Anyone else notice the AI cheating like nuts in R&F??

[Baleur]

I mean, i'm not a great player, i usually play on King and keep on even terms with the AI, but with the expansion it is just utterly ridiculously cheatmode 9000 on the AI's part.
I've restarted time and time again and i'm literally always at the bottom of the score chart in every category.

In my most recent game, i noticed Korea right below me starting nearby.
I immediately rushed a settler first thing after my scout, because i spotted an unbelievably good close expansion spot. Had nice plots around my capital with enough production / food.
Still took 25 turns to get the settler out (less, as city was growing, but anyway).
Got the expansion down, and to my disbelief i see that Korea had THREE size 3 cities already and a new settler roaming around AND friggin granaries in each of the 3 cities (even the one it built like 3 turns ago).
Meanwhile my granary in my new city even with a 3 prod plot worked by the only citizen, takes 29 turns.

(i'm playing on Epic speed)
I mean this is beyond ridiculous, i've never before seen anything this cheaty from the AI prior to the expansion. Did they mess up the difficulty settings or is this actually "intended" to mask AI flaws by even more insane cheating than before?
Anyone else notice this too?

 

[Civlearner]

The difficulty levels do seem a bit borked. I struggled initially on settler level at one time but I’m getting better now. I think it is due to the size of the map and how many Civs. Smaller maps seem easier.

 

[Swissy]

You playing on Epic and IDT they even test how the game plays at that speed.

 

[Baleur]

So what? Every single person on youtube only play on Quick and they dont even test on that speed either
Plus that is a fallacy anyway, it scales equally for people and players, and im telling you it was NEVER like this prior to the expansion.
We're talking +200% production rates compared to the human player, thats insane.

 

[Ferocitus]

So what? Every single person on youtube only play on Quick and they dont even test on that speed either
Plus that is a fallacy anyway, it scales equally for people and players, and im telling you it was NEVER like this prior to the expansion.
We're talking +200% production rates compared to the human player, thats insane.

If it was completely fair, and you played against say 20 civs,
you'd win, on average, about 1 in 20 games and score above
average about 50% of the time.
Is that what you want?

 

[Pietato]

If it was completely fair, and you played against say 20 civs,
you'd win, on average, about 1 in 20 games and score above
average about 50% of the time.
Is that what you want?

Not how 'fair' works.

Well on normal speed, the AI seems slower to me.

 

[Leyrann]

AI has always had bonuses on King. Can't judge if this is fair, I play on Immortal and Deity mostly, and on Deity they literally start with 3 settlers.

 

[Melliores]

The AI even in the original game was very likely to buy units, especially for expansion and defence. For example an Ancient Era war with me (Nubia) against Norway (AI) took about 30+turns just because they kept buying a new unit, usually an Archer, every 5 turns or so on Standard speed.

If you play on a slower speed, that buy-heavy approach will be more evident, as they will be able to churn out more units while you still build your first one or two. You might also consider buying a Builder or Settler to kick-start your expansion.

Concerning the Rise and Fall, I just finished my first game using the Cree and bringing them to a Cultural victory on King + Standard speed. I was behind around the Medieval Era and Scotland started showing its great research focus, but then I decided to start stealing Great Works and Relics from other Civs using Spies and concentrate on building wonders and getting some Great People for myself. After the Atomic age I was clearly leading in culture and tourism, though Scotland was 8 or more techs ahead of me and Kongo was largely neutralised, since I traded/stole more than half of their Great works, artefacts and relics.

It is indeed possible to turn a slow start into an exciting finish with the expansion.

 

[Vandlys]

I mean, i'm not a great player, i usually play on King and keep on even terms with the AI, but with the expansion it is just utterly ridiculously cheatmode 9000 on the AI's part.
I've restarted time and time again and i'm literally always at the bottom of the score chart in every category.

In my most recent game, i noticed Korea right below me starting nearby.
I immediately rushed a settler first thing after my scout, because i spotted an unbelievably good close expansion spot. Had nice plots around my capital with enough production / food.
Still took 25 turns to get the settler out (less, as city was growing, but anyway).
Got the expansion down, and to my disbelief i see that Korea had THREE size 3 cities already and a new settler roaming around AND friggin granaries in each of the 3 cities (even the one it built like 3 turns ago).
Meanwhile my granary in my new city even with a 3 prod plot worked by the only citizen, takes 29 turns.

(i'm playing on Epic speed)
I mean this is beyond ridiculous, i've never before seen anything this cheaty from the AI prior to the expansion. Did they mess up the difficulty settings or is this actually "intended" to mask AI flaws by even more insane cheating than before?
Anyone else notice this too?

Exactly this. I am currently in a long king game playing as Poundmaker where I'm doing rather well, but I thought to play a small map a bit quicker to check out Scotland for a bit.

Standard speed, prince difficulty. Duel map with 6 city states and 3 Civs (including player). First 40 turns:
I (Scotland) have built two scouts, a monument and am producing a builder. City size: 3. Hill / grass start.
Mongolia has built a granary, a scout, a warrior and a slinger. City size: 3. River start, grass land.
Cree has built 3 workers, monument, granary, has a trader (duh), 2 slingers, 2 warriors. City size: 5 and 2. TUNDRA start!

What?

 

[Ferocitus]

Not how 'fair' works.

It's just a reference point. So what percentage of games do you think it
would be fair for you to to win against the AI?

