Does the ai cheat?

[orangat]

I'm just curious if the AI cheats by toggling_fow, giving itself money, not gaining bad traits for its generals, governers, diplomats etc?

[dkdnt]

i dont know if i can call it a cheat, but something is realy wrong with ai generals. i dont remeber if i ever saw i enemy general with as many bad traits as my best general. they usualy have 3-4 traits, and rarely one of them is bad.
considering money income for enemies is even worst subject.
for example, pontic cities. those guys just like armenians have so many units, that i dont know how they suport them. few times before destroing them, i put my spies in theirs two last cities. one had a minus of about 3000 denarii, and other about 1000 denarii, since they was under my pressure from begginigm there is no way that their cash could be more tahn few thousands denarii, and if u calculate they should be losing about 4000 denarii per turn. now i just wait few turns, so they lose all money, and ability to retraine forces. it just didnt hapened, they allways had new forces, and allways lose money. i mean with Ancyra and Nicomidea u can not support any army, especially not a few full stack armies(hillmans, heavy ontic cavalry and east infantry, even some mercs). but pontic just keep on pumping his army. i mean i had no problem defeating them (with catapfacts u heve nn problems anyway), but this shitng is realy anoing. might be that im mistaking, that their cash reserve was bigger but i just cannot figure out how is that possible?

[red comyn]

In my opinion yes it does. Got in a bit of a bad habit for a while after patching up too 1.6 in RTW of queing up rows of ships in the constuction window to "hide" my excess income when i didnt need it that turn. But being a forgetful kinda guy more often than not forget to take them off again. This left my appraoching the civil war with a huge navy, I know what thought me... and split up the ships to every port the other two roman factions had.

Stay with me here it gets to the point soon . So couple turns later, ships in place, and a couple BIG fleets cutting about to do the fighting, attacked rome and started civil war. So all in one mighty rush blocked every port the AI had, didnt seem to do anything to the amount of stacks they threw at me over the next 30 years the ports were blocked, so yeah they cheat.

If you need anyother proof try to match what it does in some of its cities. Huge city, population 30,000-40,000+, no gov', three units garisson. Not a chance you could do that.

[professorspatula]

Well it definitely seems to get a bonus when it comes to maintaining public order as the last poster said. There's also the theory the AI gets extra income every turn depending on the difficulty level. Playing on VH or H, I don't mind the AI getting bonuses - it needs them. As to the FOW thing, well the AI seems to know if your ships have units on them, and it has a strang knack of walking into hidden ambushes for no reason whatsoever. It probably gets some vision bonus to help it co-ordinate its forces.

[orangat]

hmm... I had a feeling the AI had some help with money. Maybe the campaign difficulty level has something to do with it as well. I might bump it down.

I makes the game less fun when all the battles and strategic work you did to stump its growth means jack.

[rory_20_uk]

Pleased to hear it wasn't just me that had this problem! I'll stop trying to starve the buggers out in future :)

[_Aetius_]

The AI definately gets huge cash bonuses, there is no way it could maintain the number of stacks it has if it didnt.

I agree the AI needs help, but it makes the game kind of boring the way some AI factions have about 25 full stacks and you have to constantly fight enormous battles every other turn to defeat them. Only to see the AI replacing them immediately, it means that there is no such thing as a decisive battle, merely 20 huge battles before you can break a superpower AI faction, even when the player is rich and powerful there is no way you can maintain the number of troops the AI does.

I have often claimed the AI cheats in battles, probably just me moaning, but i'm so tired of a unit of 80 legionaries being held up by a unit of 3 hoplites or something ridiculous like that. If the roles were reversed my 3 hoplies would of long fled but for some crazy reason they stand until the last man always at the most inconveniant times . No it is not "fighting to the death" all of the time.

[orangat]

So if the AI gets help in the form of more money then it seems to make little sense to blockade ports and despoil regions with rampaging armies. It makes the game less fun imo since its just another straight out monotonous campaign of attrition in numbers.

[irishron2004]

I have noticed in the navy end, I block their port but their navy sneaks out and I have to fight them in the open. The ai blocks my port, I have to fight my way out. To me, that is a cheat and an unfair advantage especially when the Romans are sending corvus quinquiremes, I and can still only build triremes.

[TinCow]

i dont remeber if i ever saw i enemy general with as many bad traits as my best general. they usualy have 3-4 traits, and rarely one of them is bad.

