AI Councilors Cheating...

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resist
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed Sep 28, 2022 11:25 am

AI Councilors Cheating...

Post by resist »

It seems that the AI Councilors can just take any CP from your nation at any time. They can instantly purge your defended CPs. It is like they don't actually have the same points/probability based mechanics that the user does. I got so fed up with it that I made some tweaks to the saved game to verify the AI was cheating.


I adjusted the GDP in the USA to be 10x since that clearly has an outsized impact on the probability of success for councilor events.
All control points are defended.
The typical AI councilor in my current game has <10 in all traits & still instantly purges my CP.
I maxed out the traits on one of my councilors (25s across the board) & the probability for purging the CP that was just taken by the AI is 0% with maxed out influence...
This is totally broken and ruins the gameplay experience.

Also, it doesn't seem to matter how many AI agents are assassinated...they just come back in full force.

Additionally, the AI councilors barely care about the rest of the world...just your nations. So you are constantly purging the same CPs back and forth. It is incredibly frustrating to have all the AIs constantly trying to take out your CPs. Just playing playing perpetual defense against all the AI councilors is really not fun. For example there are 11 of them in the US right now and another 5 in my EU holdings...Impossible to do anything with only 5 of my own councilors.
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Alitari
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Re: AI Councilors Cheating...

Post by Alitari »

While I wasn't aware of the AI having super human ability (CHEAT MODE ENABLED!), I do find the constant game of whack a mole irritating.

I have 5 councilors, so 5 things (part of the action economy) that I can significantly do around the world. 1 is assigned to my most prosperous nation to constantly Advise them ... another is on a nation by nation rotating basis to keep Unrest down (why does Canada have a higher default Unrest than the USA? There is a lot more crime (particularly murder) and their counter governmental protests were worse than in Canada (compare Jan 6 to the Freedom Convoy)) ... so that leaves me with 3. 1 I have to go around and pop the Defend Interests action on a routine basis, so they're flexible ... so I realistically have 2.5 'actions' I can take per turn (not at the point where I can go hog wild building fleets and armies can only do so much.

In the past few hours of play it has consisted of me vying with another faction as they take 1 control point in Mexico ... I spend multiple turns rebuilding public support (Public Campaign) then Crackdown tied with Purge to get that point back. And then the Alpine States. And now Argentina.

To know that they're cheating is ... well ... sad.
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johnnylump
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Re: AI Councilors Cheating...

Post by johnnylump »

Any difficulty feedback is far more useful to us if you post the difficulty level you are playing on.

On Normal, there is no "cheating." The AI plays the same game that you do, rolls the same dice against the same modifiers, operates with the same limited information. They are very aggressive in pursuing nations they want to control.

On the higher difficulties they get some small bonuses to mission rolls. There are places where some of these are visible to the player.

There are special powers in the game that affect politics on Earth. They have to be earned by the AI, and they do get used sometimes. Those face die rolls too, and you can discover what those powers are and how to counter them.

Also, Canada's starting unrest is 0. The United States' is 3. Canada has a higher democracy score than the United States and a more favorable cohesion value. I do see that Canada's unrest has an initial rest state value of 0.39 (out of 10), versus the U.S. rest state of zero, meaning that's the direction the "current" value will go to. This is an extremely marginal difference in game terms, and I'd have to dig in why the calculation is coming up with that.

I suspect it's because of two things: The U.S. has a higher Per-Capita GDP, which "buys off" unrest, and the U.S. has armies and lower democracy, the combination of which suppresses unrest. Slightly higher cohesion or Per-Capita GDP in Canada would move it down to zero, just need a few more big-screen TVs or unity in the face of adversity.

No doubt we have more balancing to do, but this "cheating" isn't a thing.
The Boz
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Joined: Wed Jan 25, 2017 1:01 pm

Re: AI Councilors Cheating...

Post by The Boz »

On Normal, can confirm the AI seems reluctant to take anything the player ignores. But if I show interest in it, there it goes, snatching it.
2025, USA was entirely empty, nobody claimed a single CP on it. I send three agents boosting my popularity there, finish my management research, and snatch two entire CP of the behemoth in about two months of effort. Very literally one month later, The Protectorate, who had 2% support yesterday, swoops in, claims the other four points, and locks them. Just like that, out of the blue. Performed half a dozen surveil and investigate missions, found three of their agents around the world, and they suck. Like, their diplomat has persuasion of 2.
China is currently entirely unclaimed, 40% Undecided. I... do not want to give it to the AI by looking at it, though.

