10-08-2005 06:05									#1
	J'Accuse! Increase the size of your Attachments

For a lead in... I have tried to remain objective about AI cheating in CivIII. I have tended to believe that it was a figment of imagination built upon poorly documented instances of occasional long shot odds. I mean, other than the way that AI civs always seem to miraculously settle next to resources that won't appear for Eons.

I'm also indifferent to the way the game plays as all the AI civs vs. me. I'm OK with that.

However, I just saw the belief breaker.

Pangea, full land, huge. I have spotless rep. Really. Never broke a treaty. Everybody except the Zulu (I'm executing them) is polite or better with luxury incentives to boot.

Bingo, the Babs break double treaty and attack from ROP rape - sorry, but the "how to beat the AI on builder" does not really work, BTW.

OK, I'm cool with that. I am a couple of techs ahead of everybody. Despite a land grab following AI wars I have AT LEAST 1 infantry in every city while no civ has an offensive unit better than cavalry. Cav, of course is very good. But how good?

How about, 11 cities attacked with single Cav vs. single Inf, for, what would you guess as results? Nope, you are wrong. 11 cities taken. Each single (1 attacker) cav captured or destroyed a city protected by inf. I'm thinking, what, 6 attack vs. 10 (doubled for fortified?) is less than 1:3 chance of victory. I should have lost 3 cities, maybe 4.

Remember now, that cav will not attack a pile of arty with a single inf guarding it. Suddenly, boom, every attack goes good.

Calling the number dudes out there. Can you give me the odds of this one? Aw, I know that it is impossible. Shoot, I just lost 3 tanks and a cav trying to finish off a 1 square musketman in a city. I did not whine (then) but maybe a little moan now.

I really don't mind a little AI cheating. But cmon. Oh well, I guess that I'll have to go make them go cry for their mommies. I'm going to win anyway, but this much desperation by the code is embarrasing.

AFAIC this puts the "does the AI cheat in combat" question out of reach.

Golden Bear (with his eyes wider open now!)

	10-08-2005 09:20									#2
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The designers say they do not have any cheats as it relates to combat. Yes they do know the disposition of your units and the tiles.

Anyway I would not try to get away with one defender, if that town could be reached in one turn, even if it was mech. You can and will lose some ugly matches.

True I am shocked that all 11 went down to defeat.

	10-08-2005 21:42									#3
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And I did not intend to use only a single defender - it's a period of rapid resettlement due to WWs and it takes time to build up enough units to double everywhere.

I was surprised that I would get any attack since typically the AI does not seem to want to violate a ROP if they are polite with you.

[start edit]
VXMA was kind enought to remind me that there is a 25% bonus for fortification without walls. Thus, infantry defending should be 10+2.5 vs. cavalry attacking at 6. This should mean that the cav has about a 30% chance at winnning. 0.3 to the 11th is .0000018 or .00018%. If I did it a million times it should occur twice. I wish that I had rerun the turn! I just moved forward and cleaned the Babs out of every place they had invaded.
[end of edit]

A problem with ROP rape for the AI is that they don't plan well and wind up with their units spread all over the map in penny pockets far from their home. And I was trying so hard to be peaceful. Sigh.


Golden Bear

Last edited by Golden Bear on 13-08-2005 at 22:29

	10-08-2005 22:42									#4
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Fort gets 25% bonus. If no wall and in a town then no bonus for either of those.

	12-08-2005 03:38									#5
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quote: Originally posted by Golden Bear Bingo, the Babs break double treaty and attack from ROP rape - sorry, but the "how to beat the AI on builder" does not really work, BTW.

I agree, at least on Monarch and above. You can't be
*solely* builder on the high levels, or you'll get your keyster handed to you 99 times out of 100.

quote: Originally posted by Golden Bear How about, 11 cities attacked with single Cav vs. single Inf, for, what would you guess as results? Nope, you are wrong. 11 cities taken.

Now, you know, if you or I tried to attack 11 enemy towns each with 1 cav, we would laughed off the continent! I would get maybe...maybe 1 hit on the AI infantry health bars...

	13-08-2005 19:55									#6
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heyya gb,
i suspect the problem is in the 'randomising' algorithm that is used. basically, the rng doesn't (generate random numbers that is). it does a reasonable job of spitting out numbers that look random, but it is not genuinely random, and sometimes it gets itself stuck in one of these ruts.

much as i would like to blame the ai, firaxis, sid, soren, george bush and the sicko who introduced me to civ in the first place, it's really not their fault. the only way out of it will be when we get a true, hardware-based rng. simple enough, just measuring something like thermal noise across a resisitor would do it, but until someone takes the trouble to build it into the hardware, there's nothing to do but grin and umm, you know.

