Just how much does the AI cheat on 'noble'?

[dearmad]

In my mod I rebalanced Noble to be a lot more even. I also took away the AI's initial 10 point bonus it was getting toward building that firs tunit.

No real harm done AFAICT.

[inetd]

Actually, I find games with your mod enabled harder than normal games...

[JimMac]

Originally posted by inetd
Actually, I find games with your mod enabled harder than normal games...

Yep, so do I (especially the early game) , in a good way.

[Harrier UK]

Originally posted by Hengist
It still baffles me why they just didn't make a 'AI v Human' equal level playing field setting for people to try, rather than tell us what would we should use, with all these secret bonuses given.

They could let people decide for themselves if a truely equal game against the AI will ruin the gameplay or not. Oh, and please don't reply that they have done by allowing us to mod the game, yada yada ya, etc. I haven't the time or inclination to start modding a game. I bought this game to play, not to fart around changing the game files.

The main reason is that the human (intelligent or not) has one main advantage over the computer (at least until someone designs a computer like HAL [from the film 2001]). SCAN.

The computer can just process what information it finds in each location (tile) and compare it to what it finds in other tiles. If the AI is not programmed to cheat - that will limit its abilities. We are informed Civ4 does not cheat. (Hidden AI coding). Therefore it needs some advantages. (As mentioned above).

The computer can not SCAN like the human - well it can, but in a PC the time between moves would be unacceptable to most players. So shortcuts are made by giving the AI slight advantages.

What do I mean by SCAN - the simple visual ability to look at the screen and see lots of information immediately {without any apparent processing power}, unlike a current home computer. The game even makes it easier for the human with the zoom in or out functions.

Maybe in 10 years time home PCs will be powerfull enough for you to play a truely equal game against a computer AI - all things considered.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Harrier UK
The main reason is that the human (intelligent or not) has one main advantage over the computer (at least until someone designs a computer like HAL [from the film 2001]). SCAN.

The human brain is a slow but massively parallel computer

This is completely opposite to what a tranditional computer is. This makes the human brain and computers complement each other.

To make a computer beat what we are good at requires it to be a massively parallel computer. That's what Deep Blue (the IBM chess machine that defeated Kasparov) is.

Originally posted by Harrier UK
The computer can just process what information it finds in each location (tile) and compare it to what it finds in other tiles.

A modern day CPU does that very, very, quickly. It can add two numbers much faster than we can.

Originally posted by Harrier UK
If the AI is not programmed to cheat - that will limit its abilities.

Yes, no, maybe. I content that a nice database and some fuzzy logic will help a lot in this respect.

[Charles_Bronson]

Maybe this stupid AI (yes, I think it´s stupid, alpha centauri´s AI and GalacCivs Ai are much smarter) is due to the hurry to launch the game, or low budgets.

Anyway, if you don´t like the computer, play against humans.

[Urban Ranger]

I wouldn't say the one in Alpha Centauri is smart. When I play the game I usually play on Thinker (second highest) and still have no problems winning.

[joncnunn]

Well, basically in the previous version; the most equal setting was "Regent", but even at the start, they estimated that the median player after a few games would be an even match for the AI at "Monarch", because there are things the poor AI couldn't do.
(And if I recall corectly, the no bonus for AI trade was at Cheftain)

In the Civ IV doc; the quote is that Noble is "closest to equal footing." The above description of where it's the bigest points to where the AI is weakest: Too many units doing nothing [defending interal cities], decreasing it's offensive punch and also subjecting it to defeat in detail.

Originally posted by Hengist
It still baffles me why they just didn't make a 'AI v Human' equal level playing field setting for people to try, rather than tell us what would we should use, with all these secret bonuses given.

They could let people decide for themselves if a truely equal game against the AI will ruin the gameplay or not. Oh, and please don't reply that they have done by allowing us to mod the game, yada yada ya, etc. I haven't the time or inclination to start modding a game. I bought this game to play, not to fart around changing the game files.

