Concerning cheating - yes, AI agents cheating against the player is universally disliked. Players quite like game AI that cheats in their favor. For example, in

Concerning cheating - yes, AI agents cheating against the player is universally disliked. Players quite like game AI that cheats in their favor. For example, in a fight with a group of AI opponents, only one would attack you simultaneously (we call this tokening/ticketing) and at a DPS generally lower than yours (through reduced accuracy, mini-cooldowns, and imperceivable timing tweaks between attacks, or more in-universe reasons) so that you can beat them all (even if the agent has the same weapon and loadout as you, and even if their stats screen shows higher stats!) There are also modifiers to how AI characters in traditional third/first-person games move and escalate when they are off-screen, as the players don't take well to being surprised by an enemy that emerges from off-screen close to them, even when it's plausible (Cyberpunk 2077 police). It is super cheatable, and many players end up unconsciously using these techniques, but they consider it "fair" and fun :) There are a lot of these tricks game developers do to make AI cheat in the player's favor. This isn't true for some titles meant to be hard, but it is typically true in AAA. Meanwhile, AI cheating against the player is considered very undesirable. Firaxis might simply be balancing with formulas like y = mx + b, where the AI starts with a bonus b and gets better at a rate m through the age/game. I am only speculating, but perhaps they want the AI agents to seem harder at the start and make it more likely that the player overcomes them over the game. The feeling of dominating an opponent is one component of a design pillar in many games called "power fantasy," which players love. Dominating them from a position of the underdog is even more rewarding. Whether this plays as well as never giving the AI agents an "unfair" advantage is another question, but this advantage is a part of the Civ formula now. And there is a bit of inertia around design traditions in game series - many things are built around them that wouldn't work and would have to be redone if they changed. Perhaps they didn't want to spend time here. One way or the other, this is a matter of balancing and not big-picture game AI design, architecture, or systems as much. So, if you are only concerned with cheating, then set all of what I said about these big-picture things aside. However, the comment I was responding to was more about the overall quality of AI systems. I hope the context I've given anyone who reads this lets them communicate with Firaxis about the cheating problem in a more direct and constructive way. Saying that AI is bad overall from the perspective of system modernity does not express that sentiment and would confuse them. I am happy with the game AI in Civ in the same way most programmers are okay with bugs in software. It's not perfect, but I understand why it is this way. You can challenge the cheating in their forums if you'd like.