conclusion with bad argument and could be seen as offensive. Another thing, i am a nice guy so i did not care very much and did not report. Lately, i banned many people who made statements like that on other forum with same rules... DaviddesJ came into the thread and made false statement and not only disagreeing. For example, Aussie Lurker was OK for me, even though he disagreed because he never seen this event of "AI's Magic Eye".

Never ever call someone a cheater unless they really cheat.. You see?

Another thing, it is very annoying to others when someone get inside this thread and be off-topic sir. If you come here to annoy others and not discussing about the thread then please leave the thread. Besides, your post has no good arguments about the thread. Please don't ruin the thread any further.

Finally, DaviddesJ will certainly not be banned because he says that regenerating the map is cheating from the human player. It's an opinion which differs from the opinion of Lord of Civ, but I can't find anything in the forum rules that having a different opinion than Lord of Civ leads to a ban.
If DaviddesJ had presented it in a seriously offending way, then it might be wrong, but I can't find that in his posts.

To Lord of Civ: I've seen a lot of posts of DaviddesJ during my years on this forum and they are usually very helpful and nice. So just give him the benefit of the doubt. I personally have read his posts as an attempt to show you that the human player has certain advantages compared to the AI (except superior intelligence). While the player sees the AI advantages as cheating, he views his own advantages as fair game.

He could be ban, thats possible... I know moderators of many forum... I know the forum rules... His early statement: "Yes, I think this sort of human cheating is more pervasive than AI "cheating".". This is not the same as the second one: "I think that regenerating the map is cheating". His first statement was called false Jump-To-Conclusion. I hated when someone called me a "human cheater" or using the term "human cheating" because i always followed the game rules and i never cheat. Also, my skill was not that bad.. Please understand....

I don't care how many posts of DaviddesJ you read and i believe you that many of his posts were beautiful, nice and helpful but not his first statement on my thread. He can have any views but DON'T CALL ME A HUMAN CHEATER since it is wrong, untrue, incorrect. There is no first ammendment on this forum like any other forums. Express only good opinions with good logic reason which does not hurt others.

Fair? Fair?

To be Fair in this case means, every player respect the same rules. Forgot the word "suspicious" lately..... hehe!
Thanks for the definition but i knew the unfairness within the game....

Build a bigger miltary and defend your cities better... its not complicated and does not involve "AI Magic Eyes."

You haven't convince me yet. Thats not a good counter argument.... I once defended my capital city very well but they never attack and they just turned back.... WHY? I think it is because these German stacked Panzers were just "scary cats" or they got "Magic Eyes".. Please review my experience on previous posts...

 

[Lord of Civ]

But that's all off-topic. The real reason that we should disapprove of "magic eyes", is that it means that the human player can manipulate AI behaviour, for example in the fishing boats case, you might leave a caravel nearby to attack fishing boats that turn up to try and pillage your resource, thus getting essentially free exp. As much as some people might not want to say that certain AI behaviour is "cheating", it doesn't change the fact that it's not a Good Thing; however, the alternative might not necessarily be better...

Thats a good counter argument Mr. Do. I appreciated that. This is what I wanted to hear on this thread. Thats a possiblity too.

Keep it up.

 

[DaviddesJ]

These are not even my opinions but they are true philosophical statements, unbiased, non-offensive.

Your opinions are your opinions. My opinions are my opinions. If you stop viewing your own opinions as "unbiased truth", you'll probably be less wound up when people disagree with you.

 

[Lord of Civ]

Your opinions are your opinions. My opinions are my opinions. If you stop viewing your own opinions as "unbiased truth", you'll probably be less wound up when people disagree with you.

Its the truth. Restarting the game is not cheating and everyone knows that...

 

[DaviddesJ]

Its the truth. Restarting the game is not cheating and everyone knows that...

If everyone did agree, then you wouldn't have several different people disagreeing with you.

I don't think there's anything wrong with restarting. Or with editing the map in World Builder, for that matter. The point of the game is to have fun, and people should do whatever is fun for them. Sometimes "cheating" is fun.

As Roland says, the point is that human players have advantages that let them "cheat" in ways that the AIs can't, and vice versa. It's impossible to make the game exactly the same for the humans as for the AI.

