Wow. The AI cheats in every way conceivable.

[Earnest]

So ~15 min into a game wherein the AI has bought 4 straight pirate (8k each) raids to deny me some water, it blows up with ~400k dollars to buy out all of my stock.

They have nothing on the map making them big money. They have built a single pleasure dome maybe 2 min prior to the zerg on my stock.

This is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. This game should be more fun than this. This was against the 2nd lowest AI, too.

Boo, devs. Boo.

[|v£|Frozen DDD]

Was hoping someone had a good explanation for the whole: AI subsidiaries build special buildings after being bought out. Meaning is it just because I somehow buy out the wrong faction and thus gets this result. Is there any way to know why the can still build after being bought out, or is this an AI only thing?

[Kaisha]

Detective Inspector Hector eredeti hozzászólása:

zouhair eredeti hozzászólása:

That's not what appeal to authority means. For it to be appeal to authority fallacy the guy should be expert in some other subject not the one at hand, but if he is expert in the subject at hand there is no appeal to authority fallacy it is just expert advice.

I think what you fail to understand is that the OP is just being salty because he can't beat the second lowest level AI and rather than understand the game it's easier for him to whine about the ai "cheating" instead

I can't even finish the tutorials, I have no clue why I'm losing. If the AI isn't cheating then its using mechanics I have no idea even exist. Just saying 'git gud' doesn't help. There's nothing in the tutorial that explains what the AI is doing, I can't emulate them, in fact I have no clue how/why they can do what they do.

Case in point, I had a skirmish where the #1 AI got all his cash from glass. Except he didn't have a single glass kiln the entire game. Not a single one. He didn't have any subsidiaries (as I was the 1st one 'bought out'). In fact all he did pretty much was have a ton of aluminum mines, which was worth next to nothing. And yet he was somehow 2 levels ahead of every one else (ie. myself and the 2 other AIs). Now perhaps there is some unknown way to convert his massive amounts of aluminum into usable currency, but at a price of 2$-3$, I have no idea how. He wasn't sending it offworld.

And see this happens over and over. I watch the AI to see what I'm doing wrong, and yet by all accounts I should be fine. They build in clearly the wrong spots (often skipping a 3 stack for a 1 stack), they don't group building properly, they spend tons of cash on auctions they shouldn't be able to use.

If its not cheating... I honestly have no clue what's going on...

[|v£|Frozen DDD]

Yea, the tactics would be great to get a view into. Btw: pending on faction there might be a reason they don't select the largest stack.

[SorenJohnson]

@Kaisha, which tutorial are you talking about?

I did a playlist of playthroughs of all five Practice Games, so you should be able to figure out how to win by doing something similar.

http://www.mohawkgames.com/2016/05/11/the-practice-games/

[Kaisha]

Watched the videos, they don't answer any of my questions. You did nothing I haven't tried or thought of. Where the AI is getting its money or resources makes no sense. For example, the skirmish I'm playing now, the #1 player is scientific, its spamming water pumps despite water being worth nothing money wise. Not greenhouses or hydrolosis reactors (greenhouses would make it alot of money), no its spamming water pumps. There is no possible way this AI should be #1, and yet it is. It makes no sense at all.

And in your video you went with a scavanger (known to be fast to upgrade), how is the AI scientific upgrading to level 2 near instantly?

[Keks]

Kaisha, did you ever see the marketprices on the left?
The AI sells and buys ressouces at the first few seconds.
And often he lands on ressource piles, so the AI gets a startup bonus of ressources.
In campaign mode, he can get benefits e.g. "40 iron start ressouces", but this are perks that you can get too.

Dont be frustratet, learn how the gamenechanics works.
There is no cheating.

[Mr. Samsa]

Gonna have to 2nd McKay, with the exception that im convinced the enemy AI knows what resources you have pooled up in your inventory and how close you are to patents and the like. If you wanna win against the AI that upgrades instantly you need to play the game white-knuckle turn based style and use some meta tactics.

Every 10 seconds of time that passes should have a 30 second paused planning stage before it in play-style, AI is too quick to let time flow. Sometimes the AI just makes $$$ buying low price resources it doesnt even need and selling it high later without ever using a factory on the map. Still seems crazy how fast they can upgrade though like robotics in less than 5 seconds lol wtf.

I was able to upgrade as fast as a robotic AI once as Scientific by landing my HQ on a huge iron deposit and selling it but that seemed to cripple my growth afterwords since I dedicated so much to fast upgrade.. then i crushed them by controlling all the good water supply like usual. meh.

