AI cheating?

Supposedly the AI doesn't cheat. At the high intelligence levels (Genius and above) the AI gets influence and economic bonuses i believe. They are probably setting their economy to max and producing 50% or 100% military. If you do 100% military it only takes 10-14 turns to complete a constructor at the lowest levels. Anyway don't worry about resources too much in the early game. If you can grab a few that are within your sphere of influence, that would be great. But otherwise you won't have the ability to really develop the resources until much later, and you can then just aquire the resources you need, via war or trade.

The only resource i would really strive to aquire and protect are military resources. In my last game I had the arceans, alterians, and torians against me, and they all had equal military might compared to me. Once i seized three military resources and developed them to the max i was pretty much unstopable, able to kill (approximately) 5 of their dreadnaughts for every 1 of mine. They fell quickly.

I almost always manage to get my constructors out before the AI in challenging and below. Above challenging, all bets are off, because I've never played.

Set:
Taxation - 50%
Spending - 100%

Sliders - Military - 100%

Until you get all the colonies you can find, then

Set:
Sliders - Research - 100%
Research Industrial Theory, Com Theo, Univ Trans, Diplo, Med Theo, Basic Env Cont

Then

Set:
Sliders - Social - 100%
Build order: Manu Cent, Soil Enhance, Bank Cntr, Habitat Imp. (with your highest PQ planet, substitute Diplo Trans for Habitat Imp., for now)

then

Set:
Sliders - Mil - 100%

Build: Constructors
Until you've grabbed all the resources you can find

then

Set:
Spending - Whatever the maximum is with a positive cashflow.

Sliders - Research 100%

Try to research all the basic trade goods techs, then go back to 100% social and grab them. Also good are economic techs, with new planetary improvements. Then go 100% social, grab all those, then begin building a military.

I really don't think it cheats. I generally outpace the AI in almost all categories right from the start when I'm playing Crippling and below. It *does* manage its sliders more efficiently than a human would, which gives it a slight edge early on, but that's not "cheating." And of course it knows where the yellow stars are, which can be a pretty big advantage depending on the map.

The simplest thing to check: did you adjust your spending levels to 100%?

No one mentioned leasing. The AI loves to lease in the early game. That's how they churn them out fast. I have seen many an AI colony ship appear in newly colonized planets.

The Only AI cheats I have found are the econ and pq cheats at crippling and maso

The only non advertised cheat is the wonder of the ai build upon reload when it is not the ai's turn. But that penalizes those that continually save, reload to get around bad events. I would describe that as more of a glitch.

Bonuses to Incredible AI:

Eek!
No wonder I was wiped from the map at my first and only try to play on maso!
[Message Edited]

We've all been playing these games for how long? and we still want to believe that there is such a thing as AI in computer games? LOL. OF COURSE IT CHEATS. One of these days someone will quit rehashing the same old 4x algorithm with gussied up graphics and serving it up to us as "advanced AI" hoo-ha! There will be dancing in the streets. And HOW MANY years ago did MOO come out? 8-9 or so? This game is "MOO Lite" and cheats just like they all do and I have played them all. One of these days I'm gonna learn a lesson and stop wasting my money.

Yes, it is admirable that they are supporting the game better than most companies, but this doesn't excuse the fact that 8-9 YEARS after MOO, this game doesnt advance the dying turn-based 4x genre in the least.

Bought it recently and in my first game with the AI set at intelligent, I get into a war with what appears to be a very powerful civ. Hordes of Battleships, cruisers, constructors, freighters and transports POURING into my area early in the game turn after turn. Because there is a huge rift between me and this civ (suspicious on its own) I can't see what is dishing all this out. I have about 10 thriving young colonies at the moment so assume they are at least as big. NO. Turns out it is a 12 billion pop. planet and a 10 billion pop. planet churning all this out. That's all the comp player has ... Putting finance in the game is just a convenient way to hide the cheating, "Oh, the computer bought it all on credit..." LOL. So I send a scout over into his "empire" LOL and there are 2-4 MORE expensive units sitting IDLE over there that start moving and doing stuff once I get in range.

Sorry for the rant; just wanted to get it off my chest. But the answer to whether the game cheats or not is "of course."

Cut out the trolling already. Just because the computer player has technologies, ships and bonuses that you don't have does not mean that it is cheating.

There are many tactics that rapidly boost the production of an empire including oscillation, heavy taxing, trade boosting, blackmailing, and transport rushing. Just because you fail to use these tactics does not mean that the computer can't either.

There are also reports of players finishing the game using only planets in one sector. This requires strong empire managment skills that do not work against cheating opponents.

If you want to throw around false accusations of cheating, back it up with hard evidence. Otherwise, we will not have any accusations of cheating in any game.

You know, my first couple games I couldn't understand exactly what the computer was doing either. Then I played it some more and realized it was mainly that I was managing my empire inefficiently.

I've never seen really convincing evidence of undocumented cheating on Intelligent, except for a couple bugs that were acknowledged as such.

So "trolling is a post asserting something you don't agree with?" You don't know what trolling is.

