starlifter
Deity
- Joined
- Jun 17, 2001
- Messages
- 4,210
There are many AI 'cheats', but did you know it also cheats with operational employment of Nukes and Cruise Missiles (CMs)?
About a year ago, I knew the Mongols were building Nukes in modern-era combat, and so I landed some spies and defensive units to occupy a RR + fort mountain square in his railroaded empire. I watched (spied) every single city he had, and calculated the range of the Nukes he was building from the cities where he was building them.
I left one of my nearby cities without SDI, because it was a on a 16-move diagonal from his closest Mongol city. The spy report showed the mongols did not know about the city, and indeed the Mongol map was unexplored there (no wonders, trade routes, etc. were in my city, either). I placed a unit along the diagonal path, which means if the missile was moved through each square to get there, it would have to hit my unit or not reach my city.
Guess what... the mongols nuked my city! They somehow 'found' it, and the missile just 'appeared' (did not follow a ground track). So I spied on them and guess what... their map confirmed that the path to my city was still unexplored (No Apollo yet).
It gets worse. Much worse. I continued to watch them, and also put an SDI into my nuked city. Since all my remaining cites were well beyond the 16-move range of any nuke-producing Mongol city, I figured I was pretty safe.
Nope.
A couple turns later, they produced 2 more nukes, and 2 more of my cities were nuked. But my nuked cities were over 25 squares from the Mongol cities producing the nukes! They had no subs or carriers, either... I was still spying on every one of their cities every turn.
Testing revealed that the AI is able to automatically pick and nuke ANY city within a radius of 16 from ANY of their AI cities, at the moment the AI nuke is produced. It does not have to be 'flown' to a suitable launching city first!
There is a similar example with cruise missiles. Even if the enemy has no idea that your battleship is just within the 12-move CM range of one of their cities, the AI will launch the CM against your ship. There will be no ground track (check it out before Apollo; enter within 12 in an AI-unexplored area... no ground track when the CM strikes). You ship will just be pelted with CMs, even though the AI has no 'normal' way of knowing you ship is there. And spy on any of their cities and look at the map... the area is still unexplored!
One more thing... surround a base with airfields, (eight), and in theory, a missile should have to land at an airfield for a turn before it can get to your city. But you guessed it...the AI does not send missiles tile by tile, so you city is still nuked, even if surrounded by 8 airfields.
The 8 airfield trick will, however, stop AI bombers. I have never been able to get the AI to pelt a city with CMs, but suspect that if it would, the CMs would behave like nukes.
Well, we all know the AI has lots of cheats to make the human's game more competitive... so these are just a few more examples.
About a year ago, I knew the Mongols were building Nukes in modern-era combat, and so I landed some spies and defensive units to occupy a RR + fort mountain square in his railroaded empire. I watched (spied) every single city he had, and calculated the range of the Nukes he was building from the cities where he was building them.
I left one of my nearby cities without SDI, because it was a on a 16-move diagonal from his closest Mongol city. The spy report showed the mongols did not know about the city, and indeed the Mongol map was unexplored there (no wonders, trade routes, etc. were in my city, either). I placed a unit along the diagonal path, which means if the missile was moved through each square to get there, it would have to hit my unit or not reach my city.
Guess what... the mongols nuked my city! They somehow 'found' it, and the missile just 'appeared' (did not follow a ground track). So I spied on them and guess what... their map confirmed that the path to my city was still unexplored (No Apollo yet).
It gets worse. Much worse. I continued to watch them, and also put an SDI into my nuked city. Since all my remaining cites were well beyond the 16-move range of any nuke-producing Mongol city, I figured I was pretty safe.
Nope.
A couple turns later, they produced 2 more nukes, and 2 more of my cities were nuked. But my nuked cities were over 25 squares from the Mongol cities producing the nukes! They had no subs or carriers, either... I was still spying on every one of their cities every turn.
Testing revealed that the AI is able to automatically pick and nuke ANY city within a radius of 16 from ANY of their AI cities, at the moment the AI nuke is produced. It does not have to be 'flown' to a suitable launching city first!
There is a similar example with cruise missiles. Even if the enemy has no idea that your battleship is just within the 12-move CM range of one of their cities, the AI will launch the CM against your ship. There will be no ground track (check it out before Apollo; enter within 12 in an AI-unexplored area... no ground track when the CM strikes). You ship will just be pelted with CMs, even though the AI has no 'normal' way of knowing you ship is there. And spy on any of their cities and look at the map... the area is still unexplored!
One more thing... surround a base with airfields, (eight), and in theory, a missile should have to land at an airfield for a turn before it can get to your city. But you guessed it...the AI does not send missiles tile by tile, so you city is still nuked, even if surrounded by 8 airfields.
The 8 airfield trick will, however, stop AI bombers. I have never been able to get the AI to pelt a city with CMs, but suspect that if it would, the CMs would behave like nukes.
Well, we all know the AI has lots of cheats to make the human's game more competitive... so these are just a few more examples.
