Is the AI cheating ?

[SoulScream]

I've been playing for a couple of weeks now and on lower difficulties the game is fairly easy but as soon as I play on Hard I'm getting completely raped.

So far I had maybe 10-12 games on hard and it seems the AI is consistantly pushing out elite tier units way to early. Just now I'm at round 55 and the Chaos AI is attacking with level 10 havocs, lord, flying dragons and what not. And I'm not just talking one or two - I'm talking tens of units of each, all leveled up.

There was no way - no way! That I was going to survive that attack and decided to go explore what I could of the map before getting raped. I didnt get far as the necrons attacked from another front at the same time with monoliths..

I did manage to see that chaos had at least 5 level 15 cities which just pumped out units.

It's redicoulous!

[Tukohama Enjoyer]

yeah same here playing on normal difficulty, i do not undersand how some factions expand so quickly. i'm new into this game and while i struggle to keep my main city and 2 more, some other factions are running 5 to 6 cities at the same time and pumping out units like its nothing.

[adozu]

The difficulty influences the base loyalty of a faction, it's the same for both players and AI, additonally however the AI will get a level bonus to its new troops (up to lvl 6 on spawn at impossible difficulty).

very easy -15
easy -5
normal +0
hard +10
very hard +30
ultra hard +60
impossible +100

That is all, if they had tier 7+ units at level 10 when you met on turn 55 you were probably playing on fast or very fast game speed. I could say it's survivable but really it comes down to having a good build order.

If you played on hard the AI basically had a 20% bonus to resources and production (roughly), normal difficulty AI has no cheats of any kind.

[Tukohama Enjoyer]

Originally posted by adozu:

The difficulty influences the base loyalty of a faction, it's the same for both players and AI, additonally however the AI will get a level bonus to its new troops (up to lvl 6 on spawn at impossible difficulty).

very easy -15
easy -5
normal +0
hard +10
very hard +30
ultra hard +60
impossible +100

That is all, if they had tier 7+ units at level 10 when you met on turn 55 you were probably playing on fast or very fast game speed. I could say it's survivable but really it comes down to having a good build order.

If you played on hard the AI basically had a 20% bonus to resources and production (roughly), normal difficulty AI has no cheats of any kind.

so AI is actually cheating on harder difficulties, that has actually no value. shame.

[adozu]

Well what else could it do? I can't think of many strategy games where they AI actually gets "smarter", it is possible on some RTS and generally they just execute and micro faster which could be seen as a cheat in itself as they can micro faster than any human could.

[Jey]

Originally posted by adozu:

(up to lvl 6 on spawn at impossible difficulty).

It's 5, actually.

[Tukohama Enjoyer]

Originally posted by adozu:

Well what else could it do? I can't think of many strategy games where they AI actually gets "smarter", it is possible on some RTS and generally they just execute and micro faster which could be seen as a cheat in itself as they can micro faster than any human could.

age of empires 2 DE AI. or starcraft 2 AI.

[adozu]

I am aware of those, they are RTS though and not TBS and for the most part they micro faster, precisely what i wrote.

[Katitoff]

Originally posted by WattsonOnlyWaifu:

Originally posted by adozu:

Well what else could it do? I can't think of many strategy games where they AI actually gets "smarter", it is possible on some RTS and generally they just execute and micro faster which could be seen as a cheat in itself as they can micro faster than any human could.

age of empires 2 DE AI. or starcraft 2 AI.

There are vids of abusing and exploiting both on yt.
And "regular" AI for SC2 is trash tier.

[Tukohama Enjoyer]

Originally posted by adozu:

I am aware of those, they are RTS though and not TBS and for the most part they micro faster, precisely what i wrote.

not only the micro faster but act as a player, not cheesy dark +% resources rates or extra plate armor, just "tactics" they can't pull out an army out of nowhere because "bonus" micro faster in a turn based game? blah you don't need that, but giving the AI filthy bonuses instead of rock paper scissors, woah, that's useless

[Jey]

The thing is, in AoE, an unit can't do anything complex. It's literally move, attack, retreat (with the additional possibility of "collect stuff").
The difficulty resides in coordinating several units at the same time, which is a trivial issue for a computer and their ability to do so can easily be slided up or down.

In Gladius, making the AI better is not exactly the same challenge.
It'd need to be able to estimate the power of the enemies better, and use appropriate strategies to take them down.
It'd need to be able to coordinate its abilities better. To be able to use transports/teleportations and do so efficiently.

All of this is already difficult for a human being, it's borderline impossible for an AI. It's even more difficult to slide it up or down.


If you want to face someone potentially more skilled than you, play PvP.
If you want to have a challenge against an AI, the difficulty slider is already good enough. The higher it is, the less permissive the game is. Against an Impossible AI, if you mess up you're punished heavily. That's what I'd call difficulty.

[adozu]

I'll also mention that a high tier AI capable of outplaying human players in a turn based tactics game would probably require really really long turns to think about its moves.

[SumatranRatMonkey]

The difficulty bonus for this game is very well defined, and there are not any other cheats laying around in secret places of the code. What more could you want, really? Humanlike AI is not going to happen for a 3 man dev team for a TBS/RTS that's way more complicated than chess (and furthermore I would more generally say that great AI is not going to happen in any continuously developed game, period).

If you want to play Normal AI, a trick that is commonly suggested is to put a large number of Normal AI opponents in the same team. The advantage of such an approach is that the Normal AI won't research faster or build more cities than "normal", leading to a more natural flowing game than when you're playing a 1v1 or NvN against Insane AI.

[Ruffian]

The difficulty curve for PvE (or PvAI) is arguably exactly what the game needs it to be. If you're looking for a casual experience or to just revel in the glory that is 40k, you can leave it on Normal and get a perfectly fun, reasonable session from it.

If you want to improve, having an AI that 'cheats' is a great way of doing so, as the pressure of playing against something that has a much faster build speed, resource income and higher base unit strength challenges you to continuously 'trim the fat' from your build orders, movements and such, allowing you to hone your gameplay to a fine edge. In games like these, vsAI will never be an end goal, because the idea is that it's there to help you improve until you're comfortable in facing the real challenge - Other people. The same people who will have likely also been focusing on getting good build orders, deployments, and doing the things you do too.

Players will add their own unique twists and flair to each match too, which will help prevent the game from being overly repetitive. Not to say that vsAI isn't important - It is. Having a fun experience that isn't full of exploits, or AI that can just curbstomp you to the floor is important. But Gladius does an good job of avoiding that problem. It's an excellent setting in which the player has perfect control over how they want to interact with the game and what they get out of it in return. Just my two pennies, though.