Here at humankind, we want you to expand your empire but also have fun with warmongering indepent cities that'll do nothing but spawn 2 units a time. Also due to our infinite knowledge they'll also get organized warfare waaay before you do. 4 unit army to hold a pass? Okay 3-5 "wave" i need to pull back to consistently heal oh wait they just keep pushing until i cant retreat oh right thats another 8 2unit armies that just spawn great game!

Yeah it's very frustrating. I was just playing the beta for the new patch. On Nation difficulty, If you try and eliminate a rival early on the AI just cheats so much it makes the game unenjoyable. I should be rewarded for understanding the game mechanics and dominating early on - not punished by an AI that is already cheating by pumping out warriors and ranged units at a rate double my cities population growth.

I know that I can survive the start, and then build up steam and wipe the AI - but that's not really the point. Allowing the AI to straight up cheat doesn't make the game more enjoyable.

Hello folks,

As an AI programmer, I can't say much regarding the Independent Cities spawn rate as that's decided by another game system. That being said, I'm pretty sure these rates were rebalanced at some point. Do you still get this feeling while playing?

About the AI itself, in Nation difficulty, the AI gets no economical bonus and it does not use any cheat regarding its army generation (ie. it does not have a "spawn new army" action). In higher difficulty, it gets economical bonuses but other than that, it still plays by the rules. I'd be quite intested in seeing the situation that lets you think that the AI was cheating. Would you mind sending us a savefile with this kind of situation?

Thank you for your feedbacks,

Alex.

Say, when the AI dies during the Neolithic era, does it also get the "Fresh Start" event that respawns a full stack of Tribes? I remember feeling like I had been cheated out of an early victory, but I figured the AI just got to use the same "cheat" we players do when we get knocked out early.

Baron32 wrote:

Say, when the AI dies during the Neolithic era, does it also get the "Fresh Start" event that respawns a full stack of Tribes? I remember feeling like I had been cheated out of an early victory, but I figured the AI just got to use the same "cheat" we players do when we get knocked out early.

I'm pretty sure all empires in the Neolithic era benefit from the "Fresh Start" mechanic.  I think of it less as a cheat and more of a gameplay feature.  Instead of a "cheat", I think of these elements of Humankind as though it were a complicated Euro-board-game full of checks and balances to push down the leader and pull up the stragglers (even though the game's numbers can grow exponentially).

You're right, everyone respawns in Neolithic with a new army. Since it's available to human players as well, I don't consider it cheating. That being said, I agree that the feature is a bit awkward sometimes and can lead to unfair situations. I'll link the discussion to a designer so they can look for a solution.