Anyone have a list of the CHEATS the AI uses?

Regordete

Chieftain
Joined
Apr 14, 2002
Messages
58
Does anyone have a list of the CHEATS the AI uses at the various levels?

I just started a game at the monarch level. I had very good terrain for my first city and got to start very early with a productive city. STILL, while I'm working on my first city, an American GALLEY deposits a SWORDSMAN on my doorstep. My reaction ? *Screw * this - ESC THere is NO POSSIBLE way this couldd happen in the rules of the game as its explained in the manual.

If the rules for the QUASI inteligence is different than the humans, this should be clearly stated in the manual. This isn't clever programming, its just plain stupid. A 10-year-old would spot it as a cheat.

Does Fireaxis believe this will endear anyone? Most people have a *negative* view of cheating - no matter what is doing the cheating. SPELL OUT THE DAMN RULES and conditions instead of pretending they are different.

It comes across more as a hack rather than a game. There is only ONE level to this game and the rest is just plugged in cheats. There is no AI. It can't get better with each level. It just increases its cheats as you go up. Why not have it on the diety level (to make it a true DIETY level), where the AI gets nukes on the first turn. That would be about as clever as this hack is.

Chess computers don't start games with 2 or 3 queens! But chess computers use AI - what the hell CIV3 is using I have no clue - Artificial CHEATS?

All I can say is shame on you Fireaxis, and I'll make sure to note your name as precaution for future purchases. How Gamespot rated this a #1 strategy game, I'll never know. Payola is all I can think of.

I lnow there are Civ3 addicts in here, and I'm sorry to rant so. If you like the game, fine. It just impresses me as layered hacks - speghetti programming.
 
yes the ai is the worst ever................
in games like aoe2 they have brains
in civ3 they just cheat
 
Regordete: How many turns would that be? You won't believe how 'lucky' the computer races are. I had a game where the Zulus built their capital on an Iron resource!!!

Lucky thing I wiped out their entire civ early on :) so it's possible on rare occsassions where their city is on a resource and get to access powerful units while you're still using warriors.
 
Well, maybe I was bit harsh in my rant. But it seems like they would spell out in the manual that the computer generated civilizations are going to have technological advantages depending on the level. I know it must be extremely hard to program AI for this type of game, but if the manual was a lot more honest, I doubt there would be so many cries of cheating.
I take no pleasure in starting a game expecting one set of rules and discover that there are completely different rules.

If the manual stated that at harder levels you will be starting out at a big technological and unit disadvantage, it would be easier to form a strategy. But instead it comes across as a "haha, joke's on you" stunt by the programmer. Personaly, I dont like that smart alec manner. Maybe its an age thing.

Anyway, I guess if there is no list, Ill just have to hack around to find how many bonuses the othe civs start with at various levels.
Perhaps 2 settlers, bronze and iron working , at monarch level and more as you go up.
 
ok, the AI cheats some, but not like what you are saying. I think at monarch they get some military units and an extra settler? not sure right now, but if you look in the BIC file, you can see everything that they get at the start.
I am wondering what year it was when they landed???
 
I don't think you'll ever find a post here with the concise list you're looking for. However, plenty has been written on the subject of the cheating AI in Civ3. Some posts are quantitative analyses, some are more like expressions of frustration, but they do tell you how the AI works/doesn't work. Try searching on authors such as Cracker, Zouave, Killer (there are others but can't think of names right now). Reading some of them will make you feel less guilty about your own "ranting" too.

My solution is just to play on a lower level (Regent) and with a mod that I found suits my style.
 
Well, somebody seems to have a bad hair day. :D

I suggest you open up the editor and check out the rules. They are all clearly there. Depending on level, either the AI or the human player gets a bonus.

On Chieftain and up to Regent, the human player builds faster and cities grow faster than the AI. On Regent, all players use the same rules, and on the higher levels, the AI gets a bonus.

There are also other bonuses for the AI on the higher levels, most notably that they start with more units. This has a big impact on the early game. Also, the human player has higher corruption and must pay more for trade deals than the AI.

However, if you play on Regent, the AI uses exactly the same rules as the human, so go on and play on that level. All bonuses are also moddable in the editor.

On no level does the AI get a combat advantage, better starting positions, invincible Galleys and killer Spearmen or free Wonders.

In fact, the only cheat the AI uses is that it knows your troop locations. As long as you remember this, though, it is just as easy to take advantage of it. But as you probably painfully got to know, never leave your coast undefended even way back in your territory, because the AI will spot that empty or weakly defended city and go for it with a galley if it has one just hanging around.
 
Regordete, the AI don't start with extra techs or any galleys on Monarch, but they do start with additional units, and need less shields to produce all units and less food to grow cities. So with a slightly better starting location, they will grow quite a bit faster.

