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

peckham · November 3, 2001, 23:58

Rumble time regarding the computer AI:

In order to learn the system (and see how the computer AI works) I'll often 'cheat' and load autosaves to redo a couple dozen or hundred years. I'm playing as the Persians, and doing pretty darned well on Regent level. After wiping out the Babylonians and the Zulus with an unbeatable battalion of Persian Immortals, the Russians (located on a completely separate continent) started sending Galleys loaded with your standard veteran warriors and/or spearmen--no match for my Immortals.

Anyway, I noticed something highly suspect about the AI in the process of beating back the occasional mini-wannabee-horde. Bear in mind for the sake of the argument that I was at war with the Russian when this happened, and they had no knowledge of the continent I'd taken over (meaning they hadn't scouted it).

The Russians dropped a warrior + settler off in a fringe area and built a city. This is not only annoying, it's also not handled as well as in Civ2. Competing Civs--whether they're expansionist or not--tend to build cities in absolutely any square that your culture is not, without regard for the 21 square "rule" on either side (meaning they'll build in any odd spot, even when it's to their disadvantage).

Grumbling aside, the Russians built the city, and I dispatched one of my Immortals from one of my own nearby cities to invade the upstart Russian city. One turn later, a Russian Galley popped up along the coast next to the city from which I'd just dispatched my Immortal and unloaded several warriors. The Immortal had been the only unit defending the city--careless, I know. One turn later, the city was overtaken. I stopped and reloaded an older autosave to rectify my recklessness.

This time, I kept the Immortal in the city and started building backups. Sure enough, on the same turn, the Russian boat Russian boat pulled up to the coast a few squares from my city...but this time it continued on its merry way...

...which brings me to the problem. That's flat out, poker-faced cheating. Without embassies and all the other special agreements, and certainly while you're at war, you're not supposed to be able to play peek-a-boo with enemy cities.

The AI targeted that city from a couple dozen squares out (at sea) based on some kind of internal process that directs it to the weakest spots in your Civ.

That's a serious problem, folks. For me, anyway. It means the AI's tracking your weak and strong spots on the sly.

Ludwig · November 4, 2001, 00:26

The AI may in fact have more knowledge about the state of your defense than he has "earned", at any particular moment in time. That's true.

Then again, the AI can't reload the game from autosaves whenever he doesn't like the outcome of a decision.

Sounds like you're even to me.

peckham · November 4, 2001, 00:39

Yup, I knew that would come up.

Still, I'm an imperfect human, not a number-crunching supercomputer. I'll worry about computer AI "equal rights" in a couple hundred years, not now.

Stretch · November 4, 2001, 00:42

I've seen the same thing. A city with one defender is attacked to start a war and taken.

Load autosave two turns ago... rush build something and bring in two more units from other cities. The enemy unit does not attack.

Another case of AI cheating, which IMO would be fine -if it was documented-

another cheap way of making the AI tougher... some may like it and some may not. Given we can replay from saves it seems even but I wish they would tell us up front how the AI cheats.

Dida · November 4, 2001, 00:53

you should have expect this kid, did they told you already that AI cheats?

Diety · November 4, 2001, 00:58

Doesn't he "see" that the city was undefended when he gets his boat near ?

peckham · November 4, 2001, 01:02

Well, in any case, I don't think it should be happening unless you're playing on Deity level. When I pick Regent, I'm doing it because I want to strike a certain balance. When the AI cheats that indiscriminately...it just kind of takes the fun out of playing for me.

And it's Civ3 we're talking about, not Civ1, so I'm three times *less* forgiving.

peckham · November 4, 2001, 01:05

*** Doesn't he "see" that the city was undefended when he gets his boat near ? ***

I don't think so, but in my situation, the Galley was far enough away from the city when it disembarked to hammer home the point that there was some "illegal" covert AI spying going on.

Setsuna · November 4, 2001, 01:12

I seem to remember this same issue coming up for StarCraft, and I didn't particularlly care for the answer.

I can't remember what it was though.

I believe it was something along the lines of it being extremely difficulty to code in fog of war for the AI.

KoalaBear33 · November 4, 2001, 01:34

Quote:

Originally posted by Setsuna
I seem to remember this same issue coming up for StarCraft, and I didn't particularlly care for the answer.

In Starcraft, the only cheating the AI does is that it can see the whole map (no other cheating present). Blizz said that it was necessary. I think the computer also saw your hidden units (cloaked, burrowed, etc) but had to follow the rules of combat (ie. can't attack cloacked without detection units).

I think it is all right for the computer to cheat if that is required to present a challenge to the human.

KoalaBear33

Setsuna · November 4, 2001, 01:45

Personally, I would rather play by the same rules as the AI. I never did like the idea of making the game harder by making giving the AI a handicap instead of making it smarter.