[Saurus]

About A.I cheating in general... I just think that the human player MUST always know exactly what is the cheats A.I is using - otherwise countering the A.I is difficult as the human player, in fact, are not told about all the rules the A.I plays with - thus difficult to counter.

[morchuflex]

I disagree... knowing exactly how the AI cheats spoils the game...

[Hengist]

As I said earlier....

Why didn't they just give us a totally equal (Human v AI) setting, without the need to mod' the game, and let us decide for ourselves? I'm not interested in the arguments for or against. I just don't like being told that I have to play it a certain way. I'd sooner try for myself and then decide.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Hengist
Why didn't they just give us a totally equal (Human v AI) setting, without the need to mod' the game, and let us decide for ourselves? I'm not interested in the arguments for or against. I just don't like being told that I have to play it a certain way. I'd sooner try for myself and then decide.

You can do that by editing HandicapInfo.xml IIRC. Save your modified file to "custom assets."

[Hengist]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


You can do that by editing HandicapInfo.xml IIRC. Save your modified file to "custom assets."

Thanks for the reply, but if you'd read my first post in this thread, you would have noticed that I originally wrote the following...

"Oh, and please don't reply that they have done by allowing us to mod the game, yada yada ya, etc. I haven't the time or inclination to start modding a game. I bought this game to play, not to fart around changing the game files."

Again, why didn't they just give us a totally equal (Human v AI) setting, without the need to mod' the game, and let us decide for ourselves? I'm not interested in the arguments for or against. I just don't like being told that I have to play it a certain way. I'd sooner try for myself and then decide.

[Badtz Maru]

Originally posted by Hengist
Again, why didn't they just give us a totally equal (Human v AI) setting, without the need to mod' the game, and let us decide for ourselves? I'm not interested in the arguments for or against. I just don't like being told that I have to play it a certain way. I'd sooner try for myself and then decide.

Because doing so would add nothing to the game except for the few people who want to try the game like that...and you can bet those few people would not play that difficulty level more than once or twice. On the minus side, the developers would have to...

...decide what to call this difficulty level without confusing people

...decide where to list the choice - I've modded a 'fair' difficulty level and I couldn't tell you where you would rank it difficulty-wise - it starts out being harder than noble, and ends up easier than Warlord. If you listed it with all the other difficulty levels, would it be between Warlord and Noble? Noble and Prince?

...have to deal with people who don't understand game AI asking why the computer can't play the game without bonuses

...deal with people who think the game sucks and is imbalanced because they only want to play the 'fair' setting without realizing it was put in just to appease a tiny minority of Civ gamers

The developers have good reasons for giving the AI certain bonuses on all difficulty levels - extensive testing. I played only two games (actually, didn't bother finishing the second because my victory was a given) and it was clear that the AI can't mount an effective defense unless they are allowed some breaks on unit maintenance, upgrade costs, and barbarian strength. The game starts off challenging, but if you can survive through that the AI is going to be very slow at reasearch, have small stacks of outdated units guarding their cities, and some of the AI civilizations will have been crippled by barbarians. It's not fun to play a game that becomes less and less challenging as the turns progress until there reaches a point where no decent player would be threatened in the least by the AI.

The difficulty levels we do have in the game are balanced to provide the same level of challenge at all stages of the game - Warlord is always easier than Noble, whether at turn 10 or turn 300. They go from extremely easy to impossible to defeat without exploiting game mechanics. These difficulty levels will serve the purposes of 99% of Civ gamers. It's easy enough to mod a 'fair' difficulty level, and if enough people want to play a fair game I'm sure someone will make a mod available for download. I deleted mine, though.

[bigvic]

on noble i reach a point where its no more fun - i'm just doing stuff til i win...which can be a while

now i'm playing a prince level game - in the industrial age - ai tech trading cheats are irritating, if thats whats going on... if not its still irritating - and spies dont steal tech? how do you overcome tech inferiority?