This really makes me angry...

[Malark11]

Don't get me wrong I love civ but whenever this happens i get reallly pissed,
I was playing online with a friend earlier and decide to take down ghandi early I have 6 axemen all with city raider promotion, I easily take his capital and 2nd weak city I find out he has 2 more?? how can someone build 4 cities so quickly without a stifled economy or technology? So i think this will be a walkover i send 4 more axemen to the fight since 4 died in the fighting for the other cities One of which has city raider III all of a sudden his size 2 city has 3 archers and 2 chariots in it?! How does anyone build that many units with a size 2 and his other city was a size 2 as well? I understand he could built before the war but I begin to attack his city and swordsmen start appearing out of nowhere I find otu he has iron so i destroy it, yet ghandi can still pump out archers upon archers and kill off all my troops I eventually gave up cos each turn just made me angry at the game.

 

[hossam]

maybe somebody was gifting units to gandhi to pss yu off

 

[Malark11]

maybe somebody was gifting units to gandhi to pss yu off

me and ghandi were the only people on the island

 

[DigitalBoy]

He could have been whipping.

 

[SwordofStriker]

If the AI switched to slavery or was already in slavery, you have your answer, the whip. It's pretty common for the AI to whip away an entire city to produce troops quickly if they are threatened.

 

[Psyringe]

He either whipped or chopped, or both. Might have had luck with goody huts too.

 

[dante alighieri]

Don't get me wrong I love civ but whenever this happens i get reallly pissed,
I was playing online with a friend earlier and decide to take down ghandi early I have 6 axemen all with city raider promotion, I easily take his capital and 2nd weak city I find out he has 2 more?? how can someone build 4 cities so quickly without a stifled economy or technology? So i think this will be a walkover i send 4 more axemen to the fight since 4 died in the fighting for the other cities One of which has city raider III all of a sudden his size 2 city has 3 archers and 2 chariots in it?! How does anyone build that many units with a size 2 and his other city was a size 2 as well? I understand he could built before the war but I begin to attack his city and swordsmen start appearing out of nowhere I find otu he has iron so i destroy it, yet ghandi can still pump out archers upon archers and kill off all my troops I eventually gave up cos each turn just made me angry at the game.

This is why I always keep an eye on the AI cities when I'm about to attack. I'm on the fence when it comes to the AI doing funky things like that. Yes, maybe its being gifted or its whipping or the unit that appears was just out of my sight in the FoW, but things like that seem to happen too often.

I attacked the Russians last night with the intent to take their only horse resource. I targetted three different but close by cities that were lightly defended and I had line of sight via a scout with 2 of them. the third was just out of sight , but had one archer in it. It could only be reinforced by sending troops past my position though. (or by sea, but I could see the water tiles from another vantage point. ) It was only size 2 though. War starts. I take the first 2 cities. Move troops towards third.

Surprise. NOT. It has two archers and a swordsman in it. Whipped? The city was size 2. By sea? Maybe, but doubtful. Not in one turn at least, unless the boat was just out of sight when the war started, dropped its load and then sped off. Moved from another city? Just maybe, but I find it dubious that the AI would do that when there were troops in the open it could have attacked. I would have been a bit more upset, but i expected that to happen.

As I said, I'm on the fence about the AI and this stuff. It looks like some skullduggery going about, but it could be a reasonable gameplay reason. I just wish that it didn't look so obviously like cheating.

 

[Psyringe]

As I said, I'm on the fence about the AI and this stuff. It looks like some skullduggery going about, but it could be a reasonable gameplay reason. I just wish that it didn't look so obviously like cheating.

If you suspect cheating, then load up a save from before the unexplained appearance of the units. We can then have a look it at and determine where they came from. So far, every single test has shown that the AI does *not* magically create units.

 

[LemonJello]

So far, every single test has shown that the AI does *not* magically create units.

Hey, don't take my crutch away from me. Since the first version of Civ, I have always believed that "the computer is cheating." It just makes a victory that much more enjoyable.

 

[Psyringe]

Hey, don't take my crutch away from me. Since the first version of Civ, I have always believed that "the computer is cheating." It just makes a victory that much more enjoyable.

*g* The AI definitely did cheat in previous versions of Civ. In Civ1, the amount of cheating was obscene - from time to time the game would decide to simply "grant" an AI a wonder, roads and railroads appeared magically in AI territory, etc. In Civ3, the most annoying cheat (imho) was that the AI could always see the map, so that it would settle otherwise totally useless spots because it *knew* that important resources would pop up there centuries later, and it would always attack your least defended city because it could always see your weal spots.

In Civ4, however, all these cheats have been removed. The AI does however get bonuses depending on the difficulty level (so there's your crutch ), and it pays less for troop maintenance and unit upgrades. And some diplomacy mechanics tend to put the player at a disadvantage, although that depends on how the player uses them.

From time to time someone claims that the AI would still cheat, but as I said, no test could verify this yet, instead the tests usually debunk the cheating claim soundly - and Civ4 has been out for a while, so there has been a lot of time to find AI cheats if there were any.