About 'Ai Cheats!' Threads

from Stardock Forums
Please stop it. :p

What is the point of a 'The AI Cheats!' post? Unless it is a blatant bug that wasn't meant to be there, I don't see why the AI 'cheating' is even a concern to us, the gamers. Just because someone said "The AI does not cheat except in case 'X' and 'Y'", doesn't mean you have to go out of your way to try and prove it cheats in other ways. It doesn't matter.

As a gamer, I want two things. Especially in strategy games of any type. I want the game to be fun, first and foremost. And second I want it to be a challange. Often being a challange is what makes it fun. How the computer game engine handles completing goals 1 and 2 I could care less. There is no way possible that any computer game at least in this day and age is going to be a real challange to a thinking human opponent. The AI *must* cheat. Civilization cheated.. so did MOO2, and many other strategy games. I really don't care. If the game is fun and challanging, that is all I ask for.

Take computer chess. Does the AI cheat? Yes, it absolutely cheats. It thinks of over 1 million moves in a few minutes, something a human can in no way possibly emulate. It can think 16 moves deep with ease. Not even Kasparov can do this. Thus the game is given an unfair advantage so that it can be a challange to a human opponent. Chessmaster 9000 is a blast. Looks good.. sounds good, is challanging as I want it to be.. perfect.

GalCiv is a blast. Plays great, it is fun, and it is as challanging as I want it to be. Good. Cheats? I could care less one way or the other.

The other issue people come up with is 'immersion'. There must be some suspense of belief in some cases in all computer games. It is just the way it is. It makes the game more fun. No, your colony ship really couldn't carry that many billion people. No, my CRPG character couldn't really carry 19 swords, 3 sets of armor, and 22,350 GP's. IMO, cheating is along the same lines. If it is something the computer AI does to make it more challanging an opponent, even if it isn't incredibly realistic.. that's fine!

GalCiv is not supposed to be some test of how well an AI can play without cheating. It is a GAME people. Please stop trying to stoke your own ego by 'proving' the AI 'cheats'. It has been stated (and stated and stated) which advantages the AI gets. If you think the AI is doing something that is a BUG that it causing an unbalanced game, then by all means report it to the bugs forum. But please stop throwing around 'cheating AI!' like it is some sort of nasty accusation. Brad and Co. did an awesome job with the AI, and it provided a fun, excellent challange. BE HAPPY! This could be another games AI... LOL


fleabitfox
783 views 20 replies
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
Me too.
Noone ever complained about ALL strat games AI cheating to death, and even then being laughable, now some go on and on because the AI may have some cartography or diplo bonus at start ... Plain ridiculous :p

Indeed I think it's rather because Brad repeatedly stated the AI didn't cheat that many are seeking to prove the contrary (:(
Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
"Indeed I think it's rather because Brad repeatedly stated the AI didn't cheat that many are seeking to prove the contrary "

I don't know if that's always the case. If someone notices that the AI *seems* to have an advantage, it could simply be a bug. Surely no one expected the game to be bug-free. ;)
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
The idea behind the AI goes as follows:

Many times, strategy gamers will be playing a strategy game and eventually gamers find that the actions they are doing to the AI don't matter because the AI is playing by a different set of rules.

For example, in one classic strategy game, wonders weren't built. Instead, based on the game year and difficulty, the AI had a random chance of suddenly building a given wonder. So while you needed to fully mine and upgrade your city to build the Pyramids, an AI city, on a desert island, might have several wonders built. Of course, this also meant that pillage was meaningless and other things you could do to the AI.

The same is true in most strategy games. Most players have no idea just how completely different of a game a given AI plays. Taking over some key resource on a map would be meaningless because the AI's economy or production wasn't affected by them. Destroying some key building wouldn't affect how tough their units were, blowing up a gold mine didn't affect how much money they had. And so on.

I think a lot of strategy gamers are frustrated with that. That's where GalCiv comes in. You blow up that key star base in GalCiv, it's going to hurt. YOu destabilize the AI, it feels it. You stop trading with them, they take a huge hit. All of this is because the AI is playing the same game you are.