	13-08-2005 22:26									#7
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Hey Leben - that is the most satisfying explanation that I have received. I cannot really argue when the design team says that the AI does not cheat in combat but 11 1 cav victories makes me shake my head.

Thanks for sharing the idea!


Golden (grin and) Bear (it)

	13-08-2005 23:57									#8
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Well, one more thing to note:

By default, preserve random seed is on for epic games and off for the offical version of each of the conquest scenerios.

So, if in an epic, one calvary attacks your inf and takes the city, it does no good to reload back one turn and simply replay, you'll get the same result.

You'd need to do something different, maybe draft an Inf so the city isn't taken.

Also, what the heck were you thinking having only one defender in a city the AI could reach with 1 unit? Why allow a chance to lose a city at all?

	15-08-2005 22:52									#9
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Argh! Once again, here is the situation.

Yours truly is sitting in a position that he has ROPs with everybody and is feeding them luxury bribes to keep them happy. Everybody is Polite or Gracious and has been for a long time.

That is, except for the Zulu, who I was taking out of the Civ pool so that everybody would fit on one screen for F4. And the Zulu had no friends.

At the same time, there were multiple wars going on and leaving settlement space available so that I was putting settlers out rapidly too.

Thus, I had double Riflemen in my core and most of my cities but I had not had enough time to double defender ALL the new ones. I was putting out new settlements almost as fast as defenders at that point. Naturally these were not important cities that I lost.

That is why there were 11 cities with single Riflemen defenders.

I usually leave preserve seed off so that I can rerun unusual things and see how they happen multiple times. I just forgot to do so in this case since I was POd at the Babylonians and wanted to pile right into them.

	15-08-2005 23:11									#10
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Maybe it is time to reconsider RoP's. I seldom have them. When I do it is is usually early in the game and I want to allow other civs that have been at war to get out of my land quickly. I do this as I want them out before they decide I look like a target.

If i cannot afford to defend a city, I will not found it, if it is any danager (read can be attack without notice).

	15-08-2005 23:43									#11
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I agree with you... I have been following Drakan's "How to Builder win on Diety" ideas and was trying something different.

Normally I don't found a new city without lots of defense.

However, in the interest of trying different things in order to find different paths for playing the game, I had a different game plan for this one:

Play for Diplo but when the WWs break out, try to steal as much land as possible in between other civs. Try to be as expansionist as possible without being outright warmonger.

Hence, I deliberately put myself into this position. I felt relatively safe since I had not been ROP attacked for many games.

It turned out that it was a different path for winning. It actually allowed me to clean up some messy Babylonian cities that were scattered around the periphery of my land.

	16-08-2005 02:53									#12
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Ok...

Forgive me here.

In the top post, it was 11 infantry killed:

quote: How about, 11 cities attacked with single Cav vs. single Inf, for, what would you guess as results? Nope, you are wrong. 11 cities taken. Each single (1 attacker) cav captured or destroyed a city protected by inf. I'm thinking, what, 6 attack vs. 10 (doubled for fortified?) is less than 1:3 chance of victory. I should have lost 3 cities, maybe 4.

My first reaction was that this was indeed a little out of line, and a tremendous stroke of bad luck. (then, I've seen 32 cavalry lose to a single spear before) My instant question was to ask what experience the respective forces were. 5 HP cavalry on 3 HP infantry wouldn't be TOO especially out of the realm of possibility for example.


A little later, it becomes an entirely plausible attack on 11 RIFLEMEN:

quote: Argh! Once again, here is the situation. Yours truly is sitting in a position that he has ROPs with everybody and is feeding them luxury bribes to keep them happy. Everybody is Polite or Gracious and has been for a long time. That is, except for the Zulu, who I was taking out of the Civ pool so that everybody would fit on one screen for F4. And the Zulu had no friends. At the same time, there were multiple wars going on and leaving settlement space available so that I was putting settlers out rapidly too. Thus, I had double Riflemen in my core and most of my cities but I had not had enough time to double defender ALL the new ones. I was putting out new settlements almost as fast as defenders at that point. Naturally these were not important cities that I lost. That is why there were 11 cities with single Riflemen defenders.

