FINALLY - Irrefutable Evidence the AI Cheats

[Sarisin]

It always seems someone has come up with some sort of explanation for AI cheating theories before, but not this time. No siree.

I have long suspected the AI can see your units when they should not be able to. Now I am sure about it. How do I know this?

Well, actually it is a bit funny.

I popped a lair with my Scout and got 4 Gargoyles. Three were barbarian and One was mine (I'm playing as elves/Thessa).

Well, one barb Gargoyle starts following my Scout, but the Scout with 2 movement pts. quickly loses him.

However, my Gargoyle gets a tail of the other two barb Gargoyles. It was funny to watch them follow my Gargoyle allover the huge map nearly 100 turns.

But, how could they possible do that EVERY turn unless they knew where my Gargoyle moved to. They do not have any improved line of sight - they can only see one tile away - same as my Gargoyle. Yet, every turn they knew exactly which way my Gargoyle was going. Could you follow another unit (you both have 1 movement pt. each) for 100 hundred turns and not lose him? I don't think so...UNLESS you could see that unit.

Voila, cheating by the AI. The dirty.......

I finally got tired of the tail and wanted to see what would happen if I lead them through the territory of an AI civ I had open borders with. Well, the borders didn't keep them out and they followed me right into Dural territory. I went straight for one of their cities and they followed me. However, I don't know what happened then as I lost them. Maybe the Dural took care of them.

So, unless those Gargoyles had some really sophisticated tracking devices they installed somehow on my Gargoyle, buddy, they were cheating!

 

[xienwolf]

They just wanted you to return their friend!

 

[StormbringerGT]

Of course the AI cheats. It has to cheat. The harder your difficulty the more it "cheats". It cannot think and reason and react like human players can. There are times in other games where making teh AI cheating is just plain lazy development, but in this sort of a game there are things the AI has to cheat on to stay competitive and make things interesting.

 

[Breez]

Gargoyle Lo-Jack?

 

[far_wanderer]

It actually is possible and fairly easy to track a unit that way, because you see which direction they are going when they leave the tile. It does take a bit of luck to make it 100 turns without some random pop-up obscuring your vision/changing your view at a critical moment, but it is possible. However, I do have different confirmation of your theory:
Recently I was playing a game as the Luchuirp and had ended up on my own little island. About 200 turns into the game I had it all developed and covered with roads, and Faeryl declares wat on me and drops off 6 Nyxkin on my shores. As my intent with this game had been to test out several theories about how the Luchuirp functioned, I was entirely uninterested in a war and so reloaded once my city went down.. I bought a few mercenaries and hit end turn again, only to have all the Nyxkin attack a different city. I figured fair enough, the city they were next to got tougher, and I did see a caravel spot that other city a while ago. I reload again, buy more mercenaries. This time the Nyxkin go to a city in the middle of my island that they couldn't have known existed, much less that it was poorly defended. This process repeated with each of the seven cities that were within their nine-move range, despite the fact that they could only see one of those cities and only knew of the existence of two others.

 

[xienwolf]

Unfortunately fixing this so that the AI "Plays Fair" will require a very significant re-write of how the AI decides how to move their units. Right now, they specify a range, and look for the target they want within that range. No check is done to see if they are allowed to know that unit exists. If they don't find a suitable unit, then they move on to the next best order and see if there is a valid target for that (be it defending a city, attacking at lower odds, or twiddling their thumbs).

So, if you want to say "Only consider attacking units which you can ACTUALLY see" that is easy. But it means that the AI will work like a little child, you put the unit out of their view, it stops existing for them. They won't look for it, they won't guess which way it went and maybe pursue. They'll just say "Oh, nobody is anywhere near me. I'll go twiddle my thumbs"


So to fix this, we'd have to make the unit understand the player's objectives and look for territory of other civs whom it might consider a threat or target, and head for there when it cannot find a unit to pick on nearby. We'd also have to write in the ability to "guess" where units went, and to "remember" that there WAS a unit nearby recently. Otherwise, we wind up on the opposite end of the scale, you have a 3 move horseman and they have a 1 move warrior, so you walk just out of his view and he forgets you exist. Next turn you walk in, smack him, and walk out of his view, he knows he was hurt and doesn't consider the fact that a unit retreated from combat and must be sitting quite injured just out of his view range.


