AIs Get Free Trade Goods on Incredible Difficulty?

from Stardock Forums
I started a new game on incredible difficulty today, and less than two years into it I got a message that the Yor have built themselves Aphrodisiacs. This was a shock to me since I didn't expect them to rush for medical technology (they usually don't). I decided to load the game one turn back to check what happened. To my surprise, when I entered into negotiations with the Yor, they did not even possess Basic Environment Control (I could trade it to them) and their treasury was at -300 BC. Now, it isn't inconceivable that a lucky string of events in a single turn would result in them being able to purchase Aphrodisiacs outright, but I decided it was such a remote possibility that I should come here and see if anyone has had similar experiences first. Any opinions?
418 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
Alright, this is getting real spooky. The Yor first produced Aphrodisiacs on December 2179, but this is only repeatable if I load a game saved on that same turn. If I load a game before that and simply play through December 2179 turn, nothing happens. I have no clue what the heck is going on behind the scenes...
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
huh.. weird. That is pretty darn fast, to. I usually can build 4 trade goods within 3 years, and usually, it is a very close race for aphrodesiacs (someone sometimes finishes 1 to 2 months before I can.. which sucks. Especially since the bug is still there that lets THEM build something even if you have it already). I don't think I've ever seen them built quite that quickly.

fleabitfox
Siege of Centauri
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
Correct me if I am wrong, but if an AI player gets a trade good from trading another AI player doesn't the game alert you with a popup?

I see to remember several times other races getting trade goods I KNOW someone else had, I assumed it was from trading.
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
Witnessed something similar on Incredible yesterday, the Drengin got Diplo Translators extremely early but had only military tech... no save game though :(
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
i strongly believe that the AI never cheats and that any weird occurences like you described can be explained through tech trading and leasing.

however, the thing that concerns me about this is the whole "AI does weird things on reload" effect. it seems that when you reload, a whole bunch of variables are not initialized properly ( influence being the obvious one ), leading to odd AI behaviour.

cheers

h
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
I don't think it's a cheat as much as it's a bug. You're right about all the problems associated with loading save games though. I hear the infinite colony ship range bug is related to that as well, and I absolutely HATE that bug. It's the number one reason I reload games at the cost of 20 turns of progress because I have to compensate for the AI settling on planets way out of their range >:(