AI cheats and strategies to counter them

[Radical_Manuvr]

What really gets me is when you get the "we lost our furs" message then the AI contacts you and says they don't want to continue the deal. Before you can renegotiate, they've already traded the resource to someone else. Then your cities stop the WLTK day and you have to get another resource or up your entertainment. In the meantime, whatever length of time is required to be considered "ongoing" for the WLTK day benefits starts over and you miss the benefit for those turns.

It would be nice if you got a message when your deals were at 19 turns and maybe a "do you want to renegotiate" message or something.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Radical_Manuvr
What really gets me is when you get the "we lost our furs" message then the AI contacts you and says they don't want to continue the deal. Before you can renegotiate, they've already traded the resource to someone else. Then your cities stop the WLTK day and you have to get another resource or up your entertainment. In the meantime, whatever length of time is required to be considered "ongoing" for the WLTK day benefits starts over and you miss the benefit for those turns.

It would be nice if you got a message when your deals were at 19 turns and maybe a "do you want to renegotiate" message or something.

Yes it would be nice if your Trade advisor would give you some sort of warning. However, since you know how long the deal is good for, you can alway keep track and renegoiate before it expires. And if you aren't sure how many turns are left, you can check the active trades area.

[vmxa1]

I do not care if the AI cheats, just document it. I want to know the rules.

[Willem]

Originally posted by vmxa1
I do not care if the AI cheats, just document it. I want to know the rules.

No sense of adventure eh?

[solo]

Aeson,

I agree about resources being a problem, and it was that AI aluminum trade during my turn that cost me my first win. (Well, I did go back and replay to get aluminum, just to see if I could do it.) That is one reason OCC is so much tougher in CivIII. You should check out Toe Truck's Persian start in my quest thread, as there were not any resource shortages and both TT and myself managed easier wins. This was on a small map, though, so you can not afford to miss any of the science wonders. Start pre-builds early! Good luck and have fun with this one, should you decide to try again.

You are right about checking before trading, which I don't always do, as I am still not sure if there is an ill effect from ringing up an AI just to check out something like their tech or resources. This may "bother" them as used to happen in CivII, so I only make contact when there is definite business in mind. Hence, I could not confirm suspicions in that game without resorting to reloads.

encomium,

Ocean going galleys is another good AI trick, and this is carried over from CivII, where AI triremes sailed anywhere at will.

A wide tech lead does evaporate quickly, and the game is designed to prevent such leads, with AI free trades one of the tactics used. Another factor is that techs become much cheaper to learn, once one or more players have acquired them. Since these things happen, another way to use a wide tech lead might be to sell those techs to the AI, which will temporarily reduce their level of research. Also, let them do the work of researching off-path techs, since once they all know one, you can buy it for peanuts or learn it yourself in 4 turns. There other ways to use the design to your advantage.

I agree that ideally, the AI should be smarter and not have to rely upon sneaky tricks, but face it, things that are obvious to good human players are not so easy to program into the AI. Unfortunately, much more work has been done improving computer play in universally known games like chess. So many variables are involved in playing civ well, that a few programmers under pressure to complete a commercial product can not hope to build as much intelligence into AI play, and they are forced to use tricks to make the AI more competitive.

Radical,

I know what you mean about "we lost" messages, having been a victim. However, they usually come on a turn or two after the deal expires, so if you are careful enough to count the turns remaining for deals you want to preserve, you can go in and renegotiate most deals before this message (and it consequences) pops up.

It is a pain, though, keeping track, and I do wish there was an easier way to check rather than by counting yourself, or making AI contact every few turns to check.

Any turn starting with "We have lost..." makes me wince, though, making me think I count wrong or that my system for maintaining peace has a new flaw.

[Willem]

Originally posted by solo


It is a pain, though, keeping track, and I do wish there was an easier way to check rather than by counting yourself, or making AI contact every few turns to check.

Any turn starting with "We have lost..." makes me wince, though, making me think I count wrong or that my system for maintaining peace has a new flaw.

