The complete cheat guide

[TheNiceOne]

Hades, do you have a save game, or did you really check that Ghandi did this without money? If not, there's no reason to conclude that this was a cheat.

 

[TheNiceOne]

Originally posted by Grey Knight

It's funny to still see these issues being hashed, when they've been documented by Firaxis! But I guess it's been proven that folks don't read FAQs
I wasn't aware of any such documentation. Where can I find it?

Anyway, knowledge of the map and resources has been confirmed by Firaxis. This leads to a couple behaviours:

1) It will found cities in locations to get strategic resources, and it will favor those locations when deciding where to found next. In other words, it will found these cities first.

This is true. I have tested this myself by creating a special map in the editor where the AI had 4 seamingly identical spots to settle, and always selected the one with future strategic resources.

2) The AI knows of all viable city founding locations, and is programmed to spread like a weed, so it will build a settler / defender combo for all the city locations it has "in mind". However it is not "allowed" to use the inherent map knowlege to go found these cities until it has explored these lands, which is why as soon as you sell your map, you'll see settlers (which were already built) heading to the 1 square you don't yet control. If you plant a unit at that square, you'll see the settler turn back too! In other words, the AI ends up with surplus "pre-built" settlers.

This I don't understand. Do you mean that it will build a settler, but don't move the settler in the correct direction until it has explored the land with another unit (or bought the map)?

I agree that it seems that it need exploration (or map) to fully take advantage of terrain, but in the editor I made an island formed as a cross with an AI city and settler in the centre. The settler always went directly to the arm with best land even thugh the land was unexplored.

3) It will value a city with a strategic resource, even one ages away, more highly when being extorted for peace.
Agreed

4) The AI doesn't "know" where you are going with a settler in order to beat you to it. What it does have is a plan as to how best to lay things out (see above) which it is following. It just happened to beat you to this particular site. If it had horses or iron visible, you shouldn't be surprised at all!
This makes sense.

 

[TheNiceOne]

I just wanted to bump this thread (maybe the FAQ could have a link to it), and tell that I've now updated the two first posts, after having done an exstensive test to find out that there's no cheat involved when deciding how long a unit can stay inside enemy borders. AI and human players follow the same rules.

See this ]this[/URL] thread for reading more about the test.

 

[Fredric Drum]

Originally posted by wohmongarinf00l
the manual says where to expect certain resources. both the human player and the AI have this information. the AI will try to build on terrain that has odds of containing certain resources.

Wrong. The AI will build EVERYWHERE.

 

[TheNiceOne]

Fredric Drum, it's correct that the AI will build everywhere, at lest until it has reached the optimal number of cities, but when it selects where to build first, one of the factors it considers is where future resources will appear.

The AI knows this, which is one (of the very few) cheats in this game.

 

[sabo]

why does everyones post have a red "the"

 

[Grey Knight]

For some reason, you have "highlight=red" in your showthread.php command string. Did you do a search recently?

Cheers,
Shawn

 

[MSGT John Drew]

i don't know about what you all are saying here. is there even any way of proving a lot of them...

frankly, I don't give a damn...a passing thought is the most I would give it.

all I could say to this here thread is that TNO was very very resourceful in the use of "partly-unrelated-but-on-second-thought-appears-to-be" emoticons to describe the cheat subjects. made me laugh...

 

[TheNiceOne]

MSGT, thanks for the compliment on the smilies.

If you don't care much about whether the AI cheats or not, then all the better, but a lot of people do, and a lot of people accuse the AI of way more cheating than it actually does.

Yes, there are ways to prove quite much of the (non-)cheats. Other players have done extensive testing of the random generator and battle outcomes.

I have made several small scenarios just to test for certainc cheats. Some scenarios proved that the AI don't cheat (the last being the border violation) and some scenarios proved that the AI does (I proved that an AI settler went in a different direction when I added a future resource).

 

[TheNiceOne]

Just wanted to say that I have updated the second post on the thread with the information about screenshot of the day #71, which was an example showing how a human galley can teleport across the sea to undiscovered land. The AI has been accused of cheating by crossing the seas in such a way, so it's nice to have proof that this is no cheat, only a weird result of the border violation teleport.