No AI generals with bad traits? I ran across this WRE guy in the Alemanni PBM. His cumulative morale bonus was -12.

[orangat]

Gratanius the lily livered - Do traits modify names of generals? It looks like the character is some sort of joke hardcoded into the game.

[_Aetius_]

So if the AI gets help in the form of more money then it seems to make little sense to blockade ports and despoil regions with rampaging armies. It makes the game less fun imo

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

since its just another straight out monotonous campaign of attrition in numbers

.

Thats exactly what I think, the player is forced to fight enormous numbers of battles in a war of attrition and frankly it is boring.

[Ludens]

Gratanius the lily livered - Do traits modify names of generals? It looks like the character is some sort of joke hardcoded into the game.

There is a number of traits that will alter character names, both for the A.I. and for the player. Examples are Decius the Mighty, Brennus the Attacker, Antigonus the Infantry man and Marcus the Lewd. They occur when the character reaches a certain level of a trait (and you can pretty much guess which traits are required for the above nicks).

At higher battle difficulty, the A.I. get a stat boost, while at higher campaign difficulty, they seem to get more cash. That doesn't mean it doesn't make sense to blockade them, just that is helps less. Also, they get a bonus in auto-calc (why this is adjusted by campaign difficulty and not battle difficulty is everyones guess). Lasty, the A.I.'s cities often have low loyalty without revolting and the A.I. gangs up on you. I suspect the A.I. also gets to see the entire map.

So, yes, the A.I. does cheat, but almost all games have some sort of A.I. assistance.

[dkdnt]

@TinCow
oh boy, that guy looks same as my generals. but this is first time i see something like that. -13 on morale???!! my generals dont have such morale penalties but 100% penalty on tax income is really common thing among them. they eat money, eat it, i dont find other way to do so.

is that from vanilla rtw? sorry i must ask, i say again i never saw ai general with more than two or three bad traits, and all of my generals are usefull for managing cities like tits on breastplate.

[Mooks]

I remember on this game I used to play "Empire Earth". On some maps you get a island, and it helps alot to build defensive towers all around your island. From the start the AI builds the towers around his island, while your civilation is struggling with gathering enough recources to build 10 (about 1/5 of the island)

Anyway...I think the AI difficulty should be based on AI skill, not bonuses. They should say....Manage theyre cities better, not receive a extra 100k every turn . And someone mentioned above that the AI runs into hidden ambushes for no reason, same here. I can have a ambush on the other side of the map, and the AI sends a calvary unit over there for no reason.

Something should be done with the AI revolts, I had Rome (On RTW) down to 20% , and it never revolted. If that wouldve been mine, it wouldve revolted on 50.

[Celt Centurion]

I used to think that the AI COULD NOT cheat. That is why I don't like to use the cheat codes to grab money or so forth. As for the toggle_fow, I simply see that as a matter of preference. I don't use it to destroy their navies. I am happy to just keep my ports from getting blockaded. By the time of even 300 B.C., the Med was pretty well mapped. "Unknown territory" just sounds silly.

Since I have put in the Barbarian Invasion, as many of you have noted, our own Generals are really bad, definitely not somebody I would approve of my daughter marrying. It amazes me how fast they go from only having 2-3 traits, all of them good, to being like Gratianus the Lily-Livered, or worse.

To have any income at all, I was having to "add_money 40000 as many as 5 times EVERY TURN! When I hit, "end turn" I was right back to -120,000!

Recently I started playing as The Greek Cities in RTW and as usual, have to defend Thermon literally every turn, alternating between Macedon and The Brutii faction. After over 50 turns, (and nearly that many battles for Thermon, and occasionally for Pergamum and Corinth) I have only about 6 territories with only about 10 units at most in most of them, and in Rhodes and Sparta have even less. Most of my cities do at least have a stone wall, but only one has an armorer and archery range. Except for Syracuse, I can only get basic hoplites trained in the Militia Barracks. Most of my cities do not have stables, and I have to rotate men and horses around to retrain. There simply is not enough money to retrain and build unless I take and exterminate a city. I have done that once, retaking Syracuse after a revolt. They deserved it.

Meanwhile, The AI is throwing full stack after full stack at me, and now they are starting to come with armor as well. They seem to have gotten worse since I put in the BI. I haven't cheated back yet, but I am tempted. Somehow, I have been able to hold back full stacks repeatedly, sometimes without being able to retrain them between battles.

