does the AI "cheat" on the tech-trading in the end game?

[jdchambe]

I've played many games, and what I've noticed is that I'm usually able to keep ahead of the majority of the computer players on the technology front (I play the lord difficulty setting right now). There's usually one or two who are toe-to-toe with me, and then a few more that are usually a tech or two behind me. Then there is always a couple that just can't keep up.

In any case, the other thing that I notice is that in the end-game all of the AI players that have any significant research infrastructure are able to rush ahead of me because they all stop trading with me on the most important techs. That's fine. I understand that they might not want to trade if it is close to the end game, but what I don't understand is that I slow down because of the lack of trading but they always continue to rush ahead. It seems one of two things is going on.

1. They either have knowledge of a secret late-game formula that enables you to instantaneously double or triple your research output in the end game (unlikely), or

2. They stop trading techs with me, but continue to trade techs with each other.

The thing that is annoying is that it does not matter how much they like me, they will almost always refuse to trade away late game techs to me. And it doesn't matter how much they hate each other, they seem to nonetheless continue to trade techs amongst themselves. That seems to be the most likely thing that explains how the players who were finding it impossible to keep up are able to rush ahead in the end game no matter how hard I work to stay ahead myself.

The fact that the AI seems to find it so easy to acquire far more techs than it could possibly research itself in the end game is starting to get a little boring to me. Have others noticed this?

[Fried-Psitalon]

Golden Rule of Civ4:

The AI does not cheat.

[duodecimal]

... except for it getting free units to start with on higher levels. Oh, and getting stuff cheaper than the human does as well.

Other than that, it's a completely level playing field.

[Fried-Psitalon]

Weighted advantages are a natural circumstance of increased difficulty levels. That's something players have come to expect and isn't really that unusual. Cheating AI is a different beast altogether.

I'd define cheating as...

-Knowing player locations without exploration
-Knowing resource locations before having the adequate tech
-Knowing the precise, specific amount of military owned by the player
-Being 100% certain to get a certain wonder every game
-Having highly unusual abilities in combat
-Getting ridiculous bonuses in interaction with other AI (diplomatic advantage, etc)

None of these are the case for CIV. Starting bonuses and faster production rates? Yes, that's a natural way to increase difficulty, since we don't all run Deep Blue supercomputers in our home and can't simply have an uber-improved AI with each difficulty level.

Weighting? Sure.
Cheating? Not this game.

[duodecimal]

Eh, semantics.

If I mod the game so things are 'weighted' in my favor, it'll be cheating.

I'm not saying the AI sucks, just that the advantages are not all based simply on how well the AI plays.

[padillah]

Originally posted by duodecimal
Eh, semantics.

If I mod the game so things are 'weighted' in my favor, it'll be cheating.

I'm not saying the AI sucks, just that the advantages are not all based simply on how well the AI plays.

If you play on a lower difficulty setting do you consider yourself to be cheating? Same thing. We say the computer is at a disadvantage but we could easily say the human player is at an advantage.

And these dis/advantages are well known and disclosed. Cheating implies a falsehood to it that is not present in the weighted difficulties.

Tom P.

[duodecimal]

Aye, aye. OK, consider how GalCiv was described as an example of another way of looking at it.

In that game, difficulty was calibrated by the AI 'not considering' certain strategies. Higher difficulty levels opened up additional algorithms for the AI to use, so it would play smarter (ignoring certain cheats like the AI knowing the class of all the stars).

An example would be if in Civ IV the AI wouldn't used combined arms effectively at the Cheiftan level, but typically bombed the living crap out of your cities before mopping up a few levels higher. The difficulty in that game was determined by how smart the AI was, not what economic/military advantages were given to the AI or the Human.

That's how I'm looking at it, is all. Giving the AI advantages simply through costs just means you have to catch up to them. Once you catch up, the AI doesn't have any advantages left.

[padillah]

Originally posted by duodecimal
Aye, aye. OK, consider how GalCiv was described as an example of another way of looking at it.

In that game, difficulty was calibrated by the AI 'not considering' certain strategies. Higher difficulty levels opened up additional algorithms for the AI to use, so it would play smarter (ignoring certain cheats like the AI knowing the class of all the stars).

An example would be if in Civ IV the AI wouldn't used combined arms effectively at the Cheiftan level, but typically bombed the living crap out of your cities before mopping up a few levels higher. The difficulty in that game was determined by how smart the AI was, not what economic/military advantages were given to the AI or the Human.

That's how I'm looking at it, is all. Giving the AI advantages simply through costs just means you have to catch up to them. Once you catch up, the AI doesn't have any advantages left.

Ah, I see what you mean. This is a very good means of increasing the difficulty and not calling "cheating" into question. I.e. on Cheiftain the AI thinks bombard untis are the "bees knees" and won't make much else. But higher difficulty levels start taking other units, and eventually combined arms, into account.

Also, a good look at the tech tree could provide you with some "bad" paths that would limit an AI's efficiency. Off the top of my head - research every level completely before turning to the next level.

Hmm, wonder if I can mod this when the SDK comes out? (They say you can actually re-code the AI in this one.)

Tom P.

[tezster]

I think the only PC games you could realistically expect absolutely no cheating/advantages while still maintaining competitive with a human are simpler board games i.e. something like chess/checkers.

I'm not saying it's not possible to do it with CIV, but it all boils down to how much time and resources you're willing to throw into the effort.