Stromprophet · November 4, 2001, 03:24

Quote:

Originally posted by KoalaBear33

In Starcraft, the only cheating the AI does is that it can see the whole map (no other cheating present). Blizz said that it was necessary. I think the computer also saw your hidden units (cloaked, burrowed, etc) but had to follow the rules of combat (ie. can't attack cloacked without detection units).

I think it is all right for the computer to cheat if that is required to present a challenge to the human.

KoalaBear33

I think it may have cheated more than that. As with AoE, C&C, WC, SC all use the same tactic of counters. Which is gay. They counter to the units they "see" or can always see, counter to the buildings you build, and they can also insta-build. Units are built in 0.01 seconds as are buildings. You can see this if you rush AI with say Villagers, builders, or normal orcs, etc. Say you give the AI one Builder, and no resources, and you give yourself 20 builders, by the time you get to them, say 30 seconds later, they have a couple buildings, and military units. It's quite extraordinary.

The AI has a special discount in this game, thier units cost so little it's not even right. I think production costs are really low, and they pay little gold to upkeep.

LtChambers · November 4, 2001, 03:39

I'm going to dual major in Computer Science and Philosophy in order to get into my Uni's Minds & Machines program. As you can probably guess, the program's all about AI. Truth be known, we are so far away from creating true AI that's we can't even fathom how far away we actually are (pretty far, huh? :P)! We can't make the AI in the game play like a human plays (there are just too many circumstances to account for), so the only alternative is to give it a standard set of strategies and play by them. As long as there is balance, this is an acceptable method of gameplay. Balance is by far the most important factor when you consider the fairness of the game.

Heh....Strom used WC as an example. Please never mention an RTS in this forum again, for my sake, and for the love of god! :P

Stromprophet · November 4, 2001, 03:41

Hehe, yeah I play RTS, but I don't condone it as something to aspire to. Only if you really want to be constantly clicking, and constantly nervous. It can be fun.

But again, nothing compared to TB games.

MonarchyMajor · November 4, 2001, 04:45

to the first post. That is one of the reason I have yet to see the industrail age. I get bored before I get there of the game. The AI kind of ruins the expeirence cause it "always knows". THing get really wacky, citys all over the place. Then I think to myself the fukin Ao is somehow able to build a **** laod of units and expand!!! starts driving me nuts. OS I quit becaues it pisses off. Last game I was hurting the Iriqoues nation badly, but then finally all the other civs start expanding like crazy around me . taking resources that are in mt"land area" (#(I$*& pisses the **** out of me!!).

I think of my last game. The romains expanded nicely while somehow in the process of putting out literally 30-40 military units.

this drives me up the wall. I ti slike I just want to figure out how to beat the AI. i could care less about finishing a game sometimes(i never play on easy level, cause then I know the AI has gottent he best of me!)

ok, I am going break something. #&$&^# AI PISSES THE **** Of OF ME!!!!!!!!!!#$# #$(# #($ &#( &$#( #( # MOTHER #$*# #($*#

HiTS KEYBOARD!!!! FUK!

Diety · November 4, 2001, 06:30

First, like previous posters said, a good AI is still years away. Believe it or not, even the dumbest players are smarter then the AI. That includes even a november 2001 newbie

Second, also like others, I don't like the fact that AI cheats. Somehow I consider it unfair : you have to fight with the same weapons. But even though I don't like it, I accept it because the alternative would be booooooring because too easy.

Thirth, I think the AI does a pretty good job as it is : sure he needs to cheat, but his tactical decisions are pretty nifty. I think he only trades too cheap sometimes. Yes that's right : too cheap. I'd never, ever, ever trade luxuries away !

cassembler · November 4, 2001, 06:35

Quote:

HiTS KEYBOARD!!!! FUK!

Whoa! Chill out dude. If the game wasn't challenging, they might as well call it "Warfareless History."

I like the idea of the AI being able to "figure out" my weak spots. As humans, we can take pretty decent guesses at an AI's weak spot, right?
Of course, intelligent AI would be better and we all know that, it's just not really possible yet.

GodSpawn · November 4, 2001, 06:55

I'm pretty sure that Civ2 also "cheats" in this fashion (i.e. it "knows" how many units are in each of your cities).

ChrisShaffer · November 4, 2001, 08:13

Quote:

Originally posted by Stromprophet
I think it may have cheated more than that. As with AoE, C&C, WC, SC all use the same tactic of counters. Which is gay.

Hey Stromprophet, how about leaving out the homophobia next time, eh? It's in violation of the FAQ .

Rasputin · November 4, 2001, 08:29

maybe he meant its happy !!!!

kittenOFchaos · November 4, 2001, 09:25

People really think that Firaxis should have put together a fully sentient A.I to compete...at present it is all blind routines etc, you need to give the A.I alot more information to "understand" what the situation is...

However a A.I devils advocate...

