is Tough AI cheating?

On tough / intelligent, the AI indeed does not cheat.

When you took over the AI, did you look at the economic sliders? That setting may or may not be carried over from your own empire. As for why the AI was so far ahead - without any specifics, it's hard to say what your problem in particular was.

hadifa I segest you look into the manual, you'll see the COM's just use better algorithms than they once did. They turn down their income to produce ships faster. eventually with the colonization boom they'd be earning some good money and have an outstanding production rate. since they get the same bon uses as you I segest you try thinking of new ways to start your games, you might find you have an advantage yourself in the long run.

When looking at AI planets in this way, IIRC you are seeing the maximum potential output of the three categories not what is actually being prodiced based on their current slider settings. That's why when you take over with a normal split spending setup your output shows much less.

If you also look at their moral support you'll find coms don't have my concern for it. check your popularity rating compared to theirs. I think you'll find that so will be around the 60 mark. it's just enough to keep their party in on an election and good enough to pull them out of a total uprise. That means they have higher taxes, leads on to better production funds and bam, there's your 200% output.

However, that high taxation still comes at a price, in population growth.  With an Imperial system, that's the main reason you have for not jacking taxes all the way to 100%, as you'll start losing 10% of your population per planet per turn once plantary moral drops below 20%.  There's also a risk of a revolution event wresting away several of your unhappy planets.  This caught the AI in one of my last games, and it nearly chopped the Dengrin in half, much to my amusement.

Guys, thanks for the replys. It was a long shot on my part asking with limited info. Maybe I 'll go back and have a look at that particular game again though I think I have overwritten the save.

Can anyone else verify this. I'm not sure if this was the case. They were very powerfull and I had a difficult time catching up evern with cheats?

I'm playing the game on one difficulty lower than tough(Challenging?) on an immense map (Rare hapitable) with 9 other races and only Drengin is an average threat and even that, is because they got lucky by having some good planets just next to their capital. What I'm trying to say is that I was totally outpaced by the (tough) difficulty while I am comfortably ahead of the (Challenging).

AI algorithms. I don't have the exact data at hand, but somewhere is the step between 'dumbed down' algorithms and the full AI capabilities. It may well be the step challenging/tough.

In addition, any AI below tough gets penalties to production, research, etc.

Since I was the one who said it I'll check it out, though it will have to be tonight before I get a chance. I don't have high esp. level in my game yet with the Ais to look at the planet directly without spys.

I am starting to wonder if they changed something with the 2.0 update on DA, because right now I am seeing normal output levels barely better than my own by looking using spys and this is obscene AI. In the past I used to see ex:400mil, 300Soc. 300Res. or some such and now a developed AI homeworld is only showing me less than 100 in all categories and less than 50 in most. Now I'm curious myself . This is my first game back and with 2.0 after a few month hiatus(Though for DA, the passive spying seems to be the only thing that made it into 2.0).

or maybe, did anyone stop to think, how good the player is determines the AI's levels againest you.

Deth could be getting better, there for the his mil, soc and res apear to be matching the AI. means not only does your points go up but your enemy's come back down to meet yours scores? just a theory, but it could explains something.

I have found a save game and checkd the values carefully while having the comments here in mind.What I found out was unexpected.

First, you were right on the values shown from Agents. I planted a few agents and when I reached a higher level in espionage, I could see the real values, which were realistic this time around. Thanks for that.

However, that doesn't mean the AI is not doing something INTERESTING behind the scene.

I checked the timeline <F6> for various values to see how the AI is doing. The 3 AIs started with Economic at over 200 and at turn 60 they where at 800, while I started at around zero and at turn 60 I was about 200!

My population was more than any of them by about %20 and I had the tax at %49 at turn 60
I had 7 trade routes which was more than any of the other civs. They had 4, 4 and 2 trade routs.
I was behind in research as well by quite a bit. They had about 3 times my research. Nevertheless, this didn’t seem unnatural since they had invested in labs quite a bit and the civ with highest research had a +%700 research tile in the capital.

The other timelines were competitive. I was ahead in some and behind in others but the margines were not as big as the eco or research.

