Cheating AI

[DoPo]

-snip-

Cool, I'm leaning toward Civilisations 4, in that case. Perhaps I'll pick up Civ 5 in the future with some DLC/expansions on top.

Thanks, for that, I appreciate the help.

 

[Baldr]

AI is just a set of instructions, if the designer know the game well enough, he/she can program a perfect AI. To get a real good AI is to design it like a player, the more akin to a human player, the better the AI. AI needs to make mistakes. Usually it is in line with difficulty settings, the less difficulty, the more mistakes an AI is going to make. Sometimes though AI is part of the game design. Guard walking in particular routes is prime example. Player studying the route is part of the game puzzle solving experience.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Well I felt in the game Time Splitter 2, the ai character Jared Slim had killed me far more than any of other characters and no I'm not bad in the game multiplayer mode.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

The rubberbanding in Mario Kart immediately comes to mind. Fucking cheating bastards.

definitely, especially when some fat fuck flies by you in the shittiest kart WHILE you have golden mushroom being spammed...i mean WTF?!?!?

I hate that game sometimes dearly.

Also I would add any RTS game where they magically have unlimited resources and can build faster than light. I tried playing empire earth on god mode and i had a cheat revealing the whole map, the AI, from scratch starting on caveman era, had a full city with science labs and libraries within 2 minutes, while I hadn't even built a barracks yet..

THE FUCK?


also,

Probably was. Like you said, cheating AI seems to be a part of kart racers

It's not just kart racers. Many racers seem to have cheating AI. It's virtually impossible to separate yourself from the pack.

Rubberbanding, and massive precision. Most of the AI drive flawlessly, even taking the exact same racing lines >_<

The best racing games are the ones that have the aI making mistakes too

OT: The AI in mortal kombat 3 on DS. Not sure about the otiginal but on this one the opponants actively read the buttons you pressed, and then countered them. Not fun >_<

Or some the sims in perfect dark, the ones that know exactly where you spawn and actively get there a second later >_<

sweet jesus..i remember playing against motaro, that BASTARD. fucking dickhead of cheapness with how much damage he does and his range AND he can teleport

case and point:


^this guy is pretty good at it too

 

[MasterOfHisOwnDomain]

Pretty much every fighting game: the AI knows every single move and then can respond in a fraction of a second to whatever move you throw at it. A real clear example of cheating bastard AI though are the final opponents of Arcade mode -- I'm thinking Alpha 159 in Dead or Alive 4, for instance; her moveset consists of: combos that juggle you for 12 hits, teleportation and a grapple move that takes off 50% of your health.

 

[daveman247]

snip

Yeah it didnt help i was still learning the game, and was just getting mercilessly beaten down XD

I never made it passed motaro ;_;

Even the bosses in the latest mortal kombat game are cheap as hell, spamming unblockable moves and stuff. Still an improvement though.

 

[Bostur]

Speaking of Civilization, Civ5 is free to play on Steam this upcoming weekend and 75% off to buy if you want it thereafter. It's an imperfect game, but still quite compelling, and with the mods and the upcoming expansion pack has a lot of potential to improve by leaps and bounds.

Let's imagine that there is somebody who has no experience with the Civilisation series aside from briefly playing Civ 1 (or maybe 2) where they managed to research the alphabet right before they were roflstomped over. Let's assume that this theoretical somebody is, however, interested in getting into the series. For the sake of it being easier to communicate, let's call our hypothetical, fictional somebody "DoPo", because that's the first name that comes to mind for some reason. So, would you recommend this person getting Civ 5 (especially since it's 75% off) or would DoPo better go for Civ 4 or maybe both?

From someone who doesn't like Civilization V much, I wold still recommend Civilization V. It's a little easier to get into, it looks better, and there are less rules to memorize. Civ IV is more suitable for enthusiasts. The AI in Civ IV can feel brutal at times, it plays a little like humans would play in multiplayer which can result in some very short aggressive games. If you like Civ V and decide you want more, I can wholeheartedly recommend Civ IV.

---

Back on topic. I usually distinguish between the AI cheating and the AI getting an advantage because it sucks. And lets face it almost all AI's suck at playing the game. Cheating is if the rules suddenly change because the AI is losing, thats a pretty rare thing to see. But it happens sometimes, racing games are probably the main offenders.

I think the best way to give an AI an advantage, is to let the player know what advantages the AI gets and stick to it. Then it just feels like playing with a certain set of house rules.

In Starcraft I would guess that the AI can be so effecient especially at the macro game, that it is deliberately made to play rubbish on lower difficulties. I see it more as a training tool for multiplayer. The AI seems to send different types of waves against the player and act as randomly as possible. I don't think its cheating, but I don't know for sure.

 

[dimensional]

Yup last bosses in fighting games are terrible cheats sometimes you get a fun one but thats a rare occasion unfortunately. As mentioned the rubber banding on racing games is obviously a load of crap ,RTS games also like to cheat as well. In fact I would say that on harder settings any game vs the comp odds are the AI will cheat simply because it is the only way it can compete against someone who has learnt the game well.

