How the Caveman cheats
- Thread starter Caveman1953
- Start date
"cheating" or "using different rules" ? If there's only one player involved, what's the difference ? Caveman isn't hurting anyone or deceiving anyone, except maybe himself. So I don't see this as unethical.
On the other hand, it doesn't sound like much fun, nor a good way to learn the game.
On the other hand, it doesn't sound like much fun, nor a good way to learn the game.
Give yourself more advantages since AI knows the entire map from the start, they know exactly what's in all your cities without having to use a spy/dip, their triremes don't sink, their pikemen defend against armors on diety, their nukes always find that one city without SDI, they always know how much money you have and demand as much as you can possibly give, their diplomats ALWAYS steal plastics when you're building a space ship and they're behind in techs, their reputation never goes down no matter how often they sneak attack you, their... I think you get the picture? AI CHEATS more than any player using load/save to get desired outcome. Sure they don't know how to wage longer wars against human opponent but still, they are way overpowered in many aspects - that I can't help but call cheating.
My single wish is the difficulty level was not based on how soon cities revolt, how long tech advancement takes, how powerful the same units on two sides are or how quickly cities can build. I wish it was based on AI intelligence that on chieftain does common mistakes, but on deity, in exactly the same circumstances and resources available, would be able to conquer a human player, use the advanced methods of playing (SSC, ship chain, food caravan tricks etc.). Only then I would agree that reloading on undesirable hut outcome is outright cheating. Right now it seems the AI is getting random things out of huts, just like human player would without reloading.
My single wish is the difficulty level was not based on how soon cities revolt, how long tech advancement takes, how powerful the same units on two sides are or how quickly cities can build. I wish it was based on AI intelligence that on chieftain does common mistakes, but on deity, in exactly the same circumstances and resources available, would be able to conquer a human player, use the advanced methods of playing (SSC, ship chain, food caravan tricks etc.). Only then I would agree that reloading on undesirable hut outcome is outright cheating. Right now it seems the AI is getting random things out of huts, just like human player would without reloading.
Such AI "cheating" is there to compensate for severe programming limitations caused by the limitations of mid 1990's computers. Should the programmers have used valuable memory to teach the computer how to use triremes? Or should the computer throw all its nukes against 1 city that has SDI (which it still does if a city is protected by another city's SDI)?
I view AI cheating sort of like playing chess without a queen when facing a beginner; it evens out the game and makes it more fun.
I view AI cheating sort of like playing chess without a queen when facing a beginner; it evens out the game and makes it more fun.
Well I understand all these arguments, obviously limitations of comp gaming industry in mid 90ies has a lot to do with the state of civ2 AI. However there are still issues within this AI that I believe have simply been omitted, since simple check required for the AI not to spent all its nukes on an SDI protected city wouldn't really consume much additional memory. Also requirement for triremes to keep close to land would be no longer than 2-3 lines of text in AI scripts. Again, I believe these issues are merely programmers' omissions rather than methods used to optimise game engine and memory usage.
On the other hand, the AI is in part what makes this game so special, gives it such a high replayability and requires some attention from player to figure out how this AI works. Thus the nuke trap being such an easy exploit of faulty programming. Anyway I still agree that reloading to produce desirable outcome is somewhat cheaty, especially taking into consideration one huge advantage a player has over computer: creative mind - thus unpredictability as well as planning ahead. Still it sometimes makes you mad when you see how computer player "cheats" using these built-in programming tricks to fill all the gaps in its "intelligence".
On the other hand, the AI is in part what makes this game so special, gives it such a high replayability and requires some attention from player to figure out how this AI works. Thus the nuke trap being such an easy exploit of faulty programming. Anyway I still agree that reloading to produce desirable outcome is somewhat cheaty, especially taking into consideration one huge advantage a player has over computer: creative mind - thus unpredictability as well as planning ahead. Still it sometimes makes you mad when you see how computer player "cheats" using these built-in programming tricks to fill all the gaps in its "intelligence".
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