Who cheats more? Human vs AI intelligence

[Kendji]

Well there's been lots of talk on AI cheats. Previously I used to look derisively on the AI cheating, I even use one mod that removes some AI cheats that the Campaign settings. However the campaign settings has made me think more about how, in the past I used to cheat the AI and didn't even consider it cheating, bc they where part of the allowed features of most tw. For example, in 3K I frequently replayed battles and turns until I won them. So I had win ratios 99+%. Hows that differentnfrom the AI getting a modifier boost in battle or similar?

[oOIYvYIOo]

AI does not cheat. He does not rationalize. The advantages that he gets are given by the game programmers since they think HP is always superior.

[Kendji]

There are cheats, like on veteran, I think it still gives 25% combat boosts

[Yews]

Deceased religious person seems to like to misinterpret things. AI technically cheats in every instalment, even on Easy, and the player technically can choose not to cheat at all. However, the reason the AI cheats is that for instance when in Medieval II they attempted to give the most fair and even rules to the AI and the player, the collective player complained that the game was way too easy. Every time a new game comes out, they make it slightly more challenging, and there are still people online saying that the game is way too easy.

For one reason or another, the devs cannot make the AI actually decide smarter, so they simply give it cheats such as omniscience and income out of thin air, but even with those seemingly game-breaking cheats the player is still not challenged too much. Technically you are not cheating and the AI is cheating 24/7, but in good faith can it really be referred to as cheating if, were the rules 100% fair, the player would mop the floor with all the AI factions at once effortlessly? The current AI needs those cheats in order to be able to put up a challenge.

P. S. But if you replay battles all the time, you are definitely a worse cheater, because the AI cannot do that and replaying your battles is not the same league as a weak AI seeing through the fog of war, you are giving yourself an advantage of cosmic proportions. That being said, the fact that the AI literally cheats at all times even on Easy is not a pleasant thought for one reason or another, might be a psychological reason, so I would love to see the devs make a ruleset that is 100% fair and ‘agnostic’ to which faction is AI-controlled and which is human-controlled. That would definitely make the game super puper easy, but it would also be fun psychologically, and perhaps it would indirectly force the devs to make the AI smarter.

[Kelly Too Sweet]

Originally posted by Kendji:

Well there's been lots of talk on AI cheats. Previously I used to look derisively on the AI cheating, I even use one mod that removes some AI cheats that the Campaign settings. However the campaign settings has made me think more about how, in the past I used to cheat the AI and didn't even consider it cheating, bc they where part of the allowed features of most tw. For example, in 3K I frequently replayed battles and turns until I won them. So I had win ratios 99+%. Hows that differentnfrom the AI getting a modifier boost in battle or similar?

I don’t know that it’s “cheating” it’s just the way AI ignores almost all the campaign mechanics and yet is still not perceptively “putting up a fight”. Having completely overhauled the campaign AI for age of bronze on rome 2 there’s definitely a lot that can be done to improve it. There’s various personality components that could have been developed but were left as defaults

[Kendji]

For context, my latest loadout:https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3248523741
I have videos of me getting by pure little butt kicked. But I've also seen the AI do really dumb moves.

So my question isn't is x cheating or not. Rather what is fair and who's the most dis/advantaged in the end. Personally I think the most fair fight is when both HI and AI have the same modifier boosts.

From what CA[www.totalwar.com] has said and other things on game AI. My impression is that the easy part is making an suoer good AI that always beats the human is easy. An AI that always stacks the right things, in the right order etc. However the hard thing is to make a human-like AI experience.

Looking back, I agree with Yews, I where the worst cheater, even if technically I never cheated, I didn't technically break any game rules or mechanics. It was pretty unfair towards the AI. Now having the campaign settings plus Heclaes mod that removes some modifiers. I've come to realize old me's hypocrazy in a sense.

Now one can disable the auto resolve button. One can decide on what modifiers both HI and AI get, are they equal or different.

