There is no Question that the A.I. Cheats

[Gerad]

I don`t care what anybody tells me I`m 100% sure the A.I. cheats they don`t just get a small advantage they get a huge advantage.Take the game I`m playing now for example
I played as the French on monarch difficulty on a large map the A.I. has about the same number of cities as I do right now there is no reason or way this is really possible without cheating somehow all of the computer civs are in the middle ages that makes absolutely no sense just going by the numbers there is no way everyone else could be so much more advanced then I am like I said the size my civ is the same. I know for a fact on harder difficulty levels the a.i gets an extra settler but that still isn`t enough to account for what happened here it doesn’t make sense

I`m just curious how many advantages the A.I. actually gets I know it’s probably a lot more than I know about. does anyone else know anymore advantages they get? I`ll never play high difficulty game again without giving myself some “advantages” too like the A.I. gets. I think its pretty stupid instead of making the A.I. smarter the makers of this game decided on harder difficulty levels to allow the A.I. to cheat they took the easy way out.

Well I intend to beat deity game next but I’m giving myself some advantages like the A.I. for starters some extra settlers like the A.I. gets and all the Civ Qualities I think I`ll
Lower the corruption levels too I`ll easily be able to beat deity now that I`m same level as the A.I. since I think everyone knows the A.I. is stupid like I always say the term artificial intelligence is an oxymoron lol.

 

[Plutarck]

Um...you are aware that the only difference in Deity and Chieftain level is the advantages given either to the Player or to the AI, right? The AI never changes, only the advantages it gets.

If you don't want the AI to "cheat", play on Regent level. The AI gains no bonuses there.

On Monarch level the bonuses are:

-Starts with 2 defensive land units and 1 offensive land unit.
-Gets 4 extra unit support for free, and gains an extra 1 free unit support for every city it has.
-Costs for building and researching is reduced by 1/10th (10%) for the AI only.
-The AI will never experience Anarchy for more than 4 turns.


On Regent it gains none of those bonuses. On lower levels the AI cheats in your favor.

On Diety it gets:

-Starts with 8 defensive land units and 4 offensive ones.
-Starts with 2 Settlers instead of 1, and 3 workers instead of 1.
-Gets 16 free unit support, plus 4 for every city the AI owns.
-The AI will never experience more than 2 turns of Anarchy.
-Costs for building and researching are reduced by 4/10ths (40%).


If you give yourself "advantages", then you are not playing on Diety; you'll be playing on Regent (if you're on even footing), Warlord, or Chieftain.

The point of Diety is that the player is at such a GIGANTIC disadvantage that it is HUGELY difficult to survive, much less win. Once you play it enough and learn the strategys it eventually becomes easy, of course, but that's the way all games work.


And something to think about: You have a brain (I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt). Your computer has a microchip. The average human brain is more complicated, powerful, and robust than any super-computer that has ever existed. Only in purely algorithmic computations do computers exceed humans.

By virtue of you being human and the computer being a computer, you are not just on uneven footing, but the computer has a GIGANTIC handicap.

The fact that I don't play anything lower level than Monarch because it's tediously easy, and that plenty of people have beaten Diety (though I consider it through "exploit", in the sense that only because the AI has an unreasonable flaw (like continuing to make peace with you even if you've broken the treaty the turn after you've made it MANY times to multiple civilizations)), all without giving themselves "some advantages", shows that it's is not a fault in the game - it is a problem with the way you are playing it.

 

[Publius]

Originally posted by Plutarck
Um...you are aware that the only difference in Deity and Chieftain level is the advantages given either to the Player or to the AI, right? The AI never changes, only the advantages it gets.

Plutarck, are you certain about this? The manual claims (Chapter 3, "Difficulty Levels", p.18 in mine): "A number of factors are adjusted at at each difficulty level, including the general level of discontent among your citizens and the average craftiness and intelligence of the AI leaders." [emphesis added] Is the manual wrong? (wouldn't be the first time)

And maybe you know this: In the rules editor, I found where you can change AI Bonuses, per difficulty level. But then, under General Settings, there is an "AI Default Difficulty Level" setting (regent, by default rules). Do you know what do they mean by default difficulty level, in relation to the actual difficulty level of a particular game?

 

[benjdm]

Yes, the manual is wrong.

