Pathetic AI cheating

[rafisher]

I think the AI cheats/bugs are a serious problem that truly
detract from the game. How many people would tolerate
Chessmaster (computer chess program) if at the higher levels,
pawns for the AI moved like Queens and the game started
with the AI having 6 extra pieces?

Are the programmers of CIV I, II, III aware of these cheats/bugs?
Do they ever address these concerns?

 

[Sylith]

Originally posted by rangers85


Hmmm, not seeing how that post had anything to do with the previous post.

Anyways Sylith, are you sure that the MPP didn't happen to end that turn as well and Russia backed out. Never seen it claim a MPP when there isn't one. Either that or it's one of those elusive bugs that happens for no clear reason (Believe me they happen due to my experience as mod on a board for another program).

That thought occured to me as well. Since I've got auto-save on, I went back to the previous turns save and checked whether they had an MPP then. They did not.

 

[Zouave]

Speaking of autosave. . .

I once had to raze a city to prevent that Culture Flipping idiocy. It was near a coast. Before even I could get a settler to those open tiles a rival civ's transport showed up and dropped off a settler and military right there. Another manifestation of Settler Diarrhea.
How I hate it.

There was NO WAY it could have gotten those units there that quickly, even IF they happened to exchange maps with the civ whose city I razed immediately - unlikely they did. Without that map they should not have even known there were open tiles. I am convinced they got a freebie settler, too.

I then went to autosave and went back several turns. I put military units on those open tiles. Guess what? THE TRANSPORT NEVER EVEN SHOWED UP!!

And that is as blatant a Pathetic AI Cheat as could be.

This AI cheats so much it ought to be punched out.

 

[Sylith]

Originally posted by Zouave
Speaking of autosave. . .

There was NO WAY it could have gotten those units there that quickly, even IF they happened to exchange maps with the civ whose city I razed immediately - unlikely they did. Without that map they should not have even known there were open tiles. I am convinced they got a freebie settler, too.

This AI cheats so much it ought to be punched out.

I'm not surpirsed. And I agree about punching out the AI. Too bad you can't do it. I get really pissed about how many times someone beats me to building a wonder one turn before I finish it. I'm thinking I need to stockpile huge amounts of units to disband to go from 3 turns to 1 via disbanding units to get around that one. Or maybe do what I've been doing lately, which is to play on a tiny archipelago map with minimum land area. When my resources exhaust, the generally re-appear right where they were. And the computer players can't cheat too much if they're dead. Play Babylon, get archers, and let the genocide begin. To parphrase Sherman, "The only good AI is a dead AI."

Lilith

 

[TheNiceOne]

Originally posted by LittleDragon
TheNiceOne: I did work my way up to that difficulty level by being able to regularly win on the lower difficulties. My point is not that the game should not increase in difficulty, my point is the lazy fashion in which this increase has been implemented. I don’t mind a degree of cheating in cheaper production and trade, but the phenomenal number of starting units is ridiculous. Like I said, this does not make the following ages any harder, in fact it actually works to make them easier in a sense. I’m all for increasing the difficulty, but smart programming would have the entire game more difficult in a balanced sense, not having the start of the game hideously difficult and the rest play like Regent.

Again, I don’t want the game to be easier. I don’t want to decrease the number of units without the necessary improvement in computer AI to be able to cope.

I understand, and I agree that a much better (although very much more difficult) implementation of difficulty levels would be having the AI simply play better on higher difficulty.

What I suggest you do (which at least before 1.29 is your best option) is to use the editor and change deity by doing some/all of the following:
1) reducing the AI's number of starting units
2) increasing your corruption level
3) reducing AI production cost
4) increasing AI to AI trade bonus
5) increasing barbarian difficulty

Although you cannot make the AI play smarter, you can make the start more equal and the game more difficult through the game.

 

[TheNiceOne]

Originally posted by Tassadar

This one is good, if you play against a human player and he know where all your units are, he know which of your city is undefended, what will you say? does he cheat or he play with different rule.