[quote]There are many tactics that rapidly boost the production of an empire including oscillation, heavy taxing, trade boosting, blackmailing, and transport rushing. Just because you fail to use these tactics does not mean that the computer can't either.
[quote]

Hehe, Ive been playing these types of games since 1978... you? I generally use all the "tactics" you describe (oscillation... LOL) and know the difference between "tactics" and what we allow ourselves to be conned into thinking is "AI." This game has bogus troop placement/movement in the shroud, small shield box, bogus population growth rate, etc. etc. All the usual comp cheats; and btw, we are not in court and I don't have to "prove" it to you in order to have the right to state my opinion. If you don't like my opinion, disagree or ignore it; I dont care which. Slinging around nebulous insults like "troll" starts unnecessary flaming.

I wasn't really taking the game to task for cheating, that's to be expected with computer games. Am more disappointed that we are so starved in the turn based 4x game market that an unoriginal, very pedestrian offering like this comes along and everyone is suddenly a fanboy.

You still provided no clue of what you call cheating. At intelligent, the ai doesn't get bonuses, and units don't pop out of nowhere as they did in civ f.e. That the game is limited or bogus is a point, that the ai cheats is another. If you lump them together, you will be called a troll.

"Never feed the trolls" but it was stated many times by frogboy that on "intelligent" the computer does not get any bonuses. Any "cheats" you can prove will be regarded as bug and squashed in time. The computer plays with the same rules a you do. Intelligent is the level I play usally never I have seen things like free techs or units for the computer. From your description this is what happened to you : AI didn´t see opportunity to colonize more worlds concentrated on techs and military build up. Found 1-2 minor civs got all their money build up there war machine a little bit more and voila you are still in expanison phase and the computer did already finish the first round of military upgrade.... If the computer has a bigger population. try mantaining your morale at 100% and you will see that you can even outgrow the AI usally. In civ gameterms you were simply rushed by the AI...

Try this... start ten games in a medium sized universe and once the map is uncovered compare your starting position to the computer's. The computer's start will ALMOST ALWAYS be much better. Hence the statement, "the computer doesn't cheat" is a lie, but the statement "the computer gets no bonuses" could still be true in some sense. No, the computer doesn't get more gold or resources, its shield box is just smaller No the computer doesn't get more gold or resources, it just autoswaps every tech it gets for free with the other computer players
No, the computer doesn't get more gold or resources, it just blackmails money from another computer player when it needs some extra
I can't wait for a real computer opponent, but with respect to these types of games, that day ain't here yet.

Don't be so naive. BTW, there are many games that I have loved over the years, cheating or no, so I'm not grinding an axe here, just stating something that should be pretty obvious to anyone playing this game.

it's pretty hard to say the Ai is cheating on your very first game. if i can outdo the AI on my first game i would say the AI is very weak. but the AI will never be human ; that true in any game. AI never uses the keyboard or mouse in a shooter or a RTS and has an opening library in Chess programs. I guess it hard to make everyone happy. To me Gal Civ is one of the best and interesting AI in any game.

Okay, you've said your piece and no one has been convinced by you. You can either drop this and leave people here to what you apparently think is blissful ignorance, or you can go out and find proof of your claims. Or I suppose you could continue beating the dead horse. It's up to you.

Of couse it will almost always be much better. You only have a 1/6 chance of having the best starting position, as there are five other major races that have a stab at first place.



Have you actually tested your "opininated theory"?

I have managed to defeat an enemy player by choking its production capabilities. After levelling the defence fleet a couple of times, the computer lost the ability to purchase ships, and had to take a *long* time to get another ship deployed.

If the "shield box" was smaller, I would have noticed it. Especially since I was rapidly producing attack ships while maintaining a rapid rate of research.



Two things:
1. It doesn't autoswap - the second AI player doesn't necessairly want to receive Stellar Cartography in exchange for Dreadnought Technology.
2. The computer player also offers technology trades to the human player. As a result, you might just receive Terror Stars in exchange for Nano-metal composition.



What's your point? Human players can do that too.

Besides, the AI players have been sighted giving the human player tribute, thus skipping the negative blackmail process. You might as well accuse yourself of cheating for accepting those gifts.



Since you are definatly new around here, you should check out the top scorers within the metaverse, as well as their comments about AI cheating: http://www.galciv.com/metaverse/

There is only one instance of the AI cheating. It has been proven by one of the top playes, and it is being fixed. If such a player can sucessfuly collect hard evidence, why can't you?

Who was the idiot that placed a quote inside a quote and didn't close one of them properly?

OMG, I am so sick of these "the AI is cheating, cuz I couldnt win the 1st time I played" posts. Get over your huge ego, play a few more games, get a clue- then come back and talk to us.
[Message Edited]

They were closed properly. The forum can't handle nested quotes at all, for some reason.

~SDC~

don't worry... there are even players in the metaverse who think others are cheating.. playing dirty.. unfair.. but war isn't fair... so get over it... Players cheat... computers can't... they only do what they are programmed to do.. and so what if some computer players have better starting positions... its the same in real life.. you have to live with it.. or write your own game just like stardock have done.. BTW i've played 12 games straight loosing every single game.. till I worked out how to win.. since then my scores keep getting better and better...Life is what you make of it.. so are games...

Just have fun... thats the most important thing... in games after all thats what they are all about...


~SDC~