Anyone else noticed the AI cheats?

[Tac]

In STW & the Mongol expansion:

-AI can build mine complexes WITHOUT building fortresses. They just build the mine, then the complex right on top of it.

Things ive noticed that LOOK like cheats, but havent confirmed it:

-Start game in 1530, first turn build a tea house (2 turns) and then a shinobi (1 turn).

Send shinobi to enemy starting province. (1 more turn.. if you're takeda/hojo/uesugi who start right by each other).

And look. In those 4 turns the AI had built 3 structures.. each one that would take ME up to 4 seasons to build. When my shinobi gets there, I see their province with 25% improvement, a palace and a famous spear dojo. Whoa. When I start with that clan (hojo) I can barely build the large castle in that time. What gives?

-On a map where I was playing as Uesugi, I owned all regions from Dewa down to Ise-Owari-Mino-echizen.

I had been playing for a while and the oda, takeda and imagawa and hojo where gone off the map. Mori and Shimazu had been duking it for all the time I was fighting with the other clans. I had EACH and EVERY one of my provinces up to 100% farming improvement, all mines were up to MINE COMPLEX and my armies were composed of no-dachi, monks, cavalry and a LOT of archers with supporting yari sams.

My profits each harvest were 20,000 koku. Yes, read: PROFITS.

Then Shimazu killed off mori and in less than 10 turns had smacked the rebels all the way from Awaji to Yamashiro.. fighting a lot of battles while I armed and prepared myself for the final match.

And he came, TWELVE armies filled to the brim with cavalry unit, no-dachis and a helluva amount of Kensai's along with his own boatload of archers and yari sams.

I had 8 full armies of my own and I had no kensai.

I had a lot of money on me, and so instead of me wasting money and time I didnt have to build armies, I went in and BRIBED TEN of his armies from under him. TEN. At around 18,000 each.. I got myself a LOT of naginata cav, no-dachis, heavy cavs and about 6 kensai's.

I pushed foward with his own armies and mine combined, got as far as Awaji.. and then out of NOWHERE he started shipping in via port army after army after army of no-dachi, MORE kensai and more cavalry. I had a lot of emissaries on his lands, they were NOT developed to farmland (most just had the 20%+), and only 5 of his provinces had enough buildings to train cavalry..only 1 of them could train kensai.

And yet, in the next 40 turns, he OVERWHELMED my armies with who knows where the f*ck he was building or how the heck he was paying for armies. And I kept bribing EVERY army that I could find filled to the brim.. even then the AI kept throwing stuff at me.

So what gives? the AI owned the POOREST provinces in the map and barely had them developed while I had the RICHEST lands and fully developed.. I was not building armies because I was bribing his out from below his nose.. armies that wouldve taken my 12 troop-producing provinces nearly 16 turns to churn out. Money-wise there was NO way the AI could have more money than me. Time-wise its IMPOSSIBLE to build so many highly offensive troop types (most of his armies were cavalry WITH no-dachi and kensai) in such a rushed manner.

Note: Even the yari ashigaru took 2 turns to make, I was playing with each unit being 100 men.

So how the fek is the AI doing this? Is my bribing somehow "spawning" an exact duplicate of that army in his barracks deep behind his lines or what?

[Grim]

Interesting... when bribing, does the AI calculate that the money you give goes to the clan's coffer and not the taisho that you bribed?
That could explain the money problem but, like you stated, not the time problem.

About the mine complex: I think there was a similar "problem" in old shoggy.

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(I will answer you with the blast of my canons)
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[Toda Nebuchadnezzar]

Hey there,
If you are playing at expert level then the AI cheats. It is supposed to be more of a test for you. They cheat in custom battles on expert level. Sometimes spending more money than they have. This is just a way to see if you can beat them at the toughest of levels.

On easy,normal they dont cheat. On hard i think only a little bit but not drastically like what happened to you.

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Grand Master of
The Knights Templar
"non nobis Domine non nobis sed Nomine tuo da gloriam"

[FasT]

LOL most computers cheat on xpert level http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif

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[Toda Nebuchadnezzar]

Which is not very fair or helpful is it.

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Grand Master of
The Knights Templar
"non nobis Domine non nobis sed Nomine tuo da gloriam"

[Gothmog]

Of course AI cheats on expert. And if you want a "fair" fight, play on normal or easy, or simply quit the game.

But again, human got BRAIN while AI does not. Thus AI need that much of "advantage" to offer a challenging game to human player. I would be dying to play one of your saved game for the thrill of it.

Here are some random thoughts:

1) why don't you build your own kensai since you have, at least waited for 40 turns? That's enough to turn each and every province of yours into a decent troop training facility.

2) No-dachi and cavalry are minced meat if you have guns, or any defensive army.

3) I don't think the AI cheated when it port-invaded you. But then again, port-invasion is so easy to prevent, as long as you have enough shinobi to guard enemy shinobi/ninja, and make sure that every priest/embassay that shows up in that province is assassinated.

4) Even if you don't want to produce your own troop, and much prefer the bribe approach, you can still upgrade those you just bought, giving them higher honor, better weapon/armor/honor. And it only takes ONE turn to refill and upgrade a unit.

whatever cheat he uses...he sucks totally...at any level...

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[Tac]

Er.. I wasnt port-invaded. He was shipping them via his own ports 3 provinces behind his lines. I purposely burn all my own ports except for TWO (one behind the lines and close to my troop production and one in the front.. and both always full of troops) when it comes down to 2 clans duking it out.