Well, I'ld expect similar, or close to it, results from such an attack there.

So, which was it?

	16-08-2005 05:22									#13
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Good catch Uno. Yeah rifles and infantry are not even close to the same thing.

	16-08-2005 05:38									#14
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Pardon.

It was indeed infantry.

Note the attempted math in a subsequent post of 6 attack vs. 10 defence.

You guys are tough on this old Bear!

BTW, I would say that 32 cav losing to a single spearman would be grotesquely worse than what I quoted!

In fairness, I have attacked three fortified spearmen in a town with three 3 dot horseman and won all three battles to take the town!!


Golden Bear (with arrows dangling from his hide!)

	16-08-2005 17:52									#15
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I generally avoid ROPs. I do not want the interior cities of my empire to require defenders, and having enemy forces wandering about is no good. By avoiding ROPs, I can push my defense out to the borders and use a couple mobile forces per section of border as a rapid response in case of problems.

I do use ROPs once I am on my own culturally-covered continent. This allows me to sneak defenders and settlers into the culture cracks created during other civs' wars.

	16-08-2005 21:36									#16
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quote: Originally posted by Golden Bear Pardon. It was indeed infantry. Note the attempted math in a subsequent post of 6 attack vs. 10 defence. You guys are tough on this old Bear! BTW, I would say that 32 cav losing to a single spearman would be grotesquely worse than what I quoted! In fairness, I have attacked three fortified spearmen in a town with three 3 dot horseman and won all three battles to take the town!! Golden Bear (with arrows dangling from his hide!)

I again would ask the respective strengths in the situation then. Were yours veteren, regulars, *gasp* CONSCRIPTS!?! (someone besides me dares use them?? ) And, what were the cavalry?:

As for the spear, in fairness it was behind a wall, on a hill, and got promoted twice. Uh, yeah...

My experience with the RNG is that it IS rather 'streaky'.

	16-08-2005 22:57									#17
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Hi, here are the further details:

There were no conscripts or green (2 dot or three dot) for my units. There were 2 elite inf and the rest were veteran. Some number of the attacking cav were green (3 dot). The towns were all 1 or 2 population and none had walls. At least 1 was on a hill.

I guess that I will settle for "streaky."

BTW, it is only recently that I have started doing the ROP thing in accordance with Drakan's plan. I got into them earlier and pushed them harder than usual in that particular game. Live and learn. My standard method for years was the "hollow shell" technique of leaving antique units in the middle of the empire and bulking up defences around the fringes.

With the ROP/expansion technique that I was using, I needed uniform garrison coverage plus the borders were not as clear because everybody was able to stick settlements in and behind each others' basic culture center. It was interesting, and I'll probably try it again. After all, there is nothing wrong with an interesting sequence of wars or WWs.

Golden Bear

	18-08-2005 04:25									#18
	Increase the size of your Attachments

Myself, I tend to avoid RoP unless I can easily choke point out my core from the AI.

	19-08-2005 14:08									#19
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Can you post the save game or autosave immediately before teh attack so we can see it for ourselves? It does sound very strange, but I firmly believe there are no AI cheats in combat outcomes.

	19-08-2005 20:36									#20
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Hi Aqua, I would love to do so. However, as I mentioned above, it did not occur to me to do so at the time. My blood was up and I wanted to begin my war of retribution.

About an hour later it occured to me that it would have been fun to run it multiple times, or have different people run it, to see how it turned out.


Golden Bear

	24-08-2005 16:48									#21
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quote: Originally posted by Golden Bear I have spotless rep. Really. Never broke a treaty. Bingo, the Babs break double treaty and attack from ROP rape - sorry, but the "how to beat the AI on builder" does not really work, BTW.

I think Golden Bear you are confusing reputation with attitude.

Reputation allows the gpt trade with the AI

Attitude is what normally holds them off from attacking you.

In the first paragraph of my article How to win Deity Builder-style, step-by-step I warn people to find out what each stands for in C3C before reading any further.

When I posted my strategy the whole point of having a spotless reputation is so you can trade techs with the AI for gpt and cash in on it. They will not allow gpt deals with a flawed reputation and hence the strategy wouldn't work out.

This doesn't mean they can't attack you. Because attitude is a whole different matter.

You may have a spotless reputation and still be attacked with a ROP rape even If they are "polite".

