Hello,
First of all, none of the AI are cheating. They just follow the rules.
Why would I make cheating AI ? It's totally stupid, except if I wanted to discourage you from playing, so please, stop that accusation, it doesn't make sense.
Now, sorry but I'm not going to lower the level of any AI on the playroom.
First of all because it isn't that easy as turning a button. Making a decently playing AI is hard, and making an AI with adaptable difficulty is much harder.
It's quite doable with two player pure strategy games because algorithms for that type of game are well known, and you can rather easily adjust the difficulty by basically choosing how many moves or turns the AI will attempt to predict. You can, if you want, make a totally unbeatable AI at these games, but it will take a lot of processing power.
It isn't as easy for games when you have to compose with randomness (car deal) and/or when you have to make your decision while some information is hidden or unknown (typically, the cards of other players or in the draw pile).
It's also harder because, in general, there are quite clear winning strategies for pure strategy games, and they are well documented because they have been studied for a long time. For card games, this isn't as well documented, and most often we don't even know if there exists, or if there should exists one or more winning strategies that would work all the time.
In some sense that's also what makes many card games interesting to play: a well balanced mix of skills and chance.
Secondly because I globally agree with Nikola's point of view: bot have two main functions: help you learning the game, and allow you to play when not enough humans are around. That's essentially how they have been thought.
In both cases, bots should be challenging enough, otherwise you won't learn anything and/or have real fun.
Look at that other post where it's globally said that bots which automatically join to replace someone basically ruin the game. Why ? Because no human would play so stupidly.
Third, keep in mind that the playroom is a project that I'm doing in my spare time and for which I don't earn any money. Hence, above all, it must stay fun to develop.
Delibrating lowering an AI is definitely not fun at all. I'm having much more fun when I manage to program bots I can no longer beat... I consider it as a small success.
There aren't that many games among all those available where I consider bots as being such a success. Cribbage is one of them. So I certainly won't make it weaker.
In conclusion, it's generally the opposite that I should try to do: improve AIs.
I would be generally interested to know how do you find bots. In which games do you find them challenging, and in which games do you find them totally uninteresting or stupid ?
In which games should they be improved ?
The debate can start if you like ! But certainly not to make any of the AI weaker.
Concerning cribbage specifically, it's perfectly normal that the AI always count its hand correctly, otherwise it would be a bug. It's also perfectly normal to assume that players do it always correctly as well.
Now, if you remove the counting steps of the game, two bits of strategy remain: choosing which cards to put to the cribe, and the first play phase of the game. The strategy to maximize your chances to score aren't that hard to comceptualize, and that's why the AI of cribbage is probably near from the possible optimal.
Note that setting a time limit to count your hand is obviously unfair if you play against bots. You can of course do it if you play for training, and it's a good way to do so, but certainly not if you play for winning.
Keep also in mind that cribbage is normally not supposed to be among the easiest games.
If you want to chill out, then you have farkle or shut the boxes...
Maybe it could be interesting to ask the whole community to vote: how difficult do you find each game ? How challenging or stupid do you find bots ?
This may help players to choose a game to discover, depending on if they want to have some challenge or just chill out at the moment, with humans or with bots.