Is AI cheating ?

[Whismerhill]

well,
one of the best cheating AI I ever seen is in 'Empire Earth'
able to rebuild itself two times stronger totally while you're whiping him out in his main base
and if you put yourself spectator you could see how he generates units out of no ressource ...

but back on Dom2 : someone else opinion ? illwinter ?

[Wendigo]

I am pretty sure the Dom AI doesn't cheat in the Shogun way, it definitely doesn't know _where_ you are moving.

You can easily test this: leave a lightly defended/undefended province next to an AI enemy force & move in from behind your main army...you will likely catch an attacking force.

The AI move is simlutaneous to yours, it doesn't have priviledged info on what orders you have given your boys.

What I believe it does know is where you are, and thus act acordingly if it sees a big force.

[-Storm-]

Originally posted by Whismerhill:
Is AI cheating ?
knowing things AI shouldn't and acting as such?

perhaps I'm not lucky, but well .... AI seems to know where I will be the weakest at the next turn and move consequently

as I suppected this
I tried to 'save' the game (backup of the directory of the game
and replay with different configurations
and well ... if there's a weak point he'll always take it ....

or perhaps I'm not lucky ...

if that's really the case I would like to know to what extent the AI is cheating on each difficulty level

The AI doesn't cheat.

[NTJedi]

Originally posted by Wendigo:
I am pretty sure the Dom AI doesn't cheat in the Shogun way, it definitely doesn't know _where_ you are moving.

.....

What I believe it does know is where you are, and thus act acordingly if it sees a big force.

Wendigo is right... it does know where all your units are.
Yes I've seen this with sending powerful assassins or assassins with sneaking troops deep in enemy territory. Simply take a powerful assassin with 7 sneaking troops deep in enemy territory. Then find a territory which is not guarded. Now move your assassin onto that territory. You can then wait as long as you want.... but you will NEVER see that territory unguarded while your 'hidden troops' are their.
SO... in this way the AI opponent does cheat.

[ November 21, 2003, 08:42: Message edited by: NTJedi ]

[Rainbow]

From my experience, the AI does not cheat. I have not caught it cheating yet playing on the difficult AI setting.

I find that the AI is somewhat predictable, and moderately sensible in the strategic play. It will not enter a province with a defending army that _appears_ to be superior to the invading army. It will almost always attack undefended provinces, making no assumptions about where the enemy armies move on the same turn (ie., it will not try to guess where your huge army in the neighbouring province will move, if anywhere, so you can usually catch the AI by shifting your army from the province it is in (seemingly heavily defended but actually undefended because the army moves out on the same turn attackers move in) to the seemingly undefended territory (which is actually heavily defended _if_ you move your army here, where it will arrive before the invading army).

As someone else wisely posted in another thread about how to defend borders: don't. Go and lay siege to his fortifications. He will be denied ressources to recruit more troops, and he will try to break the siege, regardless of his odds. Unless you are Ermor, this will probably require good supplies, so nature mages and nature magic items will help greatly. Also keep in mind that his dominion will probably be strong where he has fortifications,.. ah well, I digress.

Regarding using stealthed troops. I don't have sufficient experience with this to really offer some good comments, but examing the actual stealth ability of the units in question. I think there is a big difference between using units with stealth (+0) and stealth (+30). As long as you don't get caught, you shouldn't have to worry about armies that show up. Using some individual scout characters or scrying magic to scout ahead of a stealthy army should work well.

/Rainbow

[NTJedi]

Rainbow.... do more testing with sending powerful assassins or assassins with sneaking troops deep in enemy territory. The AI won't find and attack you BUT it will ALWAYS have troops to match whatever territory you are sitting on.

check out my previous post.

[Teraswaerto]

If the AI sees everything, why does it cast Eyes of God so often? Just for appearances sake?