The AI cheats! (Possible spoiler alert)

[Primogenitor]

*Sigh*. Is that Firaxis's way of making a better AI?

No, that's just bad luck, and humans (myself included) are notorious for spotting patterns in random information (how many times did you fight with those odds and win? I bet you didn't notice those times. And even then, its very unlikely to be a perfect 19:1 ratio). It looks like the random number generation is one of the few things that aren't tweaked.

You may have also misinterpreted what I said about near-perfect play. It is indeed a factual thing, there is a limit to what you can do every turn. You can only recruit so many units, accumulate so much research, and explore so much territory. It's not an example of arrogance to point out that there are limitations to how much a person can accomplish no matter how well they do. At early stages of the game, those flaws are easy to recognize and counter, but in later stages the game inevitably falls apart because we're human beings and we can't play perfectly.

How can anyone define perfection? There is no single "best" point and indeed there is not even a single scale to measure "better" or "worse" along, only different. One can never know even with hindsight if it is a better decision to (for example) build an army now, or research a bit and build one later.

Yes, certain steps can be taken to maximize what you have (certain combinations of buildings, wonders, units, etc for example) but it is measured in different ways (food, production, population, research, gold, culture, military, etc) and converting between them is not simple (1 = 1 this turn, but it might be 1.25 next turn, or it might be 0.9 depending what you build, what is on the map, what your opponents do, etc). Score is only one interpretation of success after all, you can play games for earliest victory, or largest population, or whatever else you like.
Think of it like chess; loosing the queen is usually a bad thing, but in some circumstances it might be worth it, but you don't know that as a fact when you do it.

 

[dutchking]

No, that's just bad luck, and humans (myself included) are notorious for spotting patterns in random information (how many times did you fight with those odds and win? I bet you didn't notice those times. And even then, its very unlikely to be a perfect 19:1 ratio). It looks like the random number generation is one of the few things that aren't tweaked.

That is VERY true, I am kind of a pecimist. But I'm a kickass pecimist! That's all that matters!

 

[JujuLautre]

Computers often cheat at other games as well. For example at chess, Computer's use databases of human games, "opening books" which show how to play the beginning of the game which are mainly taken from human books.
I suspect given these advantages most chess grandmasters would kill the computers alive. Get used to computers cheating!

How can you call this cheating? And more, every human grand master do exactly the same :/

 

[Askthepizzaguy]

Spoiler :

As was mentioned elsewhere, the AI can only see a snapshot of the current turn, and must play based on that. There are a few exception to this, such as the attempting_cultural_victory flag and the preparing_for_war_with_player_Y flag.

Imagine this.
We start a game of Civ on the forums. One member on the forums starts the game and plays the first turn. Then they e-mail it another forum member. That member then takes the next turn and passes the game on to another member. All forum members must have at least one hundred turns pass before they can take a second turn. No discussion of this game is allowed to take place. The only information you can tell the next player is who you're preparing to go to war with within the next few (let's say 20) turns, and if you're attempting a cultural victory.

Imagine how hard it would be to make a good decision in this situation. Now imagine having to code the AI to be able to work in this situation.

Now that's an interesting analogy. I applaud you for your creative use of mental imagery to convey your point, I found it very effective.

Realistically, the Ai would do better than that, and it does, because even though it seems to play with "thinking one turn ahead" snapshots, it maintains a consistent "personality". In other words, since it is the same entity that has been playing the game throughout, it is more likely to make choices that are logical to the given strategy it has been playing. It wouldn't decide in midstream that it's going to go for a specialized economy or a cottage farm, and then switch plans. Or at least I've never observed an abrupt shift in strategy. Maybe others have examples of this.

Of course, these are all crude descriptions because the computer doesn't think anyway. It simply runs programs. Somewhere out there, every decision the computer makes has been conceived of, intentionally or not, by an engineer. Yadda yadda, you know this stuff already.

Good post.

 

[Askthepizzaguy]

Spoiler :

Yes, certain steps can be taken to maximize what you have (certain combinations of buildings, wonders, units, etc for example) but it is measured in different ways (food, production, population, research, gold, culture, military, etc) and converting between them is not simple (1 = 1 this turn, but it might be 1.25 next turn, or it might be 0.9 depending what you build, what is on the map, what your opponents do, etc). Score is only one interpretation of success after all, you can play games for earliest victory, or largest population, or whatever else you like.
Think of it like chess; loosing the queen is usually a bad thing, but in some circumstances it might be worth it, but you don't know that as a fact when you do it.