You have to take preemptive measures to avoid being attacked by improving their attitude towards you. To achieve this goal you must:

- avoid razing many AI cities/starving AI citizens
- establish embassies
- establish ROP asap (specially this one)
- gift 100 gold (not more) every ten turns to those AIs which may pose more of a threat (i.e. are nearby)
- gift luxuries if needed
- trade alot

Before posting the article I had won more than ten Deity games using it and never got attacked by the AI (ROP rape) at the most AI aggressive setting. Although in a Sid game I did get attacked using it.

You have to take care both of your reputation (enables the gpt trade) and of their attitude (stops them from attacking you).

	24-08-2005 22:09									#22
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Hi Drakan. I may have appeared to confuse rep and attitude because I expressed myself incorrectly.

Also, I overstated the "...does not work" part. It does work and work very well. I got caught because I was deliberately pushing the technique to see how much I could get away with.

Now to respond to your list:
- avoid razing, etc.: I never do this in any game. Also, I never starve cities. I pay for immediate Temples as soon as the city is calm. I don't think this contributed.
- establish embassies: I did this immediately upon getting the cash buildup while using GL for tech advance. Embassies with everybody.
- gift 100 gold: got me here, I never gift gold. I gift luxuries (see below) and sometimes tech. My "impression" is that AI civs might interpret gold as tribute and that I am dealing from weakness. Probably reading too much into the game.
- gift luxuries if needed: When I can, I try to gift a luxury to each civ that I want to stay friendly with. I figure that it keeps them polite or gracious plus it "handcuffs" them from goint to war.
- trade a lot: yep. I did/do that. Keep the cash buildup going. Keep the tech advance close to me so that I have things to trade for.

In the game under discussion, the Babylonians, prior to the attack, were friendly with 10+ turns of ROP to go and about 8 turns of a luxury gift to go. That's why I said that they double broke treaties.

I think that your formula, which does work well, might need an addition to the rep and attitude requirements. Don't show weakness. When you become #1 in score, etc. the AI wants an excuse to attack you. I gave it the excuse by jamming settlers into every little space between warring countries - did so much of it that I could not keep up with adequately defending them. The AI saw an opportunity for some cheap wins - unfortunately they were valueless wins because the towns were start-ups - and took it, despite rep and attitude.

Thus, Drakan, I totally agree with you but my observation of the technique is altered slightly because I think that I took it, deliberately, to an extreme.

Golden Bear

	25-08-2005 12:35									#23
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Try not to jam settlers in between because that really annoys them. Place your settlers carefully in between warring civs and wait for a few cities to be razed. Then settle on the spot they were razed.

If you try and settle in a spot where a city has been taken over but not razed and its cultural boundaries have withdrawn as a result and you settle in its 21 tile radii, you will annoy them.

I always have plenty of settlers on spot just waiting for cities to be razed to settle down. I always try to finance the more belligerant AI civ so as to help it to cash-rush units and raze the other civs cities so I benefit.

Say France and Germany are at war. Germany is militaristic and is programmed to be more aggressive. I place my settlers all along their common borders and gift the Germans 2.000-3.000 gold so they rush units and raze the french cities. Only then do I settle down.

As for the gifting 100 gold every ten turns, it was in fact revealed by Bamspeedys AI behaviour article. In which he goes to explain that a 100 gold is the max you should gift and that sort of grants you 100 points in attitude. Every turn that goes by you lose 10 points. So at the end of ten turns you've lost the 100 points. So you have to restart the cycle by gifting them another 100 gold after those ten turns have gone by. Rinse and repeat.

Gifting a luxury also gives 100 points, but at the end of ten turns those 100 points dissappear. So gifting money is actually better, because when you gift a luxury the deal takes twenty turns, but the AI will only appreciate the gift the first ten turns (the 100 points which are gone after ten turns). The remainning ten turns of the twenty turn deal will be wasted completely because it doesn't affect them at all. No point in gifting them more than one luxury.

Not sure though If gifting a luxury and 100 gold are cumulative though.

Money is more exact and to the point, you optimize it this way while gifting a luxury is a waste of ten turns out of the 20 turn deal really.

When you are the leading civ all the AI gangs up on you because the AIs are designed not to win albeit to deprive you from winning.

	25-08-2005 17:22									#24
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Hmm. Thanks for the 100gp clarification. Something to bear in mind.

Naturally I never settle in another Civs culture radius - unless at war, of course.

