AI cheating, was it a known fact?

Sad thing is, Devs are getting lazier with their AI. Not so much because they can`t do it, but because the time isn`t worth the reward (cash) for them. It`s a new excuse I`ve seen start popping up and it`s not one I1m happy to see. We`re lucky they continued working on the AI to 1.41, but I`m always wondering when they`re going to quit rather than finish the job.

 

I think the only way we`re going to see a true effort made on the AI in ALL games is when someone makes an AI module. Something even hardware-like that you add in like a graphics card into your PC which will simply employ a heightened intelligent AI to a particular game that`s been programmed to use it. Then we will get the AI we deserve.

Yes, this is sad and true. I have experienced this myself before.

Stardock are proud of their non-cheating AI. But they use a very, very specific definition of the word 'cheating'. And a very specific definition of 'AI', too.

On NORMAL difficulty the ai is at the same lvl as you and is limited by the fog of war. 

On any difficulty ABOVE normal the ai does NOT have Fog of War, They can see YOU and all resources and all habitable planets. It is rather annoying. I was hoping Stardock can keep the FOW for Gifted or the next tier up.

I thought i read a brad post that said this is the way it works (or supposed to )

 You are correct. What I was stating is exactly working as intended. I had read that the Devs were going to make it that the next steps up above Normal and the ai would be subject to FOW. 

 

I am not sure that is the case yet. 

Most games with FOW are like this. The enemies always know where you are. Only, in some games, the AI will "pretend" to not know until you reveal yourself, or until they intentionally move their units closer to you to reveal you.

I really don't understand what the big deal is.

I couldn't care less how the computer opponents achieve their behaviour, as long as it provides a good experience for me. In fact, I would even argue that the AI should use even more information about me and the galaxy, that I as a human player are not able to get. As long as the resulting behaviour enhances my fun, I'm all for it.

If you want fair sportsmanship you should use multiplayer against humans.

Every GalCiv has had some bit of this.

Here's a look back:

• GalCiv OS/2: AI saw all, all the time
• GalCiv I: AI saw all, all the time
• GalCiv II: AI knew where all the planets were but did not know if they were "good". If AI ever "saw" a unit, it could see it forever (i.e. flagged).
• GalCiv III: AI doesn't know where the planets or stars are. If AI sees a unit, it "sees" it until it is outside a the sector (an internal system that occasionally gets updated).

Why is this? Performance.  

I can't think of any 4X's that don't have some tweak or other for performance reasons.  It doesn't really make a material difference in the game play.

Thanks for the update.  I thought I heard that general FOW was in effect on all levels of GC3, and it does seem that way in my games, but I wasn't sure enough to respond to the thread.

Interesting point on performance considerations as well as game mechanics.  I hadn't thought of that, but it does make a lot of sense.  Good job on trimming the FOW reveal down to the present status.  Thinking about it as a performance issue makes that gain somewhat impressive.

When people ask the repeated question about the differences between GC2 and GC3, this should be added to the list.

I don't think it is fair when the Ai doesn't know where stars, or planets. My mini map shows this why can't the Ai see what I see.

 

 

So you are actually saying that the human player is cheating? LOL is hard to make everybody happy

 

But I thought you could do much, much more now with a 64bit game. I apologise in advance if I understand wrong.

 

There's a difference between what you can do with a 64-bit engine, and what you can do with a 64-bit engine on the current average hardware. For example, you can address up to 16 Exabytes of RAM with a 64-bit engine. That's about a billion times as much as you'll find in any modern home computer, and several hundred million times as much as you'd find in a modern super computer. 

SD have a set of 'minimum specs' that are probably determined by the marketing department as the average for their target market. They need to try and make the game so that performance on those minimum specs remains reasonable. These specs can rise over time - I doubt they'll be worrying too much about trying to make the game run on a 2010 Macbook Pro in 2020 - but mean that no, they cannot really make as much use of the engine as they might want to (right now). The game already struggles with very large maps on under 32GB of RAM; keeping 80 copies of that map with different vision saves would basically make the game unplayable on any modern system that might be called upon to play it.

... also just because you can do more, doesn't mean you should ignore optimization. Just because a new car has a more powerful engine doesn't mean you should ignore aerodynamics when designing the shape of the car.

Personally, I`d prefer to hear from the man who knows, the Dev, himself, not those who seem to think they must talk for him  like in some cult. Thankyou.

 

I think you'll find that there's more than one person who can provide an obvious answer to a stupid question.

I just stated this on another post I don't think the Ai, or human should have any advantages vs. each other. How come when I look on a mini map I see planets and stars. How come if I look around my zone I see stars in unexplored areas. If I can do this on normal settings then how come the Ai. can't do this, and if anyone wants it this way then they are cheating. Just in case anyone misunderstands me. Some people don't like a challenging game. Some do.