AI Cheats - Facts and misunderstandings

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mgoetze

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Now, a list of how it actually cheats:
- AI does not get naval attrition. It does avoid going too far out of range with most of its naval operations though, to somewhat simulate it.
- AI can see through fog of war, but pretends it can't in most cases.
- AI gets +1 diplomat that it reserves for non-maintained actions because the diplomatic AI 'ticks' means that it can't do the recall-send strategy that players do with maintained diplomats.
- AI gets +1 free leader pool because it's not nearly as good as a human at planning out when it will need leaders and needs to keep them on hand always.
- AI does not pay hiring costs for advisors, only maintenance, because their hiring code isn't that good and otherwise they waste a lot of money.
- AI can reassign admirals to a fleet that is at sea.
- AI gets slightly fewer revolts in its home owner area (the provinces connected to its capital).
- AI gets less native uprisings, because it is less than optimal at keeping its colonies garrisoned.
- AI gets full trade power from light ships even at 0% naval maintenance?
 

TheBloke

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AI gets 25% range bonus since 1.4 (because it doesn't make interim stepping stone colonies like players do)

Or use Fleet Basing to extend it. That's fair, I can live with that.

- AI gets full trade power from light ships even at 0% naval maintenance?

This, though, is more troubling. You've confirmed this for sure? Worth raising a bug I'd say.
 

ramius3443

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sigeena

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I think it's implied that the AI gets full trade power from light ships even at 0% naval maintenance.

Since everytime I DoW and fight an immediate action, the enemy ships start at near 0 morale, indicative of its low naval maintenance.

And if you refer to the Trade screen, you'll see their TP from ships tend to be full. Thus implying that the AI gets full TP even at 0% or low naval maintenance.
 

Slym

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I didn't really feel like making a new thread for this and I think it fits pretty well here. My main issue with the AI in this game isn't where it cheats, it's the fact that fighting a war against an AI is absolutely no fun at all. Having to pause basically every day to make sure the enemy isn't going to leave a day before you get to every province, having to constantly check every colony to see if they're dropping thousands upon thousands of troops on a single island that will then be impossible to push off due to massive crossing and morale penalties, none of this is fun. The main focus of the game is war and expansion but the AI makes it a gigantic hassle and chore to do so, and I constantly find myself thinking "I want to fight this war, I know I can win this war, fighting this war will be good in the long run, but holy crud I don't want to deal with the bull the AI always does right now"

I think that having the most "exciting" part of the game be turned into a slow, micromanagement slog is a crying shame, because I love this game but I hate having to fight a war in it. I know its tough making an AI that can act like a person and put up a good fight without using these tactics, but honestly I would prefer that they cheat than be this annoying to deal with.
 

TheBloke

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I didn't really feel like making a new thread for this and I think it fits pretty well here. My main issue with the AI in this game isn't where it cheats, it's the fact that fighting a war against an AI is absolutely no fun at all. Having to pause basically every day to make sure the enemy isn't going to leave a day before you get to every province, having to constantly check every colony to see if they're dropping thousands upon thousands of troops on a single island that will then be impossible to push off due to massive crossing and morale penalties, none of this is fun.

Both of those are listed as being fixed in 1.4. I've not confirmed it myself yet, but they were in the changelog.
 

TheBloke

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Hmm playing as Castille had a male ruler, Aragon had a male ruler but a female heir. The male ruler came to power in 1447 and died in August 1501, he was 75 so less than a year after the Iberian Wedding events span he gets a new ruler? This seems totally ridiculous.

That's just bad luck, and nothing whatsoever to do with the AI cheating.

Some other time, later in the game or in another game, the luck will go in your favour and you'll suddenly PU a big nation because their leader died too soon to get an heir, or some such similar event. It all balances out in the end.
 

TheBloke

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Ha, I wish. I haven't noticed any difference whatsoever in micromanaging troop movements against the AI.

Ah, OK. The two issues the OP mentioned that are listed as being fixed are "AI army leaves province 1 day before you arrive", and "AI keeps piling troops onto worthless islands." You're still seeing stuff like that?
 

hwoosh

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Ah, OK. The two issues the OP mentioned that are listed as being fixed are "AI army leaves province 1 day before you arrive", and "AI keeps piling troops onto worthless islands." You're still seeing stuff like that?