 

[farting bob]

i did a test using editor. i built mountains all around 1 desert square. not much reason for the A.I to go there.... but i put in the only oil resorce on the desert. the A.I went a long distance to settle there, and when it did it didn't grow above 2. however, when the oil came up he was sitting there proud.

 

[TheNiceOne]

Yes, farting bob. Both I and Catt have done similra tests which verify that the AI give a higher value to a square containing a future resource, so this cheat is well documented, and even confirmed by Firaxis.

 

[Tassadar]

As a new cheat ( since patch 1.29 ) i will add that a.i. take some action while it is YOUR turn.

If you precision strike their city, you will destroy happiness improvement but a.i. assign immediatly entertainer to counter civil disorder. So it impossible to make their city riot, but only starving ( it was possible with 1.21 and previous patch ).

I know that if human use governor to manage happiness it will do the same, but who use governor to manage city exept a.i..

So for me it is an a.i. exploit and it is against the very basic principle in this game, IT IS A TURN BASE GAME, so no action should be taken while it is my turn to play.

I loved when i saw a.i. smoking city with older patch, no more.

 

[dmcarthur]

Elite units may appear more vulnerable in the instance where units with extra movement are retreating from combat. IIRC, a cavalry unit will attack until it has one HP remaining and then retreat, unless the defender also has 1 HP remaining. Where a veteran unit, with 1 HP remaining, might retreat from a defender with 2 HP remaining, an elite unit conducting the same attack would have 2 HP left and would continue the attack. In that instance, the elite unit might be destroyed where the veteran unit simply retreated. The extra rounds of combat would also change the RNG determination whether the attempt to retreat is successful. This creates an illusion that the elite units are dying more easily than the veteran units, when they are merely fighting harder.

 

[TheNiceOne]

Originally posted by Tassadar
As a new cheat ( since patch 1.29 ) i will add that a.i. take some action while it is YOUR turn.

If you precision strike their city, you will destroy happiness improvement but a.i. assign immediatly entertainer to counter civil disorder. So it impossible to make their city riot, but only starving ( it was possible with 1.21 and previous patch ).

I know that if human use governor to manage happiness it will do the same, but who use governor to manage city exept a.i..

So for me it is an a.i. exploit and it is against the very basic principle in this game, IT IS A TURN BASE GAME, so no action should be taken while it is my turn to play.

I loved when i saw a.i. smoking city with older patch, no more.

I'm quite reluctant to call this a cheat, since as you say, the human player gets the same effect if using the governor to manage happiness. And I believe many players do so (I don't, but plan to experiment with the manage happiness function).

I do agree though, that i a turn based game, a side shouldn't be able to do any actions during the opponents' turns.

 

[TheNiceOne]

Originally posted by dmcarthur
Elite units may appear more vulnerable in the instance where units with extra movement are retreating from combat. IIRC, a cavalry unit will attack until it has one HP remaining and then retreat, unless the defender also has 1 HP remaining. Where a veteran unit, with 1 HP remaining, might retreat from a defender with 2 HP remaining, an elite unit conducting the same attack would have 2 HP left and would continue the attack. In that instance, the elite unit might be destroyed where the veteran unit simply retreated. The extra rounds of combat would also change the RNG determination whether the attempt to retreat is successful. This creates an illusion that the elite units are dying more easily than the veteran units, when they are merely fighting harder.

It might create such an illusion in the short term, but if you bother to write every occurence down, you will find that veteran units die more often than elite units. Simple as that.

Yes, there will be instances where you attack with a veteran unit that withdraws (and survives), reload (with random seed preserved) and attack with an elite unit who dies, but there will be a lot more instances where you attack with a veteran unit that dies, reload and attack with an elite unit who survives (wins or retreats).

 

[Karl_t_great]

Originally posted by Grey Knight

3) It will value a city with a strategic resource, even one ages away, more highly when being extorted for peace.

That mean human player can also use this to peek for the hidden resources, by comparing the peace terms for cities of even size, depeding on the terrain type You should be able pinpoint the crusial rubber and oil resources.
The other way will be to look carefully in which order the AI builds it's cities and taking notes....

This is not listed as exploit -- Anyone admit doing this ?

I have been wondering why the AI does not send a setteler to the nearest iron as soon as the i_w has been discovered. But if the AI sees all the resources and does not prioritize it is more logical. Can someone post a link if there is more specifig info how AI treats this data ?