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Thread: The AI's dirty little tricks

  1. #1

    The AI's dirty little tricks

    Starting playing on Emporer and Diety recently and I have noticed a few dirty tricks the AI pulls on you. Feel free to add to this list:

    1) Settler production doesn't knock down their city population. I had an army of warriors on a hill just watching the Spanish capitol. In three turns it pumped out 3 settlers (with an accompanying archer). The city never dropped in population.

    2) If there is a fog of war, enemy units WILL come out of it. I was on the southern part of the map with a little resourceless penninsula jutting down to the ice caps. I had boats on either side watching for any invasion forces but the land itself could not be seen. Every other turn for about 20 turns an army of Germans (whose civilization was FAR north) would pop out of the fog. At first I thought it was a fluke, but eventually i sent both of my ships to investigate. Nothing was there. When I put a unit on a hill that could see all the way to the tip of the penninsula they didn't "magically" pop out anymore.

    3) If they are invading and you don't have a spy in your city, they will destroy your fortifications, everytime. Whenever I would attack an invading force, a spy was never to be found. But when an invading force attacked my city without a spy defeding, my fortifications would always be destroyed by a previously unseen spy. They aren't invisible to your opponents are they?

    There are others, but I am sure you all can come up with some.

  2. #2
    Well I was playing on diety and early in the game a japanese galley came and started camping on one of my sea squares so I had limited science. The galley stayed there untill the early industrial and then all of a sudden knights came out. I managed to fend them off luckily but then they just kept comming,
    Weird

  3. #3
    I'm pretty sure if the AI captures a spy (or great person), it immediately teleports to their closest city or something...I've never been able to capture those units back (even if I had them surrounded with units)

  4. #4
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    I actually think it's nice that the AI can pull some tricks on you (although I don't think it's all that much)

    It makes the game a little more challenging.

    Those who want to play "fair" (although a human versus a computer in strategy hardly is fair towards the computer (or, in fact, the AI programmer)), keep it at king

    I'd recommend playing multiplayer instead, but as that doesn't work on PS3, I won't...

  5. #5
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    As for tricks, I'm pretty sure that in my last deity game, the Egyptians researched several techs on the same turn...

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    Quote Originally Posted by eireksten View Post
    As for tricks, I'm pretty sure that in my last deity game, the Egyptians researched several techs on the same turn...
    Maybe they were ahead in technology and they took some techs free because they needed only 1 turn and other players had that. However often all AI sell their techs free to others..

  7. #7
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    Yes, that is probably it. When I got the tech lead later in the game, they couldn't keep up (I was greek, and when the sea food kicked in, I took off).

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    I've noticed that the AI knows when you have no units in your cities. Once the game had just started, I had built one warrior and had sent it to explore. Suddenly a Zulu impi warrior comes out of the fog of war, immediately declares war on me and captures my undefended capital. Oops! Game over. That's the only time the AI's dominated me by military.
    Last edited by Qpla; 07-18-2008 at 09:18 AM.

  9. #9
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    it takes a very long time to program software so that the ai is actually smart enough as to compete with a human at a strategy game. to competensate....they do the best they can and balance it out with some penalties. get over it.

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    Quote Originally Posted by xbman22x View Post
    it takes a very long time to program software so that the ai is actually smart enough as to compete with a human at a strategy game. to competensate....they do the best they can and balance it out with some penalties. get over it.
    Do you see anyone here complaining??

    We're simply discussing what the AI does.

  11. #11
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    AI can switch researches and will not loose research points (for example this gotw the japanese research masonary and when you get it before them they will have irrigation 1 turn later)

    AI can rush more then 1 unit per turn in a city (you kill 1 archer and 1 warrior in their town. next round they got 2 new archers in this town)

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    Quote Originally Posted by RobC View Post
    I'm pretty sure if the AI captures a spy (or great person), it immediately teleports to their closest city or something...I've never been able to capture those units back (even if I had them surrounded with units)
    I don't know if this helps but, that GP gets 4 moves right after being stolen.I've never recovered a GP either, but I've never lost one I've stolen either.