Executive control should *not* be on the last CP, but on owning *all* CP. It's really hilarious how you can take less than 20% of a behemoth like the US, but control the entire thing "technically" just because it is the last one, and your enemy basically helped you get there by getting the first five CP.
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Alitari
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Re: AI Councilors Cheating...

Post by Alitari »

johnnylump wrote: Thu Sep 29, 2022 1:09 amThere are special powers in the game that affect politics on Earth. They have to be earned by the AI, and they do get used sometimes. Those face die rolls too, and you can discover what those powers are and how to counter them.
I hope that they can be earned by the player as well as the AI.

***

Playing on Cinematic.

I'm currently looking at Mexico, where I had all Control Points protected by the Defend Interests mission ... and the Servants captured one control point despite having 0% Public Opinion (I have 77%) ... so they must have either used a 'special power' or something. The Servant councilor in the region has an estimated Espionage of 3? (actual of 9 after a critical success) ... and seems to be able to successfully Purge every 2-3 actions. No special abilities listed in their Missions tab, Orgs, or Traits.

Purging it back I have a base 93% (+39.6 Councilor, -31.3 Target) but I know they will always follow up with a Defend Interest so I fully boosted it (so +7 to the Councilor, costing 64 Influence). (The Purge dropped to 86% because of their Defend Interest action)

So far nothing has indicated 'what those powers are or how to counter them', despite investigating the councilor involved? or surveilling the region ... it appears, at face value, that the computer is cheating or that the Defend Interests mission is useless for the player but very useful for the AI. Having this mechanism hidden behind story should at least have a story explaination: 'sir! We don't know how they did it, but one of our control points was taken over! Those were our loyal people in those positions, something must have influenced them beyond our normal capacity! (i.e. they didn't use a Purge action) Perhaps we can figure out how they did it with future research?' ... basically whatever it is isn't being communicated very well to the player, it just happens and it appears unfair.
Dingbawz
Posts: 13
Joined: Thu Sep 29, 2022 1:36 pm

Re: AI Councilors Cheating...

Post by Dingbawz »

I can confirm I have the exact same issue. I did put a separate post up aswell but thought it would be good to message on this also. My year in-game is 2027 it took me a year of constant campaigning with all the different types of councillor missions to take full control CP of China. Locked it all down and was slowly working on the democracy and inequality stats and slowly bring China into the ultimate power house.

Well out of nowhere I lost 1 of the sector CP's to the AI. Within a few months another AI took another sector CP.

I have no idea how they managed it. Everything was locked down and all stats for China were going into the green.

My chances of taking these CP points back are 0% I have very high stat councillors so again a bit baffled how my chances are so low but the AI can do it so quickly and with incredible effectiveness.

Gotta be something wrong with the programming?
My game is just normal aswell.
Anteep
Posts: 8
Joined: Wed Sep 28, 2022 10:14 pm

Re: AI Councilors Cheating...

Post by Anteep »

Dingbawz wrote: Fri Sep 30, 2022 1:22 pm I can confirm I have the exact same issue. I did put a separate post up aswell but thought it would be good to message on this also. My year in-game is 2027 it took me a year of constant campaigning with all the different types of councillor missions to take full control CP of China. Locked it all down and was slowly working on the democracy and inequality stats and slowly bring China into the ultimate power house.

Well out of nowhere I lost 1 of the sector CP's to the AI. Within a few months another AI took another sector CP.

I have no idea how they managed it. Everything was locked down and all stats for China were going into the green.

My chances of taking these CP points back are 0% I have very high stat councillors so again a bit baffled how my chances are so low but the AI can do it so quickly and with incredible effectiveness.

Gotta be something wrong with the programming?
My game is just normal aswell.
Are the CPs going to the Servants? Aliens flip CPs randomly for them. Try playing Servants, you'll see what I mean.
Dingbawz
Posts: 13
Joined: Thu Sep 29, 2022 1:36 pm

Re: AI Councilors Cheating...

Post by Dingbawz »

Project exodus and servants.
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