The worst is when the AI cheats right in front of you blatantly changing an established rule simply to do you over i.e random hyper armour/invincibilty for bosses of fighting games comes to mind you think their open so counter attack but oh ho ho ho no they are invincible now and moreover you are now open be prepared to feel the pain of the ridiculously powerful and annoyingly long combo the boss will punish you with (this isnt always the case but it feels like it happens enough to be annoying).

 

[Zenn3k]

Its lazy development that leads to this.

One of the worst examples I know of is Civ 5. The computer gets insane bonuses starting from level 5 difficulty.

At the least, the game makes no secret of this, but in a game where the CPU gets benefits at all times...to just pile on more and more as a way to increase difficulty just seems lazy.

The CPU should have to play by the same rules, just improve its decision making instead.

 

[Vuliev]

The intermediate bots in LoL are given full items for their build at specific times (if they're behind.) They also have a massively increased gold trickle, sporadic ability to see you when you're in brush, perfect map awareness, and superhuman reaction time.

And even with all that, they're still hilariously easy to stomp. :V

 

[Skillswords]

Civilization revolution on the console is flat out ridiculous on its highest difficulty setting.

i cant count the amount of times i would have a few squares out of my boundaries with no way in without my navy seeing, then having an aztec or roman stack of unfair size and strength appear out the thin air.

and yes, any RTS at high difficulty bots are just cheating... don't get me started on T59 zergling rush from kane's wrath...the disintegraters...

 

[Canadamus Prime]

One of the funniest examples I can think of is when I was playing Red Alert 2: Yuri's Revenge. I was doing a simple skirmish against the AI and had a tight base set up with the AI on the other side of the map. Then all of a sudden enemy Prism Towers [http://cnc.wikia.com/wiki/Prism_Tower_%28Red_Alert_2%29] started popping up right outside my base. Now because I had such awesome defenses set up they didn't last more then 3 seconds before being blown to bits, but anyone who's played Red Alert 2 knows that you're not supposed to be able to do that. ...unless you're the AI apparently. So yeah naturally my reaction was "WTF??"

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Its lazy development that leads to this.

One of the worst examples I know of is Civ 5. The computer gets insane bonuses starting from level 5 difficulty.

At the least, the game makes no secret of this, but in a game where the CPU gets benefits at all times...to just pile on more and more as a way to increase difficulty just seems lazy.

The CPU should have to play by the same rules, just improve its decision making instead.

The AI actually gets insane bonuses at every difficulty level. It almost completely ignores happiness, for example, leading to infinite city spam. But cheating AI is such a long standing Civ tradition it's almost a game within the game figuring out the ways in which the AI is boning you.

 

[GundamSentinel]

Playing Shogun 2 Total War and having an enemy 3-star general with a full stack of units come at me after 5 turns. I call bullshit.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Playing Shogun 2 Total War and having an enemy 3-star general with a full stack of units come at me after 5 turns. I call bullshit.

I haven't spent much time with Shogun but that's not necessarily bullshit. Total War games do not start with tabula rasa playing fields ala Civ or other strategy games. For example, if you play Medieval 2 as, say, Venice, and immediately pick a fight with the Holy Roman Empire, you're going to get rolled.

 

[Silverback91]

Dissidia AI was pretty BS. I have not met a human that can play at the level of a max level AI Jecht.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Or they could buy Civilization 4 and its expansions and have an infinitely better game for much cheaper.

I already covered the debate between Civ 4 and Civ 5 with DoPo at another point in the thread. As for "infinitely better"...well, I'm not going to get into it with a Civ 4 fanatic, but they each have their pros and cons.

 

[TerribleAssassin]

WWE 12.

I have lost too many a game because of the stupid kick out meter on online.

 

[Zenn3k]

Its lazy development that leads to this.

One of the worst examples I know of is Civ 5. The computer gets insane bonuses starting from level 5 difficulty.

At the least, the game makes no secret of this, but in a game where the CPU gets benefits at all times...to just pile on more and more as a way to increase difficulty just seems lazy.

The CPU should have to play by the same rules, just improve its decision making instead.

The AI actually gets insane bonuses at every difficulty level. It almost completely ignores happiness, for example, leading to infinite city spam. But cheating AI is such a long standing Civ tradition it's almost a game within the game figuring out the ways in which the AI is boning you.

Indeed, the CPU city spam is a large part of the reason why I don't really play Civ 5 anymore.

I love the game, its probably my favorite TBS game out there, but I want a mode where the cpu doesn't get any advantages, just plays the game smarter.

 

[GundamSentinel]

Playing Shogun 2 Total War and having an enemy 3-star general with a full stack of units come at me after 5 turns. I call bullshit.

I haven't spent much time with Shogun but that's not necessarily bullshit. Total War games do not start with tabula rasa playing fields ala Civ or other strategy games. For example, if you play Medieval 2 as, say, Venice, and immediately pick a fight with the Holy Roman Empire, you're going to get rolled.

That holds true for previous games, but in Shogun 2 every faction (with only a few exceptions) starts with 1 piece of territory, a couple of 1-star generals en a small military force. It's impossible to get such a force together in 5 turns.