I think that I was the victim of ganging up (although 1 civ only) based on an assessment of weakness and possibly a softening of attitude based on luxury bribe rather than cash bribe.

GB

	26-08-2005 15:10									#25
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you're welcome GB !

	28-08-2005 01:03									#26
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quote: Originally posted by Drakan - avoid razing many AI cities/starving AI citizens

que??

starving ai citizens affects their attitude? first time i've heard about that. do you know how significant this factor is?

now how am i supposed to get any research done during wars?!! unfair! unfair!

	28-08-2005 05:24									#27
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actually I think starving foreign nationals somewhat improves your relations with the AI because the AI doesn't like you having foreign nationals in your empire. If the city in question that your starving them from is suffering from pop rushing, it's even better to reduce their population.

These effects are very minor compared to your relations with the AI worseing due to you capturing (or worst yet raizing) their cities.

	28-08-2005 05:27									#28
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In my own games, I usually don't give a ____ about the AI's attitude.

However, I try to maintign a good rep (at least until end-game where it doesn't matter)

	28-08-2005 12:56									#29
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quote: Originally posted by Golden Bear For a lead in... I have tried to remain objective about AI cheating in CivIII. I have tended to believe that it was a figment of imagination built upon poorly documented instances of occasional long shot odds. I mean, other than the way that AI civs always seem to miraculously settle next to resources that won't appear for Eons. I'm also indifferent to the way the game plays as all the AI civs vs. me. I'm OK with that. However, I just saw the belief breaker. Pangea, full land, huge. I have spotless rep. Really. Never broke a treaty. Everybody except the Zulu (I'm executing them) is polite or better with luxury incentives to boot. Bingo, the Babs break double treaty and attack from ROP rape - sorry, but the "how to beat the AI on builder" does not really work, BTW. OK, I'm cool with that. I am a couple of techs ahead of everybody. Despite a land grab following AI wars I have AT LEAST 1 infantry in every city while no civ has an offensive unit better than cavalry. Cav, of course is very good. But how good? How about, 11 cities attacked with single Cav vs. single Inf, for, what would you guess as results? Nope, you are wrong. 11 cities taken. Each single (1 attacker) cav captured or destroyed a city protected by inf. I'm thinking, what, 6 attack vs. 10 (doubled for fortified?) is less than 1:3 chance of victory. I should have lost 3 cities, maybe 4. Remember now, that cav will not attack a pile of arty with a single inf guarding it. Suddenly, boom, every attack goes good. Calling the number dudes out there. Can you give me the odds of this one? Aw, I know that it is impossible. Shoot, I just lost 3 tanks and a cav trying to finish off a 1 square musketman in a city. I did not whine (then) but maybe a little moan now. I really don't mind a little AI cheating. But cmon. Oh well, I guess that I'll have to go make them go cry for their mommies. I'm going to win anyway, but this much desperation by the code is embarrasing. AFAIC this puts the "does the AI cheat in combat" question out of reach. Golden Bear (with his eyes wider open now!)

could you tell me if your military is was strong, average or weak compared to theirs at the time of attack?

I know no one takes my theory seriously. But I seriously do think you get better battle results when you have overwhelming force. If I start out with the same size military, I get terrible combat rolls. But if I approach a city with sufficient force, I nearly always win. this is why I never even attempt to take a city with a couple of units even if there is only 1 defender.

I know it sounds hokey. But I swear the more units I have, the better they do in combat.

	28-08-2005 12:58									#30
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quote: Originally posted by lebensraum heyya gb, i suspect the problem is in the 'randomising' algorithm that is used. basically, the rng doesn't (generate random numbers that is). it does a reasonable job of spitting out numbers that look random, but it is not genuinely random, and sometimes it gets itself stuck in one of these ruts. much as i would like to blame the ai, firaxis, sid, soren, george bush and the sicko who introduced me to civ in the first place, it's really not their fault. the only way out of it will be when we get a true, hardware-based rng. simple enough, just measuring something like thermal noise across a resisitor would do it, but until someone takes the trouble to build it into the hardware, there's nothing to do but grin and umm, you know.

how hard can it be to randomize something? I know it's not this hard. I've worked as a slot technician in Las Vegas. Slot machines can generate winning percentages of about 98%. Sure they vary (this is a given when large jackpots happen). But the machines can randomly select cards and still achieve a payout it's designed for (usually in the mid 90 percentiles). Are you saying Firaxis can't write code as good as IGT (international gaming technologies)