 

[Lord of Civ]

If everyone did agree, then you wouldn't have several different people disagreeing with you.

I don't think there's anything wrong with restarting. Or with editing the map in World Builder, for that matter. The point of the game is to have fun, and people should do whatever is fun for them. Sometimes "cheating" is fun.

As Roland says, the point is that human players have advantages that let them "cheat" in ways that the AIs can't, and vice versa. It's impossible to make the game exactly the same for the humans as for the AI.

I welcome everyone who disagree about AIs not having magic eyes. But i could be offend if someone come up with a false jump to conclusion or a false accusation such as calling or mis-describing someone as human cheater for using "Regenerate Map" option....

Its not a problem too for me, to restart the game since it is not cheating act. I am a very honest person who never ever cheat in Civ3,4.

Face the truth, when people follows the rules, I assumed that they do not cheat. Thats Philosophy rather than just my opinion.....

It is possible to make a fair game but it would be as boring as chess. It should be close to "fair for everyone" but it could not be as perfect as chess.

 

[DaviddesJ]

Face the truth, when people follows the rules, I assumed that they do not cheat.

There aren't any rules. The manual and documentation don't say what players may or may not do. (Nor should they; it's up to each player to decide.)

You've decided that certain functions included in the game (like restarting) are "not cheats", and other functions included in the game (like World Builder) are "cheats". Someone else might decide something different. There are lots of other exploitable mechanisms in the game, and different people will all come to different conclusions about every one of them.

There's no way your opinions will ever be accepted by others as the "right" opinions. Even if you do call yourself the Lord of Civ.

 

[Lord of Civ]

There aren't any rules. The manual and documentation don't say what players may or may not do. (Nor should they; it's up to each player to decide.)

Huh?????

What is this guy saying people????

This guy is saying that there is no single rule in Civ4. Lately, i saw that there are sooooooo many rules in Civilopedia such as the game concepts, etc.

How can you assume that there aren't any rules on manual and documentation simply because it is up to the people to decide which button to press on game options.... ???

You've decided that certain functions included in the game (like restarting) are "not cheats", and other functions included in the game (like World Builder) are "cheats". Someone else might decide something different. There are lots of other exploitable mechanisms in the game, and different people will all come to different conclusions about every one of them.

There's no way your opinions will ever be accepted by others as the "right" opinions. Even if you do call yourself the Lord of Civ

Wow! you are totally confused... Thats because you said so... Some people already accepted my opinion but i was worried about who would accept your opinion like: "People who restarted the game by using game option were Human cheaters" or "there aren't any game rules".

Perhaps only those who misinterpretate it...

 

[Mango]

Regenerating the map to get a better starting position is giving yourself an unfair advantage compared to the computer. Just because there is an option available to do it doesn't mean it isn't cheating. It just means enough people do it to warrant the convenience of a "regenerate map" button.

Anytime you can give yourself an advantage that the computer cannot do then it is cheating, whether it be something obvious (like using a cheat code) to taking advantage of a bug (like the slavery rounding error) to just taking advantage of the fact that it's an AI and not a real human (the only "cheating" that is really ambiguous is this).

Whether you chose to play that way is up to you. I occasionally regenerate if it's a terrible position, and I take advantage of the fact that the computer always beelines to certain techs by prioritizing others. I know that certain leaders like to build and certain leaders like to plunder. I use this to my advantage, like not researching religions if I see Isabella next to me (because I know I can take her holy cities later) to "knowing" that Monty is a crazy bastard and playing him accordingly. The AI does not know these things, so it is an advantage I have. If I see a builder AI near me I know I can loot them for some wonders if I wait a bit. I know that AIs tend to protect their minor cities with just two archers for most of the early game, so I know I can spread my stacks out accordingly without having to scout them. Technically playing this way could be construed as cheating, though once you "know" this it is impossible to forget it and pretend to not know that Isabella is gonna grab 2 religions and hound you.

Point is, don't worry about it. Most people cheat a little to some small or large extent. You should be man (or woman!) enough to admit to it.

 

[Lord of Civ]

Regenerating the map to get a better starting position is giving yourself an unfair advantage compared to the computer. Just because there is an option available to do it doesn't mean it isn't cheating. It just means enough people do it to warrant the convenience of a "regenerate map" button.