All that said. However in older games, the legendary AI was smarter, I saw it employing smarter tactics. I've mentioned before on the forums that the AI is more willing to siege you out instead of make an premature charge that epic fails. If my stack is hiding in a forest I get burned out of the forest more frequently. The thing with legendary, very hard and hard are they give modifier boosts to the ai, it does more dmg etc. than the same unit by a human, in addition to the smarterness. While now you can more granuarly affect that. You can get the sligtly smarter AI but without the modifier boosts or what ones fancies.
Anyone can decide for one self what is 'fair'. I'm more intrigued on what people thing the balance is and what's fair etc. And if you do 'cheat' why etc.

[Defmonkey]

Well I think the issue is making the AI feel like a believable resistance.

If the AI was somehow programmed to be smarter with the same rules and act on it 100% of the time thinking and adapting many many turns in advance.... it would outright destroy a player. Much like Chess game AI.

That said with all the complexities of the game i'm assuming programming it isn't an easy task hence the "cheats" that it gets to compensate.

The AI i'm sure can see the entire map, I've seen it attack my armies with precision and no way it would no the army was there without first exploring the map and having vision or luckily bumping into it. This especially goes for that Tjeker wave at the end of the invasion that has double movement.

As the human player we can exploit the game to the extreme too. I've had much fun stacking and breaking this game, i'm not re-fighting the battles to win usually, but i do break the game over a long play through but it takes time for it to snowball.

[Klutch]

Difficulty level as I see it, is simply setting a handicap for yourself or the ai. You either get a bigger pile of money or he does, and you either get the big sword w/ shiny armor or he does.

What you can't change is the fact the ai has superpowers. Seeing through the fog of war (although politely ignoring units in ambush stance), or in battles where it can instantly change targets and put the hurt down with ranged fire.

[dulany67]

Don't savescum. It sucks.

[Tr4cker0]

Human cheat the most, so to compensate and be on par with AI i give them many buff on advanced setting and nerf me + respect house rules like those:
-Don't corner camp
-Don't amo waste
-Don't blob on the gate pass
-Don't ambush
-Don't use lightning strike
-Use a mod that unallow you ambush attack
-Don't use an army of one unit to siege a settlement in order to isoldate surrounding armies of garnison reinforcement
-Don't swap titles before fighting and each item can be swaped only 1 time each 5 turns(can't be swaped the turn you use them)
-Don't bait half of the opponent army with one cheap fast unit before engaging
-Don't doom stack=>use unit cap mods or self customised cap
-Don't trade joining war against gold or opinion since Ai don't use the option at all and that you can join war on a far ruler taking gold and never fighting him it's op and not fun
-Don't declare war on a ruler the turn you've broken a treaty(you should at least w8 one turn like Ai do)
-Don't trespass whithout having passage right in order to attack a foe by surprise, you can still trespass to attack someone else

[Yews]

Your rules are extreme. In order not to cheat, just never resort to so-called save-scumming. Everything else is entirely legitimate.

It is a popular notion that Legendary is the only correct way to play Total War, largely because Legendary restricts the player the most while giving the AI the most powerful buffs; I would agree with that notion were it not for the fact that when you play on Legendary you risk losing your entire campaign every time you press End Turn, simply because Total War is prone to save corruption and Legendary only allows you to keep a single save file. This is why I like how in the new games, there are no achievements for beating the game on different difficulty levels.

[Kendji]

Yes Tr4cker0's house rules are extreme, ironically they too show how save scumming may be more common. Pre-3k tw where easy enough to keep it at a seldom pace, but 3K increased the challenge but made it soo easy to just use the existing game mechanics and 'exploit' them. There are mods thousands use that give the player some top tier thing, but not the AI etc.

Imo, Tr4cker0's rules are in many ways the opposite. However there are a common denominator, discipline. Save scumming requires none, Tr4cker0's rule requires lots.

Honestly, I think human 'cheating' is be waay way more common. That's also the benefit of the campaign rules, you can cheat more easily or curb your own bad behaviour in addition to affecting the modifier balance between HI vs AI.

