Yes, the foreign advisor tells me Hannibal can research rifling, but he’s already got those rifling dependent units near my borders. Oh, my poor cataphracts!

Clearly something’s wrong.

Yes, the technology advisor tells me Hannibal can research rifling, but he’s already got those rifling dependent units near my borders. Oh, my poor cataphracts!

Clearly something’s wrong.

Is he someone's vassal or master? Or Friendly with someone who has rifles/cavs? The BtS AI apparently sometimes gifts units to others--even to you, if they like you enough.

Nobody has rifling. Four of my six opponents can research it. One can research replaceable parts. And poor Genghis Kahn still wants paper. According to the foreign advisor.

Nobody has rifling. Four of my six opponents can research it. One can research replaceable parts. And poor Genghis Kahn still wants paper. According to the foreign advisor.

Hmm weird.. perhaps post this with a savegame file under BtS Bug Reports?!

The "can research" portion of the screen doesn't work right at all, techs that AI civs do in fact have appear on it all the time.

Does rifling show up on his "wants" screen? If it doesn't, and its prereqs don't either, he has it. That's the real way to tell if someone has a tech, at least until the next patch.

Does rifling show up on his "wants" screen? If it doesn't, and its prereqs don't either, he has it.

I don’t have it yet, so it can't show up on his want screen.

Nobody has rifling. Four of my six opponents can research it. One can research replaceable parts. And poor Genghis Kahn still wants paper. According to the foreign advisor.

Its a poorly designed part of the foreign advisor. Until you have replaceable parts, it will show rifling as a possible research option even though they have already researched it. You get no information about techs you can't research yourself despite the display suggesting otherwise. The "Can Research" display is badly implemented when you are behind in research.

The display should divide into "Wants", "Can Research" (you have the prereqs so you know who has researched this and who could), "Could Already Know" (you don't have the prereqs so the game gives you no information - these techs won't show in the trade columns until you research the prerequisites), "Will Trade" and "Won't Trade".

Espionage breaks this convention. With enough espionage points, you can track the AI's research path without knowing the minimum prerequisites of the tech they are researching.

Its a poorly designed part of the foreign advisor. Until you have replaceable parts, it will show rifling as a possible research option even though they have already researched it. You get no information about techs you can't research yourself despite the display suggesting otherwise. The "Can Research" display is badly implemented when you are behind in research.

The display should divide into "Wants", "Can Research" (you have the prereqs), "Could Already Know" (you don't have the prereqs), "Will Trade" and "Won't Trade".

That's probably the right answer.

It is possible (tho I'm sure unlikely) that someone could have "gifted" units to his empire?

Its a poorly designed part of the foreign advisor. Until you have replaceable parts, it will show rifling as a possible research option even though they have already researched it.

Yes, when I got replaceable parts, I discovered that even “poor Genghis Kahn” (last in points) had techs I hadn’t dreamed of him being in possession of.

So the foreign advisor is crap. Even if I am behind in technology, it’s unrealistic that I can observe a rifleman in a fort near my borders and still believe Hannibal “can” research rifling if he wants to. I (the great leader of the Byzantine Empire) am not that dumb.

Is he someone's vassal or master? Or Friendly with someone who has rifles/cavs? The BtS AI apparently sometimes gifts units to others--even to you, if they like you enough.

AH-HA! So that's what was going on... I wondered why Workers would occasionally appear in my cities :D I thought it was just a glitch that re-activated a previously inactive one... But that certainly makes sense, Lincoln's cities were fully developed, so he didn't need them anymore...

Very interesting. The AI will act human sometimes, that's cool.

Is he someone's vassal or master? Or Friendly with someone who has rifles/cavs? The BtS AI apparently sometimes gifts units to others--even to you, if they like you enough.

Isn't that a bug as well? I thought AIs were accidentally gifting units to the wrong people when they mean to give them to their colonies. From whom did you hear of this feature?

The Ai now goes vassal help crazy to the point of lameness and possibly to the point of being broken. It goes so far as to gift every tech it has as well as mass millitary units to the vassal which then breaks away, and is ready to start conquest.

I just watched my little brother get destroyed by a ragnar he reduced to 3 cities who only had archers.

45 turns later (marathon) 16 beserkers 5+ cats and a few cross/longbows of ragnars, immediately show up to raze all his lands. This all coming from the guy who didn't even have iron working at 200 AD emporer, and just tried to archer rush people all game.

Yes, when I got replaceable parts, I discovered that even “poor Genghis Kahn” (last in points) had techs I hadn’t dreamed of him being in possession of.

So the foreign advisor is crap. Even if I am behind in technology, it’s unrealistic that I can observe a rifleman in a fort near my borders and still believe Hannibal “can” research rifling if he wants to. I (the great leader of the Byzantine Empire) am not that dumb.

Perhaps if more was spent more on espionage against these other civs you could know what they were researching. That would give a better idea of what level of technology they'd reached. The foreign advisor screen has probably been weakened to make espionage more worthwhile.

In all of my BtS games so far I've found the biggest benefits of the espionage system to be the passive ones. I always try to get the two cheapest benefits against all civs (except the newest, weakest colonies that are safe to ignore), the one that allows you to see the various graphs and the one that shows you what they're researching. Then against targeted AI I'll push for the other two passive benefits city observation and finally seeing the city screen. I don't like surprises and the espionage system allows you very good information about what your rivals are doing and what they can do and are planning to do.

The "can research" portion of the screen doesn't work right at all, techs that AI civs do in fact have appear on it all the time.

Does rifling show up on his "wants" screen? If it doesn't, and its prereqs don't either, he has it. That's the real way to tell if someone has a tech, at least until the next patch.
ctrl+W
select the civ
look at aquired technologies
????
Profit.

Perhaps if more was spent more on espionage against these other civs you could know what they were researching. That would give a better idea of what level of technology they'd reached. The foreign advisor screen has probably been weakened to make espionage more worthwhile.

But the foreign advisor shouldn't mislead you. That's my point, now when I've discovered how it’s working. Discovered the hard way.

AH-HA! So that's what was going on... I wondered why Workers would occasionally appear in my cities :D I thought it was just a glitch that re-activated a previously inactive one...

I intepreted this as autoworkers now airlifting (but this nullified their automatation orders) not sure if I was right, but they're allways popping up on my little islands where I border no other civ...

But the foreign advisor shouldn't mislead you. That's my point, now when I've discovered how it’s working. Discovered the hard way.

It does give strange information in some situations. In Cultural victories, its not uncommon for the foreign advisor to say a civ won't trade Chemistry and can research Steel at the same time a message pops up saying they completed the Apollo Project. The advisor just doesn't work very well.

Is he someone's vassal or master? Or Friendly with someone who has rifles/cavs? The BtS AI apparently sometimes gifts units to others--even to you, if they like you enough.

It's true, Kublai gifted me 2 horse archers that were exploring my territory at the time he spawned a Ghengis colony on my once-private island.