If you play agaist a human player and as soon as you discover a new land, he know about it and immediatly send settler and other crap, what will you say? does he cheat or he play with different rule.

For me, playing with different rule is same as cheating, it is very logic.

Tassadar, if you bothered to read my post (and not only quote half of it) you'll see that it was exactly this is called the most known cheats.

And I don't agree that the AI know about all new land immediately. I have discovered new islands that I have had for mayself for a long time. And I've seen that the AI has left such land unoccupied until I sold it my map. So I believe their knowledge of land is somewhat restricted, although there obviously is some cheating involved.

 

[TheNiceOne]

Originally posted by Tweedledum

(1) Galley movement in seas (and oceans) is rather more than a "suspected" cheat IMHO
I see you had to include "IMHO", does it mean that you agree that is not proved?
Seriously, I have never seen it myself, and I've seen explanations that does not involve cheating.
Personally, I've had several games where I (due to the great lighthouse) has discovered islands long after the AI started using galleys. If they cheated they could have discovered those islands before me, but they didn't, something that implies that this cheat is non-existant.

(2) I'm fairly sure the AI knows where all the (hidden) resources are from the outset - and uses this knowledge
This may be true - and I originally wrote that they have some knowledge of the terrain, but I'm not convinced that this cheat exists. The AI usually build on every odd square that's outside your borders, including the tundra and desert that you probably didn't care about. Later, when oil pops up there, this may be mistaken for a cheat, while it really was a case of settler diarrhea (which may be annoying but not a cheat).

(3) How do you define a "cheat"? I would include Settler Diarrhea as one - if my settlers wander into AI territory, they are ordered out or I have to declare war. When the AI settlers wander into mine and decide to ignore my "invitation" to leave there is no penalty and I have to swallow it or declare war
I define it a cheat (or a bug) when the AI may move more freely in my territory than I can in AI territory. So I give you a point here.

(4)-(100)... [Fill in as required ]
I don't think you'll be able to fill even up to slot 10 with close to proved cheats.

 

[LittleDragon]

I don't really give a rat's about the intangible cheats, if they exist I haven't found them so annoying anyway.

The Nice One: That's an idea. I don't know if I'll use your stats there, but I'll work on something to make the game increasingly harder.

 

[Tassadar]

Originally posted by TheNiceOne

Tassadar, if you bothered to read my post (and not only quote half of it) you'll see that it was exactly this is called the most known cheats.

And I don't agree that the AI know about all new land immediately. I have discovered new islands that I have had for mayself for a long time. And I've seen that the AI has left such land unoccupied until I sold it my map. So I believe their knowledge of land is somewhat restricted, although there obviously is some cheating involved.

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.
From my gaming experience.
1.-a.i. know where barbarian camp are without exploring, this give elite units faster and 25 gold.
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.
3.- a.i come and go into your territory without the obligation to leave or declare war.
4.-a.i know about all your units location without espionnage.
5.- a.i know which city is undefended.
6.-a.i. dont suffer from reputation hit, a.i can backstab you and are still able to deal with other a.i.
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.
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.

 

[sumthinelse]

Originally posted by Tassadar


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.
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.

For the warrior vs. pikeman, you probably don't attack a pikeman much with warriors. I don't. If both units are regular, the warrior will win about 1 time in 20, so if the AI does that enough times it will win eventually. I think you would be able to do it if you tried enough times, but it's a stupid thing to do. So the reason you never win with warrior vs. spearman is that you are smarter than the AI.

For the AI trade, did you know it is configurable in 1.21f? You can call it a "cheat," and to tell the truth the AI trading is the feature I hated most of all time. But now I just edit the AI to AI trade rate, and it makes the game a lot better for me. (I use the other deity settings -- they get all those extra units and faster production so it's still not trivial to beat it, but now building temples and universities makes sense).

 

[Willem]

Originally posted by LittleDragon
Thanks for the replies.
I’m all for increasing the difficulty, but smart programming would have the entire game more difficult in a balanced sense, not having the start of the game hideously difficult and the rest play like Regent.