GalCiv is somewhat of a special case in the PC gaming industry. If you consider its initial development from the OS/2 days, and all the constant patches/improvements the game has undergone. It incorporated strategies used by very good human players, and the AI was constantly tweaked and improved over time.

If the online CIV community is willing to take the ball and run with it (assuming it's possible to mod the AI), I'm sure it would be possible to make drastic improvements to the AI, although I would imagine this would be a huge undertaking, and would probably be considered a long-term project.

Having said that, the human and AI will never be on even terms - even if all the starting conditions were exactly the same, humans have to deal with the UI and micromangement (this was a big thing in GalCiv, since if you wanted to keep up with the 100% efficiency of the AI in managing its economy on the higher difficulty levels, you would need to be playing with sliders for all your planets, as well as on the empire every single turn!).

[Ellestar]

Originally posted by duodecimal
Aye, aye. OK, consider how GalCiv was described as an example of another way of looking at it.

In that game, difficulty was calibrated by the AI 'not considering' certain strategies. Higher difficulty levels opened up additional algorithms for the AI to use, so it would play smarter (ignoring certain cheats like the AI knowing the class of all the stars).

An example would be if in Civ IV the AI wouldn't used combined arms effectively at the Cheiftan level, but typically bombed the living crap out of your cities before mopping up a few levels higher. The difficulty in that game was determined by how smart the AI was, not what economic/military advantages were given to the AI or the Human.

That's how I'm looking at it, is all. Giving the AI advantages simply through costs just means you have to catch up to them. Once you catch up, the AI doesn't have any advantages left.

Did you EVER played GalCiv on a highest difficulty? AI gets an enormous bonus to planet quality (in other words, he gets a multiplier close to 2x - 2,5x production/research) and a bonus to unit strength (50%, maybe 70%, but at least it's not a multiplier, it's like a global bonus from techs/wonders/starbases on a military resource). By the way, these bonuses were increased shortly after release. In addition to that, AI knew an exact number of good planets on a star, resource locations etc.
Developers said that AI will not use certain strategies on a lower than average difficulty levels, but that's all.

[duodecimal]

Right... I was describing how the AI was dumber at lower levels and was given more options as you got up in the difficulty level. I did mention that there were other cheats that the AI did do.

I didn't say GalCiv's AIs doesn't cheat. I was using it to explain what I mean by 'cheating' by an AI.

[Ellestar]

Originally posted by duodecimal
Right... I was describing how the AI was dumber at lower levels and was given more options as you got up in the difficulty level. I did mention that there were other cheats that the AI did do.

I didn't say GalCiv's AIs doesn't cheat. I was using it to explain what I mean by 'cheating' by an AI.

No, all strategies are enabled on average "Intelligent" difficulty level. After that, AI just gets bonuses to production/research/military and that's how difficulty is calibrated where it matters (there is no reason to talk about newbies that can't beat AI even without bonuses and so play on lower than Intelligent difficulty level). So, IMHO your point is wrong.

[duodecimal]

... eh?

Originally posted by Ellestar

No, all strategies are enabled on average "Intelligent" difficulty level.

... so, as I said, at "lower difficulty levels" (Intelligent is not among the lowest levels... weren't there three below it?), the AI has fewer strategic abilities to choose from.

Reading comprehension for teh win?

Are you familiar with concepts like "simile", "analogy", "comparison", and so on? I was using a part of Gal Civ's difficulty calibration scheme to illustrate my point. Just because you only play against Genius+ doesn't mean levels at "Normal", "Sub-normal", and lower do not exist and can't be used to point out other possiblities.

The point of this argument, if you can pay attention for a moment and concentrate, was a difference in opinion over what counted as "cheating". I was pointing out how scaling the intelligence of the AI could be used instead of giving the AI extra bonuses.

Pick your fights less indiscriminately.

[jdchambe]

Ok. Let's all pretend that I didn't use the word "cheat".

Not a single one of you actually answered my question....

Whether we do or do not choose to call a particular advantage "cheating" is a meaningless semantic issue. I'm sorry that I phrased it that way. Saying the word cheat apparently touched a nerve and prompted no one to answer my question.


Whether we call it cheating or not, the question remains the same:

Has any one else noticed that the AI's strategy for trading technologies in the end game changes relative to the human player only?

My advancement slows down in the end game because all of the AI players, even the ones that are very friendly to me, refuse to trade technologies with me in the end-game. I'm fine with that. I understand that.

But the AI players technology advancement rate does not slow down in the end game. This to me appears to be a strong indication that they continue to trade technologies with each other even though they have all stopped trading with me. THis happens, even in games where my civilization is the only one that any of them are "friendly" toward. The only reason I find it annoying is because they seem to stop trading with their friend (me) but continue to trade with the people they don't actually like very much (the other civ's).

It destroys any sense that the perception numbers in the diplomacy screen mean anything.

[duodecimal]

Fried answered yer question - he counts AI diplo bonuses as the kind of 'cheating' that's not in CIV. By his answer, the AIs treat each other no differently than they should treat you.

The AI is probably micromanaging its finances better than you are at this point, due to all the factors that are still being figured out.

Scan the logs to see how many Great Scientists they might have used to build Academies. That, combined with Free Religion civic, and other stuff can all add up, along with their traits that might be different from yours. Is this a single-game sample, or a trend you've noticed in several games? Are you playing at a higher difficulty level, where the AI gets to cheat a bit on research costs?

The AI will also refuse to trade techs that allow the building of Wonders that they may be constructing. Late game techs might be pretty heavily weighted with wonders and SS components.