Anytime you can give yourself an advantage that the computer cannot do then it is cheating, whether it be something obvious (like using a cheat code) to taking advantage of a bug (like the slavery rounding error) to just taking advantage of the fact that it's an AI and not a real human (the only "cheating" that is really ambiguous is this).

Whether you chose to play that way is up to you. I occasionally regenerate if it's a terrible position, and I take advantage of the fact that the computer always beelines to certain techs by prioritizing others. I know that certain leaders like to build and certain leaders like to plunder. I use this to my advantage, like not researching religions if I see Isabella next to me (because I know I can take her holy cities later) to "knowing" that Monty is a crazy bastard and playing him accordingly. The AI does not know these things, so it is an advantage I have. If I see a builder AI near me I know I can loot them for some wonders if I wait a bit. I know that AIs tend to protect their minor cities with just two archers for most of the early game, so I know I can spread my stacks out accordingly without having to scout them. Technically playing this way could be construed as cheating, though once you "know" this it is impossible to forget it and pretend to not know that Isabella is gonna grab 2 religions and hound you.

Point is, don't worry about it. Most people cheat a little to some small or large extent. You should be man (or woman!) enough to admit to it.

With all respect. "Cheating" is not the right kind of word to be use in this argument because what if you got a good starting point but the other cities got desert terrains???

Humans can still get dissadvantages even if you started a capital city on a good terrain and you still can lose the game.

I lost many games even if i started a capital city on a good grassland near a river or lake and sea. Sometimes i don't even have horses!!!

This is just my preference and it does not mean that i cheated.

Also, ignoring current game and go to the next one is not cheating. It is because you were unlucky thererfore you were losing and did not wanted to waist a lot of time to go on with that game.

Cheating is a little bit strong word to use because it is hard to say sometimes. Personally i don't blame people for cheating if they restart a game because i know that they are not God who can always manipulate the game. It could either be lucky or unlucky.
Whats a big deal?

Perhaps "Luck" is a better word. For example: Like when you play cards like poker and you lost after a kid mess around with the cards but he did not steal any cards and the cards were randomly remixed well again. CAN YOU BLAME ON THE KID???? That would hurt his feeling. Nobody is a God here.... You might either win or lose. Simply because the kid had touched the cards but it does not mean he is responsible to make you lose. I just don't like this behaviour and it could hurt others feeling.

Well, can you say i cheated????

PS: The point of this thread is to talk more about what AIs could do while humans could not do ONLY WITHIN THE GAME....

 

[DaviddesJ]

How can you assume that there aren't any rules on manual and documentation simply because it is up to the people to decide which button to press on game options.... ???

I'm not "assuming" anything. I read the whole manual, and there's not a single word in it about which buttons players are, or are not, allowed to push. Not in the Civilopedia, either.

Here's what it says about the World Builder: "You can access the World Builder interface anytime from the game. Here, you can edit the map, placing terrain, resources, and improvements as you see fit. You can also drop units or cities on the map."

Nowhere does it say that the World Builder is "against the rules". You're just making that up.

 

[floppymoose]

Feesuz Greist! DaviddesJ, no one wants to here about what you consider cheating. Can't you just drop it and let this thread be about the implicit knowledge inside the various game algs?

 

[T.A JONES]

You've got to excuse these kind of guys Mr OP. they got a bad 'case' of Jim "the hammer' Shipiro posting. That means being the number one fans they truly are, they freely devote their time and services in defending there client from the its rash of recent 'cases' (threads with real problems custumers have) Problem is you can tell they do more badgering online then actual Civ4 game time. Assures me the AI is about as improved as OJ is innocent. Case closed.

oh Gee he's still badgering away. About my earlier words they ring more true in my eyes. Thanks for saying something floppymoose. This is getting crazy, I think mybe hes proud Hes a icon to Fan B's, He can't stop till he's told.

 

[Roland Johansen]

If someone threathens to report your post to the moderators because it was so bad in his eyes while you consider it a perfectly fair statement, then I do think that you have a right to defend yourself.

By the way, there are 2 sides in this argument and neither of them has stopped posting about it.

I even gave a good countexample to the magic eyes statement in this thread twice and twice it was completely ignored by the OP. So maybe the OP is also not really interested in discussing it.