Victim of AI cheating??? Read this for an eyeful. - Page 2

Slunko · November 4, 2001, 14:43

Well I don't know about you but I KNOW that the AI cheats (settlers from pop2 cities etc is pretty obvious, don't you think?). And I have already won two of my played Civ3 games (both were war victories). It doesn't change anything, the AI might be to easy or too hard but this heavy cheating makes the game alot less fun. Civnet is still the all-time favourite. (Try to beat futuretech 11 before AD)
I'll try to return my copy of Civ3 next week.

Pembleton · November 4, 2001, 14:46

Quote:

Originally posted by Slunko
Well I don't know about you but I KNOW that the AI cheats (settlers from pop2 cities etc is pretty obvious, don't you think?). And I have already won two of my played Civ3 games (both were war victories). It doesn't change anything, the AI might be to easy or too hard but this heavy cheating makes the game alot less fun. Civnet is still the all-time favourite. (Try to beat futuretech 11 before AD)
I'll try to return my copy of Civ3 next week.

Your loss. Soren has already stated in a different thread:

"Just to clairfy once more... if you play on Prince or lower, the AI receives no gameplay bonuses whatsoever. No growth bonus, no production bonus, no science bonus, no combat bonus, no support bonus, no goodie hut bonus, no bonus against barbarians, no wonder-building bons, no corruption bonus, no waste bonus. If the AI is expanding faster than you (at Prince or lower), it is because they are building Settlers more often than you."

The pop2 city is an illusion. The settler is complete but won't actually be produced until the city hits 3. It's just sitting there until then. You can do the same thing.

D4everman · November 4, 2001, 16:27

Well said, Pembleton. I've had the AI trash me and give me a real hard time at regent level and I haven't seen anything that implies as a cheat. I think people crying about it are really going to far. Personally, I think the Russians saw the city was unprotected and decided to go for it.

tmarcl · November 4, 2001, 16:38

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.

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.

It's possible. I've always figured it to be that the computer can't know and not know a fact at the same time. Like in Civ 2, if you managed to build an SDI defense in every city, the computer didn't bother building a nuke, or, it would only send a nuke against cities that didn't have an SDI defense in. Since the computer has to keep track of the fact that you have an SDI in your citiy, it can't simultaneously *not* know it, even if the attacking Civ *shouldn't* know it.

Now, I'm not a programmer, so I may be way off base. Does anyone else know differently?

Marc

Pembleton · November 4, 2001, 16:47

Quote:

Originally posted by tmarcl
It's possible. I've always figured it to be that the computer can't know and not know a fact at the same time. Like in Civ 2, if you managed to build an SDI defense in every city, the computer didn't bother building a nuke, or, it would only send a nuke against cities that didn't have an SDI defense in. Since the computer has to keep track of the fact that you have an SDI in your citiy, it can't simultaneously *not* know it, even if the attacking Civ *shouldn't* know it.

No, I'm not a programmer, so I may be way off base. Does anyone else know differently?

Marc

This thread is hilarious. Get in line of sight of a city. If you are on a mountain you don't have to be that close. If there is a unit there you can see it.

If you can't, establish an embassy. Go to the embassy options. Click INVESTIGATE CITY. It costs money. You can do it. So can the computer. You see a city screen with everything that is going on there. Geez. All this fuss about nothing.

peckham · November 4, 2001, 17:50

Well Pembleton, looks like you missed the point entirely.

(1) The Russian unit was not in LOS of the city, and if you'd read the other post closely, you've have noticed it was a GALLEY. Galley's don't sit on mountain tops. As I said before, the Galley was quite a ways from the city (about 10 squares).

(2) Neither the Russians nor I had established an embassy, so no, that wasn't it either.

There's no question it's an AI cheat. None whatsoever. And it's a problem for me. If it's not for you, great. Go have fun.

yavoon · November 4, 2001, 17:59

peckham haveu played civ games before? cuz I think this has been in every civ game so far. I know its in SMAC, the comptuer can see into fungus, cuz it knows where all your units are. I believe its a method used by devlopers to help make a strategically more competent ai. if its beating u up, just go down to chieftan, or civ2.

