The AI and it's cheating ways...

C

Civman33

Gunship Pilot
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You know how other CFC members say that Prince is an equal, balanced difficulty?

Nope, they are wrong. Every single time I play on Prince difficulty the AI has a load of units, a large population and 2 cities before 3000 BC. Come on, 2 well populated cities before 3000 BC? Are you kidding me? I could program a more balanced AI with some string and a crank powered radio, and I don't even know much about programming other than XML.

Do you think that the AI on Prince is unbalanced? Should it be? Or should it actually be balanced? And to most of you guys, Prince may be easy, but for me it is a pain in the rear. The AI shouldn't get these ridiculous bonuses.

I am a big fan of this game and I'm not going to stop playing it completely, but should the AI cheat on a "balanced" difficulty?
 
What? The AI is always playing on Chieftain, so that is the difficulty where you get (theoretically) the same bonuses.

Shouldn't 3000BC on Standard be like turn 10 or something? They can't have a second city by then, it is nearly impossible. Only if you were Spain, got a pop unit from a ruin on turn 2, then found a natural wonder (or you weren't Spain and you found El Dorado) would you be able to do this.

I think you are mistaken. Are you sure you aren't playing on Deity?
 
Civman33 said:
You know how other CFC members say that Prince is an equal, balanced difficulty?
Click to expand...
Actually, it's fairly well known that the AI does cheat on Prince level, in a number of ways. If by "equal" and "balanced" you mean "the AI gets no extra bonuses," then no, Prince is not an "equal, balanced" difficulty level. I can't recall off the top of my head exactly what bonuses the AI gets on Prince, but a quick glance around the forum will reveal that.

I think that the designers define "equal and balanced" as "a level of AI cheating that makes things challenging, but not TOO challenging, for an average player." Obviously that's a subjective impression, but regardless, it is demonstrably true that the AI gets extra bonuses on Prince level. On Warlord level as well, I believe.
 
GamerKG said:
Shouldn't 3000BC on Standard be like turn 10 or something? They can't have a second city by then, it is nearly impossible.
Click to expand...

Just a thought, if the AI hit 2 culture bonuses from ruins and got the free settler from the liberty tree, that might do it?

But anyway, the AI gets chieftain level happiness bonuses, but they have to give it something to try to balance the fact that it can't do combat at all.
 
Civman33 said:
You know how other CFC members say that Prince is an equal, balanced difficulty?

Nope, they are wrong. Every single time I play on Prince difficulty the AI has a load of units, a large population and 2 cities before 3000 BC. Come on, 2 well populated cities before 3000 BC? Are you kidding me? I could program a more balanced AI with some string and a crank powered radio, and I don't even know much about programming other than XML.

Do you think that the AI on Prince is unbalanced? Should it be? Or should it actually be balanced? And to most of you guys, Prince may be easy, but for me it is a pain in the rear. The AI shouldn't get these ridiculous bonuses.

I am a big fan of this game and I'm not going to stop playing it completely, but should the AI cheat on a "balanced" difficulty?
Click to expand...

The AI on Prince is fine, if you can't handle Prince, drop a level... that's why there are 3 levels below Prince! What is the point of having 8 levels otherwise?

Should the AI cheat on Prince level? Most definitely it should, it needs to to make it balanced with the other levels!

The AI cheats to make a better gaming experience, otherwise we'd all be able to win easily every time... I and most others want a challenge here, we don't want to win EVERY time, we want the AI to play to win too. Therefore the AI needs cheats, and the higher the level, the greater the cheats, and rightfully so for better gaming! I for one would very quickly get bored if I won every time...
 
The_Quasar said:
The AI on Prince is fine, if you can't handle Prince, drop a level... that's why there are 3 levels below Prince! What is the point of having 8 levels otherwise?

Should the AI cheat on Prince level? Most definitely it should, it needs to to make it balanced with the other levels!

The AI cheats to make a better gaming experience, otherwise we'd all be able to win easily every time... I and most others want a challenge here, we don't want to win EVERY time, we want the AI to play to win too. Therefore the AI needs cheats, and the higher the level, the greater the cheats, and rightfully so for better gaming! I for one would very quickly get bored if I won every time...
Click to expand...
But if Firaxis didn't rush the game and go for profits and didn't have much budget for AI, we can have a much better AI (like Civ 4) that doesn't need as much cheats.
 
The_Quasar said:
The AI on Prince is fine, if you can't handle Prince, drop a level... that's why there are 3 levels below Prince! What is the point of having 8 levels otherwise?

Should the AI cheat on Prince level? Most definitely it should, it needs to to make it balanced with the other levels!

The AI cheats to make a better gaming experience, otherwise we'd all be able to win easily every time... I and most others want a challenge here, we don't want to win EVERY time, we want the AI to play to win too. Therefore the AI needs cheats, and the higher the level, the greater the cheats, and rightfully so for better gaming! I for one would very quickly get bored if I won every time...
Click to expand...


