Ok, word: The AI gets cost cheats at nearly every difficulty level:

[dearmad]

Check out: \Assets\XML\GameInfo\CIV4HandicapInfo.xml

Read it.

Cheaper upgrades, 70% bonus vs. barbarians, less inflation than human, less cost for units when they're in enemy territory, etc...

SOME things are even but not EVERYTHING.

I'm tired of people posting that it's all balanced and fair at Noble level when it is NOT. Not a huge deal if you know how the AI is cheating, but at least let's stop singing like the choir about everything being even steven...

[Kuciwalker]

There's inflation in Civ4?

[dearmad]

Uh... yes.

[MattPilot]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
There's inflation in Civ4?

... i think we will need to demote you from emperor to something ... uhm.... lower


As for the original poster - How about you just even it out yourself and let us know how it plays?

[Blake]

Well the AI is weak enough at Noble. And the AI is never going to understand how to deal with barbs properly, especially on raging.

[Sirian]

No official claims have been made about "even steven".

I've been up front in my remarks.

The idea that the AI is "cheating" because of cost discounts, however, is preposterous. Have you ever heard of the golf handicap system? Civ AI follows the same principle. The idea is to give you a game in the range where your opponent can beat you if you have a bad outing.

The AI is no more cheating at high difficulty than the player is cheating at low difficulty!

The Civ4 AI requires far, far less Handicap to compete than any previous Civ AI. Anybody who expected it to compete vs strong players without any handicap was living in a fantasy world... and Soren, and I, have been up front about that in all of our remarks, as well.


Noble is described as "The level where conditions are closest to player and AI having identical conditions." And that's true, it's the closest.

Anybody offended by the notion that the AI receives handicaps at higher levels has no recourse but to stick to multiplayer games only -- and this will remain true for as far as the eye can see, in turn-based gaming.


- Sirian

[padillah]

The only thing I can add to Sirian is that if you are that upset at the AI "cheating" at Noble then play at Warlord.

There's NINE difficulty levels find one and enjoy the game.

To paraphrase: "Have a coke and a smile and..."

Tom P.

[MattPilot]

IF you are getting beat at noble in the first place, there is something wrong with your stategy, and not the fact that the AI gets advantages

[player1]

Was AI too handicaped by barbarians to need "Settler level barbarian bonus" (70% vs Animal, 40% vs Barbarians) on all difficulties?

[Egbert]

Umh, it is very well known that the AI gets bonuses depending upon difficulty level. (The company that makes the game is open about this).

The AI gets the bonuses because nobody has been able to make an AI as good as the human mind. The AI needs a helping hand in the form of a bonus to provide the human player with a challenge. (Most people can think a bit better then a bunch of if-then statements).

BTW If anyone was able to make an AI which could compete with the best human players why would they not use those abilities to create an AI that could do your job?

[player1]

I'll point out again that some bonuses are added regardless of difficulty level.

Like AI bonus against barbarians which is always same like bonus human gets only on Setttler.

[Kekkonen]

As long as the you have to go to an .xml file to figure out what advantages the AI gets, I don't have the slightest problem with it not playing entirely by the same rules as the human. What I have a problem with is instances where you can see the AI civ doing something that the human couldn't do. Stuff like the AI sailing across vast oceans in galleys (which I think happened in Civ 1, where human galleys were lost at sea instantly if they ended their turn one square from the coast).

[Skanky Burns]

Galleys had a 25% chance for surviving each turn in the ocean iirc. Granted, the AI galleys tended to survive more in Civ1 than the human ones did, but they didn't all die.

Back to the topic, I find the skill-level of the AI appropriate to the difficulty level. If it gets slight benefits to achieve this goal, so be it. If at lower levels I get those benefits instead, so be it.

[Zoid]

Originally posted by Sirian
No official claims have been made about "even steven".

I've been up front in my remarks.

The idea that the AI is "cheating" because of cost discounts, however, is preposterous. Have you ever heard of the golf handicap system? Civ AI follows the same principle. The idea is to give you a game in the range where your opponent can beat you if you have a bad outing.

The AI is no more cheating at high difficulty than the player is cheating at low difficulty!

The Civ4 AI requires far, far less Handicap to compete than any previous Civ AI. Anybody who expected it to compete vs strong players without any handicap was living in a fantasy world... and Soren, and I, have been up front about that in all of our remarks, as well.


Noble is described as "The level where conditions are closest to player and AI having identical conditions." And that's true, it's the closest.

Anybody offended by the notion that the AI receives handicaps at higher levels has no recourse but to stick to multiplayer games only -- and this will remain true for as far as the eye can see, in turn-based gaming.


- Sirian

Sirian laying down the law

[-Ab-]

The AI is no more cheating at high difficulty than the player is cheating at low difficulty!

The AI cheats because its badly made

The Civ4 AI requires far, far less Handicap to compete than any previous Civ AI. Anybody who expected it to compete vs strong players without any handicap was living in a fantasy world... and Soren, and I, have been up front about that in all of our remarks, as well.

couldnt the AI be modeled on the strategys these strong players use
i would imagine that an AI thats simple and just has bonuses on high levels requires very little playtesting compared to one that needed the game to be made and then played extensively and only then an AI created that would need considerably less "cheats" to be competative and engaging
and thats the point isnt it? how many games come out now and the first thing that gets said is "omg was this thing playtested?"
from a business point of view there is nothing to compel a developer go the long way round when they can just bang out a crap AI and then build the game up around it so it give some illusion of being able to play

eg. resources,teaming up,sharing tech,those mysterious barbs that pop up and win an unlikely victory and in the case of civ3 and to some extent 4 the whole map is constructed to hand the AI an advantage

etc etc etc