AI Cheating again

[mrmisfit]

Going toe to toe with the russians on a large land mass, Ai seems to divert troops to attack new cities or under-protected cities. How do it know?

I used this as a great tatic drawing her (Russian) troops to a point of my choosing.

[vondrack]

It is publicly known that the AI "sees" positions of all your troops even though it does not need to do any spying missions to learn that. This is one of the few actual cheats that are implemented in order to make the AI at least a bit of challenge to humans.

[Jaybe]

(Actually, I think this is the original AI cheat that was discovered!)

The AI knows the location of ALL of your units.* It saves a LOT of computing and AI-coding this way. It has also been programmed to totally ignore the presence of any "hidden" units (e.g., submarines), other than to not collide with them and unintentionally starting a war.

Sometimes there DOES seem to be a delayed reaction to your movements, but the delay is short.

For example, I have a couple of chokepoints in my land. The AI civs are to the south and there is potential settling space to the north. AI settlers come within my borders heading to the settling locations, but when they get 3-4 tiles from a chokepoint I close it off. They immediately head for the other chokepoint. (Or I close both off and they head back home).

*(1) It has been suggested that the AI only knows the garrison of each of your cities, but I don't believe it.
(2) I DO NOT consider this a cheat. Just as I do not consider being able to "think" a cheat -- the rules are just slightly different.

[Ethelred]

*(1) It has been suggested that the AI only knows the garrison of each of your cities, but I don't believe it.

I do. I have seen the AI moving ships, presumably with settlers, towards an area I had thoroughly blocked. They turned back when they reached the same visual range the player has. I was surpised at their continued efforts prior to reaching that range so I watched them carefully for a number of turns. They showed not one indication whatsoever that they were on a wild goose chase till they reached visual range.

They do seem to know at least something about how well cities are garrisoned. They may know more about your unit placement but it seems to me that the AI is unable to use the information for tactical decisions, only for deciding where it CAN move as opposed to where it SHOULD move and even that goes against some of my observations.

[Palleon]

The AI will always try to attack your least protected city, it's kind of an exploit for the humans. If you're facing an overwhelming force, take a city far from the front lines, and remove all units from it. Every enemy unit will start to make a beeline for that city, only attacking cities that stand directly in it's path. If you put units back in that city, it will head for the next least protected city, again attacking whatever stands in a line between it. The computer doesn't understand that cities with wonders, or larger shields producing cities are tactically better to attack, they simply go for what is easiest. This might have changed though, I actually have not played a single 1.29 game, I've reverted to playing Moo2, I was hoping that with the patch I'd get some nice scenarios, but the patch lacked that ability, so I went back to the classics.

[Inverse Icarus]

you can abuse this (if your a wimp)

make a city behind you border cities (4 or more squares) have no defenders (move them outisde of the city).

the AI will try to charge THROUGH you defended cities to the empty one.

you can also "switch" empty cities on each side of your empire and make them walk back and forth.

there are many ways to abuse the A, but they're not fun

[steven8r]

Originally posted by UberKruX
there are many ways to abuse the A, but they're not fun

Well, maybe slightly amusing the first 5 or 6 times, but it does wear thin after awhile.

[Pythagoras]

Originally posted by UberKruX
you can abuse this (if your a wimp)

make a city behind you border cities (4 or more squares) have no defenders (move them outisde of the city).

the AI will try to charge THROUGH you defended cities to the empty one.

you can also "switch" empty cities on each side of your empire and make them walk back and forth.

there are many ways to abuse the A, but they're not fun

This is fun, you start feeling like youre herding their troops around the big strategic points

[notyoueither]

Soren has admitted, many times, that knowledge of the map (perhaps including garrisons) is the only AI cheat in the game beyond the handicapping of the higher levels.

[The Pioneer]

You can think of it as Spying from the AI or even common sense, since the newer cities take a bit to buold up the defenses. It's the same for the human as he's testing and going for the weaker peripheral/newer cities before going deep!

Anyway even if it cheats I really do not mind since the AI will have to compete with a human and the battle is uneven to start with. The same way I do not mind if a Swordsman gets 2 of my infantries or a MA! It has to try and it's doing it's best and I am still beating it !

[Robert]

I think the AI only attacks the least defended city that's near the border. That's my experience at least.

[mwaf]

getting a bit sidetracked here (sorry about that) but...

...does selling/trading your world/territory map to the AI have any effect on how the AI attacks/expands/etc.? (since it already knows where your cities are, it really shouldn't make a difference)

[Ethelred]

Re: getting a bit sidetracked here (sorry about that) but...

Originally posted by mwaf
...does selling/trading your world/territory map to the AI have any effect on how the AI attacks/expands/etc.? (since it already knows where your cities are, it really shouldn't make a difference)

Yes it does make a difference. They sure don't act as if they know the whole map untill they actually have the information from exploration and trading maps. You can watch them navigate along the coast in galleys and then later find that a galley could have crossed the gap to a unseen land safely.