How can you start the eco with about 200 a turn? Little population in the beginning and no trade. ( I'm not sure if trade is counted towards the economy)

Considering their population was the same as mine, they couldn't have taxed them %100, and even if they did, with the small population you start with, you can't gain much anyway. Even if all 3 other civs had abilities that helped eco, they can't start with 200 even if their eco is +%400

Since Stardock and everyone says tough doesn't cheat, then it should be that way, but can someone with more experience point out a possibility for starting with and maintaining what seems to be a magical economy?

With my poor (yet) gamimng experience, i should just point out the possible tourism income that of course always goes with the area of influence (the bigger the higher income) try playing on a small galaxy versus 1 race and if the opponents starting planet is at the corner, while yours in the middle you 'll see some considerable amount of tourism income for you.

And also the tributes given to the currently #1 race. I had some good 200c from each opponent on early rounds only cause i owned 1 Defender.

does anyone find that if you focus on Economy before Military you become more stable in the long run? I was just playing a game the other day with the korx trying to get some economical experience and I found that they weren't too shabby. I was quiet interested to find that a strong economy benefits you in diplomacy aswell as millitary, treasury, production and influence (from a 3rd way point of veiw). it's true money makes the world go round.

I can't say I blame the races of the universe for sucking up to the Richer races. Nor can I blame the number 1 race for demanding obscene amounts of money from them. Different areas of focus yeild different results, maybe your cheating com players have different bonus's or different ways of approaching the start.

Of course. Specially if you go for "Trade". Also it always helps to raise the tax bar a bit further at least in the first months. I never risk having a morale lower than 50%. But also, playing so far i found out that you get a high economy score in the end game results if your tax rate is high. That's with my average gaming exp. yet.

Speaking of cheating though, and since i m playing all my games on "Tough", i just find very unfair how the opponent's constructors and colony ships know exactly where to go from the very first round. Least that's the idea i get. I mean, COME ON!... Unfair...

Unless there is a way to automate them like the survey ships i don't know of it...

Not sure what's going on on different difficulty levels.

This AI does not cheat at this level. You just don't know how to play. Every game I play at this level I get way ahead of the ai in economy and research and only lag behind in military/industrial/social production as I'm getting ahead in the main catagories. Then when I am so far ahead I turn to military production and reap the rewards of being the most advanced civ on the map as every AI will buy my techs from me and bow to my power as my military climbs way above the rest. Learn how to build up your planets, focus is the key as I'll have one focus industrial planet and one focused military planet and build up research and economical features first. So, nope no cheating by this ai, it's a good ai and I'm very impressed how it "tries" to deal with my power once I get to the action part of the game.

Although psychoravin could have said things more gently, he does have a point. Until you get some experience, the AI is going to run circles around you. There after when you get some experience, they will mystify you, followed by you understanding what you are lacking, followed by holding your own against them. Then at some point you will play better than them.

That said, you really should only concern yourself with the latest version of DA, and not the demo. There is little reason for the devs to keep the demo up to date when their income is from the sales of the game itself, and not the demo. If there is really a bug with the demo, I doupt it will get fixed.

Also the demo doesn't have the latest COM Player scripting, It is likely that the demo's Ai's are dumb compared to the latest games which enforce a very smart AI. By the way, an AI knows where all the resources and stuff are because they build many scout ships during the colonization rush. reveils the map early on and leaves them at tactical advantage over those who didn't scout. revealing the location to vital resources and planets.

As I have posted before, the AI has started the economy very high from the beginning and it is not about managing the economy say 50% better and widenning the gap and it happened to all 3 civs at the same time. They all started very high so it's not about a civ bonus either. from my previous post:

I checked the timeline <F6> for various values to see how the AI is doing. The 3 AIs started with Economic at over 200 and at turn 60 they where at 800, while I started at around zero and at turn 60 I was about 200!

I am playing TA and on an immense map with 9 other civs on difficulty one less than tough and I totally and utterly dominated the game which I just finished yesterday. However, I didn't have the advantage in the first turn. I built it gradually.

And again, numbers don't lie and the other civs having started the economy so strongly can't be done. The where some good points in the post about the influence and so on but in the beginning of the game, there is no advantage in influence and no matter how much you milk your civilization , there are not enough tax payers to make a difference. You can set the tax to %100 and your starting population cannot provide much.

I think what happened in the demo of DA was probably a bug or something related to the demo. I will start a game on TA on tough and monitor tha AIs progress closeley.