AI Cheating?

from GalCiv2 Forums
I've played a couple of games of galciv 2 and noticed some odd AI behaviour.

In one game I played on normal difficulty it was just me (terran) and a weak drengin player and a quite strong altarian player. I was allied with the drengin and at war with the altarian. He was after me in just about all categories, research, production, militiary... then something strange happened. He somehow managed to have ALL his colonies produce 1 warship EACH turn. I could still fight him off since I was lightyears ahead of him in technology, but I just can't understand how he could produce one ship every turn in ALL his colonies. It just shouldn't be possible. I killed about 10-40 ships per turn for the first 20-30 turns of the war, and he just keept throwing in more ships. In the end I had LV 100 ships with 200-300HP.

I checked all his town as I conquered them, and they had no where near the structures avaliable that would allow him to produce ships in one turn (even the crappy ships he built).

If he turned off all his social production, research and put all his planets of military production focus it just *might* be possible, but it would be suicidal since he would fall behind even more then he already was... so this is just confusing, is the computer cheating or is he just stupid?
10,237 views 15 replies
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Maybe it has rushbought using Mitrosoft and others AI fund him with money.

BTW, I think it is on the gamespy review that he reviewer has experienced deception from an AI.

So maybe the AI isn't stupid but is manipulated by another.
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Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
If it had a large cash reserve, and you have several save games through that time, and before ... you could easily check their cash values.

Just load up the early games, and the subsequent games following this. And speak to the enemy. Click on their money, and see how much is available. That should tell ya a rough ballpark how much money he had.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Checking the history after the game, the altarian player had an average monthly income of -200

The minor civilisations were all wiped out, except one he had no contact with. The drengins were the only other major race alive and I was allied with him.

with the structures on his planets, I don't see how he could have had a large cash reserve. Even if he had around 30-40k it would't have been enough fore more then 40 ships... and I destroyed over 1000 altarian ships in total...

edit: doh, little typo there was "only" around 1000 altarian ships
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
This makes less sense the more I look at it.

The altarians had about 66% of my economy score. They had lower taxes (41% to my 61%) they had ALOT lower income. Yet they had a military score of 1500 while I had only one of 1100.

so how can they produce a larger military with less resources, planets and income? How can they produce so fast on low quality planets with low-tech factories?

That they hurried production for 1000 ships makes no sense at all, even the ships they used would have cost around 800-1000 credits to hurry.



Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
you have spent your money on research and buildings, while his spendings were on starships...
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Probably focused his planets production on ships as well.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Very possible he had a precursor event and you didn't notice it. In my last game I was down to just the Torians to defeat and they got a precursor event which game them a bunch of corvette class ships with mass drivers (which I had no defense against). There were 12 fleets of 8 each! I was able to defeat them just because there were small and more gnatt like but they did destroy quite a few of my large battlecruisers. Now if they had gotten that event much earlier in the game I may have been in big trouble.
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
theres something under victory conditions that lets you check money lost due to interest. Check that. I daresay that that -200 to income was mitrosoft calling the collection agency.
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I didn't think this happened on normal but if the planets you took over had open 'land' he probably trashed his production when he knew it was over for a planet. They do do that.
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Oooh that's mean

I bet the ships he was building were super-cheap defenders built on deficit spending. If the AI really was cheating, wouldn't it be more effective at it?
Reply #14 from Stardock Forums Top
THERE YOU GO, average negative monthly income implies he cranked up the military spending beyond his tax revenue. I can build war ships in 1 turn aswell (Thou it depends on size). I assume he was tossing heavy fighters at you, those are cheap as hell to make and have huge firepower (Thou next to no hp). if you crank down your social production and research and put spending way up you will eb suprised how fast you can build ships. In turn 4 of any game I can build colony ship ever other turn on my homeworld, and that's with regular factories.

I doubt he would buy the ships, I have long learned that making ships is so much cheaper, you just have to know how to set the spending and not worry about budget deficit