    As to Dirty tricks, well, the higher the difficulty level the more bonus are given to the Ai(and Deity's were huge), just like in Civ4, examples would be; Ai Civ's start out with two settlers, start out with an archer unit, Units are veteren ect.Not losing Pop's to settlers could be one as well, or the settlers were already there... just a thought.
    I'm a big fan of the Russians, so spaming spies is a big fav of mine, not only to steal Gp's, but also to destroy every single building I can, especially temples and cath's, but the wall seems to be the first to go. Great for culture flipping.
    Last edited by Random Fires; 07-17-2008 at 07:16 PM. Reason: Your right it's 2 moves.

  13. I cannot count te times the ai has put someone outside of my city and forcing my workers to change what the are doing.The reslly like to put them on the production spaces when they they are planning on going to war with you.

    if I am peace with them how can they move onto my spaces?

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Random Fires View Post
    I don't know if this helps but, that GP gets 4 moves right after being stolen.I've never recovered a GP either, but I've never lost one I've stolen either.
    Really? On what level? I usually play on Emperor/Diety, and whenever I steal a GP, I only get 2 moves.

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    Quote Originally Posted by RobC View Post
    Really? On what level? I usually play on Emperor/Diety, and whenever I steal a GP, I only get 2 moves.
    2 moves is correct.

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    Quote Originally Posted by ObiFett View Post
    3) If they are invading and you don't have a spy in your city, they will destroy your fortifications, everytime. Whenever I would attack an invading force, a spy was never to be found. But when an invading force attacked my city without a spy defeding, my fortifications would always be destroyed by a previously unseen spy. They aren't invisible to your opponents are they?

    There are others, but I am sure you all can come up with some.

    I suspect sometimes the game 'loses' graphics or I am just sitting too far from the TV to see them all because I have captured enemy spies sitting outside my cities sometimes but others as you said just seem to come out of no where. I now build a defending spy unit for each of my cities pretty early on in the game.

  17. #17
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    Maybe they stay in the enemy army and you can't see that, it could be a bug, however it happened to me today when he attacked me (only a time)

  18. #18
    on Beta Centarui the Ai's aircraft doesn't return to it's cities after 2 or 4 turns.

  19. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by eireksten View Post
    Do you see anyone here complaining??

    We're simply discussing what the AI does.
    it sounds a lot like complaining to me....

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    Quote Originally Posted by xbman22x View Post
    it sounds a lot like complaining to me....
    Well then that's your problem. It seems you're just trying to start problems here.

  21. #21
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    I hate it when I have a huge defensive force built up in one of my cities, usually the first city they are going to come across or my capital. And all they do is bypass it and attack the one that is not as well defended. I got whooped on Beta Centurai that way. At the end I had 2 cities. Both with such high defensive values they couldn't take them. But I couldn't even touch their units. My artillery army couldn't even budge the French tanks. lol I thought it was kinda funny and ironic.

  22. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by Draq View Post
    I hate it when I have a huge defensive force built up in one of my cities, usually the first city they are going to come across or my capital. And all they do is bypass it and attack the one that is not as well defended.
    I wonder if the Ai talk amongst themselves... When you hit diplomacy, and chat it up, they'll often say, Such and such has 7units in Somewhere, or their building a temple, or a wonder.

  23. #23
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    I noticed that the AI's can declare wars with democracy government. Once I realized that Montezuma was going to win a tech victory so I bribed them to attack someone else (to get them out of democracy) And they just declared war with democracy.

    Today I removed my forces from a city that was going to be culture flipped, and then an American tank which was moving away from the city suddenly turned and drove into my undefended city...

    And the AI's definitely get free units, Lincoln was once throwing 12-14 fighter wings every turn at me. Luckily he was stupid enough to not realize that planes run out of fuel so I was spared from most of the fighting

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