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

[sittingsparrow]

I also thought that on Noble lvl the AI got no advantages/handicaps. I guess I didn't get the excact meaning of the line:

"The level where conditions are closest to player and AI having identical conditions."

I see no problem with this, since I have no real trouble beating the AI on Noble. Only says to me that I'm more intelligent than the AI, yay

[kolpo]

EDIT: It seems the human get's advantages too: http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...hreadid=143244

[Kassiopeia]

I guess that explains why on Noble the AI can field an enormous amount of units and still stay in the tech race.

[Balderdash]

First, complaining about the AI getting advantages is like complaining that you can't beat a five year old at checkers.

Second, you have the file there, dearmad, so just remove the handicaps and be done with it. But, please, when you do, don't come back here and then start complaining that the game is too easy and is no fun anymore, 'k?

[Lucilla]

Dearmad,

How else would you make the AI stronger/weaker and implement the different difficulty levels? I wonder how you would progam an AI with different "intelligence" levels or "strength" levels.

[Proteus_MST]

I´d called it cheating if the AI wouldn´t have to pay anything at all to upgrade its units, or if it were able to see resources before they appear (like in Civ III), but thankfully this doesn´t seem to be the case.

Maybe it pays less than the player for upgrading units, but it´s still a much more limiting factor than having nothing to pay for them (something which could have cost me the victory in some of my previous wars against the AI ).

As was suggested within the thread,
if you don´t like the values, mod them, but don´t complain if victory afterwards is too easy

[JimMac]

Originally posted by Balderdash
First, complaining about the AI getting advantages is like complaining that you can't beat a five year old at checkers.

Second, you have the file there, dearmad, so just remove the handicaps and be done with it. But, please, when you do, don't come back here and then start complaining that the game is too easy and is no fun anymore, 'k?

I am sure dearmad can answer for himself; but having read his post again, I am not sure that he is complaining that the AI is getting advantages at Noble.It maybe that dearmad like myself (and I bet many others) had the belief from reading posts on difficulty levels both here and on CFC that Noble meant that the AI and the human player were on the same settings, (like Regent in Civ3 iirc?)

Since Sirian says that this has never been officially stated, I accept that this is the case; but I think Firaxis could have been clearer on this point earlier.

[Artuero]

I had the impression that the AI didn't cheat on Noble level as well. A lot of people stated it that way. This is good to clear that up. I've had good games so I am not complaining, but I guess I was a little more impressed with the AI when I thought that they were under the same. Noble is pretty darn close to even based on a review of the XML file.

[player1]

Well, one thing is sure after this.

Civ4 AI is bad against barbarian infestations, as well as with upgrading or having cost-effective armies.

So in those fields it's helped with bonuses regardless of game difficulty.

[yin26]

I am quoting the manual, page 167:

The difficulty level affects how quickly the AI civilizations develop and expand. On the lowest difficulty levels, it takes the AI civs longer to train units, construct buildings and wonders, grow their cities and research technologies. On Noble difficulty they play under the same conditions as the human players, and on higher difficulty they receive discounts on these items.

Thus, Sirian must correct himself. This is NOT that same thing as "Noble is described as 'The level where conditions are closest to player and AI having identical conditions.'"

Sirian?

[Senethro]

This is a lot of fuss over nothing and has absolutely no implications for multiplay.

[Lucilla]

Originally posted by Senethro
This is a lot of fuss over nothing and has absolutely no implications for multiplay.

I couldn't agree more

[Azuarc]

I could easily take both sides in this argument.

I could say that it's not highly relevant and that playing against an AI is always going to need some amount of tweaking unless you want the processing between turns to take much much longer.

I could also say that we've been told noble is completely even, that it isn't fair that while I'm getting chewed on by barbarians on all sides that the AI can take them down almost trivially, or that somehow my opponents who have the same tech and general infrastructure tend to have at least 5x the units. (I am *always* lowest on the soldiers stat.)

[duodecimal]

It's an argument over semantics more than anything (except for Yin pointing out a clear discrepancy between the official presentation and Sirian's interpretation of the official presentation).

In theory, if an AI is ever made that is able to compete with humans on an equal basis, people at that time will describe the bonuses older AIs had versus humans as 'cheating'.

Is it bad? No. But just because it is extremely difficult to create an AI that can perform as well as a competent human doesn't mean it's not cheating to bend the rules for that AI. Rules is rules, and if you're not playing by the same rules, you're cheating.

Golf is an odd sport in more than one way. I'd wonder how people would feel about handicapping football, basketball, and baseball.

And of course it applies to humans playing at Settler. This is plain since no one takes anything anyone playing at Settler says about the AI seriously.

They don't want it to be called cheating because it implies that the AI isn't good. Of course the AI won't compete with humans. Just suck it up and say the cheating isn't as egregious as it used to be.

[duodecimal]

Yin: The manual appears to have been written by a law student.

Carefully parse what the bonuses in the xml are, can compare it to what they say the AI does not get bonuses on. The "and" conjunction applies the "on these items" to the phrase "same conditions".