Does the AI cheat?

[GA01]

Does the AI get any special "bonuses" during gameplay and if so what are they?

[Ufnv]

Yes, AI cheats to some extent.

First, that's Player who has bonuses on Normal and extra-bonuses on Easy, so Hard seems like AI cheating :)
Second, yes, AI has better "tolerance" to the lack of resources on Hard than player. So, it does not get extra resources, but his fleet degrade slower than player ones. This effectively means that building new fleets with the lack of resources is as hard for AI as for a player, but supporting already built fleets is easier. Also AI tends to trade effectively and make a very good deposits of minerals :)

Another significant AI cheating is that under some conditions it's fleets can fly to the longer distances than it's fuel allows. I really try to minimize the use of this cheat, but it's the question of a significant performance optimization. With this cheat disabled, the game can start lagging, as planning algorithms become much more difficult. However, this cheat does not give a significant advantage to the AI, at least starting from the mid-game. In the beginning - yes it can give some.

There are also other more specific cheats that I'll list.

[GA01]

Thanks. That seems pretty balanced to me.

[Nemesis]

Any chance the of a few cheats for the players? :)

[Astasia]

The player does cheat on normal/easy. You get like double/triple resources apparently.

[LarryP]

I appreciate you being honest about this. Most devs won't admit any AI cheating. :)

[Often]

I also like that the reasons for the cheating make a lot of sense. I'd rathe the AI have a bit of a buff to fuel than deal with massive slowdown of pathfinding algorithms struggling with the best path (Dwarf Fortress has huge problems with pathfinding around 180-200 dwarves).

[rainbow]

One of the best and precise answer to that kind of question I've ever heard.

[Icemania]

Ufnv, I must admit, I’m not aware of any other 4X game that gives the PLAYER bonuses on Normal difficulty i.e. twice the resources production. Out of interest, what was the reasoning in doing this? Why not give the player no resources bonuses on Normal difficulty? Also, to confirm, the reduced upkeep costs for the AI only apply on Hard, is this correct?

[Ufnv]

Originally posted by Icemania:

Ufnv, I must admit, I’m not aware of any other 4X game that gives the PLAYER bonuses on Normal difficulty i.e. twice the resources production. Out of interest, what was the reasoning in doing this? Why not give the player no resources bonuses on Normal difficulty? Also, to confirm, the reduced upkeep costs for the AI only apply on Hard, is this correct?

The reason is to let a player on Normal a comfortable play with a plenty of resources, as new players tend to build too big fleets that they would not be able to support on Hard.

Another Player advantage is the presence of a Scout ship. AI must build them first.
Also, on Easy and Normal Player gets different colonization-related techs on the beginning, like floating platforms and atmospheric domes, while AI does not have them.

As to reduced upkeep, it's complicated.
First, when AI has enough resources (production exceeds consumption or stockpile is positive), it has the full maintenance cost, the same as player.

Then, when stockpile gets negative, the upkeep bonus kicks in:
Hard - 4x support bonus
Normal - 1.75x support bonus
Easy - 1.2x support bonus

If the bonus is not enough, AI fleets get full damage as there was no upkeep bonus.

But it also kicks on fully only if AI has more than 10 planets. Before this there are different rules.

There are two reasons for this cheat. First, AI is less efficient in achieving great results with small fleets and there is no good fleet strength evaluation function. So AI tends to build more fleets than necessary and then destroying unnecessary ones and relocating others by transports. Because of this, AI needs lower upkeep barriers, as otherwise it will often find itself in a situation when his newly built fleet is destroyed due to upkeep cost because of too big reserve fleet.

If there can be created a good fleet strength estimation function, this cheat would not be necessary, but currently it's an easy solution and not the best one, taking in mind that Player is obviously much better in tactics and can deal with bigger fleets with his better equipped smaller fleets.

Other AI cheats (those I remember):
- it sometimes can fit a bit more engines and shields that in would possible (like 15% on Hard). This is due to the auto-design algorithm. AI does not truly fit it's ships with modules (this is the NP-complete task and AI sometimes needs to create hundreds of designs per frame). Instead it uses 'fill-ratio tables' for each component that are pre-calculated for each hulls (and stored in CellInfo/*.clr files). For example, it knows, that some 9x9 generator can only fit 4 times in a given hull, leaving after that a max of 4 places for 6x6 generators instead of previous 12.
So AI can quickly create designs using only these tables. Majority of values in these tables are conservative, so AI should not create better designs than a human player possibly can, but for Hard I allow some more flexibility for engines.

In exchange, AI cannot use engine or weapon slots for placing general equipment.

- on Hard AI knows the position of several earhlike worlds nearby. But this does not mean it starts colonizing it immediately, if builds a Scout and explores these worlds first, returning to the home star after each trip to the star. It's not as big advantage as it seems, as usually it's a correct assumption that a G-class star will have a good world, so an experienced player on hard would most likely send there a colonizer without bothering with a scout. And will reload if the assumption fails :)

So this is done for the more even expansion of the AI on Hard.

[Icemania]

Thanks for the great response Ufnv it is very refreshing! :)