AI unit cheat on Deity - Proof!

[damunzy]

Originally posted by kring
What I haven't seen mentioned yet is something made your old city go from size 4 to size 2. They either had starvation, drafted, or poprushed to lose the 2 extra citizens.

Well the city would go from 4 to 3 when attacked. Maybe it went from 3 to 2 when it poprushed the new unit? That could be where this unit appeared from.
This question brings up others I cannot remember the answer to.
1. Can you poprush on the same turn you take over a city?
2. How many shields are your citizens worth for a poprush? You have a modified game so it could be different from the norm.

 

[Evie]

Edited yet again : I know in my (unaltered) copy of the game the value of a pop point is 20, which is the cost of a spearmen/hoplite, but what I'm not sure about - never ran in that particular case- is, does pop rush carry the same penalty for hurrying a building you just switched on as gold rushing?

If it doesn't, then it all works. If it does, then perhaps the AI is not affected by that penalty.

 

[sumthinelse]

Originally posted by God
Who cares if the AI cheats? If you can beat them, then so what? If you can't win on diety because of the cheating, play on a lower level. If you can win the game and have fun, then play whatever level you want. Don't go playing diety and then complain that the AI gets advantages.

Killer knows how to win at deity level; that is not the problem.

There are 2 kinds of games here: there is the contest between a human player's skill and a program's skill. There is a second game, which is that in which the computer knows what the rules are and the human has to discover what they are or struggle in blind ignorance forever. You apparently don't mind the second kind of game, and I confess that I like to solve puzzles myself sometimes.

However, many players do not want to play the second kind of game, at least not in the context of CIV3. I hope that Firaxis considers giving them options to apply the "AI advantages" or not apply them in the editor.

It has been said before that the only way to have the AI keep up or surpass the human player is to give it production advantages.

I disagree with this statement, but I do think it is difficult to make it even without allowing the AI some advantages. Isn't it reasonable for the player to decide, as much as possible, what the AI properties should be? And I hope Firaxis gradually will try to use AI smarts instead of fiddling with AI bonuses in future editions. Of course, I have to ask myself: How much revenue will Infogames/Firaxis gain from that in the long run? If the answer is zero, then they would e doing it for the love of the game. Don't laugh! In the last patch I think Firaxis went out of its way to appease the "CIV Fanatic" players.

Firaxis could even design a game especially for you, God, in which the rules are randomized (e. g. the AI gets a combat boost of somewhere between -30% and +100%, or on deity level the human player can't build the Forbidden Palace), and you have to discover what the rules are in each game. If they do, I'll play it with you. Promise.

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

@ PaleHorse and sumthinelse: thank you both for saying what I'd have said in response to krings criticism!

@ kring: it's all been said! I LOVE Civ3, and I have a lot of fun finding things like this out!
As for the town size thing:It went to 3 in the attack. Pop-rush costs normal in my mod, so 5 for the first, 20 for the second citizen. Pop-rush should be impossible, since the captured town should be in resistance! Also, it would have to go down to somwhere around -2 pop, after all if I rush a Spearman in a size 7 city without prior production (so UI rush full cost) it will take too many lives and I can't do it! So maybe the Greeks rushed the guy, but how???????


@ sumthinelse: yes it was test.sav I wanted checked out. Here, too, the AI obviously was capable of rushing that a human can't do (which I've been suspecting for a long time), or it got a free defender extra.....


I played another game where I found something similar: the AI expands way faster than I do. How? I can't tell, since I put everything into expansion, and they simply go faster on Regent! Then, I surprise-attack a city and people there are unhappy because of oppression. There was only me and them on the entire world, so no other wars, no barbarians, either.

What does this tell me? The AI can somehow pop-rush with less loss of live, thus rush a settler in a size 4 town from scratch, or with less unhappiness, thus the cities grow back faster.

Firaxis: why didn't you tell us?????

 

[alver]

Originally posted by Zouave
Look, we all know the AI cheats especially on the higher levels. We never had this kind of stuff with Civ 2 as it simply changed the percentages for combat on different levels which was OK with me.

I couldn't disagree more!

The combat percentages was IMO the worst aspect of Civ2; it made me play on Prince most of the time. I hated the thought of uneven combat. The way the difficulty levels are implemented in Civ3 makes me want to play the higher levels. I mean, the AI gets bonuses, but at least the fights are fair. (And don't tell me the AI cheats on the dice rolls. I won't believe you)

 

[alver]

.... but forgive me for being agitated... I know this is just a matter of opinion. I think too many people here present their opinions as if they were universal truths, and I don't want to be seen as doing that myself

 

[D9phoenix]

Thanks sumthinelse

 

[SKILORD]

and yet, miraculously, there are those who win on diety.

(not me my crowning acheivement is monrch)

 

[sumthinelse]

Originally posted by SKILORD
and yet, miraculously, there are those who win on diety.

(not me my crowning acheivement is monrch)

We are not complaining about how difficult deity level is. We are objecting to the sleazy way the AI gets advantages.

Suppose I wrote a chess program that was very stupid, and it always lost to the human player. I could make it harder for the human to win to win in 2 ways:

• 
  
  * I could give the AI an advantage, such as: Its king could move 2 squares, and mine could only move one. That would make checkmate a lot harder, and it might allow the AI to win more. Also I could allow the AI's pawns to move backwards, while the human would still be subject to the normal chess rules. After a few of these changes, I might say that the game was more "challenging" because I made it harder for the human to win. The human players would use different adjectives to describe my new game. They would say they could still win most of the time, but it didn't make them better chess players.
  