Had you swapped map info with any other A.I? Are you sure you never had Russians spot the city before...

In civ2 (will have civ3 soon) you could tell garrisoned and ungarrisoned cities even if you couldn't directly see them...If the A.I had gained by swapping maps with another A.I it could properly legally see if the city was empty.

Slunko · November 4, 2001, 10:32

Well I've noticed the AI cheats a little too much.
The major cheats I've seen so far (on warlord level):

1- There MUST be some kind of cheating going on with the AI expansion; the AI can keep up with you no matter what and still produce 20-30 military units (while you have to focus on just building settlers (you can actually sometimes produce a warrior while waiting for pop 3)

2- The AI always knows where your defences are weak (as in first post)

3- Production of units and wonders seems to be really cheap for the AI. Sometimes when racing for wonders the AI can beat your pop 10 city with monarchy, fully developed infrastructure (mines, etc.) with his underdeveloped pop4 city (It's not using piled up shields either 'couse I've seen it produce stuff some turns earlier)

4- I guess there's cheating going on with the science as well, but I haven't found any real evidence ; ) (They might have traded etc.)

Someone mentioned that it would be (almost) impossible to create a worthy opponent without cheating. I have to disagree. The computer can keep track of everything you find to boring/time consuming to tweak every turn, like optimized usage of infrastructure, optimal placing of cities, perfect mix of science/luxuries etc. etc.
I know it would't be easy (I'm a researcher in the computer field and I know that it's hard to do this solidly), some cheating might even be forgivable, but NOT this much!!.
And I haven't even tried the harder levels.

peckham · November 4, 2001, 11:10

Had you swapped map info with any other A.I? Are you sure you never had Russians spot the city before...

No, and yes, respectively. My only dealings with the Russians at this point were to declare war on them when I discovered they'd suddenly popped up and built a city. No swapping, no trading, nothing. And the Galley dumped its warriors off far enough out to have made it impossible to be spotting anything.

It was clearly cheating, no doubt about it.

peckham · November 4, 2001, 11:10

*** Had you swapped map info with any other A.I? Are you sure you never had Russians spot the city before... ***

No, and yes, respectively. My only dealings with the Russians at this point were to declare war on them when I discovered they'd suddenly popped up and built a city. No swapping, no trading, nothing. And the Galley dumped its warriors off far enough out to have made it impossible to be spotting anything.

It was clearly cheating, no doubt about it.

yavoon · November 4, 2001, 11:13

this is of course to no1 in particular, as I know ne one person would get deeply offended by it. so instead I address the wind. but weren't we complaining forever on how it was too easy? now the game is out a week and we all want it patched to make it EASIER. seems a lil fickle to me.

Urban Ranger · November 4, 2001, 11:13

I don't know how good you complainers are at Civ in general. If you are new, the computer players will seem quite god-like.

Slunko · November 4, 2001, 11:50

I must admit I'm no god at civ, I have never beaten civ2 at diety for eg and never played any serious mp. However I own and have have played civ, civnet and civ2 to death. The toughness of the AI opponent in Civ3 is managable I guess (at least in warlord) but It's kind of boring with all these obvoius cheats (yeah, there's alot of cheating going on in civ, civnet and civ2 aswell, but It doesn't annoy me this much)

What's worsening my frustration is the incredibly sluggish UI ( 1 sek+ to open any dialog on a dual cel 550Mhz, 256 mb ram, w2k and gf2 mx ). The overall impression is that this whole game is rushed and any serious player should consider going another round with the older civs or find a completely new game.

Pembleton · November 4, 2001, 13:35

Quote:

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
I don't know how good you complainers are at Civ in general. If you are new, the computer players will seem quite god-like.

You were nice in your assessment but I'm not going to be.

I'm going to say waah, boohoo, crybaby, whine. Go play tic-tac-toe or something. Obviously Civ is beyond your comprehension.

Transcend · November 4, 2001, 13:48

If you can't beat Civ2 on Deity level, then you are going to have big troubles with Civ3 AI. Even the SMAC's AI, which was light-years ahead of Civ2, doesn't come close to Civ3.

MxM · November 4, 2001, 14:20

I do not think that this is AI cheat!!!
If the city is in visual range than you DO SEE

the best defender unit (in CIV II you see flag). Would you do the same if you see undefended city? Sure! This is very logical, and the fact that AI did so, means that this is reasonable AI, and that’s it.

Also AI expands very fast, but not faster then me, only at the same speed! Again, this just shows that AI is good, I do not think that it is cheating here either.

The "problem" of this game is that AI is much better than in CIV II, so people start suspect some cheating when they see that they cannot win on regent difficulty in CIV III as easy as on prince in CIV II. But this is only good - the game is actually makes you think. And it is always possible to adjust game difficulty setting.

I already played 3 games on regent setting. One of them I lost. And right now I am not in a hurry to try higher difficulty setting.