magnuskn magnuskn

KI Cheating - True or Not?

▼

KI Cheating - True or Not?

from GalCiv2 Forums
German print magazines have pretty much panned Galactic Civilizations 2. The best test was 75%, the worst, by the biggest German print magazine Gamestar, 62%. In that particular test, the tester Michael Graf opined that the KI does cheat, because it sends ships straight in a beeline at the best planets, according to him. Also, he says, it produces ( on a non-production intensive planet ) every turn a new ship, without having the funds to buy them and besides produces new technologies at an incredible rate.



While the last two things can be explained by different things ( full military or research production, for example ), the first item produced a lot of discussion on the forums of the Gamestar.



Several people seem to have independently found the same thing happen. I´ll summarize one of the examples they gave ( translating the whole thing is a bit much work. )



"I just tested this - AI on suicidal, middle sized map, middle probability for stars and habitable planets and a few opponents. I revealed the map by pressing CTRL - U and walled in the opponents flagship and scouts with battleships ( CTRL - B, CTRL - T ). Nonwithstanding, after a short time colony ships were on their way to several of the best planets in the vicinity - without scouting and not into "empty" systems. That leaves only one conclusion to me:



The AI cheats.



Frogboy either doesn´t tell the truth - or I found a AI Bug ( Because in other tests I did, without the ship walling, I also noticed how a few systems were scouted and then colonized. ). "



So, I am honestly a bit bamboozled here. I haven´t noticed that happening, but of course I didn´t probe as deep as that particular poster.



An opinion from Frogboy would be highly appreciated... we GalCiv2 fans want to bludgeon the responsible writer at Gamestar into admitting he made a mistake.
40,368 views 36 replies
Reply #26 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Tons isn't right. The highest they go is about a 300% economic bonus, that's all. Doesn't make much difference. Gifted AI has only about 125% of the money you have.
Reply #27 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Well it would appear to me that German print magazines don't know what they're talking about.

I coded the AI, it doesn't cheat except at the highest levels where it gets more money/bonuses.  But we've never claimed that the game doesn't "cheat" at the highest level.  The user manual is pretty clear -- at "Intelligent" the AI is playing its best game, with the same bonuses with the same abilities as the human player. That's where the test should be done.

And independent user can find out for themselves.  Just run the game with the cheat parameter, set the AI to "intelligent", that's the highest level it goes without cheating. Hit Ctrl-U, and watch.  It's not rocket science. 

This test could even probably be done with the demo version.  So it doesn't require someone to buy the game to prove their claim is incorrect. The AI does not send colony ships to planets that have not been scouted except when it guesses at which point it's just as likely to send it to a poor planet as a good planet.

It should be noted that not one of these reviewers contacted us to let us answer their allegation.  This whole incident sours me on supporting the German market at all.  A real reviewer - i.e. a professional - would have contacted us before printing such an allegation.  It doesn't speak well of the German media. 

WindowBlinds - Free yourself of the default settings, customize your desktop.
Reply #28 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Well, I can understand that this makes you sour, Brad. I'm sour as well, though I do not earn my money with GalCiv2, and I only greatly enjoy your game, but I'm an experienced strategy gamer and I know when I'm getting fooled. That's why others and I started this argumentation with them, though we knew that they won't change their opinion, how silly it may be. There have already been plenty of discussion about ratings of that specific magazine in their board and none of them turned out to have an satisfactory result in the end. But you should not be too harsh with all of the German media at least not with the german online media, because the online reviews I know made quite fair and positive reviews of GalCiv 2.
Reply #29 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Another case of reviewer ego. This Michael Graf guy probably spent a day looking at the game, got thoroughly trounced by the AI, then proceeded to spend the next couple of hours "proving" how the AI cheats.

With years of strategy gaming under his belt, he must have felt he understood the transparentness of the AI, and that cheating was the only way he could have been beaten. Not that he's bragging or anything.

I wonder if he threw in comments like how MoO2 had superior AI and stuff.
Reply #30 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

I've written a more formal response here:

https://forums.galciv2.com/?ForumID=164&AID=110806

Frankly, based on what has been translated over form their "review" it sounds like they have an axe to grind.

I'm just shocked at that any reputable magazine would make claims such as this without being very very certain and that would involve at least talking to us for clarifiation.

At the very least, I'll make sure that those magazines don't receive review copies of our future titles. I don't ask for positive reviews, just FAIR reviews.   Some reviewer throwing a tantrum because they lost and blaming the game seems infantile.

And you're right it is silly to deny a German version simply because of the corruptness of a few game magazines.  I'm human too, so I get mad. And I can tell you this issue definitely annoys the heck out of me. 

Reply #31 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'm shocked to hear about the nonsense written by some German magazines, I wonder how much time they devoted to it - half an hour?

(Brad - you better stop reading here. )
I googled around a bit, but what I found isn't worth mentioning. I found a superficial test of the game of PCGames (no, I won't use the word "review") which basically says that the game is boring and unappealing and ends with a 64% "score" out of the blue. This "test" is as worth reading as it is correct to say that the game developer is Paradox Entertainment (which they do) - even the name is wrong as they're called Paradox Interactive for some time now.
Nah, it's a pity that they even bothered to write about the game, other than that they get nothing more than disrespect from me. I had a bad opinion about the game magazines around here before, now it is at an all-time low.
Thank god I haven't bought one for years!
Reply #32 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I have noted (in another thread, and should repeat it here), that his test *does* work in pre-1.0X versions, but does not otherwise. However the test doesn't prove that the AI cheats, just that it has a very rare bug that causes it to cheat (but only pre-1.0X). I have explained this on post #143 at https://forums.galciv2.com/?ForumID=162&AID=103881 The rest of the thread is a nice read, for several weeks ago. But I wouldn't recommend it
Reply #33 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
What a bunch of retarded noobs. I've seen the AI miss good planets at tough level. I've also never had a problem out colonizing the AI on tough.

One game I played was tough A.I.s on a large map. I started at the bottom left corner and I got the last planet which was on the top right corner of the map. Non of the A.I.s even went for it. It was out of the way an by itself, but still within range of most of their colony ships. Seemed obvious to me that they were still exploring denser areas of the map, and didn't know where the good planets were.
Reply #34 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

I have noted (in another thread, and should repeat it here), that his test *does* work in pre-1.0X versions, but does not otherwise. However the test doesn't prove that the AI cheats, just that it has a very rare bug that causes it to cheat (but only pre-1.0X). I have explained this on post #143 at Link The rest of the thread is a nice read, for several weeks ago. But I wouldn't recommend it

That's actually not true. In base 1.0, there was the possibility it could work due to an uninitialized variable. But it was a random issue. I was never able to reproduce it.

So at best, the base 1.0 had the possibility of that working.

But as discussed here: https://www.galciv2.com/Journals.aspx?AID=110806

That's so trivial in the overall scheme of things that for any reviewer to cry "cheating" over that just screams "sour grapes".  The whole review just screams "Wah. I lost, the game's not fair. It can't be me."

Reply #35 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Does using Control U cheat to reveal the map, also reveal it to the AI?
Reply #36 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Does using Control U cheat to reveal the map, also reveal it to the AI?

Nope.  Only reveals it to the human.

That's why this whole thing is so frustrating -- it's so easy to verify that the reviewer is incorrect.