AI Should not use game-breaking cheats

[R315r4z0r]

Subject:
AI in some of the previous C&C games used some game-breaking cheats to gain an upper hand. While understandable in some cases, they went a little overboard.

Description:
AI should not obviously cheat. It's one thing to give them a couple advantages to make them harder to play against, but it's another thing entirely to give them game-breaking cheats. You can give them a slight increase in income or lower power requirements or even quicker build times... but direct actions taken on the field should be left to the AI's intelligence alone, without the assist of some cheat.

AI should have to recon the area before noticing one of your attack forces. You, as the player, should be able to outsmart/outmaneuver your AI opponent... but you wont be able to do that if they know every move you make. The AI in RA3 was notorious for knowing exactly where every one of my attack forces assembled... even if they were way out of their field of vision. I'd group a naval fleet in the corner of the map, and the enemy would always send a helicopter straight there... it was quite annoying.

If you have a unit that has an "invisibility" ability (like cloaking, or burrowing, etc) the AI should not know of their presence without the aid of some sort of sensor building/unit. In C&C3, I would have a stealth tank poised to attack an enemy, but the enemy AI would know where I was and follow my unit around waiting for me to show myself before they opened fire.

Positive Effect:
-Makes the AI more fun to play against.
-Allows you to practice game strategies on the AI if you aren't up to playing in an online match.

Negative Effect:
-Could potentially make the AI easier to defeat... depending on how much work Victory Games puts into coding it.

[nodforev]

Yea i hated this in the last few C&C where you could have a game ending force and all of a sudden the AI uses a support power on your force when there is no way it could know the force is there.

[m4dn3ss]

In C&C4 when you shoot a support power or superweapon the AI always sees the beacon and runs away :/

[Golan2781]

Seeing the schism between online and skirmish player bases, it's about damn time they try to match the two more. This is only possible by the AI being as lifelike as possible, which means a minimum of cheats. Regularly updating the AI to conform to balance and meta game chances is imperative, too.

[ConKid66]

Also, the AI need to build at the same rate as the player. In Tiberian Sun you would be attacked by disruptors and cyborg reapers while trying to build your first radar. In Red Alert 2, if you had superweapons on, your base would be destroyed by a superweapon before you had a radar. This seemed to be fixed in Generals and CnC 3 but returned in RA3, only with Iron Curtains instead of an offensive SW.

[Kanesbestfriend]

Agreed, I wasted a nuke today because the ai just sold every single building it has and then use the remaining dozers to make a new base.... (GENERALS)

[dky.tehkingd.u]

I hate the omniscient support powers in RA3. You're not even allowed to deploy support powers into the Fog of War..... why should the AI be allowed to do that?

Also, leave the increased income to the Brutal enemies.

[A51UK]

True that should be no need for a AI that Cheats but if the AI is no good and they are running out of time. it would be better to have a AI what Cheat to keep up with the player then one that cannot win any game. They need to spend time in make a cool AI with out any Cheats.

[Madin]

Seeing the schism between online and skirmish player bases, it's about damn time they try to match the two more. This is only possible by the AI being as lifelike as possible, which means a minimum of cheats. Regularly updating the AI to conform to balance and meta game chances is imperative, too.

Ah yes! I always dreamed of programming the C&C3 AI to occasionally try an APC-Engineer opening move. To have seen the look on players faces when the AI attempted, and pulled off a successful capture would have been priceless.

Anyway, yes, adapting the AI through patches to preform certain standard build orders, rushes, unit combinations etc would be a great addition, and would potentially assist in getting more players online, has the generic tactics often employed online would not be completely alien to them.

[Scudmarx]

Invite some top players to help build an Expert System of tactics and strategies that are adjusted on-the-fly in-game as the war shifts, so the AI is difficult because it actually uses good, reactive tactics, and feels human because it's actually employing human thinking?

Oh, also, how about a unit that is an Amazon with a lightning bow riding on a tiger with lasers coming out of its eyes? That be pretty sweet too.