My major problem with civ 5 AI cheating is it isn't playing the same game as you

in civ 4 it gets growth production and reduction in maitainance free or cheap unit upgrades


but here it doesn't fallow the happiness rules and it basicly plays a other game then you
 
gladoscc said:
But if Firaxis didn't rush the game and go for profits and didn't have much budget for AI, we can have a much better AI (like Civ 4) that doesn't need as much cheats.
Click to expand...

If the AI in vanilla Civ 4 performed better, it was because it had a much much easier time with stacks than it does with 1UPT, not because firaxis devoted massive resources to it. The BtS AI is a different story because it incorporated lots of work modders put into improving it.
 
The question as far as I'm concerned is not, "is the AI cheating" or "is it playing the same game"... the question is, "is the game interesting, challenging, and fun to play..." and I think it is. The result, in this case, justifies the means.

I don't think comparisons with IV are helpful, because V is 1upt, which is quite a bit harder to program than SoD. Look how long it took really dedicated programmers to make a good AI for chess, which is 1upt. Civ V is a lot more complicated than chess, and, imho, they have done a good job as a first try... and they keep improving it with patches, which is encouraging. I'm hoping Civ VI will take a huge step forward, as they must have learned a huge amount doing Civ V, and will hopefully put that into Civ VI...

Bottom line is, if the AI cheats to improve the playability of the game, and is successful doing that, is that really bad? Imho the answer is in the game, do you like to play it? Does it challenge you? Have they kept your attention for over 100 hours? If the answer to these questions is yes, then they've done a good job.
 
Walter E Kurtz said:
Hey, but you should stop using that human brain of yours. It's cheating! Start playing the game using pre programmed scripts instead.
Click to expand...

:lol:

GamerKG said:
Shouldn't 3000BC on Standard be like turn 10 or something? They can't have a second city by then, it is nearly impossible.
Click to expand...

I forgot to list I was playing on Epic speed.

The_Quasar said:
The question as far as I'm concerned is not, "is the AI cheating" or "is it playing the same game"... the question is, "is the game interesting, challenging, and fun to play..." and I think it is. The result, in this case, justifies the means.
Click to expand...

I do think that the AI should be fun, as that is the point of a game. However, it shouldn't have an advantage over the player on Prince, which they say is where the AI is on equal footing. They should have the AI have the same difficulty level as the player on Prince, and not have some unfair advantages, such as being able to produce units like the speed was on standard on marathon.

Not trying to sound stupid, just my personal opinion. I love this game as it is fun but I think that it has some problems. Far from perfect, but very fun.
 
GamerKG said:
What? The AI is always playing on Chieftain, so that is the difficulty where you get (theoretically) the same bonuses.
Click to expand...

Well, almost. There is a second table that only the AI gets bonuses for. On Chieftain, those bonuses are actually penalties, so AI isn't quite at your level (though happiness is the same).

In Warlord, it's a mix, but the AI gets bonuses over you for the important stuff (happiness, science, etc), so losing on Warlord doesn't mean the AI is better than you. especially since odds are you won't have the best start out of everyone.
 
I'd appreciate a decent a decent AI so the computer wouldn't have to cheat.
It just gets annoying.
 
It's like Walter says, you have a brain, you are endless times more flexible than the AI, that's why they get bonuses, like you can micromanage due the situation, they just execute :P. And if you are mad at Prince, set once on Deity, I once did in a tiny pangea map, and I cried laughing when I saw 3 warriors one scout and 2 cities by turn 3.
It's like being Phelps swimming against me in a 100 meter race, I start at 1, 2, 3
He starts ten seconds later :P still ing wins while I drown.

Luck on your gameplay
 
Even on Epic speed, production and growth would still be at like turn 10.

And to get 2 culture ruins (which wouldn't be enough for the 2nd policy of liberty) you would need to get 3 ruins because you are not allowed to get the same bonus twice in a row. So actually you would need to get 5 ruins. And have 3 of them be culture (extremely unlikely for the consistency the OP seems to be having).

Being on Epic does give you many more turns in which to explore for those ruins or natural wonder(s) and also gives you more turns to get the settler from your capital to the site.

Oh! I forgot that on Chieftain you can get settlers from ruins. I've never played on Chieftain, so I always forget that. I don't think the AI gets that particular bonus though...
 
Just be glad the AI doesn't re-roll when it gets a bad start! :p

Seriously though, yes the AI gets bonuses at every difficulty. Prince was just picked out (or called that) because it seemed to be the most balanced of the difficulties, maybe according to playtesters.

If you want equal footing as far as bonuses (aka handicaps) go, I'm pretty sure there's a mod or two that does it for you.
 
IMO the most equal ground is on Emperor. The AI's stupidity is backed up by the bonuses it gets, making it somewhat equal.
Emperor games are also way more entertaining/tense than Prince, since you get an actual challenge.
 
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