Victim of AI cheating??? Read this for an eyeful.

[rah]

Or do something that requires a random number and it will change the combat. I do like this feature to discourage reloads. It's the same for huts, reload and you get the same result. Don't open the hut till the next turn and it's different.

I am annoyed that I've opened up over 200 huts and have yet seen a nomad or a city.
I had an expansionist civ in most of those situations.

I also believe the AI knows the whole board, and it doesn't bother me. I was checking this out by moving troops between cities and seeing how the AI would attack. The AI targetted the weaker city every time. So unless it's paying money to check all my cities out every turn. It knows. It makes for a much more interesting war. You finally get the support units to a city that has been beseiged and you're ready to take it to the AI, and the AI stops attacking that city and moves on to the city you took the support troops from. Gotta love it.

RAH

However, the heavy corruption is a bit over done. I don't mind having to somewhat starve cities until the rioting has stopped, but then to only get one shield production from a good sized city is a bit excessive of a deterrent to expanding.

[adaMada]

Originally posted by tmarcl


It's possible. I've always figured it to be that the computer can't know and not know a fact at the same time. Like in Civ 2, if you managed to build an SDI defense in every city, the computer didn't bother building a nuke, or, it would only send a nuke against cities that didn't have an SDI defense in. Since the computer has to keep track of the fact that you have an SDI in your citiy, it can't simultaneously *not* know it, even if the attacking Civ *shouldn't* know it.

Now, I'm not a programmer, so I may be way off base. Does anyone else know differently?

Marc

I know a bit of very very basic programming, but I do know enough to say that it is possible to create that -- quite easily, actually.

If the programmer doesn't use the value that stores what's in a city in the code for the AI, then the AI can't use it. There isn't a magic aimakesmart() function that you can use and the AI will automatically figure everything out (wish there was ) -- instead, most AIs are either A) a long list of conditions, if-then-elses, formulas, etc or B) something very complex that should only really be thrust upon computer science students and programmers . Even in the second case, though, unless the programmer specifically opts to use a value in the code that makes the computer tick, the value isn't used -- the computer only does exactly what the programmer tells it to. If the programmer uses it, then it's used, but otherwise -- the computer doesn't even know what it means.

To go even father, in C++ (not C, but C++), it's possible to make values that can't be used even if the programmer explicitly asks to (protected/private vars in classes, for those who know/care).

SO, in conclusion, to answer your question, the AI does not have to know ANYTHING the programmer doesn't want it to know. Now, that doesn't mean the programmer can't tell the AI what (s)he wants to, but...

Just to clear up any confusion.

-- adaMada

PS: About that Fog of War comment -- that's more complicated, as it means that the AI used to know what was there but doesn't any more -- teaching the AI how to handle that could be very complex indeed. I don't know enough to comment.

[shclo]

First of all, what the hell is "regent" level. My book (and game) list the levels as: chieftain, warlord, prince, monarch, emperor, and deity. Is "regent" a Civ2 carry over?

My first game at Prince level had a regular warrior beat an ARMY of 3 veteran spearmen with no terrain advantage. I couldn't take over a city with a population of 1 guarded by a regular warrior (no walls) with a veteran archer and veteran spearman. I basically couldn't win any battle no matter how much the odds should have been stacked in my favor. A regular archer took over my city with a population of 6 and guarded by a veteran archer. Either I'm just the unluckiest guy in the world or the AI somehow stacked the odds completely against me (maybe it was just some kind of fluke).

As a programmer, I can tell you that letting the computer cheat to make the game harder really sucks unless you specify EXACTLY what advantages the computer has at higher levels. A well designed AI should give even the toughest human opponent a challenging game without having to resort to knowing things you don't know and adding a couple of attack, defense, or hit points to its side. That's like writing a hearts game where the computer knows everybody's hand. There's no reason the AI can't make excellent choices with no more information than you have.