AI Cheat: Starports on unuseable squares

from GalCiv2 Forums
I've noticed, thru conquering or flipping planets, that the AI will build Starports on yellow, orange, or red squares, then upgrade them to other things (like factories, banks, etc.).

Bit of a cheat, no? The AI didn't have the requisite terraforming tech, nor was the square terraformed.

Anyone else notice this?
11,258 views 19 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Starports are really weird and this isn't the first Ai-starpot bug. The other involves building multiple starports. It's being sorted eventually (but not in 1.1)
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Which player was this? I've never seen anything like that.
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I noticed a similar bug last night playing as Terran. When I conquered a Torian planet, there was an embassy built on a yellow square. BTW I could not decomission the embassy built on that square because a soil enhancement was already in progress for the square.
So I believe it's definitely a bug.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Just conquered a planet with this cheat/bug as well. Guess I should save the game and send it to you.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Could you stop refering to a bug as an AI cheat.

Thanks
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I wouldnt call it a cheat as im sure the devs didnt mean for this sort of thing to happen. And yeah stop using that silly word, dontcha know that kinda thing doesnt exsist
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Could you stop refering to a bug as an AI cheat.


Why ? The AI is using this bug as an exploit and so is cheating. IMHO. No big deal anyway as it's rather minor.

Just because the human player can't do it (AFAIK) doesn't make this not a cheat.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
its not using it to exploit...
its not intentiall
if you use a bug and your not even aware of it, are you cheating?
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I have seen the Torians do it on 4 of the 8 plants I have captured from them
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I have seen this as well in a recent game, but with a subtle difference. The ... Torians? I don't remember anymore ... had two orbital fleet managers on one planet. That in itself is odd, as there should only be one per planet. Anyway, I went to change them both out. One of them I upgraded to something else with no problem. The other one only let me demolish it, then upgrade it via terraforming.

I wish I had a save game to send, but it was close to the end of a military victory on a gigantic universe, and it was late, and I just wanted to win, and ... basically, I didn't save the evidence.
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Maybe the AI is smarter than you give it credit for, Frogboy.

The singularity is near! Today Galactic Civilizations II innocently greases the game. Tomorrow, SkyNet kills us all.
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Multiple Torian planets that I concurred culturally yesterday had 2 starports, with 1 of them upgrading to another building type.
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
its not using it to exploit...
its not intentiall
if you use a bug and your not even aware of it, are you cheating?


Would be valid if the AI is a sentient being. No matter how good the AI is in GalCiv2 it's not even close to being Skynet.

So it's unintentional, the bug is still giving the AI the abilty to "cheat".


People / players that have been using "exploits" in games (this one or others), wheter they know it or not, have been flagged cheaters when uploading their scores or just during gameplay. Ignorance is not really an excuse, the ones who didn't want to cheat will just play more and not use the exploit and others will continue to do so.


basically, I didn't save the evidence.


I did. I also mailed it to frogboy.

BTW, in that game I cheated big time
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
maybe the AI got xeno ethics and chose the neutral path, thus having all tiles made available to build
and (just maybe) they revert back to not buildable when you (not being neutral so not having all tiles available) conquer the planet ?
Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
That's a pretty good theory, Megavolt. If true, then Stardock should allow the benefits of capturing such a planet without reverting it to what players without xeno ethics would see.
Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It would explain why the tiles are not buildable but still have something on them, it doesn't however explain the multiple "only 1 type per planet building" (like the starport)

Reply #17 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Have had this occur multiple times....both with and without xeno ethics for the AI. Multiple starports, 2 orbital defenses(many, many worlds)..... no terraforming/enhancement,habvitat used and no xeno ethics, yet unusable squares are improved. The orbital defenses being built multiple times appeared first in the 3rd beta for me. The tile improvement and multiple starports bugs appeared with this newest beta. Not just the torians, have seen it with korx,iconians and arceans as well, Dregin Im also fairly certain.


Again, the tile usability issue has popped up long before the AI has acquired xeno ethics, and yes Im sure as I always use xeno ethics as a nice tech catch up, the AI will trade an arm and a leg for ethics usually, so I make sure to trade it toi all before any of them research it.
Reply #18 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
FOGL

Someone's been watching way too many Disney movies.

A bug is a bug, and nothing more than a bug, just an unintended result in a computer program that causes it to work differently than the programmer(s) intended.

As for the "more than one of a singular building" bug, well, that just needs a little tweak to the AI. One possible solution would be a routine that, once per turn, reviews the items already built on every npc (non-player-controlled) planet and the items in the build queue and deals with any inconsistencies.
Reply #19 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Cheat, bug, whatever. I'm not worried with the semantics, just pointing out an error.

Xeno Ethics was not in play when I noticed this (good theory though).

There are also other weird things - captured two planets that had 2 capitals on them - one had 2 manufacturing capitals (and was a very large world, so quickly became a manufacturing powerhouse), and the other had 2 economic capitals...

So the AI has some weird building rules, or doesn't have the same limitations.

And yes, I've seen many multiple starports, fleet controls, etc. on a planet.