Malicious AI cheat

[Trinity]

I'm tootling along things pretty uneventful. I check the foreign advisor screen each turn. Rome has no RoP with anyone except me. I checked.

Next thing I know is I get this report that St. Joan has been destroyed by the Romans, and they have declared war. St. Joan is next to Paris. There was a stack of Centurions in the tile where St Joan used to be. There was no combat, even though I had an infantry unit in the city.

Rome doesn't have flight. They don't even have steel. It is going to take me about 10 turns to get anything into Roman Territory.

I saved and reloaded the previous save to make sure that something was in the city. There was. This was a blatant cheat. It isn't even enough to cause anyone in the world to shriek in horror. Tank time, and it will be a massive war: Greece, Persia and Rome are going bye bye. Rome first. Then Persia.

I'll wage it in democracy until I get war weariness, then switch to communism. One turn for the switch -- religious civ this time.

 

[sumthinelse]

Can you post the saved game before they attacked?

This explanation is possible: You accidentally moved the units out of the city after you saved the game and then ended your turn? I have done that before when I thought I was moving another unit and I actually did a "go to" because the wrong unit was selected.

 

[zeeter]

I'll be any amount of money that Zouave will comment on this thread. He's drawn to AI cheating threads like flies to ...well you know.

 

[Gastric ReFlux]

I hate to say it, but something doesn't sound right here. Am I really supposed to believe that the game would be coded with such a blatant cheat? It's one thing to give the AI certain advantages, but I don't believe I have ever heard anyone say the AI was just given a human player's city.

 

[Zouave]

Originally posted by zeeter
I'll be any amount of money that Zouave will comment on this thread. He's drawn to AI cheating threads like flies to ...well you know.

What's sad is that you're obsessed with me - but don't give a damn about this malicious, stupid, cheating AI that Firaxis slapped together. I guess some people don't mind being taken advantage of by a corporation.

 

[zeeter]

Oh - I guess I win my bet.
I wouldn't call it obsessed. It just seems that you have a one track mind with regards to AI cheating. Any time I read anything negative about the game on these forums I expect to see a post from you regarding AI cheating.
I think that what is really sad is that you cannot understand why the "cheating" is there.

 

[Zouave]

It is there because the AI is STUPID because of lousy programming.

Keep defending the AI. Maybe you own Firaxis or Infogrames stock. If so, you have a reason; if not, you are a sucker.

 

[Trinity]

Okay, I was having some computer problems just shortly before the time. Perhaps the "cheat" happened relating to some corrupted data. I did end up restarting the computer due to a windows problem, and when I tried the same moves that led to that after reboot it didn't repeat. I tried to get it to repeat several times. My moves were hitting the space bar.

So it is possible that the program didn't see the unit in the city and the AI exploited it. I have no other explaination.

Anyway, regardless it doesn't change my decision to pound Rome into the dirt. This game needs a bit of excitement.

 

[sumthinelse]

Indeed , that might do it.

(I had to use Norton Ghost to reinstall my C: partition when the WIN2K install service got stuck. It works a lot better now. Norton antivirus thought I had a virus but it's just a program that I use to create a boot record on a floppy disk.)

All computer problems are simple when you know the answer

 

[Trinity]

I've thought about this more. Even if the city was empty, which it wasn't, and Rome exploited the RoP they would have had to do the following:

1. Land on my coast: Highly unlikely without me noticing. I've got a spy in Rome. They have galleys and one frigate. My coast is well patrolled by subs, frigates, destroyers, and battleships. I patrol so I can see 8 tiles off my coast. And I don't get up to get anything to drink in between turns. I watch enemy movements like a hawk. I would have seen them coming.

2. They did have an RoP with Greece. My mistake. However, to get to the city from any Greek settlement, they would have had to go through 6 infantry fortified in two choke points on the map. You cannot get through those choke point on a diagonal or vertical movement without attacking one of the infantry positions. I have an RoP with Greece, and set them up to keep Greeks out of those portions of my territory.

3. Airdrop? Legionaries are not paratroopers.

4. Sabotage? They don't have enough gold in their treasury to carry out that activity. They didn't take control of the city, they destroyed it.

Ergo, it was either a bad data read, which I really think most of the so-called cheats are, or the AI did actually cheat due to a hardcoded cheat in the program. I would have five 70 shield cities and I still don't have the Hoover Dam (4 turns).

In any event, I cancelled out their action by reloading the previous save. It didn't follow the rules of the game. I don't think a rollback is a cheat in this instance. I would love to know how I could drop 20 infantry in the middle of Rome without being noticed.

I just signed an MPP with Persia. Declare war on Rome --- PLEASE.