 

[PanaGo]

The A.I, with NO doubt cheats beyond SHAME! Only for experimenting, I started a game with only 2 civs. ME and one A.I. After a few turns (20-30) I got attacked by an enemy ARMY! With a leader and all!!! We had NO previous encounter, he had NO maps of me, we had NO previous battles to justify the existence of a leader! This is cheating without shame! I have siad it before. All this things will show up more, when the multiplayer patch comes. Since all the players will be humans, I am afraid we will see a whole NEW game! And of course, it will be interesting to see a battle between a human-controlled ELITE BATTLESHIP vs a human-controlled CARAVEL...No I am terrified to attack a A.I caravel with my battleships...

 

[Cruiser]

No rational person who has played the game would say the AI does anything except cheat regularly. And it DOES. I am not just talking about "advantages".


First. I had hoped the AI in Civ III would play SMARTER instead of relying on artificial bonuses and cheating. But nope.

There have been posts all over these forums for weeks about the various ways the AI can cheat, and that includes knowing more than it should regarding techs, diplomacy, and trade.

My least favorite AI cheat is the ocean-going galleys that appear in the middle of oceans happily sailing around! I'll post a thread about that, and how it screws up exploration.

If Firaxis had any shame it would have been patched already.

 

[gonzo_for_civ]

We all know that the AI will cheat. It has in EVERY civ game. The cheats make it challenging though. If you don't like the cheats, then you are sentenced to purgatory(playing regent for the rest of your life) or, you can accept the cheats, and even enjoy them. It really is great fun to win on deity knowing all of those cheats. You can honestly say that you have beaten the cheating AI on the hardest level. Pretty impressive

 

[Cruiser]

Some cheating is ILLOGICAL and NONSENSICAL. It goes beyond just getting arbitrary bonuses and advantages. Or am I supposed to accept galleys sailing in the middle of an ocean?! :crazyeyes

I want to beat a SMART AI, not one that breaks its own rules, and does so without even telling you kind of crap it's going to pull from game to game.

Maybe I could just find a way to hack into an ongoing game and change the rules and stuff for MY advantage??


At least in Civ II we had a Cheat Mode. I want that back for many reasons beyond "cheating".

 

[gonzo_for_civ]

I want to beat a SMART AI

Impossibility, there will never be a "smart" AI. The programming would be just WAAAYYYY to monsterous for any man or woman to even fathom completing. The only way to make the AI smart would be to program in millions of scenarios and then work out 2-3 responses to that scenario based on the better judgement of the programmer. headache.

Maybe I could just find a way to hack into an ongoing game and change the rules and stuff for MY advantage??

This is done for you, play chieftain.

 

[Gerad]

From what I`ve heard there are people who have actually beat the game on deity diffculty? I`m sorry to say but it sounds like they are lying I think it's actually impossible to beat the game on deity. Just look at numbers impossible no matter how good you are there is point where skill doesn`t really even matter I mean if the A.I. gets so many advantages.

It was my impression though that on deity mode the A.I. actually played smarter I guess I was wrong so really on all the modes the A.I. plays the same it just gets more advantages on the other diffculty levels.

 

[Plutarck]

Publius: I base my information on A) my experience playing the game, where the AI acts the same regardless of difficulty level and B) my memory of when I _thought_ a Firaxian said that the AI is the same at all difficulty levels.


On the default difficulty level, that basically effects only what difficulty level is picked by default when you start a new game. It has no other effect, and is an unusually useless entry in the editor...go figure.



As to the crazy cheating of the AI, I simply haven't seen it. I believe that many such statements are the result of communal reinforcement. Others are simply the seemingly unlikely happenings of statistics, which are in fact guaranteed to happen. Clustering is a natural occurance in nature, and one must remember that all random number generators in normal computers are only "pseudo-random".

Because I have yet to see saved games of any such clear evidence being posted, and I have never personally experienced any of the wild "obvious cheats" of the AI, I am left to conclude that such things are vastly overstated or are simply "wrong". At best the evidence is provisional, but it seems to me that there is no "evidence" at all, just people saying that something is true without providing any proof to back their claims.


I do not doubt the AI "cheats", and I am neither suprised nor dismayed by that fact. However, I do strongly doubt the more outrageous claims which go beyond anything I've seen.

