Is it possible that the AI played tardigrades or some other microbe collecting card in that generation, and then used ants on that card?

Originally posted by AronFJenks:

Is it possible that the AI played tardigrades or some other microbe collecting card in that generation, and then used ants on that card?

No, I checked both the AI with the ants card and the other one I had playing, and my microbes card was the only on in play. The animation also only showed a +1 for the ants and not a -1 anywhere else, where when working correctly there would be a -1 microbe on me and a +1 on the AI with the ants

I want to confirm this bug, just checked the other players and there are no microbes available on any cards (I stopped generating microbes 2 turns ago and one player has just played tardigrades, but not activated them yet), but for the last 2 turns the cheating AI has been generating ant VP's.

Extreme Cold Fungus and/or Symbiotic fungus were not in play? Those cards would enable the Ants card to gain microbes even if no player has collected any microbes.

Also, the card Aerobraked ammonia asteroid can add microbes to any microbe-collecting card.

I was watching the animation, it animated adding a microbe to ants, but on no occasion was there the left to right animation of a microbe being removed from any player.

Originally posted by Mostly Harmless:

I was watching the animation, it animated adding a microbe to ants, but on no occasion was there the left to right animation of a microbe being removed from any player.

I understand. That was made clear in the initial post(s) that said no player had any microbe to remove.

That isn't relevant to my post though. My post was pointing out multiple different ways microbes can added to Ants without being removed from a player. I am not sure whether that is an explanation for what occurred, but it's a very likely one.

If the only check that was performed was, "hey, no player has microbes to remove, therefore the game is broken", that's a hasty conclusion, given that no player needs to have any microbes for a player with the ants card to add microbes to it.

Considering that the game has been very buggy for its entire existence, it's also possible this is a glitch. But It should not be definitively declared a glitch if the people posting about it are not even aware of the existence of cards that can add microbes to a different card without removing them from another player. The AI loves to play these cards, so it is not at all uncommon for the AI to draft and play them.

Came here to confirm that its a bug. I had a "Nitrite Reducing Bacteria" in play which was the only source of Microbe in the game (alongside an opponent Ants). I stopped activating it and had it at 0 microbes, but the AI would still use the effect of Ants to put +1 microbes on the Ants card.

Originally posted by AureliusNom:

Came here to confirm that its a bug. I had a "Nitrite Reducing Bacteria" in play which was the only source of Microbe in the game (alongside an opponent Ants). I stopped activating it and had it at 0 microbes, but the AI would still use the effect of Ants to put +1 microbes on the Ants card.

Apologies in advance if this is a silly question, but is it possible the AI player had the card "Symbiotic Fungus"?

This may well be a bug, but I want to make sure everyone realizes there are two different cards that a player can possess to add ants to his own ants card even if no opponents have any microbes on their cards.

1) "Symbiotic Fungus" as an action can add one microbe to any microbe-holding card, such as ants .
2) "Extreme Colf Fungus" - same thing, but adds 2 microbes.

If the AI does not have either of those cards, and, no opponent has any microbes, then the AI should not be able to add an ant.

NOTE - one last thing to check. If no player has microbes, the AI will still always activate its ants card and take an ant from the card itself and then put it back on. In that case, it might appear as though the AI is taking an ant and gaining points, btu its actual number of ants remains unchanged.

I cannot confirm whether there was a Symbiotic/ExtremeCold Fungus in play, but I remember that in the Logs it always showed an action coming from the Ants.

The -1 into +1 on the same card is a good observation. I thought the CPU was doing just that, but then confirmed that its Microbe count was increasing from turn to turn.

Still, I think you just answered your own question.

1) You said you did not check for symbiotic Fungus or Extreme cold fungus. One of those cards is almost certainly how the AI's ants count as increasing.

2) You said the log indicated it was using its ants action. As noted, it will always do that action (remove from its own ants and put it back on) even if it has already used one of those other two cards to add an ant.

Is it possible that AI used ants to eat themselves? I remember doing that myself with Ants in this game. Not sure if that should be allowed by the actual game rules.

It is allowed for the ants to be cannibals.

I had the same bug with Predators. I had Protected Habitats and the AI had only one Animal on the Predators card. The AI was able to add a second Animal on the card. The log confirms the Predators was activated; it wasn't added by another card.
It looks like, in both cases, the card is programmed as if "remove a microbe/animal" and "add a microbe/animal" were independent, in which case it would be legal to not remove anything, instead of a cost.

Originally posted by Koshka:

I had the same bug with Predators. I had Protected Habitats and the AI had only one Animal on the Predators card. The AI was able to add a second Animal on the card. The log confirms the Predators was activated; it wasn't added by another card.
It looks like, in both cases, the card is programmed as if "remove a microbe/animal" and "add a microbe/animal" were independent, in which case it would be legal to not remove anything, instead of a cost.

The AI did not have another animal card, such as "small animals", in which case it would add an animal to small animals and then use predators to gain it to the predators card?