Well, I haven't noticed the islands thing so much. (Naval AI in general is still worthless, but we know Wiz is still working on that.) But AI having perfect knowledge of travel times between provinces? Still able to trick the AI into "province-dancing" by repeatedly cancelling and restarting movement? Yep.
 

Nobak

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Some other time, later in the game or in another game, the luck will go in your favour and you'll suddenly PU a big nation because their leader died too soon to get an heir, or some such similar event. It all balances out in the end.

Nah, not always. I had a game where I randomly PUed both Hungary and Russia, but when it was my turn to die heirless all it did was give me a shared dynasty with Spain, with whom i had a royal marriage as a leftover from the alliance they had ditched 15 years prior.
Oh, and their current heir had a weak claim.

Even my bad luck turned (really really) good!


Back on topic, I kind of resent that the AI gets an extra diplomat because it can't cancel-do-something-resend. I've had cases (normally Three Mountains attempts) where I had to conduct a lot of diplomacy with far-away nations and the travel time (sometimes upwards of 200 days) in those situations made that strategy totally unusable, and I had to decide whether to keep a diplomat idle or send him to do something and risk losing a good opportunity to do something else if it showed up. It really, really hurts early on when you have only 2 diplomats, so it kind of irked me to know the AI gets an extra diplomat for (artificially) being in that same situation.
 

Maleficus

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The AI does not cheat with sieges.

Then why can the AI, nine times out of ten, siege a province quicker with 3,000 men than I can siege an equivalent one with 20,000?

AI can see through fog of war, but pretends it can't in most cases.

Either you're completely lying here, or you have an extremely loose definition of "most cases". In EU3 it was a pretty reliable trick to have a bunch of armies sat 2 provinces away from the enemy, and rush them all into the middle province as the enemy marches to it. Try that in EU4 and the AI somehow magically sees my armies coming every time, without fail. The only way to do this now is to wait until 1 day before the AI arrives and then start moving, thus giving the AI the advantage either of defending or of several days (in some cases weeks) of fighting a battle massively in their favour.

In short, the AI exploits the hell out of being able to see through FoW in most cases.

AI gets +1 free leader pool because it's not nearly as good as a human at planning out when it will need leaders and needs to keep them on hand always.

You forgot to mention the AI somehow seems to get very competent leaders a disproportionate amount of the time.

AI does not pay hiring costs for advisors, only maintenance, because their hiring code isn't that good and otherwise they waste a lot of money.

In fairness, most advisors aren't even worth hiring.

Humans have a human brain.

A brain doesn't really make up for losing despite being the defender, having 3x the soldiers, better general and higher morale, just because the AI feels like winning.

On balance, AI isn't that big a cheater is it?

Actually, I can't think of many games where the AI plays less fair.
 

Tom013

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Then why can the AI, nine times out of ten, siege a province quicker with 3,000 men than I can siege an equivalent one with 20,000?
You're just making things up here. Confirmation bias? Also, more men does not help. More artillery can, but more men will NEVER help unless you assault.

Either you're completely lying here, or you have an extremely loose definition of "most cases". In EU3 it was a pretty reliable trick to have a bunch of armies sat 2 provinces away from the enemy, and rush them all into the middle province as the enemy marches to it. Try that in EU4 and the AI somehow magically sees my armies coming every time, without fail. The only way to do this now is to wait until 1 day before the AI arrives and then start moving, thus giving the AI the advantage either of defending or of several days (in some cases weeks) of fighting a battle massively in their favour.

In short, the AI exploits the hell out of being able to see through FoW in most cases.
You can pretty much say they always see one province in because (as Wiz discusses throughout this thread in the 19 pages that have appeared since the original post over 6 months ago) the AI isn't as swift with figuring out the likelihood of an ambush. The player with ease can figure this out, and routinely does (unless they player is just really bad with army movement and knowing where the enemy is). I think this is fine, but I will grant that it breaks down with naval AI -- the naval AI seems to be much more likely to see through the fog and seems to be very effective at sniping fleets.


