computer 'cheats' at 1:1 on hardest

[Guest airjim]

i kept getting mad that the computer would beat me 1:1 on 'hardest', but it was manageable on 'hard'. even on a map where i could corral the incoming enemy through towers, they'd upgrade so fast it didnt matter. so, i turned off the fog of war and watched, so maybe to pick up some pointers, and figure out what i was doing wrong.

 

well, lo and behold, the computer build 2 animal nurseries, 2 or 3 prefab shelters, a power core, a troop center, and a food center, all while collecting about 50 carbon units. thats about the point that i quit.

 

now lets add that up...

 

prefabs = 25 c x 2 50

power core = 200 c 200

troop center = 160 c (?) 160

food & animal = 100 c x 3 300

total 710

 

oh yes, its true. you start with 200 carbon and the computer has at least 650. so, LA, maybe we should try tweaking the AI just a little bit so that resources can stay the same. or, mayhaps, give an option to have the resources be truly equal.

 

i have the utmost confidence that the computer, even ONE computer, can beat little old me. i'm not that good, really. i can issue commands to one unit at a time, it can control all of them. it already knows what the map looks like, and knows exactly where i am and what i'm doing. it DOES NOT need a huge resource advantage too.

 

well, at least now i dont feel so bad about getting my a** kicked.

[Guest IdLe_WorkeR]

http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=25312

 

... the post applies to the Hard setting, however the ai script code can be changed for the Hardest setting too.

 

Actually, the computer DOES need the resourse advantage to play "well". You can convince yourself of that by watching how it plays with the map on visible mode.

 

It's cool we can set the level of difficulty of the computer player by manipulating the ai. Don't think you can mess with the ai in Empire Earth, for example.

[Guest airjim]

thats what i'm saying. its not my fault the computer plays poorly - and they 'shouldnt' need the advantage, it should be able to beat me without it.

[Compa_Mighty]

It's fair, that way, it's a challenge.

[EndSub]

The computer is a push-over, even if it cheats, maybe you just need to go down one skill level?

[Chessack]

First of all, let me say that LucasArts and Galactic Battles are not the only game with AI that allows the computer to "cheat" on the harder levels. Most games do it. AoE 1 and 2 (2 being what GB is based off of) both cheated at the harder levels. Civilization 1 and 2 also did (haven't tried 3 yet). Baldur's Gate 1 cheats (haven't played 2 yet, but I bet it does). So I am not trying to pick on LucasArts for having "hard" and "hardest" levels do this kind of "cheating". However, that said...

 

First, let's define "cheating." To me, the computer cheats when it gives itself stuff you're not allowed to have. For example, as Idle_Worker pointed out a while ago, the computer gives itself 500 of each resource every 10 minutes for the duration of the game, on "hard" (one can only imagine what it does on "hardest"). That's cheating, because the computer is basically able to play in a world that has different rules from the on you are in. It'd be like a computer baseball game where the computer's batters get 5 strikes instead of the 3 you get as a player. Does this "cheating" make it harder to win? Absolutely. You've set it on "hard" to make it more difficult and challenging. Well, it is, so why are you annoyed?

 

The answer, of course, is that you want it to be hard the *right way*. Game creators allow computers to cheat on the harder levels because they want it to be, well, harder to win. They know the gamers "want a challenge." What the seem not to realize is that we want the challenge to be something that is harder, but also fair. When we get the sense that the computer is allowed to do things that we aren't allowed to do, we feel cheated. We become frustrated because we know the computer didn't win "fair and square." It only won because it was allowed to do things we aren't allowed to do.

 

The problem, however, in a game with AI, is that it's not easy to make a computer that can think on the same level as a human. Humans can be creative. We can pull ambushes, surprises, etc. Many of these depend on the present conditions and they just can't realistically be programmed into a game engine.

 

Some, however, one would think would be obvious and easy to program. For intsance, the computer always seems to come at you from the same direction. It shouldn't be too hard to program it to come at you from a random direction, to go around your stiff northwest defenses and try to hit you from the south. Those kinds of things are missing, and I for one, would be a little less annoyed at the cheating, if some simple logic were also included in cases like this.