Do you have evidence of the game "cheating"?

[intellectsucks]

In a couple of other threads, discussions were brought up about whether or not the game "cheats", ie. the AI is not bound by the same rules as the player. Some examples were brought up but not much concrete evidence. I personally believe the the AI DOES NOT have to play by the same rules as the player, but have never really investigated it definitively.

This thread is to figure out whether or not this is the case. If you encounter a situation where you think the AI "cheated" (took an action that should not have been possible by the rules the player needs to follow), please post as much info as possible about it here (screenshots, saves leading up to the action, save showing the action) and a brief description of WHY you think the AI shouldn't have been able to do it.

Some ground rules to make sure this thread doesn't get shut down:
THIS THREAD IS NOT A DISCUSSION OF WHETHER OR NOT SUCH AI ACTIONS OR GOOD OR BAD FOR THE GAME!! We're only looking for evidence of whether or not this is happening.

ALL DISCUSSIONS WILL BE CIVIL AND FACT BASED!!! If you can show how an action is in accordance with the same rules the player follows, do so. Speculation is not proof, so don't defend it as if it is. These statements apply the same to anyone who is claiming that "cheating" happened. I'll rely on the mods to take appropriate action for anyone personally attacking another poster.

IF YOU DISAGREE WITH ANOTHER POSTER'S ANALYSIS YOU MUST SPECIFICALLY STATE THE REASONS WHY!!! If a poster says "this is cheating because of X,Y and Z", then the appropriate response is "It's not cheating because X is really B and Z is really Q." NOT "it's not the games fault you don't know how the rules work." (SEE ABOVE). If a poser says "It's not cheating because of X,Y and Z" the appropriate response is "X doesn't apply in this case and the AI doesn't have access to Z" NOT "You don't get it. Come back when your reading comprehension skills are better."

TESTING YOUR STATEMENT AGAINST POSTED SAVE FILES IS OPTIONAL, BUT WILL ADD TONS OF CREDIBILITY TO YOUR STATEMENTS.

Once again this is not a thread for whining and complaining about how this makes the game impossible. I personally think that the AI does "cheat" but it's just one more obstacle to get past, like a bad map roll or an inopportune natural disaster. This is also not a thread for telling other players that they're just "not good enough". If the AI is doing things that they shouldn't be able to, then the player base should know about it and be able to react accordingly.

Looking forward to the comments and discussion.

 

[Duke William of Normandy]

Looking forward to the comments and discussion.

Me too. I will stay neutral here, though I will enjoy watching the discourse.

 

[The Civs 6]

Do you call getting rushed at turn 20 by like 4 warriors and 2 slingers by Rough Rider Teddy a form of cheating?

 

[Snarf054]

It's been stated several times as fact here that the AI can see all resources and luxuries from turn 1 so I would call that cheating. Intentionally designed cheating but still cheating.

Moderator Action: Bald statements like this do not meet the criteria laid down in the 1st post and are likely to be deleted --NZ

 

[Rotomagus]

It's been stated several times as fact here that the AI can see all resources and luxuries from turn 1 so I would call that cheating. Intentionally designed cheating but still cheating.

Moderator Action: Bald statements like this do not meet the criteria laid down in the 1st post and are likely to be deleted --NZ

This 'bald statement' is a worthy reminder of a cheat everyone got used to.
Moderator Action: PDMA is not allowed on this site --NZ
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

I would also like to recommend, that we collect observations made, then try to find evidence.

One user stated e. g., that the AI is able to upgrade units without the appropriate ressouces.

Sudden huge leaps in tech/civics by Civs under siege or close to be wiped out by the human player.

Sudden huge amounts of money.

Cities spamming out more than 1 unit per turn.

Things like that.

What do you say?[/mod]

 

[iammaxhailme]

I believe that I've had the AI suddenly complete a wonder faster when I lost a wonder race, saved scummed back to try and beat them. I mean, that's ME trying to cheat, but getting out-cheated.

 

[Kwami]

But does anyone actually have any evidence at all for any of these claims? Save files, debug logs, anything?

 

[intellectsucks]

I appreciate the discussions, but to reiterate: PLEASE PROVIDE EVIDENCE IN THE FORM OF SAVE FILES, ETC.

Some of us (myself included) have experienced and heard anecdotal evidence sufficient to sway us. This thread to is to figure out some specifics and perhaps try to map out under what circumstances they happen vs when they don't.

 

[pokiehl]

I don’t get this forum. It’s either people complaining endlessly about how the AI sucks and is totally incompetent, or complaining endlessly about how the AI “cheats” and breaks the game rules (which I’ve never seen real evidence of).

Which is it

 

[bbbt]

Maybe I'm wrong but isn't every AI action logged and viewable in the files?

I've never seen evidence of the AI 'cheating', outside of the level-based handicaps they get

 

[Recursive]

I believe that I've had the AI suddenly complete a wonder faster when I lost a wonder race, saved scummed back to try and beat them. I mean, that's ME trying to cheat, but getting out-cheated.

