I just tried to replicate this. Krynn, Huge Galaxy, 9 opponents, suicidal. It's a set-up I would never play, as my computer would probably explode by the later game. But I got a 700% manu bonus on Kryseth! Doh!!!

Anyway, for some reason ctrl-U wasn't doing anything.

Anyone able to confirm or refute this?

Thanks. No, I haven't done any of that. I don't play with cheats, so I probably won't go to the trouble.

I'm surprised no one has tried this out yet, though. People were very interested in the thread on whether the AI cheats by sending its colony ships straight to habitable planets. This seems at least as bad, if not worse, if it is confirmed. My suspicion, though, is that it's a misinterpretation or a misunderstanding.

Oh well, as advanced as the AI is, it still can't compete with the human brain. I guess the AI does cheat a little.

I can understand two fully built, but to do so would require that one be rush bought and the 2nd be built normally in one turn. This makes sense for the Thalan one week factory super ability but I don't know if it's realistic to be able to build a factory in one week with the starting level of production. I guess it's reasonable if you assume a 200% social production level for suicidal but this supposedly occurs on tough where there should be no AI bonuses.

I don't know if my numbers are correct here so please correct them where appropriate. A basic factory costs 50. The civ cap gives 24 assuming sliders are set to 100% social production. Even if the rush bought factory contributes to the first weeks production (I would guess that it should) that's another 7. So I can see that's it's possible with essentially a 100% social production bonus, but otherwise not. I don't know of any way that the AI could start the game with close to a 100% social production bonus except as suicidal. Perhaps my numbers are drastically wrong for DA.

Actually thinking about this a little more the civ cap also gets 24 research some of which will go towards social production if you use focus. I'm not sure how what percentage of research shifts to production when using focus but perhaps it's not so unrealistic after all. Can anyone quantify this?

BTW not to distract the thread too much but what was the result of the concern about the AI sending colony ships straight to habital planets that Cornhusker mentioned?

The AI has only gotten his first turn's normal production, though. The anomaly seems to be simply because the AI is not being prevented from rush buying again after he's finished his turn, rather than being made to wait until you've finished yours too.

OK it becomes even more weird.
This is a shot from the beginning of turn 2, right after I pressed the "turn" button the first time. At the end of the first turn the Korx AI colonized the second planet in its home system. So far so good but now look at this:



4 (!) social buildings already built.

I really hope that kind of behavior only happens if a players activates Ctrl-U (which is obviously a huge bonus) and as a result the AI "protects" itself by activating cheats it normally would not use.
Maybe one of the devs can comment on this.

Does this mean that the AI can buy twice per turn?

I.E.
AI Buys Factory
AI Hits Turn Button
AI Buys Factory
My Turn
AI Buys Factory
AI Hits Turn Button
AI Buys Factory


This would explain the AI having four buildings on Korx II at the end of turn two:
Turn 1
Colonize Krox II
Buy Factory

Turn 2
Buy Factory
Hit Turn button;Build Market
Buy Building

Edit - I mean buy once before it's turn and once after the turn button...Otherwise if it was a pure two buy per turn, it could manage 5 or six buildings on Korx II.

Correction, 5 buildings. I forgot to count the starport.
So it is not "2 per turn" but seems to be unlimited or related to reloading/whatever...

I can confirm somthing strange as well.... often i will save a game at the start if it is a good map. Later on i may decide to play that game again, however i am often perplexed as to how the AI always seems more determined to claim my worlds the second time round to what i remembered happening the first time i played the mission!

I ran a game several turns in and it does indeed seem as I originally suspected; the AI is just finishing its first turn and getting a jump on the second. Everything after the first turn appears to proceed as normal, I didn't see any double-buys or similar in successive turns. Bringing up the issue with Frogboy confirmed this.

I did try starting a new game, then just saving and reloading repeatedly without clicking the turn button or really doing anything at all. And it does seem that the AI gets a round of production each time the game is loaded.

Hi!

Basically at turn 0 or game load they buy a factory, queue another and "press" Turn --> with suicidal bonus the queued factory is built. At turn 1 (my first turn) I have the chance to look at their planets, so I see 2 buildings. Nothing illegal, but the turn 0 they get at each game load - and starting the game probably also involves game load.

BR, Iztok

Another thought: after you have military dominance, additional AI production turns are probably a net benefit to you. Less need to build up newly conquered planets, etc. Maybe you could even do something like give a bunch of minor races the tech for Hyperion Shrinker, save and reload a bunch of times, now the Shrinkers are all complete, time to invade.

Incidentally, I did a massive amount of saving and reloading in the course of playing my most recent metaverse game, and my final score broke the previous Medium map record by almost a factor of two. I suspect that my score did in fact benefit, perhaps significantly, from all the additional AI production that occurred. (So if that bug is actually an intentional feature meant to counter players excessively abusing save/reload, it doesn't work well at all.)