When people post about how the AI knows where the yellow stars are or that it knows where the resources are, I don't think they realize how trivial such quibbles are. They don't realize that in other games, not only would the AI know where everything is, including your ships, it would detect whether you can see what it's doign and then randomly just get planets and resources rather than going through the trouble of building the colony ship, deciding where to go, and so forth.

There are, I'm sure, glitches in the AI. For instance, 1.0 allowed AI players to ally without having the Alliance technology. It was a typo in the AI code (pCiv->HasTech("Alliance") - forgot the 's'). And the lone AI colony ship going beyond its range is something we think we've fixed -- seemed to be from loading a saved game and the ranges not calculated the first turn.

But overall, at least until genius level, the AI is playing the same game you are. And even at the highest level it's still playing the same game you are, just with resource bonuses.
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
Great job with the AI. It is nice to know that when the AI beats me it didn't beat me by some random chance, but because it actually out thought me. :)
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
"AI colony ship going beyond its range is something we think we've fixed -- seemed to be from loading a saved game and the ranges not calculated the first turn."

I hope you are right on this one, I dont remember going back to a save when this happened to me but not 100%.

One thing I love about this game is that I don't continually feel like I should go back to the save, I have done it mostly for testing purposes. I did not have that same feeling about moo2.

That being said our definition of the word cheat and our opinion on the "trivial"ness of "AI knows where the yellow stars are or that it knows where the resources are" are a bit different.

I love this game, I don't like how stardock hates the word "cheat" I truely think it gets in the way of ballancing.
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
Frogboy:

I don't know if you have time to address this, but I have came across two particular issues that just screamed... err.. bug, to me.

1): It seems as if every AI ship is capable of making an attack on an adjacent square after depleting all its movement points. I tested this repeatedly over the course of several games and found no exception. If I see a 3 movement point Corvette and park my Scout 4 squares away, it will die. At first I thought this might be a display error whereby the AI ships actually do have one more movement point than what I could see, but after shadowing them with sensor drones I could find no evidence of that.

2): I am almost convinced that the AI has a hidden sensor range bonus. This became apparent after I built the Eye of the Universe wonder and boosted my sensor drone's scan range to an obcene 18 squares (I think). As I snuck that sensor drone along the map edge trying to encircle the AI empire from behind, I noticed their Frigates 10 squares away turning around and making a beeline towards my drone. I withdrew that sensor drone several squares (thanks to Graivty Accelerators) and noticed that the Frigate adjusted its course to intercept the drone at its new location. A couple turns later, it was hunted down and destroyed by the Frigate, which had a base scan range of 3. There were no planets or starbases in range that could possibly have detected me, and I could see no reason why the Frigate would otherwise head towards my drone.
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
Addendum:

I discovered issue #1 as a result of that Frigate hunting down my sensor drone in issue #2. I thought I could "kite" the Frigate, but it didn't work unless I maintained extra distance to account for that free attack.
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
I also think the espianage model in this game
does a lot to convince the player that his/her
actions are having an effect. In one game,
I spent a lot of resources ensuring that
the Acreans were bogged down in a prolonged
war with the Torians. (That is, I gave a lot
of resources to the Torians).

In many games, I would find myself wondering
if this was a waste of my resources, but because
I had good espianage on the Acreans, I could watch
as they diverted more and more money to military
spending to rebuild their lost ships and I could
see their treasury fall each time they purchased
a ship outright. It was very satisfying to see
that my decision to keep the Torians from losing
war (and to get the Torians to declare war in the
first place) was really paying off because it
it was doing observble damage to the Acrean economy.

I honestly don't care if the AI gets a 5% (or whatever)
resource bonus on Genius level, it's being able
to observe the impact of my strategic decisions that
makes this such a fun game.