I can't confirm that it happens with Civ VI AI as the DLL is not available, but from modding the Civ V AI I can tell you that there is RNG in city production choices which could potentially explain what you are seeing there, and the RNG seed can be modified after reloading if you select that option. It is highly unlikely that the game is responding to your save scumming; this would require considerable legwork to code for a feature that probably wouldn't be appreciated.

 

[8housesofelixir]

I have seen people on Reddit (?) did an experiment on what will happen if a major AI (that is, not city state) spawn on a tile completely surrounded by mountains. Technically, the AI would stick with that one city in the mountains unless they built an Encampment outside. However, sometimes, one or two units in the said AI's City Center will suddenly teleport outside the mountains, therefore solve the landlocking problem.

Besides that I haven't seen anything out of line with AI. In fact, to reply to some of the posts above me: The AI of Civ VI don't have the knowledge of full map from the very beginning. They don't know where your capital is, they don't know where other AI is, they don't know about the CS that you suzerained on the other side of world, unless you accept their delegation or their units spotted the city. Try Kupe on a Terra Map and you will see how limited AI's map vision can be.

 

[Rotomagus]

dumb question: what options of 'evidence' are there? Obviously there are more than just save games, log files ..? Can somebody put that together and post the 'How to's also?

 

[DanQuayle]

Not sure if it is the appropriate thread, but I have seen, on contrary, AIs purposefully handicap themselves:
when their military scores plumet within a few turns when they are not even at war with anybody.

 

[fy00sh]

Not sure if it is the appropriate thread, but I have seen, on contrary, AIs purposefully handicap themselves:
when their military scores plumet within a few turns when they are not even at war with anybody.

Any chance that was due to a natural disaster hitting a bunch of units that were already around half health, or from fighting barbarians?

 

[Vandlys]

I don’t get this forum. It’s either people complaining endlessly about how the AI sucks and is totally incompetent, or complaining endlessly about how the AI “cheats” and breaks the game rules (which I’ve never seen real evidence of).

Which is it

I tend to mostly agree with you on a lot of matters, but this statement is a bit short-sighted from my perspective.

1) The people on this forum might be split, so you have a faction that believes the AI cheats, and a faction that thinks the AI sucks.

2) The two statements (AI sucks, AI cheats) are not mutually exclusive. The AI could very well cheat and still suck. In fact, it could be that without the cheats (I'm not saying there are any, but purely for the sake of argument) the AI would suck even more.

 

[DanQuayle]

Any chance that was due to a natural disaster hitting a bunch of units that were already around half health, or from fighting barbarians?

No weather events were logged during those turns and losing units in the realm of multiple hundreds worth in military score to barbarians within a few turns seems unlikely (although I did not reveal the map to be sure).
No, it appears that when the maintenance costs for units run too high, the AI starts to delete them (massively) to stay afloat. I know there is a mechanic in the ruleset that auto-disbands unit when you have a negative gold balance so that might be related to this issue. However, I don't know where to check to see if the AIs are actually running a deficit (as the UI does not seem to report negative values if they are ever reached).

 

[Gedemon]

I have seen people on Reddit (?) did an experiment on what will happen if a major AI (that is, not city state) spawn on a tile completely surrounded by mountains. Technically, the AI would stick with that one city in the mountains unless they built an Encampment outside. However, sometimes, one or two units in the said AI's City Center will suddenly teleport outside the mountains, therefore solve the landlocking problem.

That's a bug related to (I believe) a workaround hardcoded to ensure the AI doesn't stack units.

I've seen the behavior (teleporting stacked units) happening during tests with the global parameters value to raise the number of units (of same class) that can be on a tile.

The parameter is taken into account during the AI movement (and it stacks the unit as excepted from that parameter), but then at the end of the turn, the unit that can't move and are stacked are teleported, as if there is a check running at that moment against mUPT, without any consideration for the global parameters.

I mean, IMO, the AI is not "solving a landlocking problem", it's the game trying to prevent some bug they had with pathfinding and stacking, causing another bug.

I suppose some other suspected cheating behavior may result of such bugs.

 

[Mahi]

I don't think any 'spontanious' cheats exist that isn't a reported bug. AI 'cheats' mostly through extra stuff, extra bonuses, etc. Any spontainous cheats, like getting getting extra units in one turn would be too gamebreaking.

 

[PiR]

Very good idea for a thread thanks!

I think listing what we have encountered is a good first step, but then sharing savefiles would be necessary to agree on proof.

In my case, I see Free Cities generating very quickly units, when they have no production - maybe they have a lot of gold though, I don't how to check that?

Not sure if it is the appropriate thread, but I have seen, on contrary, AIs purposefully handicap themselves:
when their military scores plumet within a few turns when they are not even at war with anybody.

Any chance that was due to a natural disaster hitting a bunch of units that were already around half health, or from fighting barbarians?

No, it appears that when the maintenance costs for units run too high, the AI starts to delete them (massively) to stay afloat.

However, I don't know where to check to see if the AIs are actually running a deficit (as the UI does not seem to report negative values if they are ever reached).

I was going to mention that $$ aspect. You can at least see if the civ has 0 gold in stock.