Rant about stinking, cheating AI

[snardo]

Hi. Let me preface this by saying that I imagine most folks already know and have seen this sort of thing before - not trying to point out anything you don't already know. Also, I'm not saying, "woe is me, help me fix this broken game." I just need to vent for a moment.

For reference this all pertains to plain vanilla Civ.

Having said that, I'd heard about how the AI "cheats" but had not really realized the extent of it until recently. I just got back into CIV 3 after a long hiatus so basically had to learn all over again. I'd noticed early on while conquering a neighboring civ that there were never any improvements present whenever I conquered a city. I chalked it up to either the low difficulty level or some other random reason that the other civ didn't seem to build improvements.

As I've moved further along in the game - now starting into the industrial age - I'm still seeing no sign of improvements which begs the question of how the AI manages his civs. How can a city of size 12 function without some level of improvements? How can he afford to field units, etc...? My conclusion is that the AI is not required to deal with such trivialities as unhappy citizens, corruption and the like. But it makes the game feel awfully lopsided.

Perhaps the last straw was in seeing him finally take the offensive against me - very uncommon so far on the Warlord level. Having been the aggressor many times and seeing how hard it can be to win, I felt fairly comfortable that I could fend off his cavalry with fortified musketmen in my cities. How foolish of me! While I might expect considerable resistance and several defeats bringing Cavs to bear against cities fortified with pikemen, apparently his cavs are a guaranteed win against my musketmen every time (ok, maybe only 90% of the time). Apparently I should have prioritized Nationalism over steam power.

My appologies for the lengthy rant. Thanks for reading. This was very therapeutic.

[vmxa1]

There is basically only one cheat the AI has at Warlord. It is actually on all levels. They know what is on all tiles at all times. This was not done to help them, but rather was done to make the programming easier. The AI plays with a handicap at Chief and Warlord that give the human an advantage.

That is removed at Regent. Above Regent the AI get a bonus that is increased at each level up to deity. At all levels combat is the same for AI as for humans. Combat is just a roll of the die using the defense and attack values with any bonus added (terran/fortification and such).

[vmxa1]

If you look at the odds, a cav will be about 52% vs a regular musket. The thing is odds are just that and deviation can make them invalid. I do not like to attack muskets in cities with cavs, but will in a pinch. The thing is you just will not play enough games to get the expect results, you can surely run into a poor showing or a great showing.

At the point that I have to attack muskets or better I want to be using armies, not units. As to the quality of the AI towns, that is likely to be poor at Warlord. The handicap and the poor AI makes them do a crappy job as you have seen.

To me I do not research nor trade for Nationalism. I prefer to beeline for RP and get infantry and artillery.

[BlackCat]

Guess that you use arty units to soften up defence - that also destroys infrastructure.

[vmxa1]

Not sure who that was addressed to, but artillery do not work well with cavs. Three move does not travel well with 1 move. If you use artillery you may as well just use infantry. They are the same attack and have much better defense. They travel even less well with 4 move cav armies.

[BlackCat]

This :

I'd noticed early on while conquering a neighboring civ that there were never any improvements present whenever I conquered a city.

[vmxa1]

Ah, I could not tell.

[vorlon_mi]

Sorry for the almost-year-old bump, but I haven't visited Apolyton in a while.

Another key point is that when you conquer a city, all the enemies culture-producing buildings (other than great wonders)
are destroyed. So, you won't see any libraries or temples that the AI has built, cuz they were destroyed by your troops.

I have found this to be slightly annoying when I made these mistakes (at Warlord and Regent):
-- spent a bunch of gold to cash-rush a temple or lib in a border town, and didn't put a big garrison in there.
I got invaded, and had a run of bad luck with the RNG. Of course I reconquered the city, but I had to rebuild the building
in order to get the border pop again.
-- left no troops in my Forbidden Palace city, and got suckered by an AI who had a RoP treaty. Just walked in, with one unit.
I crushed him, but then had to spend a *bunch* of shields rebuilding my FP, and suffered the loss of productivity in the surrounding cities.

I forget if other buildings (like Barracks) have a probability of being destroyed when a city is conquered.
I know that I have conquered AI cities in the Industrial age that still have their Marketplaces and Aqueducts intact.
But the Univ or Cathedral would have been destroyed, too.

[vmxa1]

You can have barracks and markets destroyed as well, but only culture generating structures are sure to be lost. Wonders are not lost as they will not make culture for you anyway.

As you have seen an RoP is risky. At least you need to shadow any units in your borders. The way I deal with border expansion is to drop towns at CxxC spacing. Then I do not need culture to expand borders.

[ImmortalTech]

Hi. Let me preface this by saying that I imagine most folks already know and have seen this sort of thing before - not trying to point out anything you don't already know. Also, I'm not saying, "woe is me, help me fix this broken game." I just need to vent for a moment.

For reference this all pertains to plain vanilla Civ.

Having said that, I'd heard about how the AI "cheats" but had not really realized the extent of it until recently. I just got back into CIV 3 after a long hiatus so basically had to learn all over again. I'd noticed early on while conquering a neighboring civ that there were never any improvements present whenever I conquered a city. I chalked it up to either the low difficulty level or some other random reason that the other civ didn't seem to build improvements.

As I've moved further along in the game - now starting into the industrial age - I'm still seeing no sign of improvements which begs the question of how the AI manages his civs. How can a city of size 12 function without some level of improvements? How can he afford to field units, etc...? My conclusion is that the AI is not required to deal with such trivialities as unhappy citizens, corruption and the like. But it makes the game feel awfully lopsided.

Perhaps the last straw was in seeing him finally take the offensive against me - very uncommon so far on the Warlord level. Having been the aggressor many times and seeing how hard it can be to win, I felt fairly comfortable that I could fend off his cavalry with fortified musketmen in my cities. How foolish of me! While I might expect considerable resistance and several defeats bringing Cavs to bear against cities fortified with pikemen, apparently his cavs are a guaranteed win against my musketmen every time (ok, maybe only 90% of the time). Apparently I should have prioritized Nationalism over steam power.

My appologies for the lengthy rant. Thanks for reading. This was very therapeutic.

OP, I've been having excatly the same problems myself, have you written to designers? I wrote a blog about it a few months ago but it was removed by the server. I'm thinking of running my own page so guarentee sovereignty. Interested in writting with me? I can get a chap domain name form 1&1. Interested?