For instance, galleys going around in the ocean? If it's version 1.00 and the civilization built the Great Lighthouse, yeah, I believe galleys were incorrectly allowed ocean-faring ability. Fixed in 1.16f.


I certainly welcome more concrete proof, such as a reproducible experiment or even a non-suspect .sav file.

 

[Storm-br]

If the developers where to create a smart AI they would be spending another 3 years to launch the game not to mention a huge increase on the budget.

AI programming is one of, if not the most difficult branch of programming there is. Add this to the fact that civ3 is a game with so many variables, its just way too much to ask from a games designing company to develop the incredible AI we all would love to play with.

On every single game, in the whole history of gaming, where you have to face AI opponents, there will eventually be obvious flaws in their behavior wich the player can use to its advantage.

"Everything is relative". I think the AI on civ3 is fantastic, comparade to any other game out there. But its also absolutely ******** compared to a human brain.

As it was said, the AI gets bonuses advantages, we get the thinking advantage. Use this to find the gaps in the AI behavior.

I won on deity/tiny and small. Im playing standard size now and its tough as hell. And Im glad it is.

As far as AI cheating is concerned, Im with Plutark...I never experienced abnormal AI behavior, at all, in all the games I played. What I did notice is the obvious effects that the AI advantages gave them, especially on the research/culture department, where that 40% bonus on deity really makes them get so far ahead of the human player.

Come to think of it, the AI is playing a lot more like a veteran human player would in civ2. They grab a nice portion of land and start to seriously research and build infrastructure without much spent on war. When they do happen to engage in wars they begin to build their units, probably good ones from all the research, and building loads of them real quick from the infrastructure. Its indeed a remarkable job Fireaxis did on the AI.

 

[Venge]

I will add my 2 cents worth. Whether the AI "cheats' or not, you either enjoy the game or you do not. If you like the game, you will have no problem with how the AI works. If you do not like the game, you will find a thousand things wrong with the AI.
Personally, I enjoy the game one hell of a lot

 

[gozpel]

Of course the AI cheats...especially in tech trading between Ai CIVS...But then I just counter by hoarding gold and sooner or later I catch up with the other nations, and can start research myself.

When it comes to galleys, I've been on islands and sending out galley after galley...it seems to be a 50-50 chance/risk for it to sink...once a galley survived 6 turns on open sea, and I found the Land of plenty

Right now i play on Deity, large map...and am still alive...hope my 40 cavalry and 50 riflemen can hold peace long enough for me to get tanks!

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

I think we all can save ourselves a lot of time when we all can agree to this:

* Civ III is fun!

* Civ III has an AI that isn`t I. Can`t be without Firaxis going broke!

* Civ III has LOTS of things that might have been done better. Let`s talk about realistic fixes!


Ok for you all?

My personal problem are those f*ing stupid maps with the wonder Galley. I guess it`s only expansionist civ that have it - seen games with 1/3 of the territory unused until i find it with a Caravel - but it makes playing huge archipelage maps a pain in the ass - no fun when your at war with 12 civ and have never even seen their home territory. they won`t talk to you and you can thus forget democracy until you invade their ass.....

So there`s the problem; here`s the fix:

the Ai seems to build lots of galley, some of which enjoy 10 or so turns in a row of "not-sinking". Well, make them sink definately with the 3rd turn!

 

[Venge]

Check out the Editor, probably something in there will make it just how you want it

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

venge. they should sink 50:50 but they obviously don`t! Another case of sucking random numbers!

 

[Venge]

But is their nothing you can do to make it more acceptable to you?
You can have the better ships show up earlier, or maybe change the fact that the early ones sink in ocean squares.
I think you may be able to put it back to the old way where that wonder allows you to sail the ocean seas
ALl I was saying is there is bound to be something you can do to adjust it to your liking.

 

[Dire]

that I see is with building Wonders. It never, never, never fails and will happen 2 maybe three times a game. I will be 2 or 3 turns away from finishing a wonder, when "walla" .. the computer amazingly has it done.

 

[eyrei]

Originally posted by Dire
that I see is with building Wonders. It never, never, never fails and will happen 2 maybe three times a game. I will be 2 or 3 turns away from finishing a wonder, when "walla" .. the computer amazingly has it done.

I doubt this is a 'cheat'. More like the AI simply beat you to the wonder.