Programmed Cheat?

G

Gungho

Chieftain
Joined
Jan 26, 2009
Messages
2
Sorry if this has been asked before, but at the 2nd lowest difficulty level (I'm new to this game) I just noticed what I considered as a cheat.

Situation:

I'm plugging away very nicely with my civilization, developed well, and built up a sizable military force which is state of the art. Get attacked by a neighbour, which has a larger, but technologically less advanced force. The war drags on, neither side getting more than a local advantage. But quite a lot of the other civ's troops finally get destroyed...No sooner do I get an advantage, and take a city, than the opposing civ becomes a vassal state to another civ only slightly stronger than it, AND the original civ I'm fighting treble's it's army size, AND their tech level is suddenly equal to mine. Plus, it win's battles that it shouldn't, statistically a lot more than I do. Now I get invaded by the second civ, which also seems to win against the odds. Plus, it's airships are doing twice to three times the damage mine do, to the same targets (as an example of what I'm talking about).

I've heard that the game cheats, but this situation is ridiculous. Has really turned me off the game, I'm afraid.

Is this the norm? Does the game have inbuilt cheats?
 
Well, the tech advancement is explained by the original civ vassalizing. When that happens the master will gift all his techs to the vassal to boost it.

As for the game cheating, it doesn't. It may have reduced upgrading costs and a few other things, but none of them affect combat. It's been proven many times too. So you could either be remebering some really bad luck, or thier units might be in defensive terrain (for the airships) or they might be a higher base strength. As for winning battles that it shouldn't, I assume you're familiar with the combat mechanics, but if you aren't, that would probably be the case. Probably it's just remebering the bad stuff more.

The game only "cheats" on the higher difficulty levels (Above Noble) if your wondering about that. Those aren't really cheats in a sense, they're just some bonuses to make the AI more competetive.

Hope you get back into the game!

By the way, welcome to the forums! :band:
 
You shouldn't be losing anyways at chieftain... Get better at the game instead of blaming the odds.
 
Gungho said:
Sorry if this has been asked before, but at the 2nd lowest difficulty level (I'm new to this game) I just noticed what I considered as a cheat.

Situation:

I'm plugging away very nicely with my civilization, developed well, and built up a sizable military force which is state of the art. Get attacked by a neighbour, which has a larger, but technologically less advanced force. The war drags on, neither side getting more than a local advantage. But quite a lot of the other civ's troops finally get destroyed...No sooner do I get an advantage, and take a city, than the opposing civ becomes a vassal state to another civ only slightly stronger than it, AND the original civ I'm fighting treble's it's army size, AND their tech level is suddenly equal to mine. Plus, it win's battles that it shouldn't, statistically a lot more than I do. Now I get invaded by the second civ, which also seems to win against the odds. Plus, it's airships are doing twice to three times the damage mine do, to the same targets (as an example of what I'm talking about).
Click to expand...

i usually avoid this by checking every turn to if the enemey ai is willing surrunder and be my vassel. Haven't had anyone swoop in vasselize someone i am fighting yet. Of course i usually have the biggest and most advance army doesn't hurt either.

I've heard that the game cheats, but this situation is ridiculous. Has really turned me off the game, I'm afraid.

Is this the norm? Does the game have inbuilt cheats?
Click to expand...

the higher the difficulty the more bonus the AI's have. in a higher difficulty setting the AI will start off with more settlers, workers, Archers, scouts, more tech, discounts on upgrading units and tech research.

i get around that with a advance start.
 
The interface actually does lie to the player, but not concerning combat odds. The RNG is fair with fighting (and that has been tested).

Peace weight modifiers and AI discounts to upgrades at virtually all levels? Incorrect disposition displays? That about as close as you'll get to "cheating" other than just plain difficulty bonuses.
 
As TMIT said, the combat odds do not lie. I've been able to confirm almost all odds to within about 0.1% so if you are skilled enough to detect such small discrepencies statistically it'd be interesting to see.

Note however, there were one or two errors in the combat odds in the very early versions of the original Civ4 (involving first strikes I think). If in doubt, you really must make sure you are playing the game with the latest official patch, or even better, use the latest unofficial patch for BtS (you should find it sticked in this forum).
 
