Originally posted by Tassadar
They didnt colonize your island because no ressource was there, i played several game one on one, so there is lots of free land to explore. And immediately after i explore an area, the a.i start sending settler in ocean crossing galley.( without astronomy). i play with 1.16 patch, 1.17 was worst and i didnt even care about 1.21. Maybe some fix in those latest patch corrct this situation, i dont know, and i dont want to do exaustive research on that.
Well, I'm sure that I have seen a difference before and after I sold my maps - and such islands have definately been with resources as well. Anyway, you should definately patch up your game. 1.21 is clearly better than 1.16 and 1.17.
From my gaming experience.
1.-a.i. know where barbarian camp are without exploring, this give elite units faster and 25 gold.
Yes, A.I. know the position of units.
2.- a.i. know the entire map without exploring, how could they send a settler in a one square free land in my territory without knowing my map.
Yes, the A.I. knows quite a lot about the map without exploring. I still doubt whether it knows everything. I'm not sure though - it may know the entire map.
3.- a.i come and go into your territory without the obligation to leave or declare war.
That's not entirely correct - but they may stay longer in our territory than we may in theirs. If they stay too long or come too close to cities, you may force them to leave though. This should be fixed - see my and others suggestion in a thread about this.
4.-a.i know about all your units location without espionnage.
Same as 1. A.I. know the position of units.
5.- a.i know which city is undefended.
Also same as 1. Knowing the position of units means also knowing where there are no units.
6.-a.i. dont suffer from reputation hit, a.i can backstab you and are still able to deal with other a.i.
It does suffer reputation hits, but how much (and how easily it can trade afterwards is hard to tell). I can tell the A.I. suffer reputation hits from my governor. When he tells me that I shouldn't trust a civ because it has betrayed some other civ, that's a reputation hit - and I'm sure every other civ think the same as my governor.
7.- Weird and almost unbeatable old units againt modern one, i lost veteran battleshipe against galleon and other crap like that.not often i agree but it happen. but strangly i was never able to kill a destroyer with a galley, i was never able to defeat a fortify pickmen with a warrior. So its a one side cheat, only a.i got this adventage with old units.
This is simply not true. Those who care have checked and proved that there is no cheat involved. Check older threads for proof before you include unfounded "cheats".
Btw, what I guess happens is that you (as most players) are ahead in tech and units and therefor almost always is the one with better units. Since you almost never attack much better units, you'll never see your poor units win against much better units either.
8.- a.i trade tech between themself at no cost, a.i. can give feudalism for nothing to another a.i. or for only 1 gold.
No cost isn't true, but I agree that this could be called a cheat
until patch 1.21 came out. After that patch, the A.I.-A.I. trade is a part of the difficulty level that can be set in the editor.
To conclude: Out of 8, 3 was generally the same cheat (A.I. know units positions) 1 is probably not true, but hard to tell exactly (A.I. reputation hit), 1 is completely incorrect (combat odds) and one has effectively been removed by the latest (and best) patch (A.I-A.I trade).
This leaves you with 3 real cheats:
1) A.I. know unit positions
2) A.I. know map (possible includeing resources)
3) A.I. can more easily enter your territory without being forced to leave.
Not much for a thread called pathetic AI cheating
There are a few other cheats that is suspected though:
4) Galley sea movement. Personally I've seen enemy galleys sink, and I've been the only one crossing imprtant seas (due to the great lightouse) and I have survived (but lost most) with galleys in ocean, so I really don't believe this cheat exists. I won't say it for sure though.
5) Instant settlers. Zoauve talks about instant AI settlers after a city is razed. I've seen the AI having late game settlers even when I didn't raze any city, so personally I think it was just surplus AI settlers hanging around. Combine this with the AI knowing the map and units positions and this may seem like a new cheat - which I don't think it is.
I may have forgot one or two, but there really arent very many cheats in this game.
) : the cheats are fewer and less one-sided than most people think.