Macedon on the other hand has no more territories than me, but they seem to be upgrading buildings and training multiple units every turn.

They have gotten me so ticked off, that when they start to flee, I do go chase them down, and kill as many as I can, hoping that every "last man" I kill in each unit is one unit that won't be retraining.

Still trying to be honorable,

Strength and Honor

Celt Centurion

[dkdnt]

well, they are thieves, and worse but i feel good when defeat them even as they cheat, i would probably felt better if i pacify them with less effort, but nevermind, as long i can control situation everything is ok, they can cheat as much they like, strenght of seleukids will come for them.

i started thread about populating small cities last day,related to that i noticed last night, that somehow when controled by enemies(ai), cities grow faster. for example, Petra, that city never, but never came near 15000 people while being controled by me. and interesting thing happened, i almost destroy egypt, leaving only petra and bostra to great pharaon. and i left them be, no peace or so, just let them maintain few full armies of nile spearman and pharaon guard bowman (i didnt know that it gets bloody cash bonuses). i waited to weaken them so i can take this last cities with less effort. but egypt buld epic stone wall in petra(yes one u can build when construct imperial palace), and i have no idea how he manage to do that. with some more troops i destroyed it, taken bostra(which btw had only 700 after i enslave them) and petra and couldnt keep any public order becouse it just had to much people, to much for me not too much for egypt.
same picture is with those cities in east and southeast europe(balisora, dacia etc) that grow like bambuses in hands of romans, but in my case they cannot breed neither one citizen.

[Ludens]

oh boy, that guy looks same as my generals. but this is first time i see something like that. -13 on morale???!! my generals dont have such morale penalties but 100% penalty on tax income is really common thing among them. they eat money, eat it, i dont find other way to do so.

Exactly how big is your treasury? There are three triggers that active when your treasury exceeds a certain amount (50.000, 100.000 and 150.000 denarii) and will give your governors a load of nasty vices.

I cannot answer your population question. I more often experience that the A.I. depopulates it's towns rather than let them grow. Also, population growth can be a curse as well as a blessing in this game.

[orangat]

I used to think that the AI COULD NOT cheat. That is why I don't like to use the cheat codes to grab money or so forth. As for the toggle_fow, I simply see that as a matter of preference. I don't use it to destroy their navies. I am happy to just keep my ports from getting blockaded. By the time of even 300 B.C., the Med was pretty well mapped. "Unknown territory" just sounds silly.
..........
To have any income at all, I was having to "add_money 40000 as many as 5 times EVERY TURN! When I hit, "end turn" I was right back to -120,000!
..............

Are you playing on hard/VH campaign settings? Maybe dropping it down to med might help.

And I though add_money works only once per campaign? Is it different on BI vs non-BI?

[Orda Khan]

Does the AI cheat? Of course it does

........Orda

[dkdnt]

Exactly how big is your treasury? There are three triggers that active when your treasury exceeds a certain amount (50.000, 100.000 and 150.000 denarii) and will give your governors a load of nasty vices.

I cannot answer your population question. I more often experience that the A.I. depopulates it's towns rather than let them grow. Also, population growth can be a curse as well as a blessing in this game.

my treasory is high enough to triger those bad traits, but there only four or five of them that comes with high treasury, and my generals have more than five bad traits. i usualy have above one million denarii after 50 or so years of game, so money isnt trouble, just u have to hate that kind of things.
and about population, i didnt spoted that earlier, though on h/h and vh/vh campaign with seleukids, egypt cities grows realy fast(not just one with natural benefts, such as alexandria and memphis, but mentioned petra and bostra). but this thing is not so annoying, it can be considered usefull, becouse when u capture thise large cities u can retrain your troops, and train good enough defensive troops.

[Ludens]

my treasory is high enough to triger those bad traits, but there only four or five of them that comes with high treasury, and my generals have more than five bad traits. i usualy have above one million denarii after 50 or so years of game, so money isnt trouble, just u have to hate that kind of things.

I think it is far more than three of four traits, and several "ordinary" bad traits have increased likelyhood of occuring as well. Remember that all three triggers are activated: that's a lot of bad traits. I usually spend all my money on construction projects or armies; I don't know where you get these amounts from.

