Does AI cheat on Suicidal?

from GalCiv2 Forums
I tried a suicidal game, large galaxy, 9 opponents. Long story short, I was outpaced and out colonized very quickly.

My race was +50 social, +30 research, +10 military, technologists.

I started by buying the first 3 colony ships and then using the left over money to buy my first factory. I set spending high on social early to build factories fast so I could just build the colony ships instead of buying them. I found some nice worlds I could specialize by sending colony ships in all directions. I ended up with about 5 good colonies but I saw that some of the AI's already had about 10 to 15. I knew I wasn't going to stand a chance when I got the translator and found I had no techs they needed and they were already at shields, lasers, etc., and building all kinds of capitals.

I'm thinking I need to reanalyze how I play. Am I really that bad or is the AI cheating on the hardest difficulty levels?

I realize I was getting major reductions in my production on this difficulty level. While I am getting reductions are the AI getting bonuses? I don't mind if so, because I did pick suicidal after all, I just want to know if my assumption is true or not. Then I can know if it's me or if it's rigged and set it to the unrigged level.

So I'm wondering what is really going on under the hood on the different difficulty levels? What is the highest difficultly you can select without the AI cheating while making good decisions and using good strategy? I think it would help to clarify in the game what you're getting under the hood for each difficulty setting.

I won my last game on a small galaxy using a similar race build +30 social, +50 research, creative, technologists. I set every race to Bright. I found on bright they make some bad decisions of social project placement, ignore speed techs, try to land transports without a strong fleet to clear the way, don't upgrade bases well, don't counter techs well. I ended up winning an influence victory though I was heading in a military win direction. It was very easy.







12,630 views 12 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
At Intelligent (Tough or Challenging difficulty I believe), the AI gets all of its algorithms but no special bonuses. At all levels above that it gets increasing economic bonuses that you do not get.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
economic bonuses = more money per turn for free
Offworld Trading Company
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
any thing above Intelligent they get bonuses. Intelligent is the highest difficulty before they cheat.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Ok thanks for clarifying that. I will try Intelligent.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
To set the enemies to use "Intelligent" you need to select a difficulty setting of "Tough."
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
Or just manually set each one to Intelligent using the per-race difficulty setting.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Let me get this straight. You played the game on the highest difficulty levels, it was really hard, and this is somehow confusing? Isnt this the way games are supposed to work?

In any event, as others have mentioned, at every intelligence setting past "intelligent", the AI is the same, but it gets bonuses that you do not (cheats).
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
No, it wasn't confusing, it just didn't specify exactly what bonuses they were getting and what if any penalties I was receiving. Just a lack of information is all.

I knew it was going to be hard, but I was hoping they wouldn't cheat to make it hard, just be very strategical and smart about how they play.

Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The A.I Plays its best game without cheating at the Tough dificulty, After that the next level up has its economy at 125% and the final level of difficulty is at 200% economy bonus.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
#8 by Citizen Yellow Jester
No, it wasn't confusing, it just didn't specify exactly what bonuses they were getting and what if any penalties I was receiving. Just a lack of information is all.

I knew it was going to be hard, but I was hoping they wouldn't cheat to make it hard, just be very strategical and smart about how they play.


For all intensive purposes the AI is not set up to intentionally cheat, ever. Yes you read that correctly.
There are many threads on the subject and lengthy discussions in posts involving the AI programmer directly so lets not go there again, please.

If you would like to read some of those threads just use the Search feature on the left side of the forum.

What you need to keep in mind when using search feature is that, at the present time, it currently only searches the Titles of Posts not the body (subject matter) of posts. So when you do a search for something try to think of what word or words would be in the Title of a post. Posters would do well to keep that in mind when creating threads; title your posts in line with its contents. Doing that will make it much easier for others to find them, especially for newcommers to the forum seeking information which has been covered many times previously. There is a lot of very useful information hidden in posts on the forum.

If you want to know what the difficulty levels mean or how the Individual settings correlate to the Global setting I posted the info in this thread; here's the link https://forums.galciv2.com/?ForumID=162&AID=104741

What you will probably notice is that I left off the last two Global Difficulty levels in that post: Obscene and Suicidal.

Currently even the maximum number of races set to the Individual AI level of Incredible will not trigger either of those 2 Global AI Difficulty settings. If you wish to play at those two levels you must manually set them at the Global Level.

If I remember correctly here is their definition:

.........Obscene (AI's economy is run at 250% of normal,All algorithms in place)

..........Suicidal (AI's economy is run at 300% of normal,All algorithms in place)

Keep in Mind that Brad, aka Frogboy / Draginol, is always tweaking the AI alogorithms, occasionally adding new ones.
ie In the last patch this one was added:

+ AI at "bright" or higher intelligence will make guesses (simulated intuition) as to whether a path is safe for a transport *experimental*

Hope you find the info useful,

Ubbax
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Ah, that makes sense now, they must have been buying all the upgrades and ships.

Thanks for that description in your link it's what I was looking for.