You forgot to mention the AI somehow seems to get very competent leaders a disproportionate amount of the time.

Lucky nations do get a bonus and it skews the curve for a given army tradition by +1 in both shock and fire. That, combined with the +1 bonus to mil points means they sometimes re-roll leaders more often and so tend to have better-than-average leaders. There have been whole threads on this. However, regular nations get no such benefit. This is strictly NOT an AI cheat, it's a mechanical cheat for lucky nations and doesn't exist at all if lucky nations are off.


Actually, I can't think of many games where the AI plays less fair.

This is really starting to come across as whiny. There are plenty of games with very substantial cheats (like Civ5 on higher difficulty levels getting boosts to all tech, reductions to recruitment time and worker speed, lower unhappiness, etc). It's really not easy to compare, and it's really not useful to do so.
 

Thrake

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Then why can the AI, nine times out of ten, siege a province quicker with 3,000 men than I can siege an equivalent one with 20,000?



Either you're completely lying here, or you have an extremely loose definition of "most cases". In EU3 it was a pretty reliable trick to have a bunch of armies sat 2 provinces away from the enemy, and rush them all into the middle province as the enemy marches to it. Try that in EU4 and the AI somehow magically sees my armies coming every time, without fail. The only way to do this now is to wait until 1 day before the AI arrives and then start moving, thus giving the AI the advantage either of defending or of several days (in some cases weeks) of fighting a battle massively in their favour.

Why would you even let AI attacking you when it's a "battle massively in their favor"? It will attack you at roughly similar stack strenght on mountains, and you can even send reinforcements on top of that. Of course, if it has reinforcements around, it will wait for them, but then it's about using your human brain to isolate them or cut reinforcements. AI is not doing bad in the early war, but if you retreat, let it start besieging and splitting its troops it's not that hard to stack wipe a fair amount of troops before it can actually regroup for a major battle.

There are annoying occurences where AI knows in advance where your army is moving and it'll lift sieges the day you order the move and way before you even move to adjacent provinces but it still lets itself tricking regularly.

A brain doesn't really make up for losing despite being the defender, having 3x the soldiers, better general and higher morale, just because the AI feels like winning.

Probably, if you're a non westernized African tribe fighting Spain...
 

Maleficus

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You're just making things up here. Confirmation bias? Also, more men does not help. More artillery can, but more men will NEVER help unless you assault.

Nope, I'm definitely not making things up. OK, maybe not quite 9 times out of 10, but very frequently nonetheless. I've seen it a lot of times, even before anyone can actually get artillery, so that's clearly not what's swinging it. On the flipside, of course, it is pretty easy to roll up 3k-strong armies with my 15-20k armies, so only really presents a problem if I can't really get there.

You can pretty much say they always see one province in because (as Wiz discusses throughout this thread in the 19 pages that have appeared since the original post over 6 months ago) the AI isn't as swift with figuring out the likelihood of an ambush. The player with ease can figure this out, and routinely does (unless they player is just really bad with army movement and knowing where the enemy is). I think this is fine, but I will grant that it breaks down with naval AI -- the naval AI seems to be much more likely to see through the fog and seems to be very effective at sniping fleets.

Not really sure what you're saying here. The AI is better at seeing what I'm doing because it's worse at seeing what I'm doing? Or it's justified for the AI to cheat because it's worse at maths? Regardless I know what I've seen hundreds of times, and it's very definitely cheating in my book.


Lucky nations do get a bonus and it skews the curve for a given army tradition by +1 in both shock and fire. That, combined with the +1 bonus to mil points means they sometimes re-roll leaders more often and so tend to have better-than-average leaders. There have been whole threads on this. However, regular nations get no such benefit. This is strictly NOT an AI cheat, it's a mechanical cheat for lucky nations and doesn't exist at all if lucky nations are off.

OK that actually makes sense. Perhaps not a very good system IMO, but I can see how that works now. Lucky nations off for me from now on then.


This is really starting to come across as whiny. There are plenty of games with very substantial cheats (like Civ5 on higher difficulty levels getting boosts to all tech, reductions to recruitment time and worker speed, lower unhappiness, etc). It's really not easy to compare, and it's really not useful to do so.

