The AI cheats...

[Freodin]

No, I don´t mean the situation where Monopoles are set while below Tech 3 or ships sail from France to the Pacific Ocean without noticable attrition. All this can be explained by setup or chance.

By cheating I mean that the AI can do things I as a player cannot do.

In my last war, once a month I got offers from my opponent, offering 39gp, 124gp, 17gp... if I made peace.

Why can they do that, while I have to wait untill I have 250gp to offer?

 

[Dark Knight]

The AI will not pay any more than they have, so their offers reveal how much money you are getting. Otherwise, you might accept peace thinking that you are receiving 250 ducats, but not actually get that much. This was put in place to prevent AI nations, especially small ones, from being used as 'cash cows' by a human player.

 

[unmerged(1034)]

i understand the reasoning for allowing Ai to make cheaper peaces, but I think what Freodin is getting at is that maybe human players should have the same option if they don't have 250d
i'm playing Oranje's Netherlands in the GC scenario, early on, I have no chance of ever getting 250d without loans given that your annual income is a small fraction of that. it would seem that, like other minor countries, you should be able to offer smaller amounts to get peace

 

[unmerged(672)]

Don't forget about the 1 navy explorer fleets that never seem to die to attrition.

 

[unmerged(502)]

this is how it works. the winning side demands a payment of a certain amount of money - it does not have to be 250. If the loser has less than 250, the winer will demand all he has (even 2 gold). But the loser cannot offer 2 gold to pay. So there is no cheating here.

Originally posted by Freodin
No, I don´t mean the situation where Monopoles are set while below Tech 3 or ships sail from France to the Pacific Ocean without noticable attrition. All this can be explained by setup or chance.

By cheating I mean that the AI can do things I as a player cannot do.

In my last war, once a month I got offers from my opponent, offering 39gp, 124gp, 17gp... if I made peace.

Why can they do that, while I have to wait untill I have 250gp to offer?

 

[unmerged(1034)]

are you sure? i could have sworn that the AI has actually offered me smaller amounts

Originally posted by webbrave
this is how it works. the winning side demands a payment of a certain amount of money - it does not have to be 250. If the loser has less than 250, the winer will demand all he has (even 2 gold). But the loser cannot offer 2 gold to pay. So there is no cheating here.

 

[unmerged(548)]

Originally posted by Kessar
are you sure? i could have sworn that the AI has actually offered me smaller amounts

Hmm, I've never seen that. Actually the AI very rarely offer money at all (except due to a bug that will be fixed in 1.08)

 

[grumbold]

It may be observer error, but AI fleet attrition seems to be a bit like AI cannon attrition i.e. unless an entire cannon or fleet is destroyed in one single event, percentage damage does not properly accumulate to kill a whole unit. A storm doing 25% damage should ideally give each ship a 25% chance of sinking on the spot. Otherwise a fleet of 4 ships always loses 1 but a fleet of 3 or less always escapes totally unharmed unless they hit another event before reaching port (where repairs are carried out instantaneously.)

 

[Java of Flanders]

Trade level

How about this: Georgia (by the Black Sea) is only one province big (or small) and has trade level 6 by 1575 (I've got past 4 which makes me one of the most advanced of the major countries), which makes it very hard (in fact nearly impossible) for me to push away their traders. I'll have to ban their trade I guess.

 

[Java of Flanders]

Another one which comes to my mind

How about the AI sieging a city with a 150k army in a province that can normally sustain 2. In a month only some 2-3k seemed to die from attrition, they should die by thousands every month!

 

[unmerged(502)]

the most irritating cheating on AI part is alliances though. They seem to update by themselves and last much much longer than my alliances. In many cases it seems that their experation dates keep moving back. Anyone else noted that?

 

[unmerged(670)]

Originally posted by webbrave
the most irritating cheating on AI part is alliances though. They seem to update by themselves and last much much longer than my alliances. In many cases it seems that their experation dates keep moving back. Anyone else noted that?

