Huge AI Cheat! =(

[Volstag]

The point is, getting a 3 to 1 military advantage right out of the gate is a bit steep - especially when they can start only 4-5 squares away from you.

I guess I don't understand the problem. The AI receives certain bonuses based upon the difficulty level. You have a manual don't you? How did this come as a surprise? Secondly, why are you pursuing a military campaign, out of the gate, against enemies with a 3:1 to 6:1 military advantage. Rather optimistic, wouldn't you say?

[Volstag]

heres an interesting thing I observed in a prince game not long ago. I sent a spy to england that was just starting to industrialize. and I investigate their cities. most cities were size 10-14 and what do I find? half the population are scientists. in ALL their cities!!!

I've noticed the same thing... but under even more dire circumstances (for the AI). Anyway, two AI factions had been fighting each other for awhile. After peace had been declared, I spun through the area with my spies. At first I was astounded to see the level of pillaging that had taken place. The AI, literally, removed every tile improvement from around most major cities.

Even worse, when I manually check each city, I notice that the AI is still running an unbelievable amount of specialists... as many as eight in one example... while the city is starving to death, and tiles go unworked.

[Volstag]

if youve read the posts about the civ4 game from the producers, one of the things they've done is make the AI better, for example by removing obvious cheats. we are now discovering that this is not really true, except on the lowest levels and therefore WE RANT!

Describe these undocumented cheats for me. While you're at it, explain to me what Firaxis hopes to gain by lying about "cheating" AI? Seriously, what incentive would they have for doing that?

[Cort Haus]

I think the documentation should be more up front about the AI freebies. I'm wondering a bit about a game where, on mere Prince level, the AI can have 20 units per city, many of which are presumably magicked out of thin air, wheras if I have 20 units in my empire the support costs are felt.

Reports of free scientists, extra food, these are all way beyond the production & growth bonuses we expect and know about. Yes, we will be handicapped against an AI to give us a challenge, and we don't mind that, but we should be told what the handicap is.

People talk about golf, but the equiv here would be for the weaker golfer to lose by two strokes, despite a handicap advantage, and then announce victory because of a 3-stroke bonus that they don't have to declare until after the game. When the winner complains they say "ah, but you accepted the handicap".

I never liked the free units and AI v human dogpiles from Civ 1 & 2. I never liked the AI cheating on resource location and map vision in Civ 3, and despite enjoying Civ 4 immensely so far, am beginning to not enjoy some of the 'undocumented' bonuses that the AI has. Up front handicaps are OK. Covert handicaps are cheats.

We were told this would be a less cheaty AI. Not sure if that's true yet.

[padillah]

Originally posted by LzPrst
@ padillah

if youve read the posts about the civ4 game from the producers, one of the things they've done is make the AI better, for example by removing obvious cheats. we are now discovering that this is not really true, except on the lowest levels and therefore WE RANT! maybe you like being lied to, but personally I find it slightly infuriating. this was a quality of civ3 that most people hated, and we were promised that the days of obvious AI cheats were over and done with. and what do we find?
... snip ...
make civ harder!

Well, if you insist on calling it "lied to" but I never harbored any misconnceptions about how the computer would play it's game. 'Course, that's not really fair since I've written AI's before and know what goes into the process.

I've already posted a tread regarding why CIV AI is not more difficult, there's TONS of them around. And they all boil down to this: the biggest and best computer in existance today has the processing power of a 9 month-old. (notice I said processing power, not intelligence. Intelligence can be programmed).

They are not good at "middle" thinking. They have "ON" and "OFF", they cannot process "DIM" much less "Dim, but a little higher than it was over at my moms only not quite as bright as it was at jenny's last time we were there..."

I laughed at the poster that wanted a true AI. You do realise that it was only in 1999 after several years of work by professionals in the field of programming and chess that a computer finally beat a human in chess. And even then it was a narrow victory (2.5 to 3.5, with most of the games as draws).

There is no "HAL"... at least not for $50.

Tom P.

[amicus curiae]

Exactly, it's almost unbelievable that it took till 1999 to have a computer beat the best human chess player. And that was only in 2 games out of 8 or something like that. And this was a supercomputer built solely to play chess. And civ is about 100 times more complicated than chess in terms of the number of decisions that have to made on each turn. Mabye if you had a team of experts and a supercomputer built from the ground up to play civ, you might have a ai that is more powerful than a human in 50 years or something.

