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How much does AI cheat?

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If you had a "smart" AI for hard and a "dumb" AI for easy difficulty, then you'd have to test and maintain two different AI modes. It's much more cost efficient to have an AI that works the same over all difficulties, and then penalize or buff it.

F.e. dumb AI never upgrades colony capitals to maximum, smart AI does. How does that affect gameplay and the AI's later abilities / possibilities? That's not really obvious. So you don't want AI to behave differently.
 
Zarine said:
In normal, I'm always way faster than the AI. I usualy reach 3 planets when they only get their second one.
In very hard, I'm a bit behind regarding colonisation... but tech and fleet size I'm kilometers away !
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And thats exactly the problem. The weights What the AI should priorize aren't well balanced for different human playstyles.
Espacially against human players which doing an all out expansion tactic AI will suck.
With difficulty Boni it will suck the same but get enough boosts to compete with a special playstyle while it get overpowered in every other aspect of the game. ~~
AI maybe expand to slow for this Type of player but it would make sense to play this way If it facing a warmonger human Who try to overwhelm an enemy at the early game.
So Best would be If AI uses a hidden Tool that allows to Inspect the Player actions and adapt this way to the Player style.
 
Zelius said:
Read the fine print carefully.

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I fear you confuse Advanced AI Starts with Difficulty based AI bonuses
 
Zarine said:
In normal, I'm always way faster than the AI. I usualy reach 3 planets when they only get their second one.
In very hard, I'm a bit behind regarding colonisation... but tech and fleet size I'm kilometers away !
Click to expand...

I found that. My first game I played on Normal, but I found that I expanded way faster than the AI in practically every single way. And I noticed that the AI don't really do much engagement at all with anyone else by the mid-game and they tend to just turtle themselves. I found it boring so I play on Hard difficult now every game, but now the AI are SO much more advanced in Tech than I am even relatively early and I can never catch up.
 
I play on insane and the only thing I have to Do is building ambassys and expanding my Empire fast and wide enough to catch up to the point my fleet can handle one other empire.
Until this point nobody attacking me except for fanatic spirituel Xenophob races with the -1000 modificator in diplomacy (which means game is over instantly) and After this point nobody will attack me cause of my fleetstrength. Funny game -.-

I started to mod some triggers (first years peacefull AI, later more and more aggressiv AI), so I can play games with insane AI and all races with startbonus without getting stomped in the first 50 years but get some good fights in the mid and lategame instead of playing sim city cause nobody wanna attack me anymore.
 
I think I forgot to mention that I reduced the advanced AI to 0, so in theory all civilizations had the same starting resources as me.


Zarine said:
In normal, I'm always way faster than the AI. I usualy reach 3 planets when they only get their second one.
In very hard, I'm a bit behind regarding colonisation... but tech and fleet size I'm kilometers away !
Click to expand...

That happens to me aswell, I am snatching all planets, left and right, and the AI is still settling with 1 or 2 planets. That's the main reason why I was hoping for a smarter AI on hard difficulty. I wish they will improve it eventually, maybe when we see sectors doing things right it will be the day the AI empires can be challenging without bonuses.
 
OK I wanted to check this theory out. Like you I always played on hard and it seemed everytime I had neighbors they were superior and miles ahead technologically and militarily.
So I started a hard game with NO advanced AI starts. This leveled the field. Now I have two neighbors both equivalent to me, although I will admit they are more 'efficient' in their empire spreading, but then again why would we be surprised if an AI is 'efficient'.
My Advice, give a hard game a start without advanced AI starts, see how you fare. It leveled the playing field for me.
 
DukeDrunken said:
OK I wanted to check this theory out. Like you I always played on hard and it seemed everytime I had neighbors they were superior and miles ahead technologically and militarily.
So I started a hard game with NO advanced AI starts. This leveled the field. Now I have two neighbors both equivalent to me, although I will admit they are more 'efficient' in their empire spreading, but then again why would we be surprised if an AI is 'efficient'.
My Advice, give a hard game a start without advanced AI starts, see how you fare. It leveled the playing field for me.
Click to expand...

I tried that, I only tried Advanced Starts once and didn't like the fact I spawned next to a huge Xenophobe with 5 systems and a huge fleet so I turned it off. I still struggle to keep up with the AI in regards to fleet size and tech.
 
The AI Empire has a superior fleet to me, and it still loses in a war 1 on 1, while having 50/50/50 mineral/energy/research bonus on Hard.

It just takes more human cunning to outsmart the AI, while using diplomacy to hold off enemies and isolate targets.
 
AI also cheats on Normal.

What it cheats?.
first it knows your fleet location and directions, something they can't possible know if Played by Human.
second i got this feeling it have unlimited resources when i destroy their infrastructure it just pop out new stations?.
 
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Zarine said:
In normal, I'm always way faster than the AI. I usualy reach 3 planets when they only get their second one.
In very hard, I'm a bit behind regarding colonisation... but tech and fleet size I'm kilometers away !
Click to expand...

I can't play normal out pacing the AI in like 40 years. And insane is a bit much so far.... But I've found a nice middle ground in hard, where I can keep up but not get ahead. That's 150 years in
 
Actually as an update on my previous post,
without the advanced start I already enslaved some primitive and won a war against one of my neighbors, never was successful before this. So no more advanced pops for me.
 
Wouter445 said:
AI also cheats on Normal.

What it cheats?.
first it knows your fleet location and directions, something they can't possible know if Played by Human.
second i got this feeling it have unlimited resources when i destroy their infrastructure it just pop out new stations?.
Click to expand...

No. AI can only spend the resources it takes in, same as you. They save stockpiles for war though.
 
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Wouter445 said:
AI also cheats on Normal.

What it cheats?.
first it knows your fleet location and directions, something they can't possible know if Played by Human.
second i got this feeling it have unlimited resources when i destroy their infrastructure it just pop out new stations?.
Click to expand...

It really bugs me when I move my military fleet into a system to clear it from some aggressive inhabitants like voidclouds, and right when I engage the last denizen (don't even give me the curtesy to wait for the battle to be over) their science ships are swooping in, scanning the system; system that they left there, unexplored, for decades because they couldn't be arsed to move their fleet in.
This however seems more like a lesser-evil kind of problem, while I know that it is not right, it doesn't mess with my enjoyment, as much as seeing my neighbour stuck unable to grow or growing way too fast.
 
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