Can't you check that by going to your Trade Advisor screen? I've never bothered to look really, but that would certainly seem to be a logical assumption.

[Patch]

Originally posted by Willem


Can't you check that by going to your Trade Advisor screen? I've never bothered to look really, but that would certainly seem to be a logical assumption.

I believe the Trade Advisor screen only shows *whom* you are trading resources with, not giving any details. It sure would be nice if you could get details on that screen.




-Patch

[Ironikinit]

I'm not sure if this is what you're asking about, but on the diplomacy screen with the civ in question it tells how long an ongoing trade has left under "Active". The turns remaining are in parenthesis to the left of the resource, luxury, or diplomatic agreement. No number = the deal is past 20 turns or doesn't have an expiration, such as an original peace treaty.

[solo]

I take back my comment about galleys. I believe the AI follow the same rules for their use as the human player, only moving across sea or oceans with them when their level of technology permits this.

I'll stick with my opinion that the AI have a "knack" for zeroing in on sites where strategic resources turn up.

Ironikinit's description of "active" is a good one of a poorly documented feature. It took me a few games to discover its use and value, and using it is the only way I know of checking on the turns left for each deal after contacting an AI. I would like a handier way of seeing this info, such a screen that would show details of all active deals.

[macaskil]

I've never seen this "cheat" - last night I was in a tech lead throughout and every time I researched a new one I hawked it round the other civs in the same turn with no problem.

Maybe it's something to do with "autosave". Although I have this box checked I don't know how to use it... can someone explain?

[Platypus]

When you do a regular save of a game, it (by default) goes into your "Saves" folder. When you have the autosave option turned on, a save file for each of your recent turns (5, I think) is put into a folder named Autosave (or something similar), that is in the Saves folder. So, if you wanted to back up a few turns, you could select the load-game option, double click on the Autosave folder (probably located at the top of the list of files and folders within the Saves folder) and then select the appropriate autosave file.

Loading an autosave file gives you an easy mechanism to retry or test something when you didn't explicitly create a save file yourself in the recent moves.

[kring]

Originally posted by Darth Sidious
When you investigate a city you can see right?

Also, you don't have to be in doubt about their government, you can see it as well when you open the embasy and look at his capital.

You can also see govt type when you go into the Military Advisor screen. It shows the different civs govts even if you cannot see their actual military units.

[kring]

Originally posted by Ironikinit
The AI tech trading on your turn thing is more common on higher levels. More evident, anyway. I was playing on emperor and it got a bit frustrating how civs I didn't even know were in contact with each other traded techs.

In theory, the game should be working somewhat simultaneously. So, while you are making a deal with civ A, civ A has ongoing negotiations available with the other civs. As the ink on the parchment is drying, civ A calls civ B to trade it off.

Ecomium, I don't think your approach is helping. And it's so obnoxious that I don't want to believe your statements.

If you are weighing the game in your favor the way you mentioned, you have no legit reason to complain.

[barefootbadass]

Originally posted by macaskil
I've never seen this "cheat" - last night I was in a tech lead throughout and every time I researched a new one I hawked it round the other civs in the same turn with no problem.

Maybe it's something to do with "autosave". Although I have this box checked I don't know how to use it... can someone explain?

It happens without the reloads, all the time in my monarch games, although some ai civs can fall behind still, because they don't have the money to buy the techs from the other civs. They won't just trade it for a few gold or a world map or something amongst themselves(although one might try to extort another with a world map for tech trade like they sometimes do to you.) If you know this can happen you can plan your trades accordingly.

It may be a bug, but its one that makes the ai a little tougher to beat which is a good thing, to me.

[vmxa1]

The use of "active" to check trade status requires contact, this should not be. We should be able to check on our own trades with out contacting the AI. A busines would look at its own auditors or contracts, not call the other company to get this type of data. Since they info on contact screen does not require any special gathering, it should be available on my trade advisor screen without contact. I want to know if they have any money before I waste time contacting them.