[Kel Valis]

if youve read the posts about the civ4 game from the producers, one of the things they've done is make the AI better, for example by removing obvious cheats. we are now discovering that this is not really true, except on the lowest levels and therefore WE RANT! maybe you like being lied to, but personally I find it slightly infuriating. this was a quality of civ3 that most people hated, and we were promised that the days of obvious AI cheats were over and done with. and what do we find?

Well, what I found was page 167 of the manual with sections entitled AI FREEBIES and Artificial Intelligence Penalties where it clearly tells you about discounts the AI gets in productions and free units they start with.

You can't call someone a liar if you don't listen(or read) what they are telling you.

[Metaliturtle]

My point is that no matter what gamers want, the reality is that an AI, to be effectively difficult, will need an advantage over the human.

Additionally if the AI were to do everything that people on the forums want it to do, instead of needing 1.7gb minimum, the game would need like 17.7gb which would severely limit the amount of machines that could play it.

Even if that happened, the games would be so expensive that like 4 people (my own exaggerated estimate) would be able to play them legally, and everyone else would be on Apolyton complaining about it...

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Kel Valis


Well, what I found was page 167 of the manual with sections entitled AI FREEBIES and Artificial Intelligence Penalties where it clearly tells you about discounts the AI gets in productions and free units they start with.

You can't call someone a liar if you don't listen(or read) what they are telling you.

They've certainly been economical with the truth. On my manual this is on page 152, and it's not very specific. It says that at levels above Noble they recieve discounts on builds, growth, and research. Nothing about cheap upgrades, or massive amounts of free support. Certainly nothing about free specialists, or barb warriors leaving AI scouts untouched (which I've seen), and AI combat bonus vs barbs.

There are two discussions here - one is on the limits of AI programming, and the other is on the explicit detail of the handicaps.

[MxM]

Originally posted by Metaliturtle
Think of it this way, on settler, chieftain, and warlord, the human player gets advantages over the AI, on difficulties above Noble, the AI gets advantages over humans.

This is exactly what we were lead to believe. However look at the screene below (click to expand if needed). It was taken on NORMAL difficulty. The city produces 9 foods, and I can count only 4! Where does the rest 5 come from?

I do consider this as cheating, just by the scale of it (more than 2 times of food production) on the difficulty which suppose to be equal level!

[MxM]

Originally posted by padillah
Then play on a lower level. It's realy not hard logic to follow:

Don't like the rules, play a different game.

And if you say one level down isn't a challenge then you've made my argument for me.

Tom P.

Or another option: express you view here and hope that Firaxis understand our frustration and improve AI, so that it does not need to cheat on normal level.

[Arrian]

This is exactly what we were lead to believe. However look at the screene below (click to expand if needed). It was taken on NORMAL difficulty. The city produces 9 foods, and I can count only 4! Where does the rest 5 come from?

Odd, since the city has a lighthouse, each of those water tiles should be producing +1 food. Thus 2 each for the basic coastal tiles and 3 from the whale tile. That gets the city to 9 food (b/c of 2 from the city tile itself).

Seems like a display problem. It's buggy somehow...

-Arrian

[Demon Rob]

Originally posted by padillah
You do realise that it was only in 1999 after several years of work by professionals in the field of programming and chess that a computer finally beat a human in chess.

Tom P.

hey, I'm human and a computer beat me playing chess back in the 80's!


(yeah, yeah, I know what you mean, and amicus in his following post did put the correct type of human)

[Kel Valis]

I see what you guys are saying.
I guess for me I just thought if they told me exactly what the AI bonuses were it would be that much easier to counter them.
I've achieved victory on Noble (normal) and lost a space race by 3 turns on Prince. I have also read post by people who have won on Monarch and Immortal, so I don't think it makes it impossible, just harder like its supposed to.

[padillah]

Originally posted by Demon Rob
hey, I'm human and a computer beat me playing chess back in the 80's!

Don't feel bad: I program the things and they trounce me soundly most of the time.

I just don't have the patience to sit and look up build times and do the math and make a plan and follow through. Too much like work.

Tom P.