People actually still play Civ?

I didn't say I can't think of any games that don't cheat more, I said I can't think of many. Total War, for example, cheats with money in the campaign (or at least it used to) and GTA 5 has rubberbanding in races (though AFAIK it doesn't really cheat anywhere else). Cheating AI is old, but when it's as blatantly obvious as EU4 sometimes is, that bothers me, and yes, I get whiny. CK2 probably cheats in some ways, but it's not obvious about it, and I love CK2. I could love EU4 just as much, I want to, but when I think I'm having fun something will happen that's quite obviously not right.



Probably, if you're a non westernized African tribe fighting Spain...

And how about if you're France fighting Spain? In France? With all the advantages I mentioned? Sure, outnumbered armies can win and often have, but not typically with every other factor also against them. At Okehazama, Oda Nubunaga had the element of surprise against a drunk and unprepared enemy. At Azincourt the Enlish had the advantage of a very muddy field and some French idiocy. And at Thermopylae, Leonidas got a thorough beating.
 
Last edited:

Thrake

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People actually still play Civ?

I didn't say I can't think of any games that don't cheat more, I said I can't think of many. Total War, for example, cheats with money in the campaign (or at least it used to) and GTA 5 has rubberbanding in races (though AFAIK it doesn't really cheat anywhere else). Cheating AI is old, but when it's as blatantly obvious as EU4 sometimes is, that bothers me, and yes, I get whiny. CK2 probably cheats in some ways, but it's not obvious about it, and I love CK2. I could love EU4 just as much, I want to, but when I think I'm having fun something will happen that's quite obviously not right.

Comparing cheats in strategy games and cheats in GTA feels really wrong. Of course, AI doesn't really needs much cheating in Duke Nukem; brain isn't much of help there. I would rather play Civ than GTA btw, a game with guns whith an auto targetting system is the worst thing ever designed; come on, it won't even let me aim for the head...
 

Tom013

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Nope, I'm definitely not making things up. OK, maybe not quite 9 times out of 10, but very frequently nonetheless. I've seen it a lot of times, even before anyone can actually get artillery, so that's clearly not what's swinging it. On the flipside, of course, it is pretty easy to roll up 3k-strong armies with my 15-20k armies, so only really presents a problem if I can't really get there.

Okay, I can't argue with your confirmation bias statistics. Generals with siege stats aside, they don't siege equivalent fort levels any faster than you.

Not really sure what you're saying here. The AI is better at seeing what I'm doing because it's worse at seeing what I'm doing? Or it's justified for the AI to cheat because it's worse at maths? Regardless I know what I've seen hundreds of times, and it's very definitely cheating in my book.
It cheats because it is worse not at math but at intuition. You see enemy units hanging out in favorable defensive terrain just on the edge of the FoW, you think, well, they have 15k units I just saw disappear into the FoW, you think "I'm not a moron, they could be RIGHT THERE hiding." The AI can't do that currently (per Wiz's discussion), at least not without a huge computational burden for all AI nations -- just not practical.

People actually still play Civ?

I didn't say I can't think of any games that don't cheat more, I said I can't think of many. Total War, for example, cheats with money in the campaign (or at least it used to) and GTA 5 has rubberbanding in races (though AFAIK it doesn't really cheat anywhere else). Cheating AI is old, but when it's as blatantly obvious as EU4 sometimes is, that bothers me, and yes, I get whiny. CK2 probably cheats in some ways, but it's not obvious about it, and I love CK2. I could love EU4 just as much, I want to, but when I think I'm having fun something will happen that's quite obviously not right.

I would imagine people do play Civ given that Civ5 is routinely top 10 on Steam's "current players" list, but that's not even the point. Total War is a total mess, AI or otherwise. Its campaign AI has never been its strong suit. CK2 has similar cheats with FoW but its AI is generally easier to trick too... possibly because they had no dedicated AI programmer (to my knowledge) when CK2 development started. Anyway, the AI cheats in EU4 really aren't that bad. In an ideal world, yeah, they wouldn't have to cheat at all because they could have human intuition and processing power for every AI nation. Until said time, it has to cheat here and there to make up for its weaknesses. It's better than having an AI that you can trick every time.