Caught the AI Cheating

[Blanchflower]

What level were you playing at? AI gets reduced shield costs at higher levels; that was probably the reason.

Anyway, of course the AI cheats! How else are you expected to have a decent challenge? To respond, you shouldn't cheat back, you should become a better player. Yes the AI cheats, because human players are infinitely better. Prove it, and win honorably!

Yes, I have to agree with you here. The AI HAS to cheat because Artificial Intelligence in computer gaming is STILL had its primitive state. Computer programmers who wrote this game (and this applies to other games as well) have no choice but to ALLOW the AI "unfair" advantages at higher levels of the game.

This has got to do with the level of computer (or AI) intelligence currently. Creating an AI with the SAME intelligence as humans is a mammoth task in itself and virtually impossible with current technology. Huge, massive, long years of research is needed to improve the AI's intelligence and this is no easy feat. One can say that to achieve this, one would finally have reached the "Holy Grail" of Computer Programming.

So, the programmers have no choice but to allow the AI to cheat at higher levels because of re-playability value and greater challenge for the human player.

I am just jealous of my future grandchildren and great-grandchildren when the computer games they play will finally prove to be a fair and real challenge because of the intelligence of the AI!!! LOL!!

Just a food for thought here........

 

[capnvonbaron]

I don't want to plagerize, so I hope nobody else has posted this earlier..

I have come across goody huts LONG after other civs should have knocked them over for the prize... and what do I get when I knock it over? A swarm of barbarians! Oh how nice, just what I've always wanted. The AI apparently has some sort of clairvoyance that lets them know what's in the hut, I guess. This has happened on more occasions than I'd like to remember... so I doubt it has all been "just bad luck." Also, the computer has an inate knowledge of which cities you don't have defended and seem to be able to land galleys (which simply appear out of the blue, in many cases [no pun intended]) full of spearmen right there next to them

 

[Sweetchuck]

I think the goody hut spawn is random. Reload it a couple of times, you'll probably get something different.

But the AI does cheat.

 

[capnvonbaron]

I think the goody hut spawn is random. Reload it a couple of times, you'll probably get something different.

It does spawn random when you reload.. there have been times where I've reloaded and ended up getting barbarian hordes 8 times in a row, then nothing, then maps, then more barbarians, and then finally something good like a settler, tech, or gold. But for a given game, all the goody huts are laid out and their contents decided at the very beginning, and the AI appears to know what's in them.

On that topic, I've also had it happen many times where a neighboring Civ starts sending waves of troops into my borders, and I'm like "oh $#!+, invasion time," just to find out that they're all going to crush a barbarian village that popped up in the wilderness beyond my borders. They seem to know the minute a barbarian village pops up anywhere on the map and then go after it with nearly everything they have. Which can be a good thing...

 

[hsy]

I've never seen conscripts before, but I could swear that I've seen them pop-rushing defenders during my turn. I've seen others report similar situations, where you can sneak-attack and find a town undefended, or containing a just a warrior, while if you declare war there's a spearman. However, try as I might, I have not been able to set up such a situation in testing. My old memory may simply have been misinterpretation of the "scared to death" bug.

happened to me many times, shameless AI (if it happens again i'll turn the RNG off for the rest of my civ life and then )

 

[darski]

I just had a game where I had taken out the defenders in a city or at least red-lined them all and a brand new conscript came up next as defender. When I killed him, the next defender up was a full hp Vet rifle. if they had a full hp Vet, why was the conscript at the top of the defender list just before he appeared? All of this was on my turn.

 

[Bartleby]

Are you sure you redlined everyone, and not just all the infantry? (assuming the other defenders were inf)

 

[darski]

no they were either rifles or spears. (sorry, I wasn't clearer) It has been my experience that they run through all the defenders in a city as each one takes a hit and they put the best one of the bunch on the top of the pile. I was not surprised by the conscript cheat - I expect that one- but the full hp Vet was a bit obvious when everyone else was either dead or red.

 

[Sweetchuck]

Maybe there's an epidemic of cognitive error going on here.

 

[capnvonbaron]

were you attacking wth tanks? They might've been putting spearmen on top of the stack because everyone knows spearmen are stronger than rifles against tanks

 

[del62]

I have a theory on the illusion of double movement of AI units, say a ai has a spear and warrior on a square and a warrior one square behind, the AI moves warrior behind onto the square with spear, the ai then moves the warrior behind spear forward, creating illusion of double move of a warrior

 

[darski]

In an effort to be fair I have to report an incident that I watched in my current game.