My experience is that alliances - player or AI - are extended by participating in _defensive_ wars.

Rgds,
Johan

 

[unmerged(234)]

Re: Trade level

Originally posted by Java of Flanders
How about this: Georgia (by the Black Sea) is only one province big (or small) and has trade level 6 by 1575 (I've got past 4 which makes me one of the most advanced of the major countries), which makes it very hard (in fact nearly impossible) for me to push away their traders. I'll have to ban their trade I guess.

I think the cost of research is partially based on how many provinces the country have. SO countries with one rich province should probably to quite well in the tech race.

 

[grumbold]

The AI alliances do mysteriously refresh from time to time without the countries involved appearing to initiate any offensive or defensive action. Perhaps I misunderstand and the 10 year date keeps moving backward if the allies are involved in a war that may have been initiated months or years earlier?

 

[unmerged(760)]

i once saw the persians having a fleet without having a harbor. maybe i missed something since i played portugal and didn´t spend much attention on persia until they attacked me in buenos aires.

 

[Altuar]

The AI does NOT cheat to the point of making it weak in some areas. I heartily applaud Paradox's decision in this.

1) Alliances: If an alliance enters a war, it will be extended for 10 years. Happens for humans too.

2) Ships lasting centruies: Ok, this is a bug...

3) The peace offers: I think it was Hartmann who pointed out that originally in the Beta stage the the AI had to take loans to pay and reperations. But there was a way to exploit this: Conquer any 1-province nation, ask for 800D, they have to accept. They take loans, you take your money, they go bankrupt (and are able to take loans again.) Rinse and repeat. So there was an exception to this rule for AI players. Sometimes, AI will ask for peace demanding all the money you have, be it 250D or 10D.

4) Monopolies: Some countries start with level 3 or grater tech levels. (Venice and Geneoa springs to mind, but there are other minors.) For small minors, the amount of money that must be paid to advance in tech levels are smaller too. If Georgia was lucky in receiving random events, they could have easily built up their trade to level 6.

5) The land armies of the AI do suffer from attrition. Horribly. This is one of those points which I think the AI should be given a 'cheat', because it might be very hard to program an AI that fights well and suffers from minimal possible attrition at the same time. But at this point, I do not really fear the AI armies, because I know they will all kill themselves too managable levels if I wait long enough.

-alt.

 

[unmerged(548)]

How about this: Georgia (by the Black Sea) is only one province big (or small)

Research cost is affected by the county size so this not cheating. It's to enable small countries to keep up in the techrace (which is historically correct).

How about the AI sieging a city with a 150k army in a province that can normally sustain 2. In a month only some 2-3k seemed to die from attrition, they should die by thousands every month!

Haven't you noticed there is a cap on how much attrition you can suffer each month ?!?


Please spend some time to actually understand the game mechanics before you accuse the AI of cheating.

If you do find something that indeed seems as the Ai cheeting, report it as a bug, becourse that is most probably what it is. However don't just assume, check the savefile first for instance to make shure.

For instance

i once saw the persians having a fleet without having a harbor. maybe i missed something since i played portugal and didn´t spend much attention on persia until they attacked me in buenos aires.
There was (is ?) a bug that didn't remove fleets after a nations harbour was removed.

 

[grumbold]

Originally posted by Huszics
How about this: Georgia (by the Black Sea) is only one province big (or small)

Research cost is affected by the county size so this not cheating. It's to enable small countries to keep up in the techrace (which is historically correct).

I applaud this approach but find it a little hard to swallow that inventing a new technology actually gets harder when you expand your territories because the research cost has increased more than can be offset by spending the same proportion of your new monthly income.

 

[Johan]

The cost of a new technology is not only the researching of it. It also the cost of replacing all redundant and obsolete technology in your entire realm.

 

[grumbold]

It seems a little unfair to prevent the capital churning out modern weapons or increasing its income until the furthest flung colonial outposts have received the technology. I guess its one of those balance issues.