Well if we all had computers like you see in Star Trek, then maybe programmers would be able to come up with an AI that keeps us on our toes just with it's strategic ability. Until then though, you're just going to have to accept the fact that ultimately, all computer games that rely on an AI are no match for a human. I haven't played a strategy game yet that I haven't been able to beat eventually, once I figure out the limited AI routines.

I've been playing Civ since the very first one, and the AI stupidity has been something I've always scratched my head over. In comparison to the previous versions though, this one is by far the best. Not to mention that if the decisions the AI has to make become more complex than they are now, then game turns would no doubt start taking 10-15 minutes, or longer.

 

[Willem]

Originally posted by rafisher
I think the AI cheats/bugs are a serious problem that truly
detract from the game. How many people would tolerate
Chessmaster (computer chess program) if at the higher levels,
pawns for the AI moved like Queens and the game started
with the AI having 6 extra pieces?

Are the programmers of CIV I, II, III aware of these cheats/bugs?
Do they ever address these concerns?

It is so ridiculous to compare chess with Civilization! Chess has a board of 64 squares, Civ can have 256 X 256. Chess only has 9 distinct pieces, Civ has scads of them. Plus chess pieces have fixed moves, Civ's units can go anywhere, including different terrain types.

And there's so many more decisions that have to made in Civ, not just moving pieces around on a board. In chess, does the AI have to decide whether to build an improvement on one it's squares, or switch to another government? Yet it's taken IBM's most powerful computer to provide so much as a challenge for a chess master. And it only won a single game!

It will be years before there's a computer powerful enough to effectively handle the AI routines required in Civilization, if ever.

 

[Sylith]

About the galleys ranging accross the seas, it CAN be done. I seem to recall loading up one of mine with a settler & a spearman and trying to navigate oceans, hoping to get by on luck, and it worked - once. Most of the time they drowned of course, but I THINK it can be done. Unless my memory is worse than I believe it to be.

 

[SirJethro]

Originally posted by TheNiceOne

I understand, and I agree that a much better (although very much more difficult) implementation of difficulty levels would be having the AI simply play better on higher difficulty.

What I suggest you do (which at least before 1.29 is your best option) is to use the editor and change deity by doing some/all of the following:
1) reducing the AI's number of starting units
2) increasing your corruption level
3) reducing AI production cost
4) increasing AI to AI trade bonus
5) increasing barbarian difficulty

Although you cannot make the AI play smarter, you can make the start more equal and the game more difficult through the game.

Given that the AI doesn't really get any smarter, wouldn't doing this simply bring the AI back down to a lower difficulty level?

 

[Chris_b_89]

once had to raze a city to prevent that Culture Flipping idiocy. It was near a coast. Before even I could get a settler to those open tiles a rival civ's transport showed up and dropped off a settler and military right there. Another manifestation of Settler Diarrhea.
How I hate it.

There was NO WAY it could have gotten those units there that quickly, even IF they happened to exchange maps with the civ whose city I razed immediately - unlikely they did. Without that map they should not have even known there were open tiles. I am convinced they got a freebie settler, too.

I then went to autosave and went back several turns. I put military units on those open tiles. Guess what? THE TRANSPORT NEVER EVEN SHOWED UP!!

And that is as blatant a Pathetic AI Cheat as could be.

You know some might argue that you being able to "play God" and go back a number of turns whenever you make a mistake would also be cheating. The AI can't do this. So is this a case of pathetic human cheating?

When I was young and I'd play Chess against my dad, he'd play without his queen and one rook. This wasn't cheating, simply I was young and my brain wasn't as developed as his. The AI's "brains" aren't as developed as ours, so they get some advantages to even it out.

 

[Sylith]

What pisses me off are things like the AI consistently beating you to a W.O. the W. by ONE turn. I think that's the only reason they open an embassy with you! As far as AI's popping up on remote islands, I've observed that when I find an empty land, and subsequently trade maps, the AI's all make a dash for it. Reasonable I suppose, I'd do the same thing. Don't trade maps is the message there.

