Is AI cheating, or an explanation?

[chrcoluk]

Mission is to destroy Atreides base, playing as Corrino.

Noticed they buying shares like crazy, so checked the spy data.

Reports daily positive solari income of 573.

Problem is when I add up the total income of all their villages it is only 99, and this is of course "before" upkeep.

Maybe spice?

Their total spice production is just 65, this would mean they have a world record exchange rate of about 1 spice to 7.2 solari whilst having no solari upkeep.

They have one agent on CHOAM.

Any ideas?

Remember normal diffilculty level states no resource advantage.

[chrcoluk]

When I check Smugglers and Fremen, theirs looks legit, but they also not buying shares.

[chrcoluk]

I havent used it on any Atreides village, and not using it at all this mission, since I find it almost worthless to me.
Going to submit the save on the bug report page to see what wild explanation they offer. :)

[⎝Wyrd Deofol⎠]

* If a Resolution affects the Atreides positively, such as granting them a bonus to income, they will earn ten percent more Solari from all sources for as long as the Resolution is in effect.
* once House Atreides reaches ten thousand Hegemony they permanently increase the production of all their resources by two percent for each positive Resolution granted to them, to a maximum bonus of a whopping forty percent.

When i play Atreides i usually also become a Solari powerhouse.

I am interested in what the devs might say.

[chrcoluk]

Originally posted by ⎝Apostate⎠:

* If a Resolution affects the Atreides positively, such as granting them a bonus to income, they will earn ten percent more Solari from all sources for as long as the Resolution is in effect.
* once House Atreides reaches ten thousand Hegemony they permanently increase the production of all their resources by two percent for each positive Resolution granted to them, to a maximum bonus of a whopping forty percent.

These are possible, but 40% doesnt get them to the number, thanks for posting it. It at least potentially explains some of it. Although they have been buying these shares rapidly since the start of the mission even before the first council.

They currently have 10205 hegonomy, so will remove a village to see if it drops by a large amount, I might try to get them down to just the base I can to see if it goes down properly.

[⎝Wyrd Deofol⎠]

Let me know of your findings!

Back to the original question, i am very curious as to how much the AI cheats if at all.

[chrcoluk]

Well one village will be enough to get them below 10k, so will know very quickly if that 10k buff is anything to do with it. I will let you know. :)

About 40% way though 8 month limit of mission.

[⎝Wyrd Deofol⎠]

Originally posted by chrcoluk:

Well one village will be enough to get them below 10k, so will know very quickly if that 10k buff is anything to do with it. I will let you know. :)

The buff only works if they have positive resolutions going for them. So maybe when a new vote happens, check their income again.

[⎝Wyrd Deofol⎠]

I found this on reddit. Take it with a grain of salt since the post is 5 months old:

The AI does cheat, it doesn't face penalties for not making the spice payments. You are suppose to lose votes and lose money if you keep missing payments over and over. In my current game, I took away most of the spice fields of one AI, and it keeps missing the spice payments because it simply sets the slider to sell all of the spice they harvest and sends 0 spice to the Guild. I've checked what the AI has by starting a trade, and it shows they have 0 spice reserves, and its been like that for 5 cycles now. Yet, they are still maxed on their votes and still making money.

[chrcoluk]

9655 Hegonomy income down to 465. The village I took out by good fortune also was the spice, so they now have 465 net income with no spice, and no 10k bonus available.

Figuring out the best way I can get them down to just base as is 6 minutes to liberate/annex and they can take new villages very quickly., So might take loads of villages at once as they seem to have almost no army, just keeping one unit on each one to keep siege going. With the authority per council perk I have it stacked twice so getting 130 authority every council but still will be way too slow to annex them all.

[⎝Wyrd Deofol⎠]

Originally posted by chrcoluk:

9655 Hegonomy income down to 465. The village I took out by good fortune also was the spice, so they now have 465 net income with no spice, and no 10k bonus available.

Interesting... They must have no units or plascrete production :P

[chrcoluk]

Gave fremen free sadauker and now they attacking village also, already got 3 sieges going.

[⎝Wyrd Deofol⎠]

Originally posted by chrcoluk:

Gave fremen free sadauker and now they attacking village also, already got 3 sieges going.

Let's try to get their Solari to nil. ;) If they have unexplanable solari income it must be cheating. I tried to find info on the AI and its buffs to no avail.

[chrcoluk]

They down to 5 villages, official income 42, but on spy its back up to 589 lol. However they keep pumping out units now to challenge the siege's and try to make new villages so having to intercept them. Second force just been built though. Good job I got close to 200 water, so free roaming in their area no supply issues.

[⎝Wyrd Deofol⎠]

Originally posted by chrcoluk:

They down to 5 villages, official income 42, but on spy its back up to 589 lol. However they keep pumping out units now to challenge the siege's and try to make new villages so having to intercept them. Second force just been built though. Good job I got close to 200 water, so free roaming in their area no supply issues.

589 income without a spicefield and pumping out units? That does sound like cheat.
I'm ok with AI cheating though, if done right.
F.i. in Age of Wonders 4 the AI gets lower prices for anything, but they don't get anything for free. In DSP it sounds by your play that the AI gets free resources.

[chrcoluk]

They got 10 manpower and +1 manpower growth, and pumping out units every 5 seconds like a miracle,, grinding them down though, down to 3 villages. Solari is +233.

Yeah the game would be too easy without this, but perhaps they should remove from the description that resource is parity.