Well if you consider any AI bonus as "cheating" then I guess you're technically correct, however personally I don't consider AI bonuses to be cheating.

Cheating is a particularly strong word that I don't believe really applies to a mere bonus. Cheating to me would be if the AI plays by an entirely different set of rules, which as far as I know isn't true, regardless of the level of AI bonuses. Bonuses are merely equivalent to a golfer's handicap. Both golfers play the same rules, you're just adjusting for differences in skill level.

Instead of your use of the word “cheating” and its negative connotation you can simply say that Tough is the highest level that the AI receives no bonuses. IIRC Brad has stated a number of times that the level of AI-human parity is Painful where the AI gets a minimal 5% bonus to offset inevitable AI inefficiencies.


As to why this is happening, there could be any number of reasons. You should probably give a few more specifics as to the version of the game you’re playing or whether it’s the same or a different AI each game. As Tesb mentioned, one of the most obvious reasons for an AI to become overly powerful is by owning a preponderance of the mining resources in the galaxy. But again there are dozens of potential reasons for this and it really requires a bit more information to come up with a definitive cause.

I'm playing the latest version of TotA, 1.96 I think.

I play with the same setting each time except I may choose a different race and the 4 AI are randomly chosen.

As far as resource bases go I've never seen any one race own a "preponderance" of them but I'm not sure what is considered”preponderance" as far as base ownership goes.

If I look at the graph at the end of game they're stats are 5x more than anyone else's for no apparent reason.

Also are anomalies supposed to respawn? Kind of defeats the purpose of have a rare option if they just continuously respawn.

Actually you can upgrade your flagship and w/ all the XP bonus anomalies it would be well worth it.

So yeah, a checkbox would be good.

By that I meant if a particular AI had 4 or 5 econ resources for something like a total 200% econ bonus then that would be an obvious reason for that AI to have an economy greater than any other AI.


Perhaps this is just indicitive of the best AI in the game. For example in every game I play my stats are certainly higher than any AI's stats in *every* category, but there's nothing mysterious about it. I have the best stats in everything because I have the most planets and therefore it's only natural that I have the highest pop, the highest income, the highest military, etc. etc.

If you're saying that every game a different AI ends up the strongest AI by a significant margin then I see nothing unusual. This just indiciates that in one particular game one AI happened to outcolonize the others for whatever the reason.

If you're saying that it's always the same AI the ends up in this position then I would simply guess that that particular AI is the strongest, at least based on the game settings (i.e. galaxy size, number of opponents, planet count) that you normally select.

However if you're saying that you have one AI in the game that has significantly higher stats than all the other AI's in the game and that AI has no noticeable advantage in pop, planet count, mining resources, super ability or any other reason that would otherwise explain the difference then either you've found some bug or there's some difference that you're not noticing.

The thing is that you're not supplying enough information by which to make this determination other than saying "they're stats are 5x more than anyone else's for no apparent reason."

There's always a reason if you dig deep enough but without the explicit details no one can really hazard a guess.

The main advantage the AI has over the human player is its ability to micromanage every asset on every turn. Most of us don't have the patience to do that. With a fully "optimized" empire the AI will usually be able to grow population, and hence income, faster than the human player - giving it an edge in the colony rush phase of the game. I put "optimized" in quotes because the AI doesn't make very good decisions about what to build on its colonies. All else being equal the human player should have a much stronger economy by mid game. Of course, all else is rarely equal - location matters. Some regions of the galaxy are more fertile than others.

If the AI is consistently getting ahead of you and you don't want to back off to a lower difficulty level, you can "tilt" the playing field with the CTRL-N key. Prefer an isolated cluster where you have time to establish yourself before meeting the other civilizations? Just press CTRL-N until you get it. Want a home world with a nice manufacturing bonus so you can build colony ships faster? CTRL-N to the rescue. Some will consider this cheating, but the game is supposed to be fun and I assure you the AI won't complain.