- Matt Lepinski :->
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
I have seen #1 as well, many times. I thought it was because the displayed speed for the AI ship didn't take into account any bonuses, but it could certainly be a bug.
Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top
Yes, now that you guys mention it that is what I have seen as well. Lost a few ships I *thought* I'd safely parked just outside of the AI's ship speed, and BAM!

No idea how or why it happens.

~SDC~
Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top
Za H

You can do the same to AI (i am talking about point 1). Probably its a bug, but I got used to it...
Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top
Regarding the 'extra move' bug--you the player can do it too. If your colony ship is 3 squares from a planet and it has 2 moves, right-click on the planet to auto-pilot the colony ship and it will get there in one turn. Same thing can be done with attack ships, set the ship to auto-pilot to an enemy ship and it will be able to attack even if it ends its turn one move away. Still seems like a bug to me, but at least one you can take advantage on equal terms with the A.I. :notsure:
Reply #14 from Stardock Forums Top
Ah, seems like it's just linked to the order in which movement is processed in the code then when you have automoves occuring (which, probably is similar to how the AI moves ships- destination-oriented).

~SDC~
Reply #16 from Stardock Forums Top
Oh yes, I forgot about that auto-move bug completely. I guess what I saw was just a manisfestation of that bug then. Guess I'll have to take advantage of it too until it's fixed then ;p

This reminds me of the small bug/exploit involving ship orbit/launch actions not consuming movement points too. You can save a few movement points while traveling through colonized sectors if you take advantage of it, and it also alleviates the problem with auto-launch transports (just send them back to re-launch).
Reply #17 from Stardock Forums Top
I would still like to see an explanation for issue #2 though. Maybe some of you with the Eye of the Universe wonders can pay special attention to this and see if you have a similar experience.
Reply #18 from Stardock Forums Top
I hope Brad doesn't think I was saying 'this game may cheat.. it's ok!' :D

I VERY much appreciate that this game plays by the same rules. And actually, once Brad pointed out the ways it matters, I appreciate it even more. It is very nice to know that 'Cause A' will have 'Effect Y', since the AI can't circumnavigate the issue with a cheap cheating ploy. Thanks Brad! ;p

And waright.. what are you getting at? What does a developer actually typing out 'the AI cheats by seeing yellow systems!' have to do with game balancing?! I don't get it.. what point are you trying to make.. or what are you trying to prove. This has never been a 'hidden agenda'.. it has always been known. It doesn't unbalance the game.. the game obviously can be (and constantly is) beat at the higher levels, so it isn't like this screws the game up. Calling it an exploit.. a cheat.. whatever, it doesn't change a thing. I don't know why you have such a fixation on trying to get people to announce that the AI is *gasp* cheating. Explain your point, if you have one.

fleabitfox
Reply #19 from Stardock Forums Top
At this point I think most "AI Cheat" threads are just as likely to be posted to bait Brad as for any other reason.

~SDC~
Reply #20 from Stardock Forums Top
not only the strategic challenge which is indespensible, but what I like most about this game in terms of the AI is that both the 'shell' and the 'core' are immersive and fun. the core AIs of the major races exhibit different personalities and I like the way it's presented to the player.

like the other day the Anceans were ahead and acted all high and mighty and were demanding this and that, but then I took over one of their major planets by surprise, and they really humbled down a bit. at the end they were really losing and in my diplo screens they'd plead like 'you can crush us as a bug, here's a tribute,, please spare us'. the tribute was symbolic really, like 50 bc per 1 month, and I just couldn't bring myself to take over their last planet. in fact I gave them a constructor. I was just that nice ;) sometimes an AI acts like an underdog and I'd ally with it. and then, it backstabs me. LOL the Drengin are always straightforward and tend to command respect, etc...

while it requires thinking and planning, it never takes away from the game feeling.

I've only played up to and including Beginner so far. gonna start my first Normal game tonight, heh :d

and then the fact that the AI is constantly being tweaked and is taken very seriously by the devs. now that I've learnt the ropes, I expect a lot of challenge at the highest difficulty.