[dkdnt]

money come and goes, on very hard it is hard to have such treasory but not imposible just need to manage resources carefully. so i dont have large armies, or too many of them, garison units are cheap but high xp becouse of weak rebels, and in most cities i have only stone walls, and i dont have last level barracks and stables in every city, it is good enough to have few cities of different types(for example one with stables, other with baracks) i build blacksmith only in cities with one kind of temple(with seleukids, in those with hephestus temple, cuz this allow +3 on armor and weapons). and lot of things like that.

i use money to suport weak factions(somewhere i described that i dont like to destroy factions) against some other strong faction while i dealing with others. and i try to play with barbarians few times, but it was boring(to me ofcourse) so i quit, and dont know how they can get money.

but fact is that i save money, i try to manage as few armies as i can to uphold empire and to conquer new regions. its not that hard, esecially if u played civ as long as i had. and while im doing this, ai gets free bonuses, to suport whole bunch of armies. better challenge would be if ai build its armies in better way, not like this, creating armies of only infantry, that as good as it is(for example, full stack of urban cohort) is not to match full strike of cataphrakts and companions, not to mention when they are engaded with silver shield pikemans or just phalanx pikemans. they are easy prey, even stronger units that are all alone cannot beat well combined army, that is alpha and omega per tactics.
all im saying is that if ai use similar tactics like combining and training high xp units it would be much better than stupid cash bonuses.

[Ludens]

My point was: I do have large armies and developed cities, as to prevent my family members from becoming corrupt. Money itself does not interest me (when I am not tottering on the verge of bankrupcy, that is ~:D ).

[econ21]

I suspect the A.I. also gets to see the entire map.

I am not sure it does - at least, I act as if it does not. I used to make a point of flogging my map to the AI for cash, but then I worried that it might be giving away the location of my cities. In a recent WRE BI game, I was careful never to sell my map. As a result, the hordes kept hovering around my (well defended) frontier cities and did not head for (essentially undefended) Rome or the juicy interior cities. I'm not sure if people who have sold their maps have the same experience.

BTW, Gratanius the lily livered is a starting WRE general, available to the human and the AI alike. Superficially he looks real good, with his 5 stars at all, unless you are the kind of person who looks at the fine print (or takes monikers seriously!).

[Celt Centurion]

Are you playing on hard/VH campaign settings? Maybe dropping it down to med might help.

And I though add_money works only once per campaign? Is it different on BI vs non-BI?

I have it on medium.

As for the money, when I installed BI, the add_money works almost unlimited, but I really prefer to not "cheat."

I never would make it as a crook.

What I am thinking about doing, is instead of constantly adding money, instead, when I win a battle, look at the enemy casualties, and take; say 3 denarius for each one killed. Enemies killed- 2816 means 2816 X 3 = 8448 denarius recovered off of enemy corpses after the battle.

Think about it, on average, surely each of those stinkers had a coin or two or three in his pocket, and the fellow leading them probably had a strongbox full. I still think that there should be some provision made to get money "off of the dead bodies of the enemy" after a battle once we win it.

As it is, some turns there is not even enough after "end turn" to pay for the damage to a city after the battle, and to replace casualties.

As I said, I have to fight for Thermon nearly every turn, and since taking Corinth, have to fight for that one nearly every turn as well.

Strength and Honor.

Celt Centurion

[fallen851]

Does it really matter if the AI cheats?

If the AI cheats it certainly doesn't help it win...

Thus we learn what we already should have known, that the RTW AI is extremely bad, so bad that it doesn't even know how to cheat effectively...

[gardibolt]

My experience with the map matches Simon Appleton's. When I played as the Gauls, factions generally didn't attack me until they got my map information. Then, they'd make a beeline for my least-defended cities. I pretty much stopped selling map info and these problems ceased. So now I sell it only to folks far away and unlikely to be a threat. So, playing as the Gauls, sell to Armenia? Parthia? Sure. Germania? Hm, not so much.

[orangat]

You can swap maps for factions close by which aren't going to be a threat. Greeks and Macedons for example have to march over Brutii if you are playing Julii. And I swapped maps with Carthage since I was going to smash them anyway.

[professorspatula]

It's true about the map information making Ai factions more likely to attack your weaker defended regions. That's why as a Roman faction I sell the map to the enemies of the other Roman factions in the hope they spot a weakness with them and take advantage of it. Doesn't help much mind.