What are the AI cheats at Normal?

[unmerged(9757)]

I am new to this game and have been playing at Normal/Furious in order to get the AI to attack me once and a while, but not cheat. Unfortunately, it still only attacks me when I look real weak, like when I started a GC as Burgundy. Worse, it still cheats. What are the AI cheats at Normal level? Here are the ones I found:

1) No attrition for ships

2) Religion is never a problem for AI countries no matter how many different religions, including pagan: they are all -4 revolt risk.

3) AI forts hold are twice as big: i.e. a level 1 AI fort holds 5000 men while a human level 1 fort holds only 2500

4) AI almost always creates a rebel force big enough to siege a fort, so that building bigger forts is self-defeating since it just creates larger rebel armies.

Others?

It is kind of dissapointing. The AI seems rather decent in comparison to other games, yet I can still generally beat it (except when struck by a civil war!). I am not sure what the AI is doing wrong, except perhaps overstacking when seiging and in general not trying to take away the opponents troops production capacity by occupying all his provinces.

 

[unmerged(8451)]

The ai cheats because it is the only way it can stand up to a human. It is too stupid to win in a fair fight.

 

[unmerged(3999)]

The AI does cheat to some extent, but a couple of the ones on your list really aren't:

I'm 99% sure the way 3) works is, provinces under a certain population get 2,500 in their Minimal fort, whether yours or the AI. I believe the population threshold is 5,000.

And 4) happens to the AI too, so it's a masochistic cheat if anything.

I'm still waiting for a computer game AI that will really give a human player trouble; maybe if I'm lucky such a game will come along in the next 50 years or so so I can play it before I die. Until then I don't mind stuff like this...

 

[BiB]

3) and 4) are figments of ur imagination, I'm afraid. The ai needs the other ones.

 

[Dev]

Edit: Thanks for beating me to the post BiB, now I have to state that my reply about being right (#3) is to Carligula

You're correct about #3.

Writing a truly good AI that can challenge a dedicated human for a game like EU is about impossible with the current technology.

It's not really impossible but there are so many "what if"'s that coding it will be a 10,000 man years job ands you will need a next generation super computer to run it~

Hell, look at the current top notch chess AI, it can only compete because #1 chess is a very simple game with very simple rules
(meaning there's a limited number of what ifs to deal with) and #2
they run it on a dedicated super computer system which can do nothing but play chess.

Somehow I don't think the current crop of gamers would be willing to dish out $1,000,000 for a strategy game with an awesome AI.

Speaking of awesome AI's I'd love to play the against the computer the US army uses to play strategic wargames on

I'm no AI expert so I could be competely wrong of course.

/dev

 

[unmerged(9757)]

Well, maybe the AI needs some of these things, but I find the Religion cheat problematic. I would like to see more wars of religion, especially the 30 years war. When I see an AI Austria unifying all of Germany, I find that rather incredulous. Of course, AI nations seem to fall apart on a regular schedule anyway, so I guess it doesn't matter (ussualy the result of war exhaustion/nationalism/cultural differences I guess).

 

[Murmurandus]

The AI doesn't cheat, it's just 'game-balancing'. Only humans can cheat...

 

[unmerged(9145)]

Originally posted by Murmurandus
The AI doesn't cheat, it's just 'game-balancing'. Only humans can cheat...

Okay, since the definition of 'cheat' seems to be whatever the speaker wants it to be, I guess if I hit F12 and type in 'oranje' after a random stab hit event I'm actually just 'game balancing', har har!

Max

 

[Murmurandus]

Originally posted by maxpublic


Okay, since the definition of 'cheat' seems to be whatever the speaker wants it to be, I guess if I hit F12 and type in 'oranje' after a random stab hit event I'm actually just 'game balancing', har har!

Max

You're missing my point. It's just because humans have the advantage of an own brain that the AI has some advantages in order to balance the game. When a human cheats it outbalances the game again.

 

[sirbruce]

In my experience the biggest problem AI nations have is that the colonial nations don't colonize enough (it's fairly easy for the human player to play a minor and get enough colonists to colonize more than AI England, Spain, Portugal, France, and the Netherlands combined), and they still have trouble dealing with rebels in their own country. Often this is due to revolts in unconnected provinces they acquire in other wars; the AI should give extra weight to neighboring provinces, even if they are of lesser value, to lessen this problem.

Bruce

 

[Castellon]

Originally posted by Dev

chess is a very simple game with very simple rules
(meaning there's a limited number of what ifs to deal with)

I'm no AI expert so I could be competely wrong of course.

/dev

Very simple game? WHAT!
I do have a degree in AI and I can tell you Chess is definatley not a "very simple game". The hardest games I had to write AI routines for in undergrad were Hearts and Checkers.

 

[Cat Lord]

chess is a very simple game with very simple rules
(meaning there's a limited number of what ifs to deal with)

Simple rules are not the only criteria that helps you making a performant AI.

The game of GO has probably the simplest rules in the world (far simpler than chess), and still no-one has ever produce a decent AI for this game. Most GO AI could play and win against amateur, none against a professional. So far the best GO software I have heard of is not an AI but a software w/ a huge library of different positions and the way they were resolved by human grand-master; the software is trying to find pattern on the go-ban position those are already in the library to play them, but it is no decent AI at all...

Cat