Cheating Bull ?

[Djoums]

Hi there,

Just got something weird going on in a game, I wanted to try an archipelago like map and got semi isolated with Sitting Bull (fun!). Halfway through the game I notice his cities count begins to increase, which is just not possible at that point without astro. So I try to check out what's happening and here is what I see.

Spoiler :

Now maybe I'm missing something here but that does seem like cheating to me, there's no way he can get to that island given that he doesn't even have compass.

 

[CajNatalie]

Have you checked the whole coastline? Perhaps there's a link somewhere... say... North, for example, which is obscured by the fog of war, and leads to the island(s) West?
From what I know, the AI is no longer able to use the row-over-ocean cheat like in past games, so there's gotta be an explanation. =/

 

[Djoums]

Yes I checked it, my workboat can't get there (destination redded out). Same with the world builder, there's no usable path

 

[Djoums]

Actually there's a lot of strange things going on in this game. Notice that he's using his worker to spread irrigation but he doesn't have Civil Service

Spoiler :

First time I see something like that in CiV, no clue about why.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Isn't it just the case that he is able to sail out into the "ocean" tiles with his galleys because they are within his cultural borders, and then onward into the coast tiles around the island? Whereas you can't do the same because it's not within YOUR cultural borders.

 

[s.bernbaum]

Manfred has hit on the answer. If you look at the shortest passage between the two land masses, his culture border allows his galleys to move two tiles away from shore. The next tile is the coastal water for the other island, which is of course also okay for a galley to enter. That is how he got there.

 

[smackthewise]

Manfred is correct, I have built cities before so that I could cross an Ocean gap prior to Astro. He is not cheating.

 

[CHEESE!]

Hax!!

But that's nothing. In RFC the other day I saw 3 Barbarian Dog soldiers just -literally- walk over mountains. What????

 

[Amask]

The irrigation must be possible because your own farms spread irrigation and act like a source of fresh water.

Also interesting to know is that if he had CS but not you, he wouldn't be able to irrigate there until you got CS too so your farms can spread the water to him.

 

[Psyringe]

Yep, common mistake, as can be seen by the many threads about a "cheating AI" which come down to this feature. It's a bit sad that people so easily assume that the AI is cheating in that regard. Sid Meier said in a talk that it doesn't pay off to make the AI do fair but clever things and surprise the player, because players will just assume that it's cheating, and the recurring "the AI cheated and crossed the ocean" topic unfortunately reinforces that point.

 

[Djoums]

Thanks for the answers ! I'll remember the irrigation thing, that can be useful in some situations

@Psyringe : I really didn't want to believe it was cheating, that's why I posted it here to make sure.

 

[Psyringe]

Yeah, I was talking to myself in that part of my post rather than addressing you (sorry ). You were stating that you might be missing something. I probably just read too many "The AI sucks! Blatant cheating discovered!" threads over time.

 

[kochman]

Yep, common mistake, as can be seen by the many threads about a "cheating AI" which come down to this feature. It's a bit sad that people so easily assume that the AI is cheating in that regard. Sid Meier said in a talk that it doesn't pay off to make the AI do fair but clever things and surprise the player, because players will just assume that it's cheating, and the recurring "the AI cheated and crossed the ocean" topic unfortunately reinforces that point.

That's what we call lip service.
While this case is not a case of AI cheating, it is the cultural border thing... there are ways in which the AI cheats. TMIT has pointed these out numerous times, advantages the AI has, particularly in regards to diplomacy, that the player doesn't have.

 

[Psyringe]

That's what we call lip service.

I don't understand what you mean.

there are ways in which the AI cheats. TMIT has pointed these out numerous times, advantages the AI has, particularly in regards to diplomacy, that the player doesn't have.

Yes, I don't dispute that. There are also ways in which the AI is handicapped (for example, it is explicitly forbidden to sell a tech for less than 1/3 of its value even if it would be a good option to make some money off the tech before everyone has it). The latter just usually doesn't get much attention.

I can show you numerous threads where people were complaining about "AI cheats" which turned out to be simple misunderstandings (or player mistakes), and where the posters still claimed that cheats must be in place even when all evidence spoke against it. "The combat engine is rigged. It knows when I have an important battle and lets me lose it even though I have 95% chance of winning. The fact that you tested 1000 battles in a worldbuildered scenario and found exactly 95% of those battles won and 5% lost, doesn't matter. Surely the game can distinguish between a worldbuildered scenario and an actual game, and limits its cheating to real game situations." (That's not a word-by-word quote, but an imho faithful representation of an argument that was put forth in one such discussion.)

I know that the AI does get some cheats. I think it's nevertheless remarkably fair (in any case it's way above Civ1 ("Oh, its 1900 and the player is in the lead. Let all AIs attack him."), Civ2 ("Oh, this AI is falling behind. Let's give it a free wonder.", and Civ3 ("Why did the AI settle a city in this godforsaken desert? Ah, several thousand years later I'll probably be able to discover Oil there.") And a lot of energy and effort has been put into making the Civ4 AI that fair. Unfortunately, many players still prefer to believe very readily that the AI just cheated when in fact it was just doing something well. And that's pretty sad, because it means that developing a fair and smart AI doesn't really pay off - which in turn means that development resources are more likely to be allocated to design areas which have a better payoff. (Sid was admitting this in his GDC keynote.)

So you see (hopefully ) where I'm coming from.

(And to Djoums: Again, this is a general observation I'm talking about, not your post specifically.)

 

[kochman]

What Sid Meier said in the interview was lip service... meaning, he said it, but it was just words, because there are exploits the AI has...

It wouldn't be good marketing to say, "well, yes, the AI has advantages", they have a lot.

 

[Psyringe]

Wait, what? Are we talking about the same GDC keynote? In this speech Meier argued that the AI should not try to do smart things because the player wouldn't appreciate it. How can that be "lip service" because "there are exploits the AI has"?

 

[Ataxerxes]

Hax!!

But that's nothing. In RFC the other day I saw 3 Barbarian Dog soldiers just -literally- walk over mountains. What????

The dog soldier thing happens all the time. Makes it a real b***h to settle in the Americas or Africa. Natives can go anywhere, unlike Barbarians. In RFC it isn't really a "cheat" because not all Civs are created equal there. The new world Civs have easier UHV's because they're behind the 8-ball. Ethiopia with the Impis going over marshes drives me crazy. Oromo on every square?!?

To clarify, only natives can do that, not Barbarians. There are important differences between the two in RFC.

 

[CHEESE!]

Look at the last post in Funny Screenshots: Part Deux and you'll see 2 BARB Dog Soldiers. On the Andes.

 

[Lone Wolf]

In RFC, they are spawned on these mountains via Python.

Oh, and the Natives can't "go anywhere". Impis, however, can pass though jungle and marsh, and Impis in RFC are a strictly barb/native unit.

 

[obsolete]

Sid Meier said in a talk that it doesn't pay off to make the AI do fair but clever things and surprise the player, because players will just assume that it's cheating,...

Quite a poor excuse if there is one...