Jaybe · November 4, 2001, 18:08

Quote:

Originally posted by peckham
Rumble time regarding the computer AI:
...
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.
...

Peckham, did you do this replay scenario more than once? It is possible that there was some randomness in aborting this invasion of theirs. They could end up doing any sort of different things.

At Chieftan level, late industrial/early modern era, I have had desperate opponents try to hit me with single conscript riflemen in a city where I had infantry, artillery and calvary.
----
In the interest of 'reality', civilization (real, and in the game) is full of strange events: stupid and inspired, both by ourselves and by others. In the game at least, we can choose to enjoy the whole experience.

peckham · November 4, 2001, 18:17

No Yavoon, I'm actually beating the crap out of the AI on Regent right now, I was just pointing it out as a disappointing aspect of the overall game design. I just wish the AI was more sophisticated. I've played Civ2 into the ground, but hadn't noticed this before. I wasn't paying as close attention back when I was a Civ2 player. Had I noticed it then, it would have distracted me just as much.

Jaybe, yes, I tried it three times (either way) just to confirm. One thing the Civ series is *not*, is dynamic. Another bothersome side-effect is that battles between units *always* give the same results no matter how many times you reload a savegame. Civ2 was the same way (and it always bugged me, because it implies that battles aren't dynamic).

yavoon · November 4, 2001, 18:23

I'm pretty sure the same result battle feature is there to stop save/reload fiends. which is the epitomy of a bad player to me.

but neway, ok, well thats a bummer it detracts so much from the play, wut can I say? its there for a reason. just like it always has been.

peckham · November 4, 2001, 18:41

The epitome of a bad player is one who can't learn the system. Part of learning the system, and learning it better than someone who just plays straightforward games, involves saving/loading to see how the computer AI works. It's that simple.

I'm a very good player, especially in multiplayer (Civ2). But since that's not an option here, I don't think I'm overreacting in my dissection of the AI. Again, if you enjoy Civ3 and this doesn't bug you, great. I enjoyed EU just fine, for example, while a host of others hated it and criticized the AI for one thing or another. I suppose it once again comes down to personal tolerance--what's tolerable to one, vs. what's tolerable to another. I wish I hadn't caught it playing dirty, I really do. But it's like a dead pixel on a computer monitor now...your eye's drawn toward it no matter how hard to try to ignore it.

Barshy · November 4, 2001, 19:05

I definitely know the AI cheats by looking at what military are in your cities.

Frankly, I like it. It makes war MUCH harder.

Grunthex · November 4, 2001, 21:42

Quote:

Originally posted by Slunko
Well I don't know about you but I KNOW that the AI cheats (settlers from pop2 cities etc is pretty obvious, don't you think?). And I have already won two of my played Civ3 games (both were war victories). It doesn't change anything, the AI might be to easy or too hard but this heavy cheating makes the game alot less fun. Civnet is still the all-time favourite. (Try to beat futuretech 11 before AD)
I'll try to return my copy of Civ3 next week.

The AI does NOT cheat. See my thread entitled AI Observations on Corruption and Production. Hours of evidence there. You want to believe it cheats, but you're wrong. And yes, your supposed 'settler from size 2' is addressed.

cassembler · November 5, 2001, 05:58

The only cheat I have noticed is that the AI can build irrigation on seas that I cannot. This kinda sucks, but it's kinda cool 'cause after I beat his ass, I can steal it from him.

Anyone else think Joan of Arc is kinda cute?

Dan Magaha FIRAXIS · November 5, 2001, 12:26

This may or may not be relevant to this thread, but thought I would mention it, because I see quite a few threads where people are providing "evidence" of AI cheating by saving, reloading, and doing battles again:

From what I've been told, the random number generator is "seeded" when the game initially loads up for the first time. Re-loading a game and engaging in the same battle should yield the exact same results, because the random number generator is not "re-seeded" when re-loading. I won't get into how a PC implements the concept of random numbers (mostly because I don't really understand it myself), but you get the idea.