 

[LuckyAC]

True, but the game is still trivially easy even with the bonuses. It would be nice if some balance could be created with great strategic play by the AI, but that's not in the cards any time soon, so until then it's better than playing on Prince.

 

[Ferocitus]

True, but the game is still trivially easy even with the bonuses. It would be nice if some balance could be created with great strategic play by the AI, but that's not in the cards any time soon, so until then it's better than playing on Prince.

It depends on how many civs you play against and the size of the map.
With 25+ civs on ludicrous size maps, some can make mistakes that
will help you, but the others will make it very difficult, especially if you
can't get near them for 100+ moves.

 

[Karpius]

Same old argument.
One person says the game is too hard and the AI must be cheating....
Another claims the game is far too easy....

It just cracks me up!!!

 

[bladex]

not for me they're just as dumb as ever. in my current game Greece dow me with someone else (one of the new ones) they had literally no army to defend themselves i just sent my border patrols straight into their cities they still had crappy catapults and archers my crossbow and swordsman guys wiped them out easily

 

[Kougar7]

Well yes and no. On King the AI focuses on expansion and growth, but hardly anything else. By the end of the game a King AI will have dozens of cities, half without districts and most of the rest with a single district. It puts so much effort into expansion it never is able to build up anything.

To be honest the amount of rule-bending the AI has to do is beyond the absurd. But when it is so incompetent and badly programmed it starts to become understandable. At the end of one of my R&F games Saladin declared war on me, then only attacked me with supply convoy units and a couple helicopter corps. Every turn he would buy a supply convoy support unit and send it to my capital city, which by the way cost over $1k in gold each. The King AI threw 30-something of them at my capital (and a general) while I used 2 mobile infantry and 2 artillery armies to eradicate his entire empire from the map. He never bought replacements for his helicopters because he wasn't programmed to move his units out of his own cities to allow himself to buy them, which is probably why he was buying support units instead to waste on me. The AI is incredibly badly programmed and giving it absurd levels of cheats is the only way to make it even comparable to a player that fully understands the game.

 

[fotonut]

In higher levels Civ VI is mostly about surviving the first part of the game where you’re far behind from the gate and remain at the bottom of the scores. Middle of the game you catch up by optimizing your strengths (and taking advantage of AI weaknesses, and getting a bit lucky). Then you hopefully win...

In my immortal game as Korea the first 100 turns were miserable - stuck on an island with two other civs who settled all over, constant barb ships on the coast so I couldn’t leave. I had two cities of pop 8 total by turn 120.

But then two of R&F’s new features kicked in: I got 6400 gold in an emergency I was the only one in, and didn’t participate at all, and three cities around me all flipped to me.

Right now turn 180 or so, still at the bottom of the score chart, but things are looking up...

So yes, early game can be frustrating due to AI cheating, but can also be rewarding to try to get thru that...

 

[Baleur]

If it was completely fair, and you played against say 20 civs,
you'd win, on average, about 1 in 20 games and score above
average about 50% of the time.
Is that what you want?

Yes, honestly. I dont play to win, i play to have a fair experience as a growing struggling civilization just making a life for itself in the big world

Anyway, i was asking if anyone else noticed MORE cheating on the same difficulty level in R&F, thats what my purpose of the thread was, not to spark a discussion on who is a good player or why AI's cheat. I know they cheat in civ4, civ5, civ6 vanilla. I'm asking if anyone else noticed MORE (to outrageous levels) cheating in Rise and Fall.

 

[Ornen]

Make them cheat more, in my first couple games (emperor and immortal) it seems like the AI forgot how to reach tech. Now I'm pushing ahead to atomic while they're still in industrial.

Vanilla had this problem for a bit as well, but with patches they got the ai to keep a solid pace, and it was pretty common for me to see them spend most of the game ahead or on track. But not so far with Rise & Fall.

 

[PYITE]

There is no change in the difficulty based bonuses that the AI receives. King has very small bonuses; 20% production and gold, 8% culture, science and faith and an extra warrior and builder.
If you see these values as massive cheats then you should probably stick with Prince where you are on exactly even ground with the AI.
Sounds like your are getting a really slow start, maybe spend some time reading up on early game strategy to get things going a bit faster.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

It's just a reference point. So what percentage of games do you think it
would be fair for you to to win against the AI?

Merely asking this question implies a large perversion of the concept of "fair".

You can't make the conversation sensible without rating how effectively the player and AI play. The latter is variable even in the context of the same player across games.

In the majority of cases, the civ that makes the most good choices should win. That will have noise factors since weaker players can (and if competent, should) dogpile a winning player, with incentive to turn on each other. A 5% win rate among 20 players is only "fair" if they're all literally equal in play ability. Make only one player better, and it is "fair" that said player wins more than 5% of the time on average. How much higher winrate is fair? Depends on how much better that one player got. It also depends how much the game's design weights skill in individual mechanics vs diplomacy...and depending on the game/model diplomacy is itself a valid skill.

For 1v1s with equal start positions, the player that plays better should win every time. Any other outcome is inherently unfair. Even that isn't so simple though...how do you evaluate who "played better" ? Objective criteria to determine that isn't so easy. I've seen much stronger micro players lose because they were just a little too light on military, even in civ 4. Several techs ahead by classical era...but pillaged tiles and before long, no techs at all (dead). Most games that losing player would win, but it'd be hard to argue he was better in that one game. Not getting dead is pretty paramount to success.