26-04-2004 16:06									#1
	AI Cheating? Increase Your PM Length

i notice that time after time the AI bombs cities with the least air defence

is the AI cheating or have i missed something?

	26-04-2004 18:58									#2
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The AI knows where your stuff is.

	26-04-2004 19:27									#3
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So yes, basically. Of course a cynical person might use this to make the AI troops run all over the place.

	26-04-2004 19:32									#4
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quote: Originally posted by DrSpike So yes, basically. Of course a cynical person might use this to make the AI troops run all over the place.

'course no-one would exploit the poor AI like that would they? Or at least only occasionally . . .

	26-04-2004 22:44									#5
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If the AI did not cheat I often wonder if it could ever win

even against it self

	26-04-2004 22:55									#6
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the AI knows where your units are?

well thats cheating (unless it has a legit reason for knowing)

	27-04-2004 00:20									#7
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and they always take the transport with their attack units and land next to your city with only 1 spearman defending it.

	27-04-2004 01:43									#8
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Yes the one acknowledge cheat is that the AI will know what is on tiles. Be it troops or resources. So if you have an empty city, it will see it and go for it.

so forget about trying tobe tricky with 1 defender or none, it won't fool the AI.

	27-04-2004 01:56									#9
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To an extent you can fool the AI into attacking where you want it to and destroy its forces. I've noticed this can be especially effective once your rail network is in place so you are highly mobile

	27-04-2004 02:12									#10
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quote: well thats cheating (unless it has a legit reason for knowing)

Yes its an all new level of cheating. If this were any other, non-civ game, this kind of cheating would get such a bashing.

	27-04-2004 03:09									#11
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To me it ids not cheating at all. It is part of the handicap the AI gets. Cheating is doing something that was not part of the rules. This is part of the rules. We still beat the thing, so if it did not have that how much easier would it be?

If you want to say they should have made a better AI instead, that is legit. I am not sure if that was doable and still have the game run on less than 4GH machines, but that is another issue.

	27-04-2004 03:55									#12
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The thing is once you know that the AI knows where youre defending, you can use it against it, which defeats the point of the cheat in the first place.

	27-04-2004 04:52									#13
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depends how far apart your cities are, and if you have adequate road network- preferribly railroad.

	27-04-2004 05:40									#14
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quote: Originally posted by Maquiladora The thing is once you know that the AI knows where youre defending, you can use it against it, which defeats the point of the cheat in the first place.

The "cheat"as not put in to aid the AI in winning so much as it was to allow the coders to not have to make the AI better and hence more complex and requiring more horsepower. This saved time and money.

	27-04-2004 05:56									#15
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Its sad that a game of civ's importance gets such a cheap (short-term) workaround just to save time and money then.

	27-04-2004 07:35									#16
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And also allowing Civ to be workable on a higher number of machines. Make the AI better, it needs more processing power, and this would alienate those with just a high enough CPU as it is to play the game. Not to mention, most improvements on the AI beyond what it currently is would likely take a much larger amount of time to produce, so they had to compromise between AI and releasing the game before most lost interest (excepting those of us on these forums...which do NOT represent the vast majority of the players).

	27-04-2004 14:56									#17
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sounds like lazyness and cost cutting to me

shame on firaxis

	27-04-2004 15:01									#18
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The main constraint to AI is not computer power though, but human input. Soren could make a better AI this week if he wanted, by tweaking and testing results. He could carry on doing that until it was good, way before processor consideration became a relevant factor. He could, he just isn't going to.

	27-04-2004 15:10									#19
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why not?

	27-04-2004 20:38									#20
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Time is money, that's why.

Maybe if we convinced Infrogrames we would all buy CivIV for $200 per unit, they might give Soren more time and manpower to create a better AI.

Personally, I'd pay the $200. But I doubt many others would.

Anyway, yes, the AI "cheats" a bit by "seeing" the map.

-Arrian

	28-04-2004 05:36									#21
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It's OK... time, and new releases, will take care of the AI quality problem.

Re AI cheating, ah, what-everrrr... the game plays how it plays, and either one understands it and still enjoys it, or one does not.

Can it be tweaked to fix minor wrongs? Can Berserk+Marine Armies ever be amphibious? Who knows... but it is good enough for me, and those tweaks only make it better. But to each his own; Sir Ralph, for instance, is on a semi-boycott due to the one-step-forward / two-steps-back he perceives in C3C.

To each his own... but the AI ain't cheating, that is just the way the game works.

	28-04-2004 15:47									#22
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the AI IS CHEATING and that is the way the game works

well i think it stinks

	28-04-2004 15:58									#23
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Would you rather have an impossibly easy game where the AI does no cheating, or a game with a cheating AI that provides a challenge?

	28-04-2004 17:57									#24
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It will be impossible to code an AI that is that good. Until the human brain can be mimiced (agh - horrible word. Wonder if I spelled it right..) the AI will always need a hand or two up to compete at the human level.

	28-04-2004 18:10									#25
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I'd rather play an AI that assesses threats and targets based on things it sees and knows fairly, that doesn't take a supercomputer or mimicing of the human brain.

	28-04-2004 19:53									#26
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dream on

	28-04-2004 20:00									#27
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Funny, because thats how CtP2 works.

Oh and yes the AI was terrible in unmodded CtP2, largely because of imbalances in other areas of the game. In mods it has been shown this kind of AI can work, and it can be highly competitive.

	29-04-2004 03:51									#28
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CtP2 has an AI since when?

	29-04-2004 04:00									#29
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I see your position, you think one big cheat makes an AI then youd be hard pressed to find a real one.

	29-04-2004 04:12									#30
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Nevertheless the Civ3 AI is halfway competitive at least for an average player, whereas the CtP2 one does not exist. What concerns the mods, you may want to ask your beloved friend hexagonian, how many hefty cheats and fat advantages are in Cradle.