What's up with the AI?

Greetings everyone,

The last update brought a much-improved AI, 4 player partner mode, and more. We wanted to share some info about the AI (Artificial Intelligence) in Cutthroat. We’ve had players questioning just what the AI is allowed to know and if they could be cheating. So to clear that up…

When we set out to teach the AI to play, we based their decisions on our real-life knowledge of the game. Each opponent is his/her own self. They only know what cards they have in their hand and possibly what cards have been played.

Each character has their own skill and ability to remember what has been played. The higher-level characters have access to more advanced strategies, and they have a better memory. After each play a character may forget what cards have been played, thus forget which are the high cards or low cards in any given suit.

For example, if you have a 10 of Diamonds and a 2 of hearts and you do not want to catch a bag, which do you lead out with? Perhaps the 2, as it is the lowest, but if you recall correctly, you will know that the 2 is the last heart, but there is 1 other Diamond left, the Jack. The best play, therefore, would be the 10 of Diamonds, so that it gets taken by the Jack. You then lose the lead and will receive no bags.

If the AI has remembered correctly it will play the correct card, if not, then it may play the wrong one. Just like a human.

As mentioned, the higher-level AI has access to more advanced strategies. For example, when the AI chooses a card to play, it may factor in the number of Bags left in the game. Again, just like a human would do, once they realize that this is important. If there are many of bags and you have, say, four hearts, and one of which is the Ace that you are bidding on, when hearts come around to your play, then you just may sluff a high bag taker instead of playing your Ace.

The AI will do this until they feel they risk losing the Ace. To counter this, you will have to factor in this strategy and perhaps bid higher or use their own strategy against them. But don’t bid to high, as the AI can detect if they have a chance to set a player by remembering what has been played, if they remember correctly. If the AI has many high cards left in their hand and you have yet to get your bid, and most of the other high cards have been played, then the AI may go for a set instead of avoiding bags.

The AI in no way cheats (except for Crackers, sorry about that, but it’s in his nature). Now, if one of the players gets ahead in wins in a tournament, the other AI players will gang up to attempt to take them down. Just like in a real-life Cutthroat game. But the AI does not discriminate against any player, meaning they will gang up against a human or another AI opponent, whatever it takes to keep the tournament going, so they have a chance to win.

Now, in the last new update, the AI is much improved. This should make each level harder to complete. So, until you are familiar with the strategies, you may want to play on easy mode where the AI do not remember as well, and they may not use as good of strategies. Also, please read through the in-game Guide page which details many of the strategies the AI will use against you.

Thanks so much for playing!