I watched an elite warrior on a mountain get killed by a conscript barb in his hut. The conscript barb never even got a spot of the warrior's blood on his loincloth. I attacked that same conscript barb with my passing conscript warrior and won hands down.

too funny by half

 

[darski]

I cannot find any source for the irrigation in the 2nd picture.

Picture one is the Clean Map section of the land involved. it demonstrates that there is nothing hiding under the city to explain the water source.

The 2nd picture shows the city and the Magic Irrigation tile

​

Now I am prepared for someone to provide a good explanation of how the water got there because there is a lot of stuff about this game that I don't know. So... what is the source for irrigation?

 

[Padma]

This is purely a guess, mind you:

You have no idea what the situation is south and east of Gergovia. (It is in the "fog", and while you have seen that area in the past (or it would be black), I don't know how long ago that was.) It would be *possible* for the Celts to irrigate up from the lake (?) in the SE corner of the pic, through the deserts up to the city. The city itself would then be automatically considered irrigated, and a worker could then irrigate the tile to the NW.

You must remember that the Clean Map option only shows what you last knew about the area, not any improvements made since you last physically looked at it.

Or ... It could be a glitch.

 

[anaxagoras]

I see muskets and crusaders, so I'm just guessing this isn't after electricity. However, you don't seem to have a view beyond Gergovia. How do you know the Celts haven't run water up from the lake SE of the eastern incense? The game doesn't update your view of the improvements until you can actually see those squares. If you had a clear view to the SE of Gergovia, then maybe I would see a problem.

If your units can't see it, you can't, either.

 

[choxorn]

I think the important question here is how did they irrigate a forest?

On topic of the thread, yeah, the AI cheats. I've seen them get a tech I'm researching one turn before me more times than I can count.

@Movement: The AI never moves more than it's allowed to, But the way it moves just makes it LOOK like the unit is moving more than it should.

@Goody Huts: The AI's omniscience is why they always get the good ones.

Also- thing to note on interturns- I also find that AI espionage ALWAYS takes place during the interturn.

@Conscript Spears: It must have been before Nationalism for them to be spears, as getting it gives you Rifles. Rifles prevent the building of Spears, Pikes, and Muskets, and hence it is impossible to have conscripts of those units. The only units that can be conscripts in an unmodded game are Rifles, Infantry, MI, Warriors, Swordsmen, MDI, Guerillas, and TOW's (Rifles, Inf, TOW's, and MI can be conscripted, Warriors can be popped from Goody Huts and upgraded to Swordsmen, etc. Of course, it's likely that they'll get into combat and promote before even upgrading to Swordsmen, but it's certainly possible to have a conscript TOW that was upgraded from a conscript Warrior). So, you probably did just see it incorrectly.

And as I said earlier, the AI cheats. However, the only way it cheats is its omnipotence. The RNG is just a- er- female dog, and it's mean to the AI too.

 

[anaxagoras]

I think the important question here is how did they irrigate a forest?

Are you looking at the rocky outcropping that this graphics pack shows for bonus grass and thinking it is forest?

 

[darski]

y'all were right. i went back to a save around that time and they did have water running. I thought I had been in that area with the Indian wars but I guess more time than I knew had passed.

And yes, my BG's show up as outcroppings of trees. They are easier for me to see than those little dots, especially when there is a unit on top of the dots

 

[Sweetchuck]

My first thought was that there was irrigation beyond the city that you couldn't see out side of the sight perimeter also.

Now, I have done this many times - if you need irrigation down a peninsula and have to irrigate "through" a city to get there. and you break the irrigation "chain" - you can still irrigate further down.

I'll irrigate a tile I want mined to pass it through, then go back and mine the tile after I push it down further. Logic would suggest to me that you would still need a source to irrigate and if you broke the line, it should disconnect everything downstream - but that's not the case.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

That's one thing I like about Civ IV - if you break the line of irrigation, you lose the benefits. Makes much more sense than the way Civ III does it.

I just played a game where a barb warrior attacked a fortified spear and beat it without injury!! the AI must cheat!!!

Fact is, if a barb warrior attacked a fortified spear 100 time, it would win without loss twice. It just happened to happen to me.