Also, remember that America is expansionist, so they will mop up all the goody huts quite fast, and get good things from them most of the time. It seems they've got quite some techs here.
 
The AI seem to sometimes be able to see what they should not. Once I had a battleship so far away for a country's border they could not have possibly seen it and yet they sent bombers to attack.
 
Originally posted by Quentin
The AI seem to sometimes be able to see what they should not. Once I had a battleship so far away for a country's border they could not have possibly seen it and yet they sent bombers to attack.

If you had bothered to read my post, you would have noticed that I mentioned that the AI indeed knows your troop positions. Why?

Because the AI has no memory. Consider the following situation. You see a battleship move by your coast on a northward route. However, it disappears into the fog of war, but you know that it is out there somewhere. You happen to have a few bombers and a fighter in the vicinity, so on your turn, you make a recon mission and spot the battleship and send in all your bombers.

Now, consider the AI in the same situation. Since it has no memory, it has no clue that a battleship recently passed its coast. The AI system is simply - if you can´t see it, it isn´t there. Of course, Firaxis understood that this would make the AI seem even more stupid, so instead they made it so that it always knows where your units are. This is a trade-off they had to do, otherwise the game would be unbearably slow.

One comment, though. The human player can´t bomb a square that looks empty, so the AI should be forced to use a recon mission to spot the battleship before they can bomb it. I can´t say if they just override this rule or if a recon mission in fact is carried out, but since your units are unaffected and the plane returns to base, the computer doesn´t just display the results. This could of course be checked with the multi-cheat.
 
Originally posted by Hurricane
You happen to have a few bombers and a fighter in the vicinity, so on your turn, you make a recon mission and spot the battleship and send in all your bombers.

Hurricane, have you ever been able to bomb more than once after recon? If I recon and bomb the target dissappears from view....
 
If you are curious exactly what advantages the AI gets on Monarch, here is the list from the editor.

1) They start with 3 bonus units, usually spearmen and warriors. Makes it harder to rush them early.

2) They get 4 additional unit support for free, plus 1 per city. This means that even under republic/democracy they are getting 1 support per city.

3) This is the big one. The AI gets a 10% discount on just about everything; it takes only 90% of the actual shield cost to build things, it takes 90% of the necessary food to grow, and it takes 90% of the beakers to advance in science. So 30 shield settlers only take 27, it only takes 18 food and not 20 to grow, etc.

4) Corruption is slightly higher than average for the player because the optimum city level is only 85% of the default.

And this is all the cheating that goes on. It's really nothing that a human can't overcome. Deity, now is a different story...
 
Originally posted by philippe
yes the ai is the worst ever................
in games like aoe2 they have brains
in civ3 they just cheat

I've never played AoE2. How is its AI more competitive at higher difficulty levels? Are there different startegies it uses at higher levels? Is it less likely to sell a key technology or resource? Is it less likely to be friendly with you when you are a top "civ" because it feels threatened? Is it able to fight on three fronts simultaneously?
 
in aoe2 you can see them taking wood and iron in
harder diffuculties you seem them using different stragy and they are very smart
example:you have lots of towers.towers PERFECT for units to kill.what do the ai do,they build siege rams to destroy the towers....that is having a brain and that is the thing that makes aoe2 so much fun:goodjob:
 
Originally posted by philippe
in aoe2 you can see them taking wood and iron in
harder diffuculties you seem them using different stragy and they are very smart
example:you have lots of towers.towers PERFECT for units to kill.what do the ai do,they build siege rams to destroy the towers....that is having a brain and that is the thing that makes aoe2 so much fun:goodjob:

Hmm,I do wish the price for AoE2 would drop some. Maybe for my b-day. There's nothing sadder than a 36 year old man asking his mommy for a computer game. I guess its better that asking my wife! We KNOW what she'd say. :lol:
 
Thanks for the answers. I guess my rant wasn't justified from what you explained. In way its funny. Yea, I want it to be challenging, but I want to win :)

On the regent level, I thought I worked out a nice strategy of building a barracks quick and getting all the settlers that passed to get free workers. I see on the higher levels I'll need a more defensive, butt kissing stategy until my towns get rolling.

One more question though. Is it just me, or do barbarians get a whole lot more active when you start an atack? I know they are pushover, but they do take hitpoints sometimes. Seems whenever I start an early atack I get flanked by barbarians! :)
 
I think barbarians get harder to kill as you go up each level.

About the American Swordsmen: Its not possible on monarch. Even though America is expansionist and I'm sure they can get Iron Working really early they can't hook up iron, build a galley, a swordsmen, send their ship across the sea, and you only have 1 city. By then you should have 2 cities, a few warriors exploring, and a few defending the cities.
 
Unless they got 2 good cities and traded iron working for map making as soon as they got it :p
 
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