IMO there should be a diplomatic option tied to an enemy capitulating to a different civ than yours. There is nothing quite like being thrown into an instant war with a civ you were friendly with.
 
Hell, if she agrees to attack you, she should not have been friendly with you at first ;)

(ok, unless her name is Cathy... :p )
 
A civ will only accept the vassal if they're already willing to attack you.

Also, it's not an AI exclusive thing. I get situations in many games where an AI asks to be my vassal peacefully. One time, I'd Oracled Feudalism by 1000BC and had Zara ask to be my vassal right then and there, and we were best buds til I eventually won.
 
^^Yes and No.......

Monty will never plot a war vs a civ to which he is friendly and he can't be bribed as well to do that. OFC that plotting a war is not making it and that vassals mess all of this ( real diplo stance is a average of the atitude of the AI and the master and vassal(s) )....
 
I don't understand why Monty is the warmonger everyone talks about at all. Sure, he's slightly zealous and declares at pleased, but consider:

1. Four leaders build more units than him on average, and several more are tied with him.
2. There are leaders that care less about religion, making them harder to get to friendly early in the game
3. He techs very poorly compared to some other leaders so his game-long threat ability is far lower than some others.

Essentially, I view shaka, napoleon, genghis khan, and alexander as more dangerous early neighbors. They all have the same declaration limits as monty, too. Toku is similarly annoying but again is mostly only a problem early on.

My least favorite neighbor is gilgamesh. He is only 5 unitprob behind monty. He is creative so pushes borders, his archers are annoying to overcome, and his UU/UB both power his early game considerably beyond normal PRO leaders. He even techs decently and does annoying crap like pursue culture :sad:.
 
I don't pore through the XML but the thing I find with Monty is that if you are next to him he will find an excuse to DoW you at some annoying time in the future. Even getting him to friendly I find something always happens that he will drop to pleased and then declare, usually when you are distracted by some other war. It can be something like going free religion or refusing a ridiculous request. If he hasn't had a war for a while he will be busy stockpiling loads of units that will annoy you rather than conquer your cities, putting you back dozens of turns.

EDIT: But the OP, really, you need to go back to civ school if you are having problems at Chieftain level. I would have thought it's harder to lose than to win ;)
 
ParadigmShifter said:
I don't pore through the XML but the thing I find with Monty is that if you are next to him he will find an excuse to DoW you at some annoying time in the future. Even getting him to friendly I find something always happens that he will drop to pleased and then declare, usually when you are distracted by some other war. It can be something like going free religion or refusing a ridiculous request. If he hasn't had a war for a while he will be busy stockpiling loads of units that will annoy you rather than conquer your cities, putting you back dozens of turns.

EDIT: But the OP, really, you need to go back to civ school if you are having problems at Chieftain level. I would have thought it's harder to lose than to win ;)
Click to expand...



If he is near you, its usually nothing more than defining your early game - RUSH HIM....!!!! Its when he is half a continent away sending troops to annoy the crap out of you while preparing for a more strategic campaign in your part of the world that matters..... :mad:
 
I agree, but often he tends to be too far away to rush but near enough to ruin your plans by the medieval period.
 
r_rolo1 said:
TMIT : Monty AI will consider DoW to a enemy with 195% or less of his power :p
Click to expand...

This is mostly irrelevant in normal games ;). Anything prince+, the AI spams units anyway, so you're going to be at best on military parity for most of the time where monty is actually somewhat dangerous (aka early on, not when he as rifles vs your infantry). On higher difficulties it's often impossible or just impractical to maintain AI-level troop spam to even get to 100% ----> anyone who declares war is a threat.

Most of the warmongers require you to be at least 125% of their power, so you're probably SoL using power alone to protect yourself (unless you're just talking about killing its stack, a small fraction of its power and frequently easy). You will not, however, prevent dows with power on emp+ until well into the renaissance at earliest.

But we haven't even gotten to the fun part yet!

The way the mechanics of the game works, if you are at war with someone, all other AIs look at your opponent's power as part of their own for war checks. They do of course do this for your target as well. There is even a dogpile value in the XMLs, and some leaders are known for it :p.

However, monty's stat ranges don't set him apart from anyone I mentioned in practical games at ALL.
 
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