How theydo it..?

[snoopy369]

On noble it does not "cheat" precisely, although it gets some advantages you do not get, you also get advantages the AI does not get. (Strictly speaking, the AI does not cheat at all, in that it does not violate the rules of the game. It gets handicaps, though, which increase at higher levels [and are negatives at the lowest levels].)

On Noble, the 'major' bonuses the AI gets at higher levels are at 100% (normal): AIUnitCostPercent (gp cost for units), AIGrowthPercent (food cost for growth), AITrainPercent (hammer cost for units), AICivicUpkeepPercent (civic upkeep cost). In fact some of these are worse than the player (notably CivicUpkeep, which is 80% for the player, and UnitCost, which is 50% for the player). The AI does have a few lower modifiers - 70% war weariness, 70% inflation compared to 90% for the player, for example - but then again the player is only paying 70-75% maintenance costs compared to 100% for the AI, so who knows.

If you want to see these in detail, open up Civ4\Assets\XML\GameInfo\Civ4HandicapInfo.xml and browse through that You can learn a lot about how different levels are harder (and how they can be harder than you'd think in certain ways).

[MJW]

I read at Sirian's website (after he got stabbed by Gahdi) that it balances out to a huge edge to the AI. But he could have just been ranting. I really don't care if they progam the AI to be good at micro or silulate it with bonuses.

[Virdrago]

"silulate"?

[Blaupanzer]

He meant situate. They usually get great start points.

[MJW]

I meant simulate.

[Blake]

Originally posted by MJW
I read at Sirian's website (after he got stabbed by Gahdi) that it balances out to a huge edge to the AI. But he could have just been ranting. I really don't care if they progam the AI to be good at micro or silulate it with bonuses.

If memory doesn't fail, that was Deity level.

[MJW]

He said quote: "As many have pointed out even on noble level AI's get huge discounts" I'll look up the quote now.

[MJW]

"The AIs don't have objectives. They have only behavior states. The only thing they do well is found cities and tech along, and even that is propped up (under the hood) with EXTREME handicaps. (As many have pointed out, even on Noble the AI gets huge economic discounts on unit and city maintenance, upgrade costs, etc). So that performance is a combination of real improvements to the AI and a huge band-aid meant to cover a host of sins and shortcomings."

http://www.warpcore.org/~sirian/civ4/epic-four/epic4-z.html

[Blake]

The discounts on noble aren't really THAT big, Sirian's statement was a gross exaggeration.

Here are the bonuses the AI gets on Noble.

Firstly, the AI gets a 70% combat bonus vs animals and 40% vs barbs. Have you SEEN the AI tactics? They can get defeated by barbs at monarch level DESPITE those bonuses! Noble wouldn't have a prayer.

The AI pays 35% Unit Supply, note that Unit Supply is SPECICIALLY for units outside of friendly territory! The AI still pays 100% Unit Upkeep, which is paid for all units regardless of where they are. Unit Supply is specific to armies abroad. Players spend very little on unit supply, typically.

The AI pays only 30% for Unit Upgrades. Note however that it chooses which units to upgrade very poorly, the human simply doesn't upgrade that warrior in the safe capital. Furthermore compared with the sheer amount of gold sunk into research, relatively little is spent on unit upgrades.

The AI pays only 70% of inflation, but on Noble inflation is pathetically low anyway, and by the end game Expenses are ALWAYS dwarfed by sheer income, such that players can typically run 90% science with a sprawling map-wide empire.

The AI suffers only 70% of War Weariness. Considering how badly the AI uses it's units and how easily it loses them gainlessly, this is not exactly a big net benefit, in fact I'd say it's a pathetically small bonus. But in any case War Weariness is so low on Noble that it's again not a big deal.


Now although the 30%, 35% numbers are big discounts, they are on SMALL expenses, things which might only be 2% / 5% of your total expenses for the game. In other words the AI gets a few %age points added to their net income, it's a TINY bonus.


Also it would not be fair to not talk about that Sirian Rant in particular, the Irony (yup, real Irony) was that Sirian was the ONLY player to be attacked by Gandhi in that manner - I believe that Sirian wrote his report before reading the reports of other players, so he wrote it under the belief that what he experienced would be typical - that Gandhi would consistently attack the players and defeat them.
In actuality Sirian was just the victim of a bad dice roll, he got very unlucky, for the Majority of players either Gandhi and Qin duked it out, or Gandhi was peaceful throughout the entire game.
If Sirian had written that report with hte benefit of full hindsight I think the tone and message would have been entirely different. Maybe he would have ranted about the impact of major dice rolls instead *chuckle*, but I think that Sirian recognizes the need for SOME randomness, such that the game doesn't get too predictable. In my opinion, one player out of all who played getting attacked by Gandhi was almost exactly right, that's about the chance that Gandhi should act against his pacifist personality.

[MJW]

Oh, so Sirain was just ranting. Okay. 90%+ of the rant was about Civ4 in general though. Prince is likely the fairest level because the AI has the same output as a decent human player when you factor in it's crappy management. It was also his last public game.

[couerdelion]

It’s strange that we are happy giving the AI bonuses if this brings it up to a level that makes the game vaguely interesting but easy enough to win. No sooner does it become difficult or we start finding the game challenging to the point of losing and the AI is suddenly “cheating”, the random-numbers are loaded against us, and the whole game generally is out to get us.

The simple solution is to find the level you are happy with and play at that level.

An alternative solution is to cheat yourself. Enter worldbuilder to scout the map, give yourself free units or techs, reload the game with variable random number seed so that unfortunate combats can be refought. Do this all and you can win easily at Deity level.

[BigFree]

I find playing against humans is much more satisfying than the game's AI. No bonuses, no handicaps. A level playing field; except the occasional raw starting position/terrain.

So, go start a PitBoss game (PBEMs just suck now comparatively so). Or, find some friends, locally, and play some LAN or HotSeat games.

[rah]

Or you can play in RAH's Saturday (and sometimes Friday) games and meet some new friends.

There's a thread in the MP forum for those interested.

[MasterDave]

Nice Plug, Rah.

I only play civ multiplayer now, the AI is just not fun and is too predictable. Although once BTS comes out, I will probably do some single player to learn how everything works.