[Fluke]

I agree with Mr. Samsa. You have to be pause a lot and water is an extremely important resource mid and late game. It is the only way to get food and most HQs demand food and water which means controlling water is a typical path to victory.

AI gets money just like the players do: by capturing the high resource high value tiles, using production buildings that make a lot of cash and buying low and selling high.

Not uncommon for me to be behind in upgrade level and stock price but still win, just like in Soren's fifth video. You should re-watch that one, I just watched it and it explains all the mechanics and AI interactions quite easily. He uses the black market and buys low and manipulates resource prices.

[Kaisha]

McKay eredeti hozzászólása:

Kaisha, did you ever see the marketprices on the left?
The AI sells and buys ressouces at the first few seconds.
And often he lands on ressource piles, so the AI gets a startup bonus of ressources.
In campaign mode, he can get benefits e.g. "40 iron start ressouces", but this are perks that you can get too.

Dont be frustratet, learn how the gamenechanics works.
There is no cheating.

Except they aren't doing that. I've played the same mission multiple times using the AIs exact starting point to try to emulate what they do. Just dumping an initial 10 or 20 iron (plus the 20 carbon and silicon) is not enough for a scientific HQ to upgrade before its steel mills are even built, and yet they do.

[Fluke]

What mission and difficulty level are you playing on? Because I can land a scientific on enough aluminum and instant upgrade to level 2 on skirmish. Maybe iron or another resource as well, gotta try it later.

[TwistedPower]

Yeah there are games where the AI just micro's better than you because AI. It can calculate the value of a material and if it lands there what it needs to sell to instant upgrade. Not really fun. I like the game, but this AI is Bull.

[Marbaus]

TwistedPower eredeti hozzászólása:

Yeah there are games where the AI just micro's better than you because AI. It can calculate the value of a material and if it lands there what it needs to sell to instant upgrade. Not really fun. I like the game, but this AI is Bull.

This is the feeling that I get. Being a new player I see that the ai is extreamly aggressive on all accounts. The micromanaging to the constant attacks from the black market and bull rushing selling.

I like the idea of pausing it every min or less for planning stages, but I would much rather have a slower paced game where planning is part of playing, while you are playing. However, I will adapt and learn the ai's ticks and functioning motivations. I don't generally enjoy games that are fairly fast paced in this type of genre, rather more like a bull rush RTS feel.

I get the feeling that with a little more effort on my part, I will be keeping ahead in guru soon. So as long as the ai is not cheating, it should be fairly easy with some time.

It does 'feel' like the ai is cheating initially, but there has to be some sort of backend scheme that we can replicate that the ai does for a quick cashup.

[Dragon]

The AI has the benefit of being able to calculate everything instantly and doing everything instantly.

that is why you pause constantly until you plop down everything, and make sure that ALL your buildings are giving good returns.

In one of my multiple failed campaigns, I found that producing Glass became totally not worth it since the resources to make glass were so much more expensive.


AI doesn't cheat. It's just the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ai and can do everything instantly.

This game is almost totally maths based, something the AI can do perfectly. HOWEVER YOU CAN OUTWIT THE COMPUTER BECAUSE IT CAN'T THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX.

Playing games is always about outwitting the opponent.

[Zuben]

One thing I'm noticing about the reviews on this game are that they say "It's great! But, like, I'm not good at it. I bet If I got good at it it would be really good though!" Except the AI has a massive advantage due to straight up cheating. It's a broken game and people will figure this out.

[Mr. Samsa]

Zuben the general consensus in this post seems to be going toward this:

The enemy AI on at least Manager difficulty is able to control ALL its assets and facilities in real-time. This means that you usually must pause the game every 10 or 20 seconds to adjust your strategy based on what the AI has done in that given time. Since ai by its very nature is omnipotent in video games like this, it makes it really freaking hard to play without pausing to play catchup against them (coffee helps).

It seems like the AI is cheating most of the time but its only because the ai can make multiple simultaneous decisions in fractions of a second, It takes a work weary mind like ours at least 2 - 10 seconds to make an informed decision 1 @ a time at best (again coffee helps). Personally, I think the ai can track your research progress and material stockpile, however i cant prove that and its the only real beef I have with the ai in its current state.

So yeah, to summarize i would say that the real problem isnt that the ai is cheating per say but that the developers didnt give the AI's any hiccups when it comes to controlling its power of presence/actions vs how the player must play in real time, doing everything 1 action after the other. Solution is to play it like a turn-based game and pause often, setup your plan then unpause and repeat until you get a leg up on the bastards.