  * I could take the time and effort to make the AI play a stronger game without these tricks. Then the human would win less often, but would feel more satisified after beating a strong AI opponent which was playing with the same rules . Of course, my program would still have some weaknesses that the human might exploit, and the human will have some weaknesses that the AI could exploit. I think most humans would prefer an "honest" AI opponent.
  

Now, we know it is very difficult to make the AI stronger. I think Firaxis has good people , and I would guess that Firaxis would like to take the second approach, but in the "real world" of budgets and schedules, that approach is easier said than done, and if I were in their shoes I might have done what they did.

Make no mistake, most of us who object to the AI cheating still love to play the game and are loyal to the game.

 

[IDSmoker]

If Firaxis had documented all of these 'cheats' from the beginning (as they did with some of the ones associated with difficulty level) would people be as upset about them?

Personally, I would like to see Firaxis put an additional text file in the next patch (and PTW). Call the file "CHEATS.TXT" (or "ADVANTAGES.TXT" if the marketers get involved <grin>) and list each and every hardcoded advantage given to the AI. This way, people who couldn't care less can ignore this information, and others can analyze (and kibbutz) this information to their hearts content.

Just a thought...

 

[sumthinelse]

Originally posted by IDSmoker

Personally, I would like to see Firaxis put an additional text file in the next patch (and PTW). Call the file "CHEATS.TXT" (or "ADVANTAGES.TXT" if the marketers get involved <grin>) and list each and every hardcoded advantage given to the AI

Couldn't hurt.....

 

[Hurricane]

Just for the record, I remember several instances where the AI sneakily attacked some remote city of mine with a single Knight or Cavalry and captured it. When I counter-attack after one or two turns, they have never had any other units in the city than that same Knight/Cavalry.

This makes me strongly believe the AI does NOT get any bonus units when counquering a city.

This of course leads me to believe the AI pop-rushed. The city in Killer´s game seems to be originally a Zulu city, and with only 3 pop after being taken might not have had any resisters.

 

[sumthinelse]

Originally posted by Hurricane
When I counter-attack after one or two turns, they have never had any other units in the city than that same Knight/Cavalry.

On what difficulty level? Killer was playing deity level.

I tried Killer's saved game and got the same results he did: an extra defender. If the AI is playing under the same rules as the human, I don't see how it is possible for the extra defender to appear. If you pop rush, you still have one turn left for unit production; it does not appear instantly.

 

[Qitai]

There does not seems to be any consistant result to show the AI gets extra defender (Note: I always play at deity, so my observations are at deity).

To give the system the benefit of doubt, I would suspect that all production resolution happens before the players turn as palehorse76 mention. To check for further indication of that, check pop or gold that AI has. These are possible if there is no resistor, which can happen.

Although this might be a potential cheat, I would not be too alarm as this does not seems to occur frequently (at least not in my games).

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

Qitai: I've seen it twice now (and I mean I know of it in two cases, it probably happened far oftener), on Deity and on Regent. Normally, you just won't notice - when do you have a stck of attacker, unhurt, next to a city the enmy takes?

So I guess it is the unit creation thing, and it happenes when the AI is filthy rich - as you said, not too often. Still, I was playing under the impressio9n that unit creation was the same for everyone - shouldn't Firaxis tell us it's not?

It may be the same as in Civ2, where - if I built Manhattan Projekt I could get nuked the very same turn. The AI simply got the unit right away, while I had to order production and got the unit next turn.

 

[Qitai]

Agree that Firaxis should shard some light into this (if the production gets resolve before player's turn).

Well, I am disturb by what you have discovered as well, but since it did not have such a huge impact to my games yet. I could ignore it (for the moment). The above is not common for me due to that I rarely lose my cities to AI. But, that's just me.

I had refuse to install patch 1.17 earlier since I could not tolerate the me Vs the world kind of feeling. Currently, I am very much satified with 1.21 until I find something that totally unbalance the game.

I still like MOO2 best =)

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

Hehe, I was equally stubborn, I even had a line in my sig saying: I reverted to 1.16 - guess why?

I'm very satisfied with 1.21, too. What is dfisturbing about the cheat is that it invalidates my defence philosophy. Normally, before Caravels come around, I want to have two attckers close when the enemy lands troops, and another two not more than 1 turn away. Thus, 2 defenders / city + some offence troops spread around + watching the coast does the trick. If now it is normal for the AI to get a third unit when taking a city, I will have to keep significantly more troops around - as many as I used to have after Astronomy.......

I also rarely loose cities, usually to sneak attcks like this one, and usually in combat zones So normally, I cannot see where the reinforcement comes from, but I do feel that I've often underestimated enemy strength because of this cheat here..... But with my planning it normally doesn't matter, I bring 3 to 4 times the troops necessary for a calculated win probability of 95% expecting 1 more counterattacker and 1 more defender than expected - so if they get that extra unit, I still have a 3:1 advantage. Problem is: another defender can cut that to 2:1, and then the streaky combat can make things tight........

What is MOO2?????

 

[Shabbaman]

That would be masters of orion 2. Or perhaps he was referring to the sound made by a cow.

 

[Qitai]

Yeap, Master of Orion 2. Civ3 is cool, but MOO2 is more relaxing as a game.

And I like games with less probability. Hate to lose something to probability.

"I believe in luck. I believe I have bad luck."

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

I tripled HP in my mod, and gave advanced unit HP boni. Now guess why

"I belive I have bad luck all the time!"

hey, I'm the guy who posted the only tank-loss-to-spearman savegame after all!