 

[rafisher]

It is so ridiculous to compare chess with Civilization! Chess has a board of 64 squares, Civ can have 256 X 256. Chess only has 9 distinct pieces, Civ has scads of them. Plus chess pieces have fixed moves, Civ's units can go anywhere, including different terrain types...

I'm not comparing the game of Civ to chess, but comparing the
expectations that most players have of playing any
game or sport: that the same rules apply to everybody.
In the instances where rules are different (ex. handicapping
in golf), everybody knows what the exceptions are.

 

[sumthinelse]

Originally posted by Willem


Yet it's taken IBM's most powerful computer to provide so much as a challenge for a chess master. And it only won a single game!

It will be years before there's a computer powerful enough to effectively handle the AI routines required in Civilization, if ever.

Chess programs running on regular old 200 MHZ home computers 5 years old can beat the **** out of 99% of humans at chess, and the best chess programs, even on a current home computer, are not trivial to beat, even for chess masters.

Yes, computers might play chess stronger on a faster machine, but the CIV3 AI won't play stronger no matter how fast your machine is.

I don't know who was the first to say that the problem is that computers are not fast enough to make CIV3 play well (and now so many posters repeat it), but I'm sorry, that is not the real problem. The problem is that it costs money and time to write a better AI, and Firaxis doesn't have either. It's not their fault. If they did improve the AI to evaluate moves better, they would have to raise the price of the product, delay releases, and (IMO) only 5% or less of people who buy CIV3 play it well enough to care about how the AI plays. My sister-in-law loves Blizzard games but thinks CIV3 is too hard as it is. She gave up even trying to learn how to play.

It is hard to write an AI program that plays well, especially in a game as complex as CIV3. But I hope that whatever company undertakes CIV4 will plan an effort to strengthen the AI's play, and will allow user scripts, as GI Josh suggested.

Some immediate improvements are possible, such as a heuristic that would make the AI upgrade units and not attack with so many crappy ones, not declare war against a civ 60 tiles away when their units move 1 tile per turn....

 

[LittleDragon]

Originally posted by Willem


Well if we all had computers like you see in Star Trek, then maybe programmers would be able to come up with an AI that keeps us on our toes just with it's strategic ability. Until then though, you're just going to have to accept the fact that ultimately, all computer games that rely on an AI are no match for a human. I haven't played a strategy game yet that I haven't been able to beat eventually, once I figure out the limited AI routines.

I've been playing Civ since the very first one, and the AI stupidity has been something I've always scratched my head over. In comparison to the previous versions though, this one is by far the best. Not to mention that if the decisions the AI has to make become more complex than they are now, then game turns would no doubt start taking 10-15 minutes, or longer.

A touch harsh. If you had bothered to read my posts properly you would have noted that I did recognise the need for the AI to cheat . My rant was about the poor way in which cheating was implemented. As it stands the start of the game is hideously unbalanced and the following ages are rather easy if you reach them. I wasn't saying cheating shouldn't exist at any stage, I said it sould have been better thought out to provide a strong challenge throughout the game.

I disagree that this Civ is the best with regards to cheating. Civ II was much better in this regard, although not perfect.

 

[Mullet Crusader]

Hmm, sadly because of limitations in several areas its pretty much required that the AI does cheat on higher levels or the game would be pitifully easy. Now take Starcraft's AI, ( BEFORE YOU FLAME ME IM NOT COMPARING CIV3 AND STARCRAFT JUST THE AI) Starcraft hsa resaonably good AI for a game as old as it is, and the computer never just "pops up" with some transports outta nowhere, though it does seem to have advanced knowledge of where your stuff is, it never builds faster than you, and things never just appear out of nowhere, and you know what? I'm not even that good at Starcraft and i beat the S*** outta the computer every time i play it. This is because the AI can't keep up with a human and doesn't cheat - it gets its ass kicked. If the computre didn't cheat the game would be pitifully easy, but because the game does cheat so extremely it can be OVERWHELMINGlY frustrating. Hopefully in future patches teh AI will get an upgrade, and when Play the World comes out we won't have to worry about inferior opponents. Until then, get used to those popping Transports and Terrain Knowledge Exploitations guys.