And of course, each of these considerations, while making it more "Fair" will also make it more "Sandwich making and eating time" as it compounds to add more and more time to the between turn calculations.

 

[FireBlaze]

Given that it will also make the AI easier to beat. This is kind of annoying, but of course the AI cheats. It also knows what would happen on turn 43594896 if you weren't in the game, you adapting pixel you

 

[Skiamach]

How far away was the neutral gargoyle when it first started following your gargoyle? If it was one tile away, then you moved your gargoyle, it does not need to see where your gargoyle went. It moves to where your gargoyle was. Then sees where you moved to. So the neutral gargoyle always moves to the last known position of your gargoyle and then sees it again (since it is always only one tile away). Of course this will not explain if the neutral gargoyle started (or ever became) more than one tile away from your gargoyle at the end of its turns.

 

[Blakmane]

I thought we always knew the AI cheats massively? :S

 

[Kael]

Until the AI is able to reload a game after a bad combat its still at a huge disadvantage.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

I thought we always knew the AI cheats massively? :S

Than could I just ask one question. If the AI cheats so masively, why is it still stupid as hell? I will admit that I have not played to many FFH2 games (only about 50 - 60 turns actualy), but in regular civ, the AI is as stupid as a zombie and the game compensates by adding handicap to the human players. Is it the same here?

 

[Vehem]

Until the AI is able to reload a game after a bad combat its still at a huge disadvantage.

That's slated for 051...

 

[shoggi]

im under the impression that the AI is able to reload.
How? Simple, every time you reload a game because the random number generator hates you and you win the dice throw afterwards, the game simply gives you a ctd. than you have to reload again and the game will win. if not, it simply gives you another ctd.
that would at least explain some ctd where you can't find any other reason for.

 

[Sarisin]

OK, here it is...your very own opportunity to play "Lose the Gargoyle Posse."

I save all my turns now with the MAFs I have been getting, so this was just after I popped the barrow and got 4 Gargoyles - 3 Barb and 1 for me.

Have fun, and, please, please, don't cheat.

 

[Sarisin]

How far away was the neutral gargoyle when it first started following your gargoyle? If it was one tile away, then you moved your gargoyle, it does not need to see where your gargoyle went. It moves to where your gargoyle was. Then sees where you moved to. So the neutral gargoyle always moves to the last known position of your gargoyle and then sees it again (since it is always only one tile away). Of course this will not explain if the neutral gargoyle started (or ever became) more than one tile away from your gargoyle at the end of its turns.

I think you have a good point there. Maybe one of the Gargoyles did get one-tile away and just moved to where I was each time. The 2nd Gargoyle followed the first. I guess it would make sense that if both units had one movement pt each, if you moved to the last movement pt of the first, you would always stay within 1-tile. You would never catch that unit, but you would always stay within 1-tile.

During the funny chase I did manage to blunder into a Lion which I killed. I kept thinking I would run into a cul-de-sac of mountain peaks or something and that would be it as much of the map was unexplored at that point.

I've also wondered if there is something in the game that makes the bad guys popped from lairs, etc. target the civ of the unit that popped them?

 

[xienwolf]

Unfortunately not. But Barbarian AI makes them desire to kill nearby units more than anything else, if the odds are semi-favorable. So if they can see a ripe target, they won't bother checking for even unguarded cities.

 

[rezaf]

Until the AI is able to reload a game after a bad combat its still at a huge disadvantage.

Heh, that reminds me ... for the uninitiated: In Baldur's Gate 2 (iirc in the expansion) there was an encounter with some adventurers. They acted very arrogant and provoked a fight, which your party could easily win. Afterwards, there was a mock-up suggesting said adventurers were reloading the game, and all of a sudden they were acting really friendly. One of those nice little touches in BG2...
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rezaf

 

[zup]

The more I read of AI, the less I want to play with it...

I should just start playing something like Empire against humans I guess.

 

[Vitek]

Heh, that reminds me ... for the uninitiated: In Baldur's Gate 2 (iirc in the expansion) there was an encounter with some adventurers. They acted very arrogant and provoked a fight, which your party could easily win. Afterwards, there was a mock-up suggesting said adventurers were reloading the game, and all of a sudden they were acting really friendly. One of those nice little touches in BG2...
_____
rezaf

Yeah, one of funniest BG moments. Though you had no control over defeating them, your main character just turned into Slayer and killed them himself.