It's an effective argument.

However, in this game I do believe that more often than not, it will come down to brute force. More hammers, more gold, more science, more soldiers. Rarely is the case where a small empire with fewer soldiers will defeat a larger one (that is managed with equal intelligence). Maybe not the human versus AI games but definitley the human v human games. It usually comes down to production, science and soldiers because I would expect multiplayer to be a cage match of death. How often will someone attempt a cultural victory and win? Against the AI it's possible, but the other humans in the game would gang up and browbeat you. Played properly, it becomes a simple hammers versus hammers game.

I believe chess to be a bit more nuanced, if less "complex" in the rules. Space, force, development, time, abstract concepts which yield advantages... much of the time. In truth, it all comes down to one thing. First one to be checkmated loses. You could be ahead in every way, except you failed to protect the king from a tactical strike.

I think in this game, Civ 4, you will know that your death is approaching. You will see yourself fall behind in territory, science, economics, and see the soldiers approach. You will lose the "brute force" war before it even begins.

If someone has struck you and you're already losing the war, it's difficult to turn that situation around. They could just pillage your territory and continue advancing. If you manage to fight them off, by pouring out soldiers and striking back hard, you could still be losing the science, territory, or economic game.

I'd say that Civ 4 ultimately comes down to brute force, and perhaps knowledge of how best to use your military units. Whereas in chess, it's a very delicate balance. There's no way to recover from a mistake unless your opponent makes one as well.

It may be a bad comparison, though, the games are so different. Might as well compare chess to yahtzee.

Good debate, good points for all.

 

[redwood]

Long time reader - first time poster.
I really find it funny when people complain about the AI getting an "unfair" advantage.
The ones with the unfair advantage are the humans, who can actually THINK, who have real, actuall inteligence, not ARTIFICIAL inteligence. The AI can't think, and even with all the "unfair" advantages, we still manage to win against it.
The people complaining against the AI "unfairness" sound to me like someone who would complain about the fairness of a math competition against a chimp who can't even count, and who's given some artificial "advantage" such as getting only two choices on the multiple choice test, while the human has to choose from four possible answers.
Boo hoo hoo, the chimp has an unfair advantage! I can actually do math, and evaluate my answers and choose the right one, but the chimp has an advantage?!?
Come one people!

 

[ParadigmShifter]

As Harbourboy once said in a post, "What do you expect? This isn't tiddlywinks. This is deity level!".

Deity level is supposed to be hard, it's the hardest level there is. I've been trying for a cultural win for this months GMajor (failed badly), but I'd never play deity level normally. I might do if I can win on Immortal level more than say 75% of the time. But with my 1 win at Monarch I'm not near that level yet.

I also gave myself lots of advantages in order to try the deity major. No goody huts (the AI gets 2 scouts so it's not a good deal for the human), all peaceful opponents (since I'm going to have 1 warrior in each of my cities as defence), quick speed (makes great artist culture bombs better), reload map until I get a decent start, etc. Still nowhere near a win (about 30 turns away was my best attempt). The AI launches its spaceship around the 1450AD mark on deity quick speed.

 

[Askthepizzaguy]

Long time reader - first time poster.
I really find it funny when people complain about the AI getting an "unfair" advantage.
The ones with the unfair advantage are the humans, who can actually THINK, who have real, actuall inteligence, not ARTIFICIAL inteligence. The AI can't think, and even with all the "unfair" advantages, we still manage to win against it.
The people complaining against the AI "unfairness" sound to me like someone who would complain about the fairness of a math competition against a chimp who can't even count, and who's given some artificial "advantage" such as getting only two choices on the multiple choice test, while the human has to choose from four possible answers.
Boo hoo hoo, the chimp has an unfair advantage! I can actually do math, and evaluate my answers and choose the right one, but the chimp has an advantage?!?
Come one people!

Hmm... you're entitled to your opinion, of course.

It could have stood on it's own without the sarcastic, sneering tone.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky defined sarcasm as "the last refuge of modest and chaste-souled people when the privacy of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded."