I'm not suggesting anything anyone in this thread is necessarily caused by this, but I wanted to point this out.

If you want to see different results, quit the game, then re-start and re-load your savegame.

Dan

rah · November 5, 2001, 15:28

Or do something that requires a random number and it will change the combat. I do like this feature to discourage reloads. It's the same for huts, reload and you get the same result. Don't open the hut till the next turn and it's different.

I am annoyed that I've opened up over 200 huts and have yet seen a nomad or a city.

I had an expansionist civ in most of those situations.

I also believe the AI knows the whole board, and it doesn't bother me. I was checking this out by moving troops between cities and seeing how the AI would attack. The AI targetted the weaker city every time. So unless it's paying money to check all my cities out every turn. It knows. It makes for a much more interesting war. You finally get the support units to a city that has been beseiged and you're ready to take it to the AI, and the AI stops attacking that city and moves on to the city you took the support troops from. Gotta love it.

RAH

However, the heavy corruption is a bit over done. I don't mind having to somewhat starve cities until the rioting has stopped, but then to only get one shield production from a good sized city is a bit excessive of a deterrent to expanding.

adaMada · November 13, 2001, 18:38

Quote:

Originally posted by tmarcl

It's possible. I've always figured it to be that the computer can't know and not know a fact at the same time. Like in Civ 2, if you managed to build an SDI defense in every city, the computer didn't bother building a nuke, or, it would only send a nuke against cities that didn't have an SDI defense in. Since the computer has to keep track of the fact that you have an SDI in your citiy, it can't simultaneously *not* know it, even if the attacking Civ *shouldn't* know it.

Now, I'm not a programmer, so I may be way off base. Does anyone else know differently?

Marc

I know a bit of very very basic programming, but I do know enough to say that it is possible to create that -- quite easily, actually.

If the programmer doesn't use the value that stores what's in a city in the code for the AI, then the AI can't use it. There isn't a magic aimakesmart() function that you can use and the AI will automatically figure everything out (wish there was

) -- instead, most AIs are either A) a long list of conditions, if-then-elses, formulas, etc or B) something very complex that should only really be thrust upon computer science students and programmers

. Even in the second case, though, unless the programmer specifically opts to use a value in the code that makes the computer tick, the value isn't used -- the computer only does exactly what the programmer tells it to. If the programmer uses it, then it's used, but otherwise -- the computer doesn't even know what it means.

To go even father, in C++ (not C, but C++), it's possible to make values that can't be used even if the programmer explicitly asks to (protected/private vars in classes, for those who know/care).

SO, in conclusion, to answer your question, the AI does not have to know ANYTHING the programmer doesn't want it to know. Now, that doesn't mean the programmer can't tell the AI what (s)he wants to, but...

Just to clear up any confusion.

-- adaMada

PS: About that Fog of War comment -- that's more complicated, as it means that the AI used to know what was there but doesn't any more -- teaching the AI how to handle that could be very complex indeed. I don't know enough to comment.

shclo · November 13, 2001, 23:05

First of all, what the hell is "regent" level. My book (and game) list the levels as: chieftain, warlord, prince, monarch, emperor, and deity. Is "regent" a Civ2 carry over?

My first game at Prince level had a regular warrior beat an ARMY of 3 veteran spearmen with no terrain advantage. I couldn't take over a city with a population of 1 guarded by a regular warrior (no walls) with a veteran archer and veteran spearman. I basically couldn't win any battle no matter how much the odds should have been stacked in my favor. A regular archer took over my city with a population of 6 and guarded by a veteran archer. Either I'm just the unluckiest guy in the world or the AI somehow stacked the odds completely against me (maybe it was just some kind of fluke).

As a programmer, I can tell you that letting the computer cheat to make the game harder really sucks unless you specify EXACTLY what advantages the computer has at higher levels. A well designed AI should give even the toughest human opponent a challenging game without having to resort to knowing things you don't know and adding a couple of attack, defense, or hit points to its side. That's like writing a hearts game where the computer knows everybody's hand. There's no reason the AI can't make excellent choices with no more information than you have.