Yes, I agree with Yews on the legendary point. I personally use veteran setting, but a mod to remove AI buffs, I don't consider that cheating. Think the mod should be options in the cs. So everyone could tailor their Legendary experience.

[Tr4cker0]

Originally posted by Yews:

Your rules are extreme. In order not to cheat, just never resort to so-called save-scumming. Everything else is entirely legitimate.

It is a popular notion that Legendary is the only correct way to play Total War, largely because Legendary restricts the player the most while giving the AI the most powerful buffs; I would agree with that notion were it not for the fact that when you play on Legendary you risk losing your entire campaign every time you press End Turn, simply because Total War is prone to save corruption and Legendary only allows you to keep a single save file. This is why I like how in the new games, there are no achievements for beating the game on different difficulty levels.

I don't save scum as i already play on legendary but if i use any of above mentioned cheeses the game become instantly an easy grind esp with Ambush, lightninng strike and cancel reinforcement from garison by sieging with one unit army. The rest is just to add even more parity with Ai more challenges and my personnal tastes of what is legit, immersive, intended, fair, fun and that encourage me to play more meaningfuly like a true strategist not a gamey cheeser etc...

[oOIYvYIOo]

Originally posted by Tr4cker0:

Human cheat the most, so to compensate and be on par with AI i give them many buff on advanced setting and nerf me + respect house rules like those:
-Don't corner camp
-Don't amo waste
-Don't blob on the gate pass
-Don't ambush
-Don't use lightning strike
-Use a mod that unallow you ambush attack
-Don't use an army of one unit to siege a settlement in order to isoldate surrounding armies of garnison reinforcement
-Don't swap titles before fighting and each item can be swaped only 1 time each 5 turns(can't be swaped the turn you use them)
-Don't bait half of the opponent army with one cheap fast unit before engaging
-Don't doom stack=>use unit cap mods or self customised cap
-Don't trade joining war against gold or opinion since Ai don't use the option at all and that you can join war on a far ruler taking gold and never fighting him it's op and not fun
-Don't declare war on a ruler the turn you've broken a treaty(you should at least w8 one turn like Ai do)
-Don't trespass whithout having passage right in order to attack a foe by surprise, you can still trespass to attack someone else

Why dont you write about the kamikaze AI performances on the battlefield.
I think that Atilla was the most closer to perfection in ALL the AI interactions. TW should pick up from there and not keep renewing everything everytime a Historical game comes out.

[Tr4cker0]

Originally posted by oOIYvYIOo:

Originally posted by Tr4cker0:

Human cheat the most, so to compensate and be on par with AI i give them many buff on advanced setting and nerf me + respect house rules like those:
-Don't corner camp
-Don't amo waste
-Don't blob on the gate pass
-Don't ambush
-Don't use lightning strike
-Use a mod that unallow you ambush attack
-Don't use an army of one unit to siege a settlement in order to isoldate surrounding armies of garnison reinforcement
-Don't swap titles before fighting and each item can be swaped only 1 time each 5 turns(can't be swaped the turn you use them)
-Don't bait half of the opponent army with one cheap fast unit before engaging
-Don't doom stack=>use unit cap mods or self customised cap
-Don't trade joining war against gold or opinion since Ai don't use the option at all and that you can join war on a far ruler taking gold and never fighting him it's op and not fun
-Don't declare war on a ruler the turn you've broken a treaty(you should at least w8 one turn like Ai do)
-Don't trespass whithout having passage right in order to attack a foe by surprise, you can still trespass to attack someone else

Why dont you write about the kamikaze AI performances on the battlefield.
I think that Atilla was the most closer to perfection in ALL the AI interactions. TW should pick up from there and not keep renewing everything everytime a Historical game comes out.

Sadly except with Ai mods i can't rly remove the kamikaze performance of the ai with only rules :/ that's why i mostly play multiplayer and autoresolve battles in single player