I hate a cheat

couslee · #1 January 19th, 2003, 02:25 AM

The Phong pop a colony ship through the wormhole, and colonize a planet. I happen to have a fleet right there, so I detach a bomber and head over to remove him from his newly acquired planet. They have not had this planet for one full turn even.

What do I find?
2m population, which is fine, glad to see the AI is smart enough to not use full colonizers.
and a resupply depot..... HUH?

My race is strong on construction and I can only build a 6k facility in 3 turns (2 with a SY). I colonize at 2k per. there is NO WAY the AI could have built that in 0 turns.

granted, I could view it as a bonus spot and capture the planet and save the facility cost, or say "the AI needs all the helpo it can get" but how I handle the invasion is irrelevant. I hate a cheating AI. I read the AI didn't do that(cheat) in SE4g. who ever wrote that was "mistaken".

what other cheats can I look forward to?

Arkcon · #2 January 18th, 2003, 03:18 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by couslee:
The Phong pop a colony ship through the wormhole, and colonize a planet. I happen to have a fleet right there, so I detach a bomber and head over to remove him from his newly acquired planet. They have not had this planet for one full turn even.

What do I find?
2m population, which is fine, glad to see the AI is smart enough to not use full colonizers.
and a resupply depot..... HUH?

That is totally bizarre. Are you sure you're looking at the correct planet, and it has really been < 1 turn?
Seriously, this type of misunderstanding happens often.

Quote:

Originally posted by couslee:

what other cheats can I look forward to?

Well, giving the AI a bonus at startup is essentially a cheat, you give it 2X, 3X, or 5X the resource, research and intel income. But they shouldn't alter construction rate. This is the stock Phong, right? 'Tho I've never altered racial chateristics to get 1 turn resupply depots either.

couslee · #3 January 18th, 2003, 03:39 PM

when I set up the game, I gave the AI "high" bonus. But even if that affected construction, the facility should not have been built in the same turn as colonization. Yes, it's the stock Phong. I have only made a couple of minor changes to the text file, none of which would apply to this. (and not talking about the AI txt files either.)

They had owned this planet once before. Could there be left over facilities? i don't think so.

They came through the wormhole and colonized, I attacked.they had been comming through the worm hole before and not making it as far at the lower planets (wormhole at top of system). thats why my fleet was sitting there. And I am sure the planet was not colonized at the end of the previous turn (nor had it been colonized)

[ January 18, 2003, 13:40: Message edited by: couslee ]

geoschmo · #4 January 18th, 2003, 06:05 PM

couslee, the only question here is whether or not the Phong in your game have sufficent build speed to get a resupply depot in one turn. If they do then it is perfectly reasonable that the resupply depot would be built by the time you got there. Construction occurs at the end of the turn. Being that this is a single player, turn-based game, the AI ship moved to the planet, the colony was established, and the supply depot put in the queue during the turn. The construction would have occured at the end of that turn, and if completed in 1 turn would be done befor you got there. That part is not cheating. It would be impossible in a simultaneous turn game however, becasue he wouldn't have access to the build queue right away.

That being said I have never heard of the AI bonuses giving advantages in construction speed. Although I suppose it's possible. Did you modify the Phong empire setup before the game? How many racial points? In a 5000 point game the stock Phong get an extra 20% to construction rate.

And how much population did they have on the colony. If the colonizer had advanced cargo comps, or if it was a larger hull size they could have had extra population which would have resulted in higher than normal build rates.

Geoschmo

Mephisto · #5 January 18th, 2003, 06:10 PM

The AI does not cheat. Never. Trust me, I can't count the hours I have watched it.

Rollo · #6 January 18th, 2003, 07:26 PM

The AI does have a construction bonus as with production and research.
Geo , I am surprised you didn't know that

.
Other than that, what Geo described (construction at end of turn in a turn based game) is correct. The AI didn't cheat.

Rollo

[ January 18, 2003, 17:28: Message edited by: Rollo ]