"why don't you build your own kensai since you have, at least waited for 40 turns? That's enough to turn each and every province of yours into a decent troop training facility"

Kensai are useless if the enemy has cavalry. And his armies were almost all cavalry with a lot of no-dachi and archers.

Think about it for a second... If im bribing 4 out of 6 of his armies (and they are FULL 100 men 16-unit armies composed of cavalry, no-dachi and archers) that he shipped foward.. HOW did he have the time to build the HORDE that followed? In less than 40 turns?

Each unit building time in my settings is 2 turns. That would be 20 units per province with troop capacity.. and he had only 7 provinces that built troops (5 could build cav, 1 could build kensai, the last one just had a sword dojo).

7X20 = 140

140 / 16 = 8

Only 8 full 16-unit armies could be built in that time. And im not counting the kensai he seemed to be mass-producing and sending to the front.

And yet every 2 or so turns he was shipping over more than 8 full armies to his frontline ports.. and me bribing them from under him. Now think what kind of numbers and high-quality units that AI needed to overwhelm my frontline provinces that EACH had 6 full armies and high honour generals leading them?

[Katasaki Hirojima]

Well its obvious you need to take a couple of your armys and a whole lot of Shinobi. Put allll the shinobi you can make into your port an ship'em over to all of Shimzus ports. Then invade with as much military as you can spare.

Cripple his port system and he'll roll over.

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[Toda Nebuchadnezzar]

That is the obvious idea that I finally came up with. If you take out its ports it has to move his men over land. Therefore you can over-run his front-line and push on towards his other provinces.


OR you can sit around producing the men you want, not just buying his and build an even bigger horde. (he seemed as you said to be building only ND cav and archers besides the Kensai) ND are not really defensive as they have no armour bonuses and so stand little chance of holding a fight for long when being attacked. Therefore attack him you may have less men at the time but you can keep buying his therefore you can afford to waste troops for a period of time. Kensai as you say can be easily despatched archers can be over run by the cav also, and the ND will never stand up to a charge of YS and WM.

Or as others have stated just fight on easy or normal or hard to get a slightly better fight.

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Grand Master of
The Knights Templar
"non nobis Domine non nobis sed Nomine tuo da gloriam"

[evilc]

if expert level didnt cheat and make the game a challenge, the better players would be playing online only, i lot are. If you cant handle the cheating just play on hard.

[Tac]

It was on NORMAL level.

Burning his ports wouldve been no use anyway, he wouldve still mass produced all that and I wouldve been in a worse situation trying to keep recently taken provinces from rebelling (yeh, I had about 3 shinobi in each frontline province, but he also had his shinobi).

[Flame of Udun]

lol! Send a small army into one of his ports (small but very very good!) once you fight off the invaders (there shouldnt be any) burn everything BUT the port (you need a way to get back home, no?) and just move on to other provinces burn everything there. If you take out his dojos he wont build anything (except if he cheats but AI isnt that smart http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif ) this hit to the back of his land will force him to take off troops from the front lines and u can then advance. Do this enough and youll take his lands

[Toda Nebuchadnezzar]

a nice idea Flame may try that in one of my stalemate games.

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Grand Master of
The Knights Templar
"non nobis Domine non nobis sed Nomine tuo da gloriam"
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[ranemaka]

How do you burn stuff?

[Flame of Udun]

You can only burn when u occupy a province just click on the building pamphlet (sp?) then click on a building a small 'burning house' should appear on the pamphlet menu just click on this...

[Gothmog]

Quote Originally posted by ranemaka:
How do you burn stuff?[/QUOTE]
1)click on the province from the map
2)select the building(s)
3)on the bottom left a torch/flame icon will appear
4)click on the icon, a confirming message appears, asking if you are sure to set the fire
5)You know what to do next, you also get half of the construction koku in return

[Morayin]

Yah but the computer is so predictable that even on Expert, its easely beaten.

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[Moriboy]

Huh, AI port invasion?! Has anyone ever been invaded by the AI via port? I've had the AI send troops to one of (my) port invasions, but I've never had a preemptive port strike. Do such things happen?

Oh and to the fellows who always beat the AI on expert: Try playing the rebels on Barocca's JDD(SE)campaign! I'm used to whuppin' the AI no matter what, but a rebel's ass is the proverbial grass in JDD. I don't care how good you are, unless you're phenomenal and the AI's exceedingly stupid, those legendary everything high honor AI troops are going to give you a sound whipping! Defending Yamashiro I'd arrow-shot a full strength (60) NoDachi unit to about 37, then sent two honor 2 (no upgrade) yari units, one head on and the other into the flank, (and) a 97 strength Ashi unit into their rear. Those red breeches boys took down all but a tiny handfull of my guys before dying, and that was just one unit!! I played the scenario about 7 times and lost all but 2 of the engagements. The battles I won, were won with horrific losses, about 45%. Did I mention that I outnumbered the enemy (who came with a balanced army, as did I) by about 30% as well? Try the rebels in JDD (SE), you'll love it!

[Jaguara]

Quote Originally posted by Moriboy:
Huh, AI port invasion?! Has anyone ever been invaded by the AI via port? I've had the AI send troops to one of (my) port invasions, but I've never had a preemptive port strike. Do such things happen?
[/QUOTE]

Read some of his later posts. It was not an AI port invasion, but the AI sending troops VIA port to some of the AI's own provinces held behind the front lines.

[Gothmog]

Yeah, I heard that Barocca's JDD(SE) is the best gift that masochistics like us can get.

Will try it when I got more time.

[james]

nice dicovery tac

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