I think it's funny when people complain about other people complaining. The irony is not lost on me.
I could have leveled the spell check criticism, but honestly it's too much of a cheap shot. The rest is valid though.

 

[PieceOfMind]

@askthepizzaguy,

If I could give any advice it would be to try not to take too many replies personally. I mean no offense to you but it is boring reading your posts defending yourself and defending yourself repeatedly. You have every right to do so of course, but I was mildly interested originally in where this thread might go, since you were bringing up a discussion about an intelligent AI and whether it was possible for it to surpass our processing capacities etc. But the thread now is just boring instances of flaming followed by defending. Get past the flames and keep the intelligent discussion going. I say that because I believe you're capable of intelligent and worthwhile discussion. Unless this thread turns around a bit I'm going to be unsubscribing - not because I am upset but because I'm bored of reading the same thing.

 

[Askthepizzaguy]

Well I tend to agree. I had already posted about sending any more criticisms about me, and any other off-topic comments directly to me through private message.

Believe me, you're not the only one who is frustrated. I don't know how many off-topic comments and personal attacks have to be posted before a moderater locks a thread. That being said, you're correct, I could probably do a better job ignoring it. But I have a sore spot for negative and unconstructive off-topic posts on my own threads, so I tend to respond to such drivel. Perhaps more than I should.

I'll repeat; stay on topic folks. I'll try to do the same. And once again, criticisms of me personally and all non-topic related comments should be sent to whomever you are directing them to in private message.

If there's no more thread pollution, I can't comment on it. Everyone wins.

 

[PieceOfMind]

So would you like to make a response to my initial post on this thread? Did you not see it or are you simply not interested in the questions I had? I wouldn't mind if you weren't interested - I just thought they'd be good conversation/debate starters.

post # 19.

 

[pigswill]

Better AI means better than previous AI means less incompetent AI. AI will have to improve immensely before competing on level terms with experienced human players (maybe because humans learn more easily than computers, you don't have to rewrite the entire code when you've played a few games and learned some new strategies but that's what Firaxis has to do).
The AIs get bonusses on higher difficulty levels to compensate for their slow learning, its as simple as that

 

[klokwerk]

Well I tend to agree. I had already posted about sending any more criticisms about me, and any other off-topic comments directly to me through private message.

Believe me, you're not the only one who is frustrated. I don't know how many off-topic comments and personal attacks have to be posted before a moderater locks a thread. That being said, you're correct, I could probably do a better job ignoring it. But I have a sore spot for negative and unconstructive off-topic posts on my own threads, so I tend to respond to such drivel. Perhaps more than I should.

I'll repeat; stay on topic folks. I'll try to do the same. And once again, criticisms of me personally and all non-topic related comments should be sent to whomever you are directing them to in private message.

If there's no more thread pollution, I can't comment on it. Everyone wins.

I don't know what you expected really... You come here and say 'folks I've got a great secret' and then you say the 'AI cheats' because they get bonuses ans workers at higher levels, which everybody knows for years since it was already true in Civ1 (but that's not 'cheating', that's even in the manual, if anybody cheats here, that's the human since you can 'see' the map, and learn strategies)... Did you think people would consider you as a new 'Einstein' for such post ??

 

[Ankh]

Uhh what am i missing here?

5 pages about an AI that get bonuses on the highest levels?? (quite obvious, it's like a handicap bonus and they're everywhere golf, go, bowling you name it )??

What's really to discuss about it?
It's not like it's the biggest secret ever.

Also the topic title is missleading since the AI dosn't cheat, it get's a handicap. There's a BIG difference. Now if the AI got free riflemen when i'm about to attack him or he could build improvemts without workers etc THAT whould be cheating.

The topic and discussion is way off.

 

[Handel]

^^^ Yeah, 95% isn't high enough for me to expect victory (like a 99%+ would). I'd say there's a good chance you send units into battle 500 times in a marathon game. Maybe more. So if you always had a 95% chance of winning, you should lose 25 times (theoretically).

I am arfaid when I see a chance les then 80%. It seems to me I usually lose

The best battle mathematics was in Civ II. It was perfect and nothing was left on the chance. But I guess many players compalyned "My spearmen cannot beat the AI tank! I want to reload 1000 times untill my spearmen is victorious!". So they dumped it and used the new system in Civ III which was even more chancy. For example the chance of veteran spearmen on a hill to beat a rookie tank was about 50%. Thats is - the tank crew was dying from laugh... A paradize for those which reload untill they win.

 

[Handel]

Uhh what am i missing here?

5 pages about an AI that get bonuses on the highest levels?? (quite obvious, it's like a handicap bonus and they're everywhere golf, go, bowling you name it )??

Actually the discussion become heated because not because the AI gets bonuses on the higher levels, but because the AI get bonuses even on the *lowest* level; and because Firaxis stated on noble level the AI and human player are equal. Actually on noble level the AI gets HUGE bonuses.
And it is not about the bonuses, it is about the feeling the AI is playing another game, not Civ IV. Because the AI plays with different economic rules and this allows "him" to play as it played the old civs - spamming cities on every possible tile and supporting huge armies.
This game was advertized as using new economic rules which will remove exactly the above city spamming and instead ot quantity to introduce the quality.

 

[Ankh]

Actually the discussion become heated because not because the AI gets bonuses on the higher levels, but because the AI get bonuses even on the *lowest* level; and because Firaxis stated on noble level the AI and human player are equal. Actually on noble level the AI gets HUGE bonuses.
And it is not about the bonuses, it is about the feeling the AI is playing another game, not Civ IV. Because the AI plays with different economic rules and this allows "him" to play as it played the old civs - spamming cities on every possible tile and supporting huge armies.
This game was advertized as using new economic rules which will remove exactly the above city spamming and instead ot quantity to introduce the quality.

Thanks for clearing it up for me Handel.

EDIT: Spelling

 

[Percy]

Actually the discussion become heated because not because the AI gets bonuses on the higher levels, but because the AI get bonuses even on the *lowest* level; and because Firaxis stated on noble level the AI and human player are equal. Actually on noble level the AI gets HUGE bonuses.

People have said before that the AI didn't get better bonuses than the human on Noble and below. Could you be more specific as to what you call "huge" bonuses, please? Otherwise i'm afraid this isn't going anywhere...

 

[r_rolo1]

Actually the discussion become heated because not because the AI gets bonuses on the higher levels, but because the AI get bonuses even on the *lowest* level; and because Firaxis stated on noble level the AI and human player are equal. Actually on noble level the AI gets HUGE bonuses.

I don't remember any Firaxian saying that..... All I can recall is what appears if you hover your mouse over noble when choosing dificulty "(...) this is the most balanced level." Balanced =/= equal....
What I thinked it happened in game development is that they tried various levels of beefed AI and that one that was nearer of the maximum of the Gauss curve of human performance was called "Noble" and and advertised as the fairest level. And a lot of people confused fairness with equality...

 

[Handel]

People have said before that the AI didn't get better bonuses than the human on Noble and below. Could you be more specific as to what you call "huge" bonuses, please? Otherwise i'm afraid this isn't going anywhere...

Percy:
Will put it with examples:
1. Will ignore the bonuses the AI gets against barbarians which directs the barbs to attack the human and neglects the AI cities.
2. Will neglect the bonuses as free additional scouts or warriors.
3. Here is how works the economic bonus for the AI on the lowest level. The numbers are taken from the XML files (but I confess I didn't check absolutely everything so some numbers may be different - but the basics are the same)
So at settler level the numan have 60% bonuses on research and production. But the AI pays only 45% for city upkeep and army support (and upgrades which is extremely important - most of the accumulated gold is spent of upgrades).
But lets look at the upkeep:
For example the human pays 50 golds per turn for the upkeep of 5 cities. Lets for example each city produce 100 science and 100 hammers. With 60% bonus each sity produces 160 science and 160 hammers or all the 5 human cities produce 800 science and 800 hammers per turn.
For the same 5 cities the AI will pay only 0.45x50=22.5 golds. With remaining 27.5 golds it can establish 4 more cities (the expenses are not linear; if they were linear the AI could establish 6 more cities, not just 4)
So the AI can support 9 cities on the place of the human 5 cities. Which means it can produce 9x100=900 science per turn and 9x100=900 hammers per turn. Which is more then the human 800 science and hammers per turn.
And this is at the